Third Stories of 2013!

The students in The Irish Storytelling Tradition told their last stories in class on Wednesday, June 26^th.  I’m really proud of what they have achieved in four short weeks.  They are a talented group that just kept getting better.  They also write very well about their experiences. Here are excerpts from their reflections on their telling.

Diana Lucente: The story is taken from Lady Gregory's Complete Irish Mythology.  (I also found versions in Sean Sullivan's Folktales of Ireland and Richard Marsh's Irish King and Hero Tales.  The poem is by William Butler Yeats and is found in The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Both story and poem remind one to appreciate the time that one has and not take it for granted. I enjoyed the story when I read it because of the line that the young woman, representative of Youth, says to each of the older men of the Fianna: "You had me once, but you will never have me again".  It is so poignant a statement but absolutely true:  Youth can never be regained.  The Yeats poem refers to loss of youth in its first line, and the soft, reminiscent, somewhat melancholy feeling of the poem was something that appealed to me even when I was young (the first time I read it was at the age of 19).  Being older, I feel my youth slipping through my hands and the stories are good reminders to make the most of every moment because one can never go back.

Ernestina Montoya: I told the story Tom Moore and the Seal Women Irish tales of Fairies and the Ghost World by Jeremiah Curtin. I went about preparing for the story by reading and skimming trough the story a couple of times to get the feel for it. I then made a story board with only the main details I needed to remember. The story was important to me because it’s such a popular type of mythical story told in Irish storytelling so it was fun to tell my own version of it. 

 

 

Haley Maffia: I told the story, The Field of Boliauns from Irish Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. This story is important to me because I really wanted to tell a story about a leprechaun. Coming to Ireland, I assumed there would be a lot more stories about leprechauns and I was surprised to see that there wasn’t. I learned that leprechauns are not the nice little men Americans are told they are. They are actually very sneaky and tricky. This story teaches that you should not be blinded by greed and you should never trust a leprechaun. I also learned that I don’t worry as much anymore when I get in front of my audience. In the beginning of this class, I was really nervous, and now it’s more enjoyable and I get a sense of adrenaline when everyone is listening to my story.

Jamie Brewer: I told “Lugh and Balor (The Battle of Magh Tuireadh) from Of Gods and Fighting Men by Lady Augusta Gregory. This was the first "real" exposure I had to Irish mythology, by way of Diane Duane's book (modern fantasy writer), and I wanted to learn as much as I could about the real story. I'm becoming of the mind that Celtic mythology deserves to be taught alongside Greek and Norse myth. (On the other hand, I'm almost annoyed at the idea of the Tuatha de Dannan being subsumed by modern fairies, perhaps partly because of the influence of Christianity, because the diminished stature of the fairies doesn't fit with the nobility and heroics of the TDD.) I found it interesting to learn where Duane took creative license with the mythology, blending some elements from the mythology together where it fit her own themes and cosmology. In my free time I plan to read the rest of the Mythological cycle stories I can get my hands on; for time reasons I had to focus mainly on the parts I planned to use.

Keely Parrish: I recited “The Wind that Shakes the Barley”, by Katherine Tynan. For this telling I chose to recite a poem because I love poetry so much I thought it would be fun.  Little did I realize that memorizing is far more difficult than learning a story to tell in one’s own words.  I read the poem through about four times out loud and started trying to say it without looking at the book, I repeated the lines like a parrot until they rolled off of my tongue easier, and I even did exercises with Wendy to better learn the words.  I paced the kitchen and my room to try to keep a tempo while I spoke and in the end if I didn’t think about it I could tell it just fine. 

 

Wendy Townsend: This week I decided to recite a poem rather than tell a story. The poem I chose was “The Easter Rising” by John F. McCullagh. I found it online at PoemHunter.com (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-easter-rising/). As soon as I read this poem online, I knew I wanted to tackle it for class. I know a bit about the Easter Rising and knew how important it was in Irish history. This poem speaks eloquently about the subject and I thought it was just beautiful. Beyond that, it had such depth and covered the events expertly.

 

 

Steve DesMarais: The story was “Willy the Wisp”, and I got the story from Henry Glassie's Folktales of Ireland. I prepared the story entirely in my head. I didn't do a storyboard or anything like that since I get more out of reading a story slowly, and retelling it in my head. I suppose it's a gift I've found out of my laziness. The story had an impact on me since it was like an old “Devil Went Down to Georgia” tale. I love stories that have normal men defeating the devil through wit, or skill. The story is important to me since there is always evil in the world or skill and the story isn't about avoiding evil, but rather challenging it, and while it's not a morally correct thing to do, Willy still for the most part gets to win.

 

Zach McKenzie: The story I told is called the Cow that Ate the Piper. I found the story in Folktales of Ireland edited by Sean O’Sullivan. The story was important to me because I like this sort of "misunderstanding" story. I also think it’s important because it’s funny. The story telling experience was enjoyable to me. I think this story I was the most confident telling. I felt like I had better eye contact and I had less ums and breaks while I was telling it. I also felt like I didn’t rush the story either. I learned that for this story I had to tell it in my own words because there was a lot of dialogue.

 

Bayliann Livengood: Today, we told our third and final story for our Study Abroad Ireland Storytelling class. I chose to tell “The Queen of the Planets” which Liz recommended to me last week. I read it in Folktales of Ireland by Sean O’Sullivan and did a story repertoire but decided not to tell it last week because I wanted something shorter. When it came time to tell my story, I was more nervous than I have been previously, because I hadn’t been sleeping well in the previous nights and was worried I was going to forget something or mess it up as a result. However, once I got into the flow of the story, it went well and at the end I received many compliments on my use of language, space, and actions. I plan on taking all of these stories home and repeating them to family and friends back in Phoenix, and hopefully as I tell it my knowledge of the story will improve, which in turn, will improve my performance of it.