ON FAIRYTALES The origins of storytelling

 

Be they echoes of tales from long ago, retellings or twisted and fractured mash-ups, folk and fairytales never lose their appeal. In the last of his articles for On Fairytales, storyteller Tom Phillips celebrates our rich history of folktales, stretching back millennia.

Tom Phillips, storyteller

‘Once upon a time…’ Well, how else to start… There were people, new to the world, like infants, discovering the wonders around them, their brains growing ever bigger, their limbs and digits ever nimbler. They developed tools, communities, defined roles within these communities, and, to bring this all together, they developed language. Starting with sounds, grunts, clicks, and other noises, each community shaped these noises into letters and phonemes which built the words that gave meaning to the ever-growing world around them.

 

They discovered natural pigments in nature and used these to colour their lives and colour the walls of the caves in which they lived. These pictures showed the stories they had been telling in their rudimental language, but why did they tell these stories? With an ever-expanding world around them, only a select few, the brave and the bold, the quick and the strong, were allowed to go out and explore, to hunt the animals to bring home to feed the hungry mouths. These hunters wanted to share their experience, in the same, primitive way a bee performs a ‘waggle’ dance to tell its hive mates where the best flowers are and how to get there.

 

The hunters enjoyed passing on the trials and tribulations of their day to the young and old of the tribe. They recounted long hard treks through the forest or grass lands, epic hunts, and heroic battles with giant creatures. And from these stories, as the tribal members sat listening in awe, they were learning, learning of the dangers beyond their village, the animals that roamed the lands beyond, those that were friend and those that would sooner have you for their dinner than run away from you. They learnt the lessons of life that would keep them safe.

 

Storytelling and folktales are the oldest form of art, pre-dating known cave paintings by over 100,000 years, and the written word by over 140,000 years

‘Story… Story, story…’ Two brave hunters went out one day hunting for deer. Deep in the forest, as they stalked their prey, spears held aloft, they heard a twig snap behind them. They were not alone. Colin turned to Bob (can you think of better caveman names? If so, use those as you read along) and Colin asked what that was. Bob shrugged but didn’t have time to give any more of an answer. Suddenly, out of the bushes behind, a large sabre-toothed cat leapt upon Bob, tearing him limb from limb. The big, brave Colin screamed at the sight and ran away. When he had run as far as he could, he paused to catch his breath. He then heard a twig snapping behind him. Having learnt from what had just happened, Colin turned, spear held aloft, just in time to impale the sabre-toothed cat on the pointy flint that adorned the end of his staff.

 

That night, Colin arrived home with the lifeless body of the giant cat, dinner for the tribe, and a story that captured the imagination of the entire tribe, causing them to cry for the loss of the brave Bob and gasp in awe and excitement at the extraordinary fight between Colin and the beast (this part, of course, greatly exaggerated, as all the best recounts of great deeds often are). Colin passed on the lessons he had learnt, of the big wide world, of the dangerous creatures out there and of being always aware of everything around you, and the tribe became wiser.

 

This story was remembered and retold, spreading from tribe to tribe, growing and changing over time. As stone became bronze, spear became sword, as bronze became steel, the sabre-toothed cat grew, lost its fur to be replaced by scales, grew wings and began breathing fire, and so the dragon was created. Now, the story was that of a brave knight fighting a dragon. Has the lesson it teaches changed? Well, no, not really. The story still tells of a scary, unknown creature, of the importance of being on your guard, and of being brave. It still teaches us to be wary of the big world outside our door.

 

‘Crick… Crack…’ Stories, those told by the common folk, the people of the land, the folktales, have been used to educate the young and old alike since the dawn of language between 150,000 – 200,000 years ago. Storytelling and folktales are the oldest form of art, pre-dating known cave paintings by over 100,000 years, and the written word by over 140,000 years. Storytelling was the original way of expressing creativity and spreading knowledge and wisdom.

Then, 3,500 years ago, the word was written down for the first time in Mesopotamia… The folktales we told were written on stones, on temple walls, in burial chambers, on parchment 

Then, 3,500 years ago, the word was written down for the first time in Mesopotamia, and people began to realise these stories could be preserved forever in this way. The folktales we told were written on stones, on temple walls, in burial chambers, on parchment. The written word spread, people become more educated and learnt to read. The printing press was invented in 1440, bringing about the great forgetting, a time when stories were told orally less and less. Instead, they were written down.

 

Great collectors, such as the famous Grimm brothers, realised that these oral stories that were as old as time, were on the verge of being lost. So they gathered them together in great volumes of works, writing them down and preserving them like fossils in stone. These then changed from the ever-evolving folktales to the fixed fairytales that we are all familiar with. The writing down of these stories both preserving and cementing these stories forever.

 

Fairytales exist thanks to the traditional folktales, told for many thousands of years. Without these as the foundation, we would not have any of the stories we enjoy today, no fairytales, no modern classics, nothing. These traditional tales form the basis of all our stories, give them the structures we have been conditioned to know and understand, a universal language of story structure. Christopher Booker (a great name for a writer) wrote a book outlining these, published in 2004 called The Seven Basic Plots – Why we tell stories, in which he uses Jung’s theories on story and categorises them into the forms we all know and recognise:

 

• Overcoming the Monster

 

• Rags to Riches

 

• The Quest

 

• Voyage and Return

 

• Rebirth

 

• Comedy

 

• Tragedy

 

These all developed from those basic stories the tribes people told all those years ago and we can look at all folk and fairytales and fit them into these seven categories.

 

Over this and my previous two articles, I have shown how folktales have been the precursors to fairytales, laying the foundations for them. I have examined the difference between a folktale and a fairytale and, just now, the rich history of storytelling and folk stories stretching back many millennia.

 

You will have also noticed the three examples of traditional story starts. We are all familiar with ‘Once upon a time,’ a European staple for starting stories, but the latter two are examples of African and Caribbean oral story starts, used as a call and response. The storyteller will shout ‘Story’, with the audience responding, ‘Story, story,’ or, similarly, ‘Crick’ with a response of ‘Crack’, then the storyteller saying something along the lines of ‘Let the story begin.’ These phrases, these traditions, hone the audience into the story, preparing us to open our ears and minds and to close our mouths, ready to listen and learn.

 

Thank you for reading my articles. If you have been inspired to learn more about folktales and traditional storytelling, the Society for Storytelling (SfS) is a great place to start.

*Header: Tita Berredo; 

photo of Tom Phillips courtesy of Tom Phillips 

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Starting life as a primary school teacher, Tom 'the Tale Teller' Phillips began telling the stories he heard as a youngster to his class, soon branching out into the world of adult storytelling as well. After a decade of telling tales, Tom wrote two folk tale books for The History Press, using his knowledge of folk tales and researching more along the way. Tom continues to tell stories to all ages, writing in his free time.

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Françoise Price is Deputy Editor of Words & Pictures magazine. Contact deputyeditor@britishscbwi.org


Tita Berredo is Illustrator Coordinator for SCBWI British Isles and Art Director of Words & Pictures. Contact illuscoordinator@britishscbwi.org