Joe Platt wrote in message ...
>Hello everybody,
Hi Joe,
>My name's Joe Platt and I spend much of my time studying dolphins in
the
>Outer Hebridies (A group of islands off the West Coast of Scotland).
Have you heard or told any selkie stories? If you don't know it, I'd
recommend David Thomson's _The People of the Sea_, which combines seal
stories with descriptions of his own visits to the Irish and Scottish
coasts.
>Somewhere along the line while I was up there I fell into storytelling.
It's surprisingly easy to fall into. After a couple of years going to
festivals, I found myself telling stories to friends because they
belonged to where we happened to be at the time - outside (an) Ossian's
Cave on Arran or within sight of the Wrekin.
>Personally I blame Ceilidhes. For those for whom the term is
unfamiliar,
>or who can't decipher my spelling, they're a gaelic
dance/session/party.
>You're expected to do a turn and in order to avoid inflicting my
singing
>voice on the ensemble I ended up telling a story <Neil Gaimen's Dream
of
>a thousand cats>.
As Duncan Willimason says:
"Tell a story, sing a sang,
Show your bum, or out ye gang"
>Fairytales and children.
>
>Every story I'd ever heard told was some variation on folktale or
>legend, and almost exclusively was rooted in celtic/gaelic myth.
That may be the case in an area with a continuous tradition of
storytelling, but many/most storytellers I hear are very eclectic; it
partly depends on what your audience (or sponsor) wants to hear. The
Gaelic tradition is particularly rich in Wonder Tales (commonly called
fairy tales though they're not often about fairies), and would be a
shame to neglect them completely, but of course any storyteller should
tell the stories that appeal to them, that they can honour.
--
hwyl/cheers
Philip Anderson
Cymru/Wales
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