Day Two: Tuesday October 15th

Today was the first real day of activities. We started off early at the Storytelling Centre and Cafe right by our hotel. There we had a three hour workshop with a gentleman who is actually English but has been in Scotland for over 20 years. He started off by introducing himself and then he showed us a picture of a picture he had taken of a lonely grave out by itself along a road (a quite haunting image). He then began to tell us the story about this grave stone and why it was there all by itself. It was interesting to listen to him tell the the story because of the way he told it. At the beginning he paused as if allowing a moment for himself and the others in the room to clear their minds and set their mental state for the story. During the telling of the story he spoke with emotion and confidence. He used his voice and his hands to tell the unwritten parts of the story. When he finished telling the story we analyzed and talked about storytelling. Personally I am very intrigued by the idea of storytelling as an oral tradition. These Scottish stories we are looking at make me wonder if, like The Odyssey, the stories have changed through time, maybe even become quite different than the first time they were told. This is also the beautiful thing about storytelling, that it is also a form of free art with room for movement and change. An example is how we pronounce and emphasize our words, like we had the chance to experiment with in the workshop. It is based on the idea that words have different sounds that put different emphasis on different parts. In other words the word should sound like what it means. Our teacher grouped them into “airy,” “fiery,” “watery”....etc... words. The way that a storyteller emphasizes his words adds to the story itself. When we had the chance to practice saying some words in such a manner I actually was kind of embarrassed. The fact that I was a bit embarrassed showed me that storytelling is also a performance (and I get very nervous when performing)! At the end we each had the chance to read a short story and work on breaking it up into chunks that would help us remember the story. He suggested splitting the story into six parts, drawing six different images of the main action. Some of us then had the chance to tell our story to the class. Like I said, performing makes me nervous so I didn’t volunteer, but I did really like the story that I read. Overall the workshop was a good introduction to storytelling. I would have liked to learn a little more about the history of Scottish storytelling, but the workshop offered me a good insight into storytelling in general and how to tell a story. The interesting thing is that in a way we are all storytellers. We all recount stories about our lives or other peoples lives at some point, even if it is something as trivial as telling your friend about the date you went on last night; you make sure to get everything right, to express how you felt through your voice and your body. Storytelling need not be something you memorize and tell, but can come in many different forms. I like it because it is such a universal and human art and is not culturally specific.