Telling Tales

“The shortest distance between one human being and another is a story,” said Jesuit priest and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello. Our society is addicted to stories – in books, plays, films and the news – and our brains are hardwired to tell them. From “You’ll never guess what happened!” to “Do you remember when…?”, stories are central to human experience. They’ve lived through a rich oral tradition of repetition and remembering and it’s only quite recently that technology took over and stories started to be recorded in ink, print and on film.

Over the last 50 years that oral tradition has increasingly been rediscovered. Now there are regular clubs, festivals and workshops in pubs, halls and festival venues. The Society for Storytelling is a good place to track these down: www.sfs.org.uk. A capacity many of us thought we had lost – to put trust in our memories to absorb and retell what comes towards us – is being rediscovered across the globe.

Peering behind the curtain – the essence of good storytelling

What makes a great storyteller? Certainly, a love of words and characters is needed, but also a meeting of memory and improvisation, since the best tellings are never by heart, but from the heart. “Once upon a time…” is a spell of wonderment and possibility: a call both to the conscious and unconscious mind. For a story to conjure such magic, its bones must be true and its flesh full of life, but its garments should be sparse, allowing every listener to have their own imaginative and emotional response.

The best stories operate on different levels. So, even when the characters may challenge more progressive values – in relation to gender roles, for example – there are deeper psychological and archetypal issue at play, putting us in touch with our ancestors, with the stars, with things beyond our apparent experience.

The emotional and psychological journeys of Snow White, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Goldilocks are every bit as dramatic as the quests of Sinbad; Galahad, Aladdin and Jack. The essence is in the complexity of the human experience, so however they clothe it, story tellers should beware of simplifying and smoothing out their narratives. Often it is the difficult twists and turns that nourish us the most.

Reconnecting to the land through stories at Oxford Storytelling Festival

Story comes directly from the land. It is peopled with the characters of forests, beanstalks, wells, caves, seas, meadows, trees, pumpkins and hills, all of which connect us elementally to the earth we inhabit. This theme has inspired The Oxford Storytelling Festival, to be held at Waterperry House over the August bank holiday.

The line-up of professional storytellers includes Jan Blake, Ben Haggerty, Hugh Lupton, Sally Pomme Clayton, plus poets, writers, musicians and inspirational speakers.

“We need to start slowing down and really listening to what the earth has to say” says festival director, Rachel May. “If we want to know what we need to do on this planet, what we need to do in our lives, we have to be very quiet and still and hear the earth whispering the magic that permeates this beautiful creation.

“Only if we pause for a moment in our busy lives can we begin to hear the stories that connect us to our land and our ancestors, the stories that are waiting to be told and heard.”

For more information on the festival see: www.oxfordstorytellingfestival.co.uk.