I love a good story. I think most of us do, whether it’s a meaty novel, a funny anecdote between friends or a tweet that tells a tale in just 140 characters.
My childhood was full of them. Bedtime stories from The Magic Faraway Tree passed on from my Mum, chapters of Harry Potter read begrudgingly by my Dad (he wasn’t a fan and could never get his head around Quidditch) and my twelve year old self refusing to read anything but The Sleepover Club.
Yet written words only made up a part of the story book I was given as a child. Myths, sayings and family legend were passed down by my Gran and my Grandad’s tales from his time in Kenya later influenced my own decision to travel there. On top of that, new stories were always being created, usually at the expense of my Dad, and these have now also been crystallised in Price family folklore, pulled out when we are in need of a good laugh.
After listening to, reading and telling stories of my own it was no wonder I ended up studying a degree in Drama and English. Yet it has only been this year, after basing every one of my final year assessments around storytelling in some way, that I have realised just how much stories fascinate me.
As I studied this ancient art it saddened me that much of the storytelling process seems to have been lost in the modern, Western world. I romanticised over bards of old walking around the countryside and searched out storytelling practices in other cultures. When I finally snapped out of my daydreams I realised that stories haven’t disappeared, neither has the telling of tales, they’ve just adapted to our fast paced technological lifestyles. There may be few people who sit around a fire to recite myths and legends but there are millions who carefully select the images they believe will best tell their story on Instagram, edit their tales down to the best bits for Twitter and pin the stories they hope will make up their future on Pinterest. Storytelling is alive and well and all around us.
But what happens when we refresh the page and the status update disappears or the next person posts a picture that captures more interest that our own?
Perhaps what we risk losing are the connections that stories make, across generations, between cultures and within communities as they are passed from person to person. We’re so concerned with getting our stories out into the world that we miss out on listening to those of others and one by one each story is lost without really being shared.
Over the next two months I am travelling from Iceland to Canada, through Northern America and finishing up in Latin America. I have a sneaky feeling I am going to meet many people and go to a few places with fascinating stories which I would like to share with you here. I may even include a few of my own if anything particularly exciting happens! I hope you will read and enjoy these tales but I also hope that you will listen to a few, remember them, share them, say them aloud, make other people listen and then share your own.
Happy storytelling!
Tall Tales 