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Thursday, November 27, 2014

MacManus - The Plaisham - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

It's Thanksgiving today in the United States.  NO, I don't call it "Turkey Day!"  Whatever you choose to eat, it's a day to celebrate the reasons you have to be Thankful.  For readers I've a great story for audience participation I'm posting today.  The story's long and great to savor either while your Thanksgiving feast prepares or enjoy afterwards.  I'm thankful for so many wonderful stories in the Public Domain and this Irish tale comes from a book with the author's autograph.  He signs it "Faithfully" and at the usual time for articles here I will say more about Seumas MacManus.  Some have called him the last Seanachie (there are many spellings of that Gaelic word for Storyteller).  He's not the last by any means, but he is a fine one.
 The book opens in Gaelic and English


















































 
 About that audience participation idea: You need a large group and the easiest way to do it is to start with a picture of a cow or cow mask, then tell everyone when their turn comes to hold on to the person next to them who is in the line from the cow -- you could say it will happen near the story's end and will make sense when you come to it in the story.  All you need is the first person to hold the "cow" and then get each person to grab the person already named from Nancy to Rory to... chaos at the end when all can sit down again.  Your group should be more than 16 if you're going to use all the characters in the story, letting the number of gentleman's children and the guests of the Prince fill in so that all are involved in the story.  If you have a good group you can tell them to wiggle a bit as if they're traveling and trying unsuccessfully to get loose from the Plaisham.

My Thanksgiving wish for YOU is that, like Shamus, you are "happy and contented for the rest of your life."
This was early for my usual day for posting.  Next week has Summer Reading material scheduled, but in two weeks I will include information about Seumas MacManus as Storytelling is always better with a bit of Research.
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.    


  
There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I recommended it earlier and want to continue to do so.  Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Part 2, Mrs. Valentine - The Three Soldiers and the Dwarf - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

This is the completion of Mrs. Valentine's "The Three Soldiers and the Dwarf", or as I learned it, "The Nose Tree", begun in the previous post here from last week's Veteran's Day.













































































































Next week is Thanksgiving here in the United States -- NO, I don't call it "Turkey Day!"  Whatever you choose to eat, it's a day to celebrate the reasons you have to be Thankful.  For readers I've a great story for audience participation I will post on Thanksgiving Day and then, at my usual day for posting, I will include information about the author.  As a bit of a hint, some have called him the last Seanachie (there are many spellings of that Gaelic word for Storyteller).  He's not the last by any means, but he is a fine one.  Until next time:
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.    


  
There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I recommended it earlier and want to continue to do so.  Have fun discovering even more stories!

Monday, November 10, 2014

Mrs. Valentine - The Three Soldiers and the Dwarf - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

For Veterans Day I thought I'd post the "old story of Stone Soup."  Initially I checked Index to Fairy Tales published in 1915.  Nothing.  Then I tried the next volume published in 1926.  Still nothing.  The same results came with the 1937 supplement.  In each case I also looked under Soup since it may have had a different title. Also since it has often been said to be a French tale, I checked my old anthologies translated from the French (since my own French is courtesy of ballet).  Still the story didn't appear.  Does this mean Stone Soup isn't truly as old as it has been said to be?  Actually it is old, as the magazine, "Stone Soup", notes on its website about the history of the Stone Soup Story.  So why didn't that resolve my search for a story about some soldiers going home and, along the way, showing cleverness, teamwork, and generosity?  Because, as the magazine shows, it wasn't until the Caldecott award winning version by Marcia Brown that the hero or heroes became soldiers!

Does that mean I have no tale of inventive soldiers for Veterans Day?  Dunberidiculous!

Research often results in serendipity and among my French anthologies I found a story I love and know by the name of "The Nose Tree."  I had mistakenly believed it was German, but not collected by the Brothers Grimm.  Laura Valentine, called on the title page, Mrs. Valentine, collected and edited it in her book, The Old, Old Fairy Tales.  She gives the background of the work, but the book itself isn't dated.  She traces the stories origins to Straparola's "Notti Piacevoli" (1550) in Italian & the French "Contes des Fees" (1560).  Since it was indexed in the 1915 Index to Fairy Tales I know it's safely Public Domain.

The story is long enough and I'm busy enough (more about that later) that I'm posting half of it now for the holiday and half next week stopping at a critical point in the story.  The joys of storytelling suspense!
To be continued.
While waiting, if you are in my area, catch the Public Domain story of Anne of Green Gables as a musical.  It's the longest running musical in the world appearing every year at Prince Edward Island, but here's a local production I'm sure you'll enjoy.  (My Annual Foolishness of one play or musical per year was extended when a vacancy occurred in the cast.  Knew so many in the show, I just had to agree.)

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Allingham - The Fairies - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I have begun working once again on my Victorian Christmas program and checking resources.  This coming week in Michigan, during deer hunting "Regular Firearm" season (November 15-30), it feels as if our mitten-shaped state should tip towards the north.  Freeways during "rush hour" become less congested, students and workers take time off with or without permission, and non-hunters shouldn't look at vehicles returning south.  In time for all of that I discovered a Victorian poem whose opening and closing chorus have haunted me for years.  (It's not Christmas, but that's the way research works . . . Serendipity!)  William Allingham's 1850s poem, "The Fairies", isn't our usual story for the Keeping the Public in Public Domain series.  Ballads and narrative poems can become stories.  Maybe you will create your own tale about how "We daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men."
This was in the original publication of the poem in The Music Master.

The heart of that story is about Bridget and re-telling it as a story could easily evoke audience participation by using the chorus throughout the story.  My website has a page on Audience Participation ideas and resources if you would like to know more about ways to include participation in your own storytelling.  Just think how many more people also will be haunted by that chorus!


This comes from Michael Patrick Hearn's The Victorian Fairy Tale Book, part of the wonderful series, Pantheon Fairy & Folklore Library.  As the Goodreads website notes about this out-of-print series of 37 books: They are an excellent source for volumes of folklore from their respective cultures.  I would go so far as to call them an excellent basic overview of the world's folklore.  Thank heavens for out-of-print booksellers!

Without antiquarian booksellers, libraries, and online preservation we would lose our cultural heritage.  That's truly what Keeping the Public in Public Domain is all about, so tell stories, but also buy and borrow those old books (otherwise libraries and booksellers needing space will have to "weed" them . . . a nice way of saying they will be tossed out).



***************************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.    


  
There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I recommended it earlier and want to continue to do so.  Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Bees and the Anishinaabe

For those beyond the Great Lakes, today's article may be more than you care to know about the Native culture of my area here in Michigan and surrounding areas.  For those seeking books of folklore for our area, somehow it never gets indexed!  Hollywood also ignores Native Americans here.  November is Native American Heritage Month and also the time when insects make their last stand for the year.

At the risk of the familiar "shameless self-promotion", go to my website and currently in two places you'll see me with my puppy puppet, Buzz.  On the Nature Programs page he's all dressed up as a bee because we do an insect program called "Going Buggy in the Garden" and its focus especially points out the difference between bees and yellow jackets, a.k.a. hornets.  For some insect resources, many on bees and that all important difference, go to the Nature section of Specialized Resources.  (Buzz also appears twice on the not yet revised Summer Reading page -- he's been a regular assistant, but 2015 will bring a new cheerleading girl gorilla to "Give a Cheer for Reading and Heroes in the 398s!")

Here in the Great Lakes and among Canada's First Nations for this area, the Anishinaabeg tell of the poor bee going to Nanabazhoo (spelled many ways, but that's a phonetic version of one pronunciation) requesting a defense for themselves and their honey.  He values their industriousness and lets them return a few days later to get what he can create for them.  Unfortunately bees are generous and bring their cousins, the hornets and wasps, with them.  Nanabazhoo regrets his promise, but agrees since the bees vouch for them, and from then on all those insects have stingers.

A medicine woman, now on The Long Walk, who passed along many traditional stories to me must have been my source as I checked Simon Otto's books, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and another very slender volume from Wah-be-gwo-nese (Little Flower) and none tell it.  I know it didn't come from friends in my area.  Simon is an Odawa (Ottawa) elder who at first was criticized for sharing the traditional stories, but now is recognized as preserving tradition.  In our state he and another friend are the only professional Anishinaabe tellers, and neither live close by, so I do what I can to share the stories and culture with respect. 

A few years ago on the international email list, Storytell, we compared 4 levels of cultural knowledge:
  1. the residents living in and brought up in a culture; 
  2. emigres who fall in love with the culture and take up residence to learn more; 
  3. tourists who have seen the culture briefly; 
  4. armchair travelers who only read and maybe view shows about a culture. 
Over the years I've come close to level 2.

Our oldest written source of Anishinaabe folklore is Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who became an emigre back in the early 19th century, marrying into it and preserving many stories as best he understood them.  His own history and additionally that of his wife, Bamewawagezhikaquay ("Woman of the Sound [that the stars make] Rushing Through the Sky") or the other version of her name, Jane Johnston, is plenty interesting.  Their literary work led to Longfellow's "Hiawatha."  Longfellow started with the idea of Nanabazhoo, but then definitely went beyond those sources, even though he insisted it was based on the legends.  Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and his wife have two articles/stories here as part of the Keeping the Public in Public Domain series.

Besides Schoolcraft and Simon Otto -- whose many books and work I recommend highly -- you might be able to find books by Louise Jean Walker who wrote Legends of Green Sky Hill and Woodland Wigwams. The first book contains her version of the bones of the story I just gave.  My problem with it, like some of her work, is that it shows her own sources, native women elders of the Charlevoix area, had influences beyond the Anishinaabe.  Her version of the story is a perfect example as it uses Wakonda as the manitou giving the stingers.  That name comes from the Omaha people.  They were of the Siouan language group, while our people are of the Algonquian language group -- and a complex language it is!  (You may notice my own use of Anishinaabe at times becomes Anishinaabeg as that is the plural, and some write that plural as Anishinaabek.  As someone barely able to use the language, I apologize for any mistakes.)  In the past those two cultures warred against each other, but today the spirit of the Pow-wow and the many other reasons for Native American unity have changed that.  Still I have noticed various things in Walker that lead me to approach her work with caution.
Official crest of the Anishinaabe people

Michigan's Native people are also among the First Nations in Canada and are called, among other names, the People of the Three Fires, as they are made up of the Ojibwe (also called Chippewa), Odawa (or Ottawa), and the Pottawatomi.  Wikipedia's Anishinaabe overview gives some good historical, cultural, and other resources.  There's a good site directly from the Anishinaabe-Ojibwe.  Here are some resources about Nanabazhoo, including the various ways his name is handled.  Medicine woman Keewaydinoquay Peschel's pronunciation is the one I use as she was my first introduction to the Anishinaabeg.  She said it was closer to Odawa than her Ojibwe roots. Here's an article on Kee and her work.  She's controversial for a variety of reasons, more than the article lists, but was a true member of the Crane clan, whose work is to preserve cultural heritage.  I do my outside best to fairly represent that culture.

The Petoskey Schools have been blessed by having Odawa elder, Simon Otto, as a resource.  They have posted this lesson plan template for Third Grade.  I mentioned Simon has done of the service of preserving much of Anishinaabe folklore in his books and my own strong recommendation of them.  To make it easier to locate them, here is a list of his work:
  • Ah-soo-can-nah-nah (the cover adds the translation, Storyteller) - 1997
  • Aube Na Bing; A Pictorial History of Michigan Indians with Legends by Simon Otto - no date - it also includes a good bibliography
  • Grandmother Moon Speaks - also no date
  • Walk in Peace; Legends and Stories of the Michigan Indians - 1990
  • We Walk Again -2007 
Here are five enjoyable ways to Celebrate Native American Heritage Month suggested by the American Indian College Fund. 
LoiS(ince the Storytell discussion on screen width, long links are arranged to not span 2 lines -- I prefer showing the source rather than converting to something else)