“I love
storytelling because it is so intensely individual. The storyteller chooses her
own story and tells it as she sees it and feels it.”
(In his book, Suddenly They Heard Footsteps,
Dan Yashinsky shares these words that Alice Kane wrote to
him in a letter.)
One day it dawned on me that the folktale
I was telling was part personal story too. I recognized the words of the Little
Red Hen to be my words… “If you want
things done, you just have to do it yourself.” I always said that exact
same thing to any student in my classroom that began pestering me to do
something and became impatient when I did not do it right away. I realized that
the shoemaker in my telling of The Elves and the Shoemaker is my
grandmother. My grandmother owned a little clothing and shoe store in a small
town. The way I describe the shoemaker’s shop is exactly what happened to my
grandmother’s store over time when Wal-Mart moved in… His shoe shop was in the middle of a little town, but on the busy road,
outside of town, new, bigger shops were opening with huge, fancy shoe
departments. Hardly any of the townspeople shopped in the town square anymore. And
the crooked little cherry tree that the little girl climbs in my version of The
Gunniwolf is the cherry tree that grew in my backyard when I was a
little girl. I climbed that tree all the time. When I picked cherries I looked
out over my neighborhood to see what I could see, just like the little girl in
my telling looks out over her front yard and spies those beautiful flowers
growing right near the edge of the forest.
Only the people who know me well
might recognize “my life” inside of a story I tell. To me that is the beauty of
it. I can add a personal touch to a story here and there without detracting
from the traditional tale because hardly anybody will know but me. It allows me
to use my creativity and have some fun. But most importantly, it helps me tell
a folktale with heart, which I hope, in turn, touches my listeners.
Thinking back over the folktales
that I tell, I see that they did not start out that way – my life was not always “living”
inside my stories. But sooner or later, through each practice session, through
each retelling, through each envisioning, a folktale of mine breathes in and
breathes out the life of Nancy Newlin. I think my process comes quite naturally
to me. Somewhere along the way, I learned that when you write anything you
should observe your own life. You should bring some of the people, some of the places
and some of the “things” from your life to any kind of writing you do. This
makes the writing true and real. And this is what I am beginning to do with the
stories that I tell.
First, I learn the basic story with my own
voice. As I become comfortable telling it, I create images from my own life in
my mind’s eye. I ask myself questions like, “What
old man do I know in my life that can become the old man in The Gingerbread Boy?” Then I picture
my white-haired, white-bearded husband and how he goes out into our backyard
everyday to feed the fish in the pond. And so instead of having the old man of The
Gingerbread Boy story tending to the farm fields or working around the
house, my old man feeds the fish in the pond as the Gingerbread Boy runs by.
Then little by little, as I practice and tell the story, the old man takes on
more and more characteristics of my husband. Like the way the old man in my
telling now tries to cheer his wife up when she becomes sad that she never had
any children of her own. My husband does that many times for me because just
like the old woman in The Gingerbread Boy, I never had any
children of my own.
Some other questions I like to ask myself
when I am trying to bring a folktale to life are, “What person in my life sounds like a character in the story? What
specific words does the person from my life speak? Would those words sound true
for this story?” I told The Little Red Hen to my Folktales
II class. When the lazy dog, cat and mouse did not want to help the Little Red
Hen, I had them speak the words, “Not I!”
just like I read in most versions of this folktale. I noticed that it did not
go over as well as I wanted it to. There was something missing. So I turned to
my mind’s eye again. I saw my step-granddaughter laying on the couch in my
family room. Every time Briana came to visit this summer she just plopped
herself on the couch and picked up the remote for the TV. I would ask her, “You
want to go swimming with me?” “No, I’m watching TV,” she always answered. “That’s
it!” I said to myself. Instead of having the dog, cat and mouse sleeping all
day, they will be watching TV. And so I changed the words in my story. Every
time the Little Red Hen asks, “Who will
help me?” All of the animals answer, “Not
me! I’m watching TV.” I told The Little Red Hen to five different
Kindergarten classes using these words and it was a huge hit. Plus the words
rhyme now and rhyming words are always fun to say.
I am now in the process of creating my version
of Little
Red Riding Hood. When I close my eyes to “picture” my life, I see my
very own mother and I hear all of the warnings she gave when I was growing up. “Come home before dark! Walk to the store,
but come right back! Only ride your bike around our block. Don’t make a lot of
noise playing upstairs at grandpa’s house – you’ll wake him up!” My mother
is without a doubt, the inspiration for Little Red’s mother. Her words and her
voice will breathe my life into this folktale too!
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