A special thanks to Red Rocker for sending this post to me!
Humans developed complex language somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. It might have happened gradually – or very quickly. Shortly thereafter, the first storyteller entertained the tribe around the fire by telling stories about the day’s hunt. Or maybe the first storyteller was a traveler, bringing news about the tribe who lived on the other side of the mountain. The oldest such story we know about is the epic of Gilgamesh, a king of Sumeria who lived almost 3,000 years ago. The epic tells of the friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, of the death of Enkidu, of the grief of Gilgamesh, and his subsequent quest for the secret of eternal life.
This is how Gilgamesh weeps for his friend, Enkidu:
“How can I rest, how can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death I will go as best I can to find Utnapishtim whom they call the Faraway, for he has entered the assembly of the gods.’
And this is the answer he hears:
“Gilgamesh, what you seek you will never find. For when the Gods created Man they let death be his lot, eternal life they withheld”.
Sound familiar at all?
Storytelling never went out of style. But with the advent of paper and the printing press and mass literacy, storytellers were not in as much demand. Nowadays, we also have newspapers, the radio, the movies, television, not to mention the internet and ipods and e-books and the latest of all, the Tablet. Ironic that, given how Gilgamesh also came to us on a set of tablets – ones made of clay. But the fascination of listening to the storyteller has never gone out of style. At bedtime, in a classroom, in a pub, around the campfire, we still perk up our ears when we hear the words “Here is a story.”
In recognition of the tradition of oral storytelling, the Swedes came up with something they called Alla berättares dag (All storytellers day), a national day for storytelling. The idea took hold in other countries, so that nowadays each year the March Equinox, March 20th, is known as World Storytelling Day. According to Wikipedia:
On World Storytelling Day, as many people as possible tell and listen to stories in as many languagesand at as many places as possible, during the same day and night.
My thought was, we here at the Hog’s Head are united by our love of one story in particular, and of stories in general. Why not celebrate Storytelling Day at our virtual pub by telling each other stories? In other words, why not have our own storytelling marathon?
Of course our stories would be in electronic text form because we can’t talk to one another (at least, not yet). But except for that, they should parallel the intent of Storytelling day as much as possible. They should be stories we’ve heard, not read about. They should be stories we’ve heard from real people – not the television, or movies. Audiobooks are tempting, but for this event, let’s exclude them. We want to try to recreate the oral tradition, as much as possible.
Timing is crucial. We’ll set up the post for the marathon on March 19th. As soon as the clock strikes midnight on March 20th in your time zone, you’re free to start telling us a story. As long as it’s still March 20th in your time zone, you can keep adding stories. The more of us join in, the more fun it will be.
Charlie on 
Tom on 
Moe W on 
Steve Morrison on 
Moe W on 
Arabella on 
Red Rocker on 
Loading ...
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Cool! What a great idea – this is going to be too much fun! I can’t wait to “hear” everyone’s stories and I can’t wait to tell a couple.
Terrific. What an enticing opening Travis. As it is, I’m writing a novella at the moment. It’s called Saligia and its an adaptation of the Pygmalion myth. It’s about ambition and contains a recurring theme of the Seven Deadly Sins. It tells the story of six poets who get together in a London pub for a reunion but there’s a young newcomer to the group. Each poet has their own poem and their own personal history. They might have been friends at Cambridge but some bad blood’s gone between them since.
The story could be considered a loose adaptation of All About Eve but with poets instead of actors and actresses.
I can’t wait to read everyone else’s. I bet you’ve got a few Joivre. I’m pretty sure Red Rocker and Travis have too.
Thanks Red Rocker for this idea and the excellent post. It’ll be a great thing to do.
I’ll have to roll up a bard character fir the occasion.
sounds fantastic, though I can’t quite think of any good stories to tell… can we cheat and go find some from our ethnic background? Just kidding – but looking forward to it none the less!
We’re trying to recreate the tradition of oral story telling – and ethic tales actually figure very high in that tradition.
This sounds like a lot of fun. Great idea.
Very cool, though the more I think of it, the more intimidating it sounds. I haven’t “storied” in a long time, and now I’m here with all of you wonderful people. EEK! I may just soak it in.
yes, but if my grandparents didn’t actually tell me them they wouldn’t count… going and reading stories – even if they come from the oral tradition – and then telling them, doesn’t fall within the parameters…
Ally,
With apologies to Elizabeth Turner:
We’re bloggers. Hang the parameters. They’re more like guidelines anyway.
Give us a good story, and all will be forgiven.
No fear PotterMom05 – tell us a story about the most courageous thing you ever did. I have a feeling you did that courageous thing in the year 2005. I have a feeling you’re going to start your own oral tradition with that story as you pass it on to your child.
I’m totally drawing a blank. I mostly read as a child or had stories read to me. I don’t really remember any stories being told that stand out.
Then tell us a story about something that happened to you. Or something that you saw. Or heard about. That’s probably how stories atarted in the first place: to let others know about something interesting that happened, whether on the other side of the mountain, or in the next valley, or down the river.
Found this terrific horror story on Uncyclopedia or all places.
“12 March 2010
VERACRUZ, Mexico — For decades, tales of attacks on animals and small children by the chupacabra have been a staple of the Mexican bedtime story. Thanks to the Chupacabra Eradication Program begun by President Vicente Fox in 1995, these creatures of the night have all but disappeared, rendering these stories fairy tales. But recent discoveries of brutally slaughtered small animals and missing children have revived belief in the legendary monster.
Late last evening, shots rang out in normally serene suburban Veracruz, Mexico. Angry men with torches, guns, pitchforks, and flashlights combed area hills and arroyos [1], in search of a mysterious predator which had been littering the countryside with the savaged carcasses of small livestock, cats, and dogs.
Cries of, “El Chupacabra” rang out in the darkness, as small groups converged on the back yard of prominent local doctor Salvia Cantánquera. In the low flickering, a shambling, horrible shape shuffled about, gnashing the teeth in its many maws, screeching and hissing.
However, this was no ordinary chupacabra this posse had found, writhing and spitting in a jacuzzi. This thing was, by all appearances, from another world. Tentacles and questionable appendages flailed about, all attached to a squat, greenish-brown trunk, and its mouths and eye stalks originated at various and unlikely places.
The horror that came from the blackness last night was identified by biologist Arne Cavalcade of University of Munching, Germany as a marine chupacabra. “This little bugger is the result of man’s tampering with the DNA of chupacabras and starfish,” said Professor Cavalcade. President Felipe Calderón said, “We can eradicate these monsters by seeding our coasts with red tide algae, or maybe by radiation.” By contrast, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for seventy years, urges preservation of the fellow bloodsucker, the marine chupacabra perhaps taking the place of the rattlesnake on the national flag. “
Great story, Tom: why don’t you post in on the Tell Us a Story post when the clock hits midnight tonight?
Red Rocker said, “Then tell us a story about something that happened to you. Or something that you saw. Or heard about. ”
True, I could do that. But I don’t have much mental energy during Lent. I’ll probably enjoy other peoples’ stories, though.
Oh, revgeorge, so many great stories start exactly like that:
A group of people are talking after dinner. It could be at a dinner party, or at a private club, or it could be travellers at an inn. People start telling stories but one man sits back, wrapped in his coat – or cloak – in the shadows cast by the firelight. The other travellers urge him to contribute a tale, but he is reluctant, says he’s travelled too far that day, and has more travelling to do, and in any case doesn’t have anyting interesting to say. He would much rather just sit back and listen. But finally he looks down into the flames and quietly says: “There is that odd thing that happened to me a few years ago down in Rio…”
And we’re off.
C’mon revgeorge,
Didn’t you play all that Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little bit about courage?
No, because I always played Gnomes or Halflings who struck at others from behind trees & walls, etc…
I am resisting the idea of writing out my stories now. I think I will write it exactly as I think of it. Warts and all.
It’s interesting to me how many people don’t storytell. It’s been such a big part of my life – no one ever had to pull a story out of any of my family or friends like they’re pulling a tooth. It just pours out of us like water. Sometimes we hear stories over and over, sometimes new ones, sometimes they even change over time. None of us have ever been wont for a story – maybe it’s the tiny bit of Irish in us. Good storytellers, the Irish. I thought everyone had stories to tell in them. But maybe that’s not true. Huh – I learn something new here everyday.
{ 3 trackbacks }