keeping wisdom safe

January 23, 2010 at 9:26 pm · Filed under Illustration, Tales ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

It’s the time of year when I tell Anansi stories.

A favourite (among many favourites) is Anansi and the pot of wisdom.

Here’s how wikipedia has it:

Anansi and the dispersal of wisdom

Another story tells of how Anansi once tried to hoard all of the world’s wisdom in a pot. Anansi was already very clever, but he decided to gather together all the wisdom he could find and keep it in a safe place.

With all the wisdom sealed in a pot, he was still concerned that it was not safe enough, so he secretly took the pot to a tall thorny tree in the forest. His young son, Ntikuma, saw him go and followed him at some distance to see what he was doing.

The pot was too big for Anansi to hold while he climbed the tree, so he tied it in front of him. Like this the pot was in the way and Anansi kept slipping down, getting more and more frustrated and angry with each attempt.

Ntikuma laughed when he saw what Anansi was doing. “Why don’t you tie the pot behind you, then you will be able to grip the tree?” he suggested .

Anansi was so annoyed by his failed attempts and the realisation that his child was right that he let the pot slip. It smashed and all the wisdom fell out. Just at this moment a storm arrived and the rain washed the wisdom into the stream. It was taken out to sea, and spread all around the world, so that there is now a little of it in everyone.

Though Anansi chased his son home through the rain, he was reconciled to the loss, for, he says: “What is the use of all that wisdom if a young child still needs to put you right?”

Here’s an illustration of the story, from Peggy Appiah’s admirable collection The Pineapple Child and Other Tales from Ashanti. The illustration’s by Mora Dickson.

I dressed up a bit for some of the tellings. My good friend Matthew kindly lent me some of his Ghanaian clothes and things again. I wrestled  with The Cloth and managed to get it into roughly the right shape.

Not only does Ghana have all that wisdom in the Anansi stories, there is even wisdom in all the patterns and symbols that adorn all sorts of artifacts, the adinkra symbols.

Look at the stool. It has the Gye Nyame symbol, (meaning “except for god”).

And the staff or stick. That has the sankofa symbol, a bird reaching behind it for an egg.

Sankofa means, apparently, ‘to go back and get it.” I read here that the “symbol often is associated with the proverb, ‘Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,’ which translates to, ‘It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.’”

Here, I’ve gathered up (from www.adinkra.org) lots of the symbols:

gye nyame sankofa sankofa adinkrahene funtunfunefu denkyemfunefu denkyem dwennimmen akoma ntoaso nyame nti nyame biribi wo soro
bin nka bi akokonan fihankra eban akoben nkonsonnkonson owo foro adobe akoma hwemudua hye wonhye
nkyimu sesa woruban epa dame dame ese ne tekrema nyame nnwu na mawu nyansapo odo nnyew fie kwan mate masie fofo
wawa aba aya nyame dua mframadan nea ope se obedi hene woforo dua pa a wo nsa da mu a boa me na kete pa me ware wo
tamfo bebre duafe mmusuyidee osram ne nsoromma kintinkantan bese saka asase ye duru mpataro nsaa
tamfo bebre duafe mmusuyidee osram ne nsoromma kintinkantan bese saka asase ye duru mpataro nsaa

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swallows and amazons

January 18, 2010 at 10:56 pm · Filed under Tales ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

My mum read them to me when I was little, the series beginning with Swallows and Amazons, and now I’m reading them to Sam – until – and this is happening now – he’s so wanting to read on that he does. I’m enjoying reading it though, discovering them for what seems like the first time.

Here’s the synopsis of Swallows and Amazons from the Arthur Ransome website:

Swallows and Amazons begins with the four Walker children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger, holidaying with their mother, infant sister Brigit and a nurse at Holly Howe, a farmhouse on the shores of an unnamed lake in the English Lake District. Receiving permission from their absent father, Commander Walker R.N., they set sail in the dinghy Swallow to camp on a deserted island further down the lake.

Camping, sailing, fishing and exploring is soon interupted when the Walkers (the Swallows) are attacked by Nancy and Peggy Blackett, the self-styled Amazon Pirates. The Amazons live at Beckfoot on the shores of the lake and claim ownership of the island, which they call Wild Cat Island. The Swallows and the Amazons soon form an alliance, united in opposition to the Amazons’ irrasible Uncle Jim, who is living on his houseboat whilst writing a book. They conclude that Uncle Jim is a retired pirate and henceforth call him Captain Flint.

The new allies decide to hold a private war to determine whether Swallow or Amazon should become their flagship. As their war reaches its climax, it coincides with the burglary of Captain Flint’s houseboat, during which his trunk containing his manuscript is stolen. Captain Flint believes that the Swallows are to blame, a misunderstanding that Nancy soon puts right. Realising his mistake, Captain Flint is quick to apologise and, thinking his book is lost, he makes peace with the allies before challenging them to battle.

At the appointed hour the allies attack and seize Captain Flint’s houseboat, strengthening their new friendship by making him walk the plank. However, the friendship is truly sealed when Titty and Roger find his lost trunk, thereby saving his book.

Swallows and Amazons concludes with a great storm on the lake, after which the Swallows and Amazons have to return to life ashore and a new year at school. They part with promises to meet again next year.

Sam likes it that it’s a series, and that the people are going to carry on in the next book. He couldn’t read the third part of Lord of the Rings because he saw, flipping to the last few pages, that the heroes part forever. That was just too much. I’ve tried to persuade him, but he’s not having it.

So here’s to molasses and a barrel of grog, to raising the halyard and tacking into the wind. Swallows and Amazons forever!

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Kérity

January 9, 2010 at 4:11 pm · Filed under Illustration, Tales, film ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Another beautiful-to-look-at animation I saw recently with my class, Kérity, La Maison des contes. Not ever going to be a blockbuster, but let there be more films like this!

The story is about a boy, Nathaniel, who goes for family holidays to his grandma’s old house. When she dies they inherit the house. The grandma has left the library to Nathaniel, but he can’t read…

The brilliant illustrator Rebecca Dautremer (who I’ve written about before) was the one who did the art work, and amazing work it is, full of character and colour and atmosphere. Here she is talking about it.

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the Secret of Kells

January 8, 2010 at 10:10 pm · Filed under Illustration, Tales, film ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

I was disappointed; Sam didn’t enjoy The Sectret of Kells

To me The Secret of Kells seemed like a beautiful film. Visually it’s amazing.

And the story too – this idea of – the vikings are coming – preserving something precious, sophisicated, beautiful, creative.

Wikipedia provides a breif summary of it:

The story is set in the 9th century. Twelve-year-old Brendan is educated by his uncle, Abbot Cellach, who holds a firm grip on his nephew and expects him to follow in his footsteps. One day, Brendan meets Brother Aidan, a master illustrator who shows him the beauty of art and stimulates his creativity and fantasy. Finally, Brendan decides to break free in search of his dream: completing the valuable Book of Kells. On his journey through the forest, he has to face his biggest fears.

And here’s a sample:

Image from the Book of Kells, colour by Sam

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One City, Two Brothers

December 24, 2009 at 11:13 pm · Filed under Illustration, Tales ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

I heard Chris Smith talking, telling stories earlier this year. Afterwards I bought a book by him: Once City, Two Brothers. It is a story about giving, and also about the ancient city of Jerusalem. It’s a Jewish fable, but also an Arab folktale told by Palestinian arabs living around the city.

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Two brothers once came before King Solomon. They argued bitterly over who should inherit the family land.

Solomon listened to them and then told them to be silent and listen to the story of Jerusalem long ago before there was a temple, a city or even a village:

There were two brothers who lived on either side of a hill. Their houses were linked by two paths, one over the hill and one around it. Together they farmed the rich fertile land watered by a stream. They shared the work, planting the wheat in the autumn, harvesting it in the spring. And they shared the crop. Most years they managed to last through the winter comfortably on what the land gave.

One brother married, and soon children were born.

The other, for whatever reason, stayed single.

Now, one year the land gave them a particularly bountiful crop. They harvested forty sacks of grain. This they split between them each taking twenty to their own store room.

But the older brother thought to himself, “It’s not right that I should have the same number of sacks as my brother. He has no family, no children to look after him when he gets old; he needs this grain more than me.” And late that night, loading three sacks of grain onto his donkey, he took the high path to his brother’s house and sneaked the three sacks into his brother’s store.

What he didn’t know is that his brother had been thinking too. “It”s not right that I should have the same amount of grain as my brother. He has a family and more mouths to feed. I’ll take some secretly over to him.” And, under cover of darkness, he took the low path and deposited three sacks of grain in his brother’s grain store.

You can imagine how puzzled both of them were when they looked in their own grain stores and found there were still twenty sacks. Were they losing their wits? Had it just been a dream?

Both brothers did the same the following night, without either of them seeing the other. And the next day? They were even more puzzled: there were still twenty sacks in the store room.

On the third night both brothers did the same thing. But this time they both took the high path, and under the stary sky they met each other. Without a word, both of them understood the reason for his brother’s journey. Their hearts filled with happiness as they realised the love they each had been shown.

With these words, Solomon finished his tale. The two men before him stood in silence for a long while. Everyone waited to see what would happen.

Then the older man looked up and said, “Brother, what was once our father’s is now ours. Not yours, not mine, but ours.”

The brothers embraced and left the court side by side. From then on their families lived happily together. And the story their children loved to hear the most was the one about about the two brothers told by wise King Solomon.

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Chris Smith worked for UNICEF on the West Bank and in Gaza. These days he’s a storyteller in England. He’s one of the people who set up The Story Museum in Oxford. At the moment this is an organisation that works with people, especially I think children in schools, to share stories, especially traditional stories. It’s also gathering money to get a physical site.

_______________________________________________

I hadn’t heard of Aurélia Fronty and her work before I had this book, but now that I look I see that she’s illustrated a lot of wonderful looking books,  just the sorts of titles I like, in French. The colours are amazing, atmospheric, rich and she adapts her lines, her designs wo well to the many places around the world where the tales come from.

She’s done some Greek myths:

 and some King Arthur stories:

    
a japanese tale:

 and all sorts of others, that I’d never heard of.

    

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seeing

December 19, 2009 at 11:38 pm · Filed under Illustration, Tales ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

I’ve mostly blogged about stories, writers and illustrators that I’m a bit familiar with. But I’ve started looking round at more blogs on such things, and sometimes discovering new treasures. I don’t know how I came to Terry Hong’s “Book Dragon” entry on The Seeing Stick by Jane Yolen illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. (I must have just heard of the book then, because I can see I went to another review by Ruby Winkle.) I got hold of the book and I love it for both the story and the illustrations.

So, anyway, there’s a little girl, the Emporer’s daughter, Hwei Ming, who’s blind. Her father asks the usual people to cure her blindness but they cannot. But somewhere in the south an old man begins the long journey to Peking to anwer the Emporer’s request for help.

When the old man is refused entry to the outer city he tells the guards his stick is a “seeing stick” and carves his journey and the guards’ faces into its golden wood. He is led to the inner city where he does the same for the guards there. Impressed, they let the old man in to the palace.

He tells Hwei Ming about his journey and she feels the carvings on the “seeing stick”, then feels the faces of the people around her, for the first time – the old man, her father, the guards. The next day he returns and tells more stories, stories carved into the stick, and so the girl begins to discover the world through touch…

Well, I’ve left out lots of the details, but as you can see Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini’s illustrations are amazing, as they turn from greys to colours as the tale progresses and whirl between the folk-art of the stick-pictues and the atmospheric brushwork that illustrates the main tale. There’s a sort of expressionism in the trees, that somehow through their sinuously unfamiliar shapes convey both the oriental and the, to me, unfamiliar space of the sightless:

Although it has the feel of a folktale, Jane Yolen made it up. She says, intriguingly (and thanks to Terry Hong for this):

“I made up THE SEEING STICK myself based originally on a legend about a boy who made bamboo flutes and tied them to the legs of doves so that the wind whistled through the flutes when the birds flew up above the city. The legend was reported in a single paragraph in FIELD AND STREAM magazine. (We were visiting my husband’s family in West Virginia and there was no other reading material in the bathroom!) But the bamboo flute morphed over several years into the seeing stick, probably because my youngest son’s best friends in elementary school were twins one of whom was partially sighted. Or maybe it was the twins’ younger brother who was partially sighted. I can’t remember. That was almost forty years ago.”

Never satisfied, now I wonder too about that first story…

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the curing fox

December 17, 2009 at 11:31 pm · Filed under Illustration, Tales, film ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

It’s down below zero, late in the evening, the logs in the fireplace are glowing orange now. Snow is forecaste for tomorrow. Time for a tale. And so that it’s known that foxes aren’t always cunning and deceitful…

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Once upon a time there was a little girl, and one bitterly cold day she fell ill. She had a terrible cough and a rattling pain in her chest. Each breath she took was an effort. Her chest felt tight and sore. Her mother and father covered her with animal skins and blankets and kept her warm by the fire.

But she was getting worse and worse. She was breathing in short gulps, the colour drained out of her face and the light out of her eyes. Her mother called for old Duck Egg. She was a healer and she was old, old, nobody knew how old. Duck Egg came and went across to the girl. She bent down and gently lifted back the covers. Then she put her ear to the pale skin of the little girl’s chest, and listened. She listened for a long time. Then she sat up and spoke:

“I hear a she-fox walking, limping across the snow. I hear her footfalls on the crusty snow. Schaa, schaa. The fox is tired and weak. She has a long journey to make.”

The girl’s father said to Duck Egg, “Listen, I am a hunter. I will go and catch this fox and bring her back for you.”

And the old woman nodded and said, “Yes, bring the she-fox back here to the village.”

So the girl’s father strapped on his snow shoes and set off across the snow. Soon he found the tracks of a fox, its footprints and the swish of its tale over the snow. He followed the tracks all day, until, just before nightfall, he saw her, thin and tired, ahead of him.

Back in the village, Duck Egg listened to the girl’s chest again: “I hear the she-fox. The hunter is close; I can hear the sound of his snow shoes.”

The hunter kept on until it was too dark to go further, and then he stopped and made a fire. He warmed himself by the fire and close by the fox watched, its eyes shining in the darkness.

Back in the village the old woman listened again: “I hear a fire crackling, The hunter is sitting by his fire. The girl will be very hot tonight; she will have a fever.”

The hunter stayed up all night, staring into the fire; he was cold and tired, but he did not sleep. In the morning, at first light, he got up and began to chase the she-fox again. At last, he caught up with it and grabbed it. It was scared:

“Why have you chased me yestereday and today? I am tired and sick. Kill me now.”

“No, little fox, I will not kill you. There is a little girl who needs you.”

And the hunter took the fox back to his village in his arms, limp and thin, her heart beating fast.

Back in the village Duck Egg was listening carefully to the girl’s chest: “Her heart is beating very fast. The hunter is holding the fox and she is very frightened. He is on his way home.

It took a day and a night for the hunter to get home, and when he got home he went straight in to where his daughter was lying by the fire. Duck Egg was there. She smiled: “Give me the poor she-fox and bring some meat for it.”

She put the she-fox on the furs near the fire and the girl’s mother brought meat for it. The she-fox ate it up quickly, and then went to sleep. The girl slept too.

Old Duck Egg waited.

Then the girl and the fox woke up and opened their eyes at the same time.

picture by Niamh Sharkey

“Bring the fox more meat,” said Duck Egg. The mother brought she-fox more meat, and she ate it all up.

“Now open the door flap and let her go.”

So the father opened the door flap and let the she-fox go. The little girl watched as the she-fox ran out the village and disappeared into the whiteness. Its strength was back.

The girl was better too.

Old Duck Egg was quiet for a while, then she looked at the father and mother: “Answer me this: did the fox make the girl better, or did the girl make the fox better?”

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I’ve retold this, checking my source now and then, Tales of Wisdom and Wonder, retold by Hugh Lupton (who seems to get regular mention chez Yahoo! 360) and illustrated by Niamh Sharkey. Hugh Lupton tells it much better, but it’s getting late, and cold…

This is the first book that Niamh Sharkey illustrated. It’s interesting to see her talking about it here:

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the hunter’s five sons

December 9, 2009 at 7:40 pm · Filed under Tales ·Tagged , , , ,

There was once a hunter who had four sons. His wife was pregnant and could feel the fifth kicking inside her. ‘This will be another strong son,’ she said.

Now, one day the hunter went into the forest with his spear and his bow and his quiver full of arrows.

But he didn’t come back. That night the four sons and their mother stayed up and waited, but he didn’t come back. For the next week they cried.  After a week they stopped crying. And after a month they forgot about the hunter.

After another month the fifth son was born.

He grew up fast. Soon he was crawling. And after that walking.  And then he began talking. His fist words were, ‘Where’s my daddy?’ Those were his first words, ‘Where’s my daddy?’

The mother said to her other sons, ‘We have forgotten your father. You must go into the forest and search for what you can find.’

So they went into the forest, and it wasn’t long before they found their father’s spear on the ground. A little later they found the quiver full of arrows, and then the bow. And then they found his bones scattered all around.

The first son said, ‘It’s lucky that I have the power to bring bones back together.’

And he did. He made his father’s bones come back together to make the shape of a skeleton.

The second son said, ‘It’s lucky that I have the power to put flesh and skin on top of bones.’

And there was flesh and skin on the bones, their father’s body lying on the ground.

The third son said, ‘It’s lucky that I have the power to put life into a body.’

The heart inside the body began to beat and the lungs to breathe.

The fourth son said, ‘It’s lucky that I have the power to make a body move.’

And their father sat up and looked around, confused. ‘Where am I?’ he said.

‘You were dead,’ they said, ‘but now you are alive.’

And so their father went back home with them, and on the way he found his bow and quiver full of arrows and his spear. The family was together again.

After that the hunter got a piece of hardwood and cut it into shape and began to carve it. He carved the shapes of animals into it, fish, birds and animals that walk on the ground. When he had carved it he polished it, until he was satisfied with his work.

‘I will give this carving,’ he said, ‘to the one who saved me.’

‘That should be me,’ said his wife, ‘for I sent your sons to find you.’

‘That should be me,’ said his fist son, ‘for I brought your scattered bones together.’

‘It should be me,’ said the second son, ‘for I put flesh and skin on your bones.’

‘It should be me,’ said the third son, ‘for I put life into your body.’

‘It should be me,’ said the fourth son, ‘for I put movement into your body.’

‘No,’ said the hunter. ‘It will be my fifth son, for he asked about me when all of you had forgotten. A man is only truly dead when no-one remembers him.’

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I’m telling you this tale that I read to Sam the other night from Freaky Tales From Far and Wide by Hugh Lupton. He had it from storyteller Jan Blake. The carving pictured is hanging in our house; Pam bought it in Zambia.

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illustrated

December 4, 2009 at 10:08 pm · Filed under Illustration ·Tagged , , , ,

I always like to illustrate Yahoo! 360 with a few pictues. Here are some from The New York Times’ “best illustrated children’s books of 2009“:

ONLY A WITCH CAN FLY

ALL THE WORLD

2008 is worth a view too. I don’t care whether it’s the latest or not. I’d like to find the British or French equivalent though…

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schlemiels and shlimazels

November 29, 2009 at 2:53 pm · Filed under Illustration, Tales ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Sam has just finished another Harry Potter book, so it’s time to catch up on a few picture books. Last night it was this one, full of interesting yiddish words (there are lots in English now)and great little tales.

I blogged Simms Taback before once or twice, but I’m coming back to him, because I like the warmth and generosity of his tales and illustrations. His website’s got better too.

So, one of the smaller tales (in my own words):

§ § § § § § §

Once there was a farmer, he was a bit of a shmendrik, who had two chickens. One of the chickens gots sick, and he couldn’t stop worrying about the sick chicken.

So, he killed the other chicken and made chicken soup for the sick one.

§ § § § § § §

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