Stories and Story-telling

by Angela M. Keyes

Let us take up the topic, telling the story, under the practical heads:

(1) Choosing or meeting story-telling time;

(2) The story-teller’s part;

(3) Controlling canons of the story-teller’s part.

(1) Choosing or meeting story-telling time. “To everything,” says Ecclesiastes, “there is a season and a time for every purpose under the heaven ... a time to weep and a time to laugh ... a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”

Is there an ideal time for telling a story? Assuredly; at this time the story comes to the listener with more pleasure, or stronger appeal to the feelings. But the “pedagogical” story-teller, parent or teacher, must take care not to mistake suitable occasion. The error is not that the story-teller may have, like the Ancient Mariner, a tale of sin and virtue to tell to the soul that must hear it. To say that the story must not be narrowed to didactic purpose is not to exclude altogether the story that may work spiritual reformation. The trouble is that the story-teller sometimes precipitates irritation rather than reformation by untimeliness. The moment when the child is defiant or angry and the teacher or parent cross is not the psychological moment for such a story. It is at the turn in the tide of feeling that the story-teller may send into the wavering stream the saving grace of the tale.

There are times when the pupils are “on” for a mental frolic; these are the times for the play or “funny” stories. Sometimes, in order to quicken desirable response, the teacher or parent will judge it better to run counter to the mood of the children. She will sharpen the wits of dull children with a humorous story, or broaden the horizon of the narrowly matter-of-fact with a tale of adventure or of supernatural occurrence. Celebrations or memorials call out appropriate stories. The early Hebrew father took advantage of his sons’ questions about the festivals celebrated in their midst to tell the great Bible story. The Christian Church sometimes narrates the lives of the saints to her children on feast days to inspire the heroism of holy living. Things observed in nature, and home and school circumstances, will suggest many stories. And when all has been said about special times, it remains true that almost any time in the wonder years of childhood is story time.

But the teacher may say, “Story-telling time means precisely eleven-fifteen on Tuesday morning; the individual teacher has nothing to say about it.” The thing to do, then, is to induce the story-telling mood at eleven-fifteen Tuesday morning. What we should urge here between ourselves is the obligation to give place heartily at this time to the story. No matter how ill things may have gone and how cross we ourselves may have become, we must now let pleasurable anticipation take possession of the classroom.

(2) The story-teller’s part. The rôle of story-teller is simple yet subtle, more easily shown than explained. The story-teller is recounter of a happening, real or fictitious, merry or pathetic, that because of its appeal to the imagination and sympathies has been given currency in language. To share with another the glimpse of life it gives the imagination, the feeling it arouses, the æsthetic satisfaction it yields, was man’s reason for telling it. The story-teller’s part, then, is so to employ and interpret the medium of currency as to free this force.

Beginning the story. The story-teller should begin the story with the air of having something interesting and enjoyable to tell. If the contents of the story had not been interesting, they would never have made a story; the story-teller may depend on this intrinsic interest. He should have also the air of leisure; story-telling is one of the social arts of leisure and pleasure; besides, stories record significant occurrences, which should be given the emphasis of time. His initial manner should give hint of the spirit of the particular story he is to tell. The first phrase, “There were five-and-twenty tin soldiers,” sounds the playful martial spirit of Hans Andersen’s “Brave Tin Soldier;” the story-teller echoes it in martial bearing and in martial swing and ring in his speech, in, of course, the playful manner of a story about a little toy soldier. Mother-love broods through the story of “The Wolf and the Seven Kids;” the story-teller suggests, in voice and eyes and fostering posture, its loving pride and anxiety. Should the story-teller begin in rather obvious make-believe-matter-of-fact style, his eyes hinting fun, the children will chuckle in delighted anticipation of a nonsense or a humorous story. The wholly impassive manner adopted by some story-tellers in telling “funny” stories to adult audiences will not do with children. The adult’s enjoyment consists largely in his ability to remake as fun what the teller is representing as sober fact. Children, because of their lack of knowledge and experience, need more leading. Stories like “The Three Bears” correspond in spirit to nursery rhymes like “This little pig went to market;” they should be kept as childlike, mimetic, rhythmic, and playful. Southey gives the key to the spirit of “The Three Bears” in the setting. Every detail shows how well he caught the child-note: interest in wild animals, the bear a favorite; tendency to dramatic mimicry; response to rhythm; pleasure in possessions, this very complete “house of their own,” kept by bears, delights the children. A hero story like “Jack the Giant Killer” calls for a bold spirit. “Snow-White and Rose-Red” sounds the domestic note: cheerful fireside group; mother reading from a “large book,” children spinning, animals lying near. The setting here, though long, may easily be made attractive by the story-teller’s own pleasure in every detail.