Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzu2odM1LZk

If you are inspired and want more info be sure to check my products page for the Woodslore book. It’s a homemade production from back in the old days when you really did cut and paste (with scissors and a glue stick) to lay out a book. There is an article entitled “Another Roadside Attraction –How to Use Road Kills” which gives you all the details (including a Gary Snyder poem on the subject.) This article first came out in the mid-1970’s in the Whole Earth Catalogue. It was probably the first article on the subject in a national publication. Also in the Woodslore book are articles on medicinal plants, possumology, old-time apples, basket making, bears, birds, and much more.

SALE ! Just for the month of January 2012, I’ll ship the Woodslore book to you for $10 post- paid. This is just about half the normal cost (including shipping).

Keep on the trail and keep in touch,

Doug

December 2 : Asheville, NC : Reception for George Ellison’s new book, High Vistas: An Anthology Nature Writing from Western NC and the Great Smoky Mountains Volume II 1900-2009 (I’m one of the writers anthologized.)
6-8 PM ; Captain’s Bookshelf ; www.captainsbookshelf.com ; 828-253-6631

December 3 : Black Mountain, NC : Benefit Storytelling Concert
at Earthhaven Ecovillage ; 7 PM
for more info 828-664-0628

December 4 : Hendersonville, NC : Stories and Songs Benefit
for Unitarian Universalist Church, 2021 Kanuga Road.
3 PM ; More info: uufh@morrisbb.net or ultrabill@bellsouth.net
Admission: $12 adult, $5 child

Hey diddle hi,
Hey diddle hey
There’s a big black stain
In our driveway

High as a house
Low as a mouse,
Got more rooms
Than anyone’s house

Hey diddle hey
Hey diddle-diddle
Look inside there’s
A possum in the middle… What is it?

There really is a big dark stain in our driveway. It’s from black walnut hulls. This is the season for gathering black walnuts (and butternuts too). Black walnuts have thick tough husks covering the nut. The husks contain a strong staining dye and are somewhat of a nuisance to remove by hand. So country tradition is to toss them in the driveway and drive over them for a week or so. As long as you have a fairly soft (gravel or dirt) driveway the car tires remove the husk, but the walnut’s hard shell remains intact. Then we rake ‘em up, hose ’em off, and then let them dry for a few days in the sun. We store them outside on the porch in a well ventilated, rodent proof container, and they will keep for a couple years. The walnut tree is “high as a house.” The nut is indeed “low as a mouse,” and when we crack the shell and look inside at the many chambers we’ll find out there are indeed lots of rooms–more rooms than my house anyway…. But what about the possum in the middle? Let’s get to cracking some of the nuts. We’ll go on a possum hunt, and maybe I can show you a few possums!

So now you have your black walnuts dehusked and dry. You can start cracking and eating them right away, but after a few weeks the flavor matures as the nut kernels begin to dry. The kernels shrink a bit and become easier to remove from the shells. But it is the cracking of the nuts that is the challenge. You can do the Stone Age method of hitting the nut with a hammer stone on a “nutting rock” (a large flat rock with a dimple in it to hold the nut). However, a carpenter’s hammer seems to work better than a stone hammer because of the leverage. Hitting the nut on the point seems to work best. Some folks use a vise. Many years ago we ordered the famous lever-action Potter Walnut Cracker, made in Salpulpa, Oklahoma. Picking out the nut meats is still somewhat labor intensive, but using the cracker has increased our walnut consumption considerably.

Cracking nuts with a hammer stone

The potter walnut cracker in action

Now about that “possum in the middle”… You can imagine our surprise when we saw little possums looking back at us from a pile of nut shells. Yep, every now and then when it’s cracked just right, the “inner possum” will be revealed in the stem end of the nut shell. What does this mean? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s all a metaphor. Just get cracking and maybe you’ll release your own inner possum! And also have some mighty fine eating. ( 0330) 0322

A small herd of possums emerging from the nutshells

Look inside there’s a possum in the middle

Recipes:

Black walnuts are quite nutritious–high in protein, unsaturated fats, and omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, as well as a large assortment of vitamins and minerals.

The nuts can be eaten plain, “right off the nutting stone” as they are cracked. They have a strong flavor, and for some it is an acquired taste. A good way to acquire a taste for black walnuts is to bake them in brownies. They also go well in nut breads.

A Cherokee woman once told me they make their winter succotash with hominy and pinto beans sprinkled with black walnuts.

Our favorite recipe is to cook homemade sausage, hominy, apple, and black walnuts together. YUM!

You can use the husks for a rich brown dye on wool and other natural fabrics. The nut shells can be made into buttons, knobs, and other useful items.

Two folks wearing homemade wool hats dyed with black walnut hulls examine the dark trunk of a black walnut tree.

The brown and tan wool in these hats was dyed with walnut husks, and the buttons on the buckskin coat and the looped fiber bag are made from walnut shells.

Meanwhile…

…if you want to get cracking on your holiday gift giving, be sure to check out the products page on my website: All kinds of books and recordings “celebrating the natural world.” I could possibly even whip you up a bark basket should you be needing one. Good luck on your black walnut possum hunt!

Working elm: A day harvesting slippery elm’s medicinal bark

The best way to see a beaver is to quietly wait near a lodge in the evening just before dark. A beaver’s first task upon leaving its lodge for an evening’s activities is a slow patrol around the pond to inspect the shoreline for intruders – perhaps a potential predator such as a bear, wolf, or other carnivore large enough to risk a beaver’s sharp incisors – or perhaps it could be a bumbling human like myself arriving late for the first feature of the evening beaver show. On a number of such occasions I have been the object of a beaver’s scrutiny. The first time it happened, I’ll never forget. The sun had just set behind a distant mountain and I was sneaking through the bushes hoping to slip behind the upturned roots of a fallen tree near the edge of the pond. I had my binoculars ready and I was hoping to get settled before the beavers emerged. As I crossed a clearing about fifteen feet from the water’s edge, a slowly swimming beaver materialized from behind the stump of a drowned tree. It was CLOSE, and it was swimming closer! I froze in mid-stride, trying my best to resemble a gnarled tree stump (with binoculars). With just its head and some of its back above the surface, the beaver was moving along parallel to the shore. When it came even with me, it paused. Then, like a toy ferry boat, it turned to face me. It swam closer and paused again, staring right at me. It lifted its nose and tried to scent the air. I stared back intensely. I held my breath and did not move. My legs muscles started to cramp. I gritted my teeth and held my position, determined not to even blink. As I stood there like a strained statue, looking deeply into those beady little beaver eyes, I realized that my psychic presence, that is, my stressed-out ego – that part of me that sees myself as separate from, rather than a part of, the environment – was probably much more disruptive to the peacefulness at the beaver pond than my mere physical presence. I knew I could fit in so much better if I could somehow soften the glare of this huge throbbing ego of mine. But how? I released my breath. I relaxed my eyes and softened my gaze. This felt better. I tried to release my thoughts and quiet the excited internal narrative rattling on in my busy little brain. I relaxed my leg muscles and allowed my body to float, ever so slowly, into a more comfortable position. The beaver just kept staring. It seemed like it was playing, “What’s wrong with this picture?” Something here just didn’t quite look right. Then KAPOW!! The tail came crashing down on the surface of the water, sounding like a combination rifle shot and belly flop. I about jumped out of my skin. Water splashed everywhere, and the beaver disappeared in the splash. I was so startled, that I completely lost my balance, and fell over into some brambles. The beaver surfaced a few seconds later. It was out a little further in the pond and it calmly surveyed the shore to see if the scene had changed. Beavers are known for their ability to alter their environment with their dam building and tree-cutting. Here was another way. This beaver had actually altered my psychic environment and my consciousness as well. Not only had it induced me into the beginnings of a meditative experience, but with the help of this furry, buck-toothed psycho-drama coach, I had just acted out a personal existential metaphor — that of a startled being, falling out of control into the unknown. Life seems like that sometimes. This little flat-tailed guru transformed me from a poor imitation of a gnarled tree trunk into an embodiment of my true self, falling into a briar patch. With the help of this beaver, for a few short seconds, I had experienced eternity. I had been living purely in the moment. This living in the moment, or “being here now”, for practitioners of yoga, meditation, and other spiritual disciplines is the goal of years of devotion. This beaver brought me to that place with a mere tail slap. Not bad for a second’s work.

I’ve been pruning our vines and fruit trees, trying to encourage them to put their growth energy in the best directions to bear quality fruit.  When I prune a tree I cut out dead and diseased limbs, as well as branches that point in, point down and those that crowd other branches. This opens up the interior of the tree to allow light to shine in and air to flow through. Branches that shoot vigorously up are trimmed to stimulate side branching. The aim is to balance, concentrate, and focus growth, resulting in larger, healthier fruit.

Careful pruning enhances growth. Isn’t that what we strive to do with our kids?  When we see them going in an undesirable direction or getting out of balance, we try to “nip it in the bud.” I often feel the benefits of pruning myself–like when I display some disagreeable behavior and someone calls me on it. “Cut it out!” they might say.  That’s what we are doing with our fruit trees, grape vines and berry bushes…and one another. Snip, snip snip…

The persimmon is one of our finest wild fruits. Late fall and early winter is the best time to gather them. The key to fine persimmon cuisine is gathering them when they are ripe. When a persimmon is a rich orange color, round, plump and firm it is NOT ripe. A buxom young fruit like this will pucker you up but quick! If you taste a persimmon at this stage, its astringent flesh will make your mouth feel like it is filled with cotton. Like a lot of us humans, it takes age and maturity to sweeten this fruit. When the skin gets wrinkled and it begins to look a little saggy, it is then that the persimmon is in its prime and will melt in your mouth like a spoonful of smooth, sweet apple butter.

Some folks say that persimmons don’t ripen till after a hard frost but this is not necessarily so. Individual persimmon trees seem to keep their own schedules. I know some trees with persimmons that are ripe in September, weeks before a frost, and others with fruit that is not ready till Christmas. There is a tree right out our window whose persimmons hold tight till February and March and becomes a bird feeder attracting cardinals, sapsuckers and other birds who feed on the fruit.

The easiest way to pick persimmons is to gently shake the tree and the ripe fruits will fall. Gather them in a flat bottomed container trying not to pile them more than two layers deep so they won’t mash each other. (This mushiness is why you never see our native persimmon in the market. ) They can be kept in the refrigerator and eaten out of hand or they can be made into a number of tasty dishes.

Remove the seeds from the pulp by running the fruits through a Foley food mill or a colander. The pulp can be used in many ways. It can be stored under refrigeration for a week or two and used as a spread for bread or a topping for ice cream. It can be swirled in a parfait glass with whipped cream to make an elegant dessert. It can be used instead of bananas in your favorite banana-nut bread recipe to make persimmon nut bread. (If you can use wild hickory or black walnuts, all the better.) To make persimmon leather, spread the pulp on a greased cookie sheet and place it in a food dehydrator or a warm oven or other heat source until completely dry. They can be dried whole by opening them up and spreading them on the drying rack.

Can you see the knife, fork, and spoon in the three opened seeds? Looks like we’ll have a mixture of cold, warm, and snowy weather this winter!

Don’t throw away all those persimmon seeds either. Wash the remaining pulp off and roast them in a medium oven until they are very dark brown. Grind them in a blender and you have persimmon seed coffee. Prepare it as you would regular coffee. It has a rich coffee-like flavor but no caffeine. If persimmon java is not your style you can also use a persimmon seed to predict the upcoming winter’s weather. All you need to do is carefully slice one of the seeds in half with a sharp knife and look inside. You will see either a knife, a fork, or a spoon. The knife indicates the cold will be so intense it will cut you. The spoon tells you that there will be enough snow that you will have to shovel it, and the fork indicates the weather will be warm enough to make hay all winter.

We’ve been hearing a beautiful soft trilling sound drifting out of the wetlands these days. When I first heard this sound years ago, I wasn’t sure what I was hearing. It seemed to come more from inside my head than out. This is the mating call of the American toad (Bufo americanus). Thoreau called them the “dreaming toads” because their call is so dreamlike. I remember the first time I heard it coming from our pools in the back yard. When we followed the sound out to the pools we were astounded to find more than thirty toads in the area, some with their throats inflated like bubble gum, calling, swimming and hopping about. Of this large assembly of toads only five of them were female. Normally it is difficult to determine the gender/sex of a toad, but at this season, under these circumstances we could easily identify the five females because each female had a male clamped onto her back. During this “nuptial embrace”, known as amplexis, a male toad (or frog) usually holds the female from behind, with his front legs under her “armpits” administering sort of a reverse Heimlich maneuver. This stimulates her to release her eggs. As she squeezes out the eggs, he fertilizes them externally.

The rest of the “bachelor” males were swimming madly about, searching for a female to mate with. We soon learned that male toads cannot recognize the females of their species. They are quick to mount anything that remotely resembles a female toad — including other male toads. When a male amorously pounces on another male, the male being mounted will produce a vibration in the area of his chest where he is being clasped and emit a chirp of protest (known as a release call) and the offending male will immediately let go and continue on his search. (I swear you can almost hear him say, “Oops, excuse me.”)

Not only are male toads unable to differentiate female toads from other males, they also have trouble differentiating the female toads from almost anything else that is about the same size. Excited males will even grab onto your hand, assuming that anything that doesn’t protest must be a female. He will grab your hand with his two front legs and if he finds your fingers attractive enough (and you don’t chirp in protest) he will hold on tight enough that you can even lift him out of the water. If you wiggle your fingers slightly he will kick his hind legs in seeming delight. One evening when my son Todd was about five years old and his wrists were just about the size of a toad’s body, we were investigating our pool full of courting toads. He ended up with a male toad clamped onto each wrist. He was quite a sight as he went running into the house delightedly squealing, “Look Mama!” with two enthusiastic, but misdirected toads humping away on his wrists. Ah yes the joys of Spring! Dream on Mr. Toad!

We call these the salamander rains. It is during these chilly downpours that the spotted salamanders come a courting. These impressive critters are six to nine inches long, blue-black in color with orange and yellow polka dots. They crawl out of the forest duff and head downhill. They congregate in low swampy areas searching out vernal pools (Vernal pools are pools that are full of water in spring but are usually dry by late summer. Because they dry up part of the year they are free of predatory fish so they provide safe nurseries for tender, young larval salamanders.) Once the adult salamanders arrive at the pools, they enact ancient courtship rituals–and what a thing to witness!

Spotted salamander with egg masses. (Todd Elliott photo)

The males arrive first and gather in “congresses”. Sometimes there are just four or five in a group. Other congresses number a hundred or more. They swim madly back and forth over and under each other whipping themselves up into a sexual frenzy lasting several minutes, climaxing with the deposition of little translucent milky sperm globs known to biologists as “spermatophores”. These sperm capsules are attached to sticks and other submerged debris on or near the bottoms of the pool. Shortly after this climax, the congress dissipates/adjourns and the males disperse. Some hide themselves beneath leaves and other waterlogged debris on the bottom of the pool. We saw at least one make its way back up out of the pool onto land and crawl off, giving the impression that it had done what it come to do, now it was going back to where it came from. Where would that be? I wonder. (I have been turning over rocks and logs looking for salamanders and other critters for more than a half a century and I had never seen one of these impressive salamanders in the wild until I was out at night in a salamander rain.)

A short time later (a few minutes or perhaps as long as several days), the females arrive at the sperm littered “congress area”. Each female straddles a spermatophore and lowers herself onto it, taking it into her body, transferring it to her oviducts, pinching it off with the lips of her cloaca. Sometimes in a cold wet swamp at night I think I can almost hear them–the snapping lips of little salamander cloacas (or more properly, cloacae) as they pinch off those spermatophores. What a romantic and beautiful sound!

The next rainy night a week or so later we returned to the same area and saw females in the deeper parts of the pools clinging to sunken twigs depositing eggs. Spotted salamander egg masses are jellylike globs usually about the size of tennis balls, often containing a hundred or more eggs.

Spotted salamander eggs are distinctive because many (but not all) of the egg masses are an opaque milky white, giving the mass a cottony appearance other egg masses are clear and resemble other gelatinous amphibian eggs.

Preparing for the salamander rain

Spotted salamanders range across most of eastern North America from Canada into Georgia (except on the coastal plain where they are replaced by the even larger tiger salamanders, which have almost the same habits.)

Now is the time to get ready for the big event. Put on your rubber boots and scout out your nearby wetlands, look for pools in swampy areas at the headwaters of lakes and wet overflow areas along the flood plains of creeks and rivers. Then when the rain starts one afternoon and continues pouring after dark, and the temperature is in the forties, put on your rain gear. Grab a strong flashlight and head out and join the party. Some say that if the flashlight has a red lens it creates less disturbance to the festivities, though I have not noticed much difference when I tried. Lemmie know what you see.

I’ll be writing more about wood frogs, peepers, and about some wild times we’ve been having in our back yard newtist colony, so stay tuned.

“Stories live in your blood and bones, follow the seasons and light candles on the darkest night—every storyteller knows she or he is also a teacher.”—Patti Davis

In the quote above, Patti Davis is talking about the power of stories: that they can teach us something about ourselves and about the world, as well as excite and entertain us at the same time. Local storyteller Doug Elliott knows this to be true. In fact, he’s seen this power expressed on people’s faces across the United States and Canada as well as in his own home. That’s in part because of the power of stories but, of course, also due to his talent as a storyteller. Doug has been a featured storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, conducted workshops for the Smithsonian Institution, and lectured and performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. He’s also a gifted naturalist, herbalist, and musician–elements that all play a part in bringing the stories he tells to life for his audiences of all ages. New life Journal is excited to bring you our interview with Doug. We asked him to share information about his craft as well as some of his secrets for telling great stories so that you can share their power with your children.

You describe yourself as a storyteller. In your view, what exactly is a storyteller? Is anyone who tells a story a storyteller, or is it much more than that?

I think anyone who tells a story is a storyteller and everyone has stories to tell. Some of us put more time and energy into crafting a story so that it will be accessible, meaningful, and entertaining. But storytelling is one of the basic things that makes us human. When someone asks you what you did today, and you tell them, you’re relating a narrative—a story.

When did you first become interested in the craft?

I’ve been performing and telling stories publicly for around thirty years. I’ve spent a lot of my life studying the natural world, and sharing and teaching what I’ve learned. Stories are the best way to convey information. They are the glue that makes information stick. Any teacher will tell you that.

Why do you feel oral storytelling is an important tradition to keep moving forward through these times of a quickly changing media landscape? What can be gained from hearing a story that cannot from watching television or reading online?

You make your own pictures when you hear a story, (and when you read one) so the mind is more active, creating images. This is especially important for young, developing minds. The human mind is hardwired for stories. That’s why we’re so addicted to TV– because it’s one story after another. The problem is that TV stories are all corporate stories. Even though some of the content might be useful and beneficial, it has all been produced to benefit a corporate agenda, or to please a corporate sponsor.

What role does storytelling play in your household and with your son? Can you share a technique you use with him that other parents can use with their children?

Even when our son was preverbal, we noticed that when we drove in the car and he was strapped in the car seat and getting irritable and fussy, if we would just start narrating the passing scenery in a low, calm voice it would catch his interest and he would listen and calm down. Narratives would often pull him out of screaming, flailing fits.

One simple story technique my dad used with me, that worked well with my son when he was small, would be easy for almost any parent. (You can use this even when you can’t think of a story.) Tell the child a story about their own activities (what they did that day or that week), but tell it in the third person using the child’s middle name, or “about the girl or boy who lived on Maple Street,” or any thinly veiled reference to the child to whom you’re telling the story. Then just recount the child’s activities in story form with the child as the main character. Simply recounting the day’s events are often enough, but as you go over the events of the day you can get more and more creative (“Then he met his friend Jane and they went to the fruit market and bought a watermelon. They cut it open and made a boat out of it, and they climbed in. Before long, they were sailing down the street…”).

As an herbalist and a naturalist, I know that nature finds its way into your stories and your workshops. What are some ways people can go out in nature right now as they’re reading this article and find inspiration for a story? How can they then start developing a story from that inspiration?

How do you find a story in nature (or anywhere else for that matter)? I often start with an incident, an encounter, a problem or a question—something happens to you, you meet someone, see something, or you wonder about something. The narrative I tell is my journey of investigation, trying to figure it out.

The incident is your hook, not only to your listeners when you’re telling that story, but also to yourself as an explorer and an investigator. Then I let my curiosity be my guide. I start asking questions. Any journalist will tell you your ability to get a good story is often directly related to your ability to ask good questions. The first and probably the ultimate resource is yourself. How do/did I relate to that incident, encounter, problem or question? How did I feel?

The next step might be an initial resolution concerning your opening incident or a preliminary answer to the question you have set up.

Simply seeing or experiencing something and figuring out what it is can be an interesting vignette, but it’s rarely enough to make a good story. This initial vignette (incident, encounter, problem or question) becomes what Joseph Campbell refers to as the “call to adventure.”  Your challenge becomes how to find and tap those “ripples on the surface of life” that Campbell writes about “which reveal hidden springs as deep as the soul itself.”

After you’ve explored your feelings and reactions and probed your own background, you find others who might have something to say about what you’re investigating. This subsequent investigation—your reading, research, and your conversations with other people—becomes the adventure, the backbone or plot line of the narrative. Some of the various bits of information you gather or anecdotes and tales you hear can possibly stand on their own, but ideally the stories and information will be used as sub-plots to develop your entire piece. Then, instead of delivering a natural history lecture, you end up with a classic mythic hero’s journey, where the hero (you, most likely) answers the “call to adventure.” Wherever the investigation takes you, this becomes the journey. These facts, tales, and lore become stepping stones on a quest in search of truth and meaning. Rather than delivering a bunch of facts about a critter, phenomenon, or situation, you tell a story.

I read on your website that you “collect” stories. How exactly does one collect stories?

I try to live as rich and interesting a life as possible. I seek out opportunities and unusual characters. I ask questions, and I try to notice other people’s views and ways of expressing themselves. I try to watch for anything that might spawn a tellable story. When something comes along that becomes a story, it always seems like a gift, rather than something I collected. (Of course I try to be open and ready to receive the gifts.)

If you had to pick just one, what’s your favorite story you’ve collected so far?

One of my favorites has become an hour-long program entitled GROUNDHOGOLOGY: Of Whistlepigs and World Politics. My elderly mountaineer neighbor, Lyge, shows up at my cabin and flops a special gift onto my doormat—a freshly killed groundhog.  He instructs me in hilarious detail how to prepare and use all the parts of the groundhog—the meat for food, the hide for a banjo head or shoelaces, the grease for medicine—and in the process, a troublesome varmint is transformed into a source of food, medicine, clothing, and music. Then, we investigate the early pagan European mythological origins of Groundhog Day and how it ties into Christianity. We learn why the groundhog is considered a medicine animal by Native Americans. We hear about the time I got in the middle of a fierce dog–groundhog confrontation, and realized that animals and humans relate to stressful confrontations with similar behaviors. What we observe with the groundhog sheds light on psychology, sociology, metaphysics, and  world politics today. As part of the story, I display my groundhog hide shoelaces, play a groundhog hide drum, and sing the traditional song, “Oh Groundhog.” I made a CD recording of this piece, and I wrote a version of it as one of the chapters in my book Wildwoods Wisdom.

How does living in our region affect your work as a storyteller? Have you collected many regional stories?

The main reason I chose to be in this area is the biodiversity and the cultural integrity. Within an 80-mile radius of almost anywhere in the southern Appalachians, you can go from spruce-fir forests like those in New England to cotton fields like you might find in Mississippi, and because the people here have been isolated longer than other areas, there’s a strong subculture with very deep connections to the land. Many of my stories come from perspectives and lessons I’ve learned from traditional mountain folks and Native Americans that reflect a deep relationship to nature.

I know that accents, dialect and expressions are big parts of your stories. What would you say to parents and teachers who are hesitant or embarrassed to “act” while telling a story?

Years ago in a workshop for teachers, I heard my friend, David Holt, say that storytelling can allow you to act as weird as you really are! Sometimes if you can change your voice and sound like the characters you’re portraying it gives more life to the story. But a story can also work well when it’s simply told without any of the “frills.”

Do you find that children of all ages love hearing stories? Generally in our society we stop reading to or telling children stories as they get into their early adult years. How do you feel about that practice? Do you have any advice about ways parents can share stories with their older children?

I think parents telling about their own encounters when they were a similar age is relevant. Snagging meaningful stories from current events can sometimes also be useful and relevant.

M any people in the professional storytelling community will say that middle school-aged young folk are the most challenging age group to present to because they’re going through so many changes and are so tied into peer pressure that they’re unsure of how to react to something new and different. So, as an audience, they often give little back to the presenter even if they enjoy the presentation. My storyteller friend, Tersi Bendiburg, who tells many classic folk tales in school settings, surprised me by telling me that middle school was her absolute favorite group to tell to. When I listened to her stories, I noticed that many of them were stories about a princess who loved the stable boy, but her father would not allow them to marry, etc. I realized that many of the tales she tells deal with romance and parental power struggles, which are big universal themes still relevant today.

Is there a formula to storytelling?

Of course there’s a beginning, middle, and end. We all are on a mythic journey. In the beginning, we are born, we come out of the void, we travel around on this Earth for a few short decades, and then in the end we return to the void. So beginning, middle, and end is a pretty universal theme. Of course it is this way every day as well—when we wake from the dream world in the morning until we go to sleep at night.

Mythologists talk about how we are all heroes on our individual journey through life and we live through a microcosm of life’s journey each day. And almost every story, whether you’re telling about Superman, Moses, Mother Teresa, Aphrodite, Harry Potter, or the last time you went out to the grocery store, all these stories have the same elements: the hero/heroine starts out on a journey or a quest, meets challenges and deals with them, and comes back (or not). What happens and how the protagonist deals with the challenges is what makes the story.

Storytelling Resources

Books:

Children Tell Stories by Mitch Weiss and Martha Hamilton

Raising Voices by Judy Sima and Kevin Cordi

Crawdads, Doodlebugs, and Creasy Greens –Songs, Stories, and Lore Celebrating the Natural World by Doug Elliott

Websites:

www.nationalyouthstorytellingshowcase.org

www.storytellingwithchildren.com

www.storytellingcenter.com