The Storytellers Wish
I recently told stories to a group of Middle School students at a Bilingual School in Switzerland. At the end of the concert one of the students asked why I told the particular stories I did.
It was an insightful question because the stories we choose to tell reflects our purpose as storytellers.
I have a wide repertoire of tales which allows me many choices, but even then I cannot guarantee that every story I tell will satisfy every listener.
I refer to Aesop's tale of The Man, the Boy and the Donkey and the accompanying moral; you can please some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time. However, I maintain that I only tell 'good stories' drawing on folktales as the bulk of my repertoire. I was able to answer my listener specifically: I told the story of the importance of knowing two languages to celebrate bilingualism, The Nix of the Zügersee is a Swiss legend and therefore important for you to know of as this is the country you live in, The Lion on the Path demonstrates an African tradition of storytelling with an mbira; Poule and Roach is a cautionary love story, Two Goats on the Bridge is a tale that shows how to share a tale across cultures, in this case using three languages; I wanted to finish with an Australian song; Inanay by Yorta Yorta performer, Lou Bennett, is based on her mother's lullaby sung to her as a child. Three of the stories could be called 'love stories', each with similarities but different outcomes. Though I didn't consciously choose these three tales to draw comparisons, I have learnt that listeners can create their own meaning from the juxtapositioning of different stories.
As I usually have an hour or less to enlighten, entertain and educate my listeners, I often feel like Elijah when he was visited by the angel. Let me tell you what happened.
Elijah was blind. Elijah was impoverished. Elijah was childless. One day an angel appeared before him and said that he could have one wish.
The following night the angel returned to ask Elijah what he wished for? His wish, quite simply was this:
I wish to see all my children eating from golden plates.
I am not nearly so wise as Elijah, or concise, but my wish as a storyteller is to fulfil a number of listener expectations with my story selection and presentation. My storytelling experience allows me a certain knowledge of how different tales are received by different audiences, but I am always ready to be surprised. Each listener takes what they need at the time of the telling. If my stories have touched my listeners, then my wish has been fulfilled.
Water Enso Photograph by Roman W. Schatz
