Storytelling Quote for a Monday

Storytelling is the oldest form of education.

--Terry Tempest Williams

I changed the page on my Women Reading 2015 Calendar today from August to September and the above quote greeted me at the bottom of the page. I was pleased with it and thought I would share with you. Which then made me think that I needed to go ahead and preorder my 2016 calendar. I love The Reading Woman calendars so I chose this one The Reading Woman 2016 Calendar. I mostly use electronic calendars but somehow having a wall calendar helps me visualize the month better. Besides, it adds a little bit of art to my office library.

Lord Buchan and Stormy Times

The Old Book by William Merritt Chase

I take it to be a great advantage, that one can amuse one’s self with an old idle story in these stormy times.--Lord Buchan

Lord Buchan was an early folklorist, who gathered tales in Scotland primarily around the 1830s. Some of the tales he collected, as well as this quote, can be found in his Ancient Scottish Tales, available for reading online. You can read more about his contributions at Peter Buchan, and other papers on Scottish and English ballads and songs (1915).

Anyway, I enjoyed reading that Buchan found joy in folklore as a balm to his own modern times almost 200 years ago. Another reminder, as folklore is itself, that the human condition has always been a challenge.

Quote of the Day: Old Wine and Old Wives' Tales

Old wine is often all the better for being re-bottled;
perhaps old wives’ tales are like that, too.

—from "Big Claus and Little Claus"
by R. J. Yeatman and W. C. Sellar

Found in The Fairies Return: Or, New Tales for Old (Oddly Modern Fairy Tales). It was so charming, I didn't want to lose it in the long post about the book. It also opens up Maria Tatar's Introduction to the book.

Robin McKinley, Deerskin, Fairy Tales, and Horror

On her blog this week, Robin McKinley has written about her book, Deerskin, and some perceptions of it as a horror genre book. Her thoughts are interesting and I am on her side. I don't consider Deerskin a horror novel as horrific as a few elements are. Here is an excerpt with her thoughts on fairy tales in the midst of the discussion:

The line between fairy tales and horror for me—and for a number of you who have posted or commented or tweeted to this effect—is that fairy tales tend to be about working through your traumas, your horrors, your fears, your great big insurmountable obstacles. Horror tends to plonk them down and say yup, there they are. Trauma, horror, fear and insurmountable obstacles. Have fun. People die in fairy tales and the happy endings may be a little crinkly around the edges but generally some kind of something worth having is won through to. In horror . . . at best you learn coping mechanisms, you build your enclaves. The zombies and the vampires don’t go away. I believe that Lissar is going to be okay. She’s won. She’ll always have the scars—but she’s won.

I read Deerskin when it was first released years ago and was young and not expecting what dwelt between the covers. I shy away from the horror genre, too, with very few exceptions. Deerskin is not for the faint of heart but it is a powerful, wonderful book and has had a lasting impact on fairy tale novelizations. I know that many of my horror adoring friends would shy away from this book because it is all too real, not fantastical or horrific enough. Yes, perception is personal. Too bad we need genre to help us narrow down the thousands of choices at times. I read more and more across genres so I value them but also agonize over them and the prejudices inherent against them. And I am not anti-horror any more than I am anti other genres. It just isn't my personal taste.

But McKinley in the paragraph above summarized one of the reasons I love fairy tales and cringe whenever they are dismissed by those who don't understand them.

Quotable: Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

I was recently rereading one of my favorite books from my teenage years, a gem by Eloise Jarvis McGraw whose more popular titles include The Moorchild, Mara: Daughter of the Nile, The Golden Goblet and The Moccasin Trail. While all of these are worthy books, I consider McGraw's masterpiece to be her little known Greensleeves. You can see how popular it is by looking at its high prices for used copies with Amazon and other used booksellers.

To my knowledge it has never been reprinted since it's original run in the late 1960s. Somehow I discovered it dusty and neglected on the school library shelf a few decades later, borrowed it and fell in love. No, it doesn't have much of a fairy tale influence although one could argue for it being a brilliant modern day (albeit 1960s, so not so modern) Cinderella. There's a secret identity, a fairy godfather of sorts and a hero who behaves like a prince.

But its appearance on this blog is brought about by a small quote during a conversation between the main character and a friend. Here it is:

“There’s a whole book here about it that she used to read me out of. She used to read me Grimm’s Fairy Tales, too.” Wynola glanced at me defensively. “You might think I was too old for those, but she read them herself, all the time. She said fairy tales were good for people.”

“Good for people? How?”

“Well said, ‘Same way helium is good for a balloon.’”

What more can I say? Until tomorrow...