Folktales are the bedrock of a storyteller’s repertoire. Donald Davis says that he learned to be a storyteller from listening to his grandmother and his uncle tell him stories. He learned the powerful narrative structure of folktales and uses it to this day to create his original stories. Most of us have folktales in our repertoires. If you don’t, now’s a good time to learn one. If you do, now’s the time to find a fabulous new one. Much has been written, and is still being written, about why folktales are important. Storytellers, authors, teachers, and psychologists write about the importance of the folktale to stimulate the imagination, to teach narrative pattern, and to show the triumph of the weak and small over various forms of tyranny.
I love folktales because they often blend the predictable with the completely unexpected. A good example is a folktale collected by the Grimms that I’ve heard Janet Means tell. It’s called “The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage.” Talk about stimulating the imagination! The story tells us how the mouse, bird, and sausage lived together and each had a task to maintain the household: unusual housemates doing very usual tasks. Things go awry, as you might imagine – and that’s the key. We can imagine it! Just as we can wolves in lace night caps, and stupid devils with golden hairs.
What do you love about folktales? How do you think folktales came to be? Why is it important to tell folktales?
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