Once upon a time …

there was a story which lived in many houses and many villages and was told all over the world. (Then one day Disney … Now we could go all cynical here, but I won’t). The story lived in the breath and words of every storyteller from the little child to the grandparent. All the pictures were drawn in the minds of the listeners and given to the next generation. Stories changed, some more than others, some never changed at all. They were given word by word from one wise person to the next. And the story lived forever on.

Do you do that? Do you tell your child a story by heart? Do you paint the pictures of the old and the new creatures? Does your child adore this magical moment of “once upon a time…”?

Well, I was always totally hopeless at telling or writing stories. Unable to find diverse expressions or the right intonation or even just remembering the storyline, I never thought of daring to tell a story to anyone. Until one day I sat in a car with my totally hippie funky surrogate mother driving out of London and hearing her joking about Rumpelstiltsken. What was that story again? I had totally forgotten. Something about an angry dwarf stomping his foot. Okay she went on and told us a beautiful story of how the girl ended up making desperate promises to the little man and how she got out of it. All three listeners of us were university students and our eyes were glistening with tears at the skilful pictures she drew and the imaginary world of the Queen in becoming was all around us. We were more stunned with how she had just done that while driving down a highway than with the actual story itself.

Made me change my uni courses! Off I went to enrol in ‘Oral Traditions in West Africa’ and the like. Now I indulged in various storytelling traditions, from divination through orally transmitted stories by the Yoruba Healers to about how pre-christian values ended up in the tales collected by the brothers Grimm. Until last year however no one gave me an actual tool how to tell a story instead of reading it. Susan Perrow from Australia has lived in Africa and gives now courses about storytelling. She made me write a story for my teenage daughter, write a morning-goodbye-poem for my little boy and a story about stories actually. She made me aware of the difference between a technical description and an imaginary metaphor-like narrative.

If you like the idea of telling stories, but need some clues here are a few things you could do:

1. Light a candle for story time.

2. Keep the mood of awe and wonder. Don’t analyze the story. Let it live in the child and see if it maybe plays it with its dolls.

3. If you’re not comfortable with fairytales, tell them a story about themselves. “Once upon a time there was a little girl with golden locks who climbed in the car in the morning. Then suddenly she spotted a bird and she called out ‘Daddy, daddy’ …” It can be something that actually happened in the day or a fantasy adventure the child is going on or about a magical ability of that child “And when she was ready she spread her wings and flew into the air just high enough to be with her friend the bird. They swirled and circled in the air and what do you think?! Dad stood speechless and could not believe his eyes!…”

4. If you choose a fairytale, be careful about the age. Maybe Little Red Riding Hood is just not for your 3 year old. Choose the Three Little Pigs instead. Or do a puppetry play to “Lavenders Blue, dilly dilly”.

5. Don’t change a fairytale to suit your child’s age. These tales are centauries old and contain archetypal pictures and wisdom. The wolf who eats our sweet girl is the dark which can swallow us and which we can beat with our own wit. Often the different characters are merely the various personalities in ourselves such as the 2 girls in Mother Holle. How can the good prevail? It’s up to us, that’s the message in most of those fairy tales.

6. Remember that a story is stimulation too and while it (hopefully) makes your child sleepy it is not actually a moment where your child unwinds/digests! However your child can concentrate! Tell your child a story when you need to comb her hair or while it finishes its food or while you dress him/her. Now T.V. is even more of a stimulation! And it so does not make sleepy!

7. Now this should actually be the first point. DO NOT ALLOW T.V. TO PAINT THE PICTURES IN YOUR CHILDS HEAD! Insist that your child reads a story before it watches it. Read the beautiful, magical version of Winnie the Pooh to your child instead of letting the almost grotesque cartoon occupy that space. Let them read Narnia, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings before you show them a finished and irreversible movie picture which cannot replace the imagery of our minds. No doubt there are great movies. Apart from Winnie the Pooh.

And the story and all its listeners, old and young, boys and girls lived happily ever after…
Your storyteller Anja

some useful links and books:
Susan Perrow. 2008. Storytelling for Challenging Behaviour. Hawthorn
Sharifa Oppenheimer. 2006. Heaven on Earth. Chapter 6 The Wonder of Stories. SteinerBooks
Nelson Mandela. 2002. Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales. Norton & Company
www.healingthroughstories.blogspot.com
www.storyarts.org
www.oraltradition.org