The Art of Story-Telling

by Marie L. Shedlock

Of course the savour of danger and blood is only one of the things to which we should appeal, but I give the whole passage to make the point clearer.

This is one of the most difficult parts of our selection, namely, how to present enough excitement for the child and yet include enough constructive element which will satisfy him when the thirst for “blugginess” is slaked.

And here I should like to say that, whilst wishing to encourage in children great admiration and reverence for the courage and other fine qualities which have been displayed in times of war, and which have mitigated its horrors, I think we should show that some of the finest moments in these heroes' lives had nothing to do with their profession as soldiers. Thus we have the well-known story of Sir Philip Sidney and the soldier; the wonderful scene where Roland drags the bodies of his dead friends to receive the blessing of the archbishop after the battle of Roncevalles[35]; and of Napoleon sending the sailor back to England. There is a moment in the story of Gunnar when he pauses in the midst of the slaughter of his enemies, and says, “I wonder if I am less brave than others, because I kill men less willingly than they.”

And in the “Njal's Burning” from Andrew Lang's “Book of Romance” we have the words of the boy Thord when his grandmother, Bergthora, urges him to go out of the burning house.

“You promised me when I was little, grandmother, that I never should go from you till I wished it of myself. And I would rather die with you than live after you.”

Here the moral courage is so splendidly shown; none of these heroes feared to die in battle or in open single fight, but to face a death by fire for higher considerations is a point of view worth presenting to the child.

In spite of all the dramatic excitement roused by the conduct of our soldiers and sailors,[36] should we not try to offer also in our stories the romance and excitement of saving as well as taking life?

I would have quite a collection dealing with the thrilling adventures of the Life-Boat and the Fire Brigade, of which I hope to present examples in the final Story List.

Finally, we ought to include a certain number of stories dealing with Death, especially with children who are of an age to realise that it must come to all, and that this is not a calamity but a perfectly natural and simple thing. At present the child in the street invariably connects death with sordid accidents. I think they should have stories of Death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and unselfishness; or of Death coming as a result of treachery, such as we find in the death of Baldur, of Siegfried, and of others, so that children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of stories dealing with death that comes naturally, when our work is done and our strength gone, which has no more tragedy than the falling of a leaf from the tree. In this way we can give children the first idea that the individual is so much less than the whole.