Period Storytelling

[Heather Rose Jones]

(Doris somehow sent this to me instead of the list, so has asked me to 
post it in full along with my response. --Tangwystyl)

On Wed, 27 Dec 1995, Doris Diedrich wrote:

> > On Thu, 21 Dec 1995, Mark Ramsden wrote:
> > > 
> > > I know that tales of Athurian legend and Robin Hood were most popular in the
> > > era, but I'm unsure of the general opinion of stories involving magic and
> > > monsters.  I am, mundanely, interested in writing fantasy literature for
> > > money (not as an entire career, however), and wondered if any of the art
> > > might be of use within the SCA. (With adjustments, of course).
> > 
> > My advice would be to familiarize yourself thoroughly with the ways in 
> > which monsters and magic are used in _period_ literature to get a good 
> > feel for a medieval treatment. 
>
> Hi Mark!
> I doubt that period literature is what someone needs to get a feel how 
> bards of that time told storys. Or a feel of 'what kind of storys they told'.
> Those people who told their storys didn't write them down and the 
> people who wrote down storys didn't write down those storys everybody
> knew at that time. More: the inteleectuals of that time did feel so
> arrogant that they didn't want to write something down that came
> from the 'simple' people.
> I really doubt, any literature could help. 
> Any comments?
> P.S. You harping storytellers: take a look at
> http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/~dido/harfen/dreams.html
> 
> Doris

I think it's a mistake to assume that there was always some sort of vast 
divide between the stories told in everyday circumstances and those 
recorded in manuscripts. This may, in fact, be true for some times and 
places, and it may be that the storytelling framework in which 
collections of stories are presented is an artificial construction (e.g., 
the framing tale in the Canturbury Tales, the Decameron, or the 1001 
Nights). But I see no reason to completely discount the information that 
these settings give us about the act of storytelling and its content in 
period.

In some cases, the evidence may be stronger for the act of storytelling 
than for specific contents. The literatures that I am most familiar with 
-- Welsh, Irish, and Norse -- all show evidence that the particular 
versions of tales we have were to some extent literary compositions 
_based_ on older oral tradition. In the case of one Welsh tale, the 
Dream of Rhonabwy, there is a fascinating coda which proclaims, "And here 
is the reason why no one, neither bard nor storyteller, knows the Dream 
without a book -- by reason of the number of colors that were on the 
horses, and all that variety of rare colors both on the arms and their 
trappings, and on the precious mantles, and the magic stones." In other 
words, elaborate descriptions have been introduced that no one is 
expected to be able to remember by rote. But the very existence of this 
statement implies that it was _expected_ that "bards and storytellers" 
would know stories "without a book".

And these literatures are absolutely chock-full of stories, storytellers, 
and storytelling as an integral part of the larger narrative. I think it 
goes a bit far to claim that not only the larger narratives themselves, 
but their entire contents were invented by literati with no connection to 
or knowledge of oral culture. In the cultures I deal with, it is 
erroneous to speak of a contrast between "arrogant intellectuals" who 
wrote things down and "simple people" who told stories. In Welsh 
tradition, storytellers (cyfarwyddion) _were_ the intellectuals (along 
with poets and clergy). Time and again in the tales, we find people 
identified as cyfarwyddion who are members of the nobility or the 
literary intelligentsia. We also find storytellers who are of less 
exhalted rank. It is portrayed as a desirable skill that cut across 
social rank.

But I will leave a question: if we are to discard the available period 
records of stories and the nature of storytelling as being suspect, what 
does that leave us? If we are to attempt to re-create period 
storytelling, it would seem far better to work from materials such as 
these than to throw up our hands and claim that the task is futile.

Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn