National Storytelling Network Blog

By Yvonne Healy

What is more Irish than storytelling?

American audiences often request stories about one particular Irish character. They visualize a little man dressed in spring’s color with a matching green top hat, jacket and shoes with big buckles and a matching scarf. He beguiles with his sprightly laugh and dancing step. You want to oblige with stories about this charmer. Maybe you’ve even checked eBay for the official costume licensed by a major cereal company.

Beware of identity theft! The leprechaun is a different creature entirely.

Stories show him as cute in the sense of clever and shrewd rather than dainty or pretty. You’re most welcome to tell stories about him but make sure that you’re talking about the right fellow.

Leprechaun is the Anglicization of the Old Irish word luchorpán which means “small body.” Another theory is that it’s how the English heard leith bhrogan meaning “maker of one shoe.” Some people believe that it comes from luch chromatin meaning “little bent Lugh.” Lugh was the Celtic sun god. Given the millennial age of Irish oral literature, the etymology is obscured by Time.

For storytelling purposes, the leprechaun is a solitary fairy, one who prefers his own company. He’s a bit nasty and enjoys tricking anyone who violates his privacy. More sociable fairies, called trooping fairies, prefer the company of others. The leprechaun makes shoes for the trooping fairies who dance holes in their shoes in a single night. He also guards pots of fairy gold, ancient treasure and Viking plunder.

The first written mention of the leprechaun occurs in Irish in an 8th century Irish transcription of oral literature. Small differences in clothing are found in the collected stories. The leprechaun wears rough homespun clothes often including a shoemaker’s apron. His cap or jacket is usually red. Red hats grant invisibility, the ability to shift shape or to travel great distances in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Humans who misguidedly borrow such a red cap experience uncomfortable adventures.

The cluricain is the leprechaun’s cousin.

Despite the family resemblance they are different creatures. The cluricain wears the clothing of a 17th century dandy with a top hat, green suit, and shoes with shiny buckles. The cluricain is more outgoing and frequently interacts with humans. He particularly likes to play tricks. In 1963, the Mad Men of advertising picked the dapper cluricain over the frumpier leprechaun as mascot for a new cereal. They named the mascot Lucky the Leprechaun thereby muddying popular understanding of Irish folklore.

Keep your wits about you if a cluricain approaches. While a leprechaun prefers solitude, the cluricain loves entangling humans in his shenanigans. He’s more likely to hand out fairy money than deliver a pot of gold. He carries several coin purses in his jacket – one for copper, one for silver, and one for gold. Occasionally he carries a fourth purse that can never be emptied. If he gives you some of his fairy money, spend it immediately. At the next sunrise, the coins turn to dry leaves, feathers, or other scrap.

When telling stories, remember that the public is fond of a green-suited leprechaun.  Tell the story well in language your audience understands.  We Irish have a flexible relationship with truth and story.

Who knows?  Perhaps the grumpy leprechaun occasionally dresses up in fancy clothes and goes out for a spree on the town.

About Yvonne

Yvonne Healy literally learned to tell stories on the knee of a 3^rd generation storyteller and tradition-bearer for Ireland’s Gaelic League.  Her father taught her as his grandfather had taught him in County Cork, Ireland.   Yvonne delivers Irish culture with an American accent as a bi-cultural and bilingual performer at Celtic festivals and events across the USA.  Then she turns around and, with Irish charm, delivers world folklore and spoken word narratives about American life at schools, nightclubs, libraries, museums and conferences.

Visit www.IrishStoryTeller.us to learn more about Irish storytelling and to enjoy videos of Yvonne sharing her passion.

Contact Yvonne

Yvonne Healy, 5193 King Road, Howell, MI 48843
810-813-3000
Website: www.IrishStoryTeller.US
Email: info@IrishStoryTeller.US

by Katie Knutson

Chances are that your path to storytelling and mine are quite different. Maybe you were a part of the storytelling revival of the 1970’s; maybe you discovered storytelling within another career path; or, maybe you started as a story listener. I am guessing that few of you had your first introduction to storytelling via competitions.

High school Forensics (or Speech) was for people like me – those who were interested in the performing arts and had a fiercely competitive nature. The Storytelling category meant I would have to learn not one, but five different pieces, each fitting a different theme, and be prepared to share any one of them at the judge’s discretion.

At my first meet, I sat in the room silently, rehearsing my stories in my head and ignoring the other participants. Then someone said, “Hi! What’s your name? Where are you from?” The energy in the room shifted as we all introduced ourselves. Suddenly, I did not have to be afraid; we were all in this together.

The sense of community that we developed persisted in the storytelling category. In other categories, participants sat silently, and would even try to distract their competitors. However, the storytellers talked, complimented each other on stories, shared ideas, laughed, and celebrated the successes of our competitors. After all, the better our competition was, the better we had to be.

Was there something special about storytelling that created community among competitors? Was it the act of sharing stories or the people who created the sense of belonging?

I found the same warm, welcoming storytelling community in NSN, Northlands, and Northstar Storytelling League (our organization in Minnesota). At my first national and regional conferences, experienced storytellers like Kevin Cordi, Mike Mann, and Michael D. McCarty helped me get started with free advice on everything from marketing and working with schools to finding other resources and connecting with local storytellers. Seven years later, I could easily add dozens more names to the list of generous storytellers who have offered their support, encouragement, and guidance along the way.

Professional storytellers compete through auditions, workshop proposals, and grant applications. We vie for the same teaching and performing slots at schools, libraries, festivals, and conferences. Despite this competition, the community persists. We come together to share our stories, best practices, and skills. We welcome newcomers and encourage others to join us – not because there is so much work that we cannot do it all, but because we have a passion. We get to use our gifts to make a difference, and have a wonderful time doing it.

Why do you think storytelling creates community among competitors? Is it the acts of sharing and refining stories or studying our craft? Is it a rejection of scarcity of work and a commitment to abundance for all? Do storytellers spend so much time working alone that we long for a community? Or, are out-going, generous, and social people naturally drawn to storytelling? What do you think? My goal is not to answer these questions, but inspire conversation.

This is the kind of thing you can expect each issue. This column will consist of questions, stories, interviews, opinion pieces, question/answer sections, or whatever else I feel like writing. The same piece will be posted on the NSN blog, and you will be encouraged to respond. The focus of this section will be on ‘New Voices’ – the 18-35-year-old age bracket. Most younger storytellers want to know the same things you do – how to navigate copyright issues, publish their work, expand their skills, apply their craft to other professions, market themselves effectively, get paid a reasonable wage, and much more. For the most part, I will not be addressing those things – that is what conferences, workshops, guilds, and this magazine do quite effectively.

My goal is to give a voice to the next generation of tellers, create an intergenerational dialogue, pose questions, and challenge beliefs and assumptions. I want to get you thinking, to get you talking, to get you involved in your storytelling community. Along the way, I may provoke you. Who knows, I may even offend you. I hope to be so lucky.

About Katie

Katie Knutson has spent more of her life as a storyteller than not. She holds a degree in Theatre and spends her days working in schools using theater and storytelling to teach literacy, playwriting, acting, improvisation, and teamwork. She leads a variety of workshops for adults, including voice and movement, and has served extended terms on the boards of Northstar Storytelling League and Northlands Storytelling Network.

Contact Katie

Website: www.ripplingstories.com
Email: stories2teach@gmail.com

by Dolores Hydock

A friend of mine teaches fourth grade in a public school. They were doing a section on theatre, and she asked me to talk to her class about acting. When I got there, I heard about the students’ experience doing a play about Colonial Jamestown. (“I played a dog and a colonial man. This was my first play, but one day, I want to work for Disney!”) Then it was my turn to talk. One of the students raised his hand. “What’s the biggest audience you’ve ever had?”

I asked him why he was asking that question.

“Cause the number of people in the audience tells how good you are. Did you ever have a million people in your audience?”

I had to confess I did not, and he was clearly disappointed. I must not be very good if I’d never had a million people come to see me.

As I drove away from the school that morning, I kept thinking about his question. As storytellers, we can be tempted to think that our work — our art — only matters if lots of people see and hear us, if we’re telling to 1000 people at a time in a Jonesborough tent, or at some “big name” event. But I would guess that’s not where most of us tell stories, day in and day out. Most of our work is with small groups at libraries and schools and churches and retirement centers and employee appreciation dinners and the varied array of venues and groups who ask us for a story, where the headcount rarely tops a hundred. Or fifty. It might be twenty-three seniors at a luncheon at the 2nd Baptist Church of Hueytown.

But I don’t think we ever really know how many people are in our audience.

A story might touch someone, or make her laugh on a bad day, or make him think about someone he hasn’t thought about in a long time. And that laughter or emotion or thought might prompt that person to make a phone call, write a note, be nice instead of gruff to the cashier at the store, who, in turn, responds by … you can see where this is going. Who knows what effect a story has on the people who hear it? Who knows what choices they make afterward that are slightly different from the choices they might have made otherwise? And who knows how many other people are affected by those choices? It’s possible that the experience of a story caused someone to do something that caused someone else to do something that caused someone else to do something….

If the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Topeka might cause a typhoon in Thailand, then the effect of a story told to two people, or ten, or twenty-three seniors at the 2nd Baptist Church of Hueytown just might ripple out in ways that we could never predict.

Part of what that means, of course, is that every storytelling occasion is important. Every storytelling opportunity demands our best work, our full attention. Because there’s no way to be sure how many people are in the audience. Who knows? That person in the third row looking out the window might be one in a million.

About Dolores

Dolores Hydock is an actress and storyteller, whose work has been featured at festivals, conferences, and special events throughout the United States. Her new original one-woman show, Take a Ride on the Reading, will premiere in January at the Terrific New Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama. Her eight CDs of original stories, including the newly released Eglamore and Cristobel: A Medieval Love Story, have all received Resource Awards from Storytelling World Magazine.

Dolores began her storytelling career at the age of 5, when she won first prize in a local storytelling contest. The real gold letters on the blue ribbon convinced her there must be a fortune in the performing arts. She continues to hope.

Contact Dolores

Website: www.storypower.org
E-mail: dolores@storypower.org