Thanks, Michael, for your contribution over the weekend, which certainly got my mind ticking over. I don't know whether I can help you get any nearer the nub, but I just wanted to run with a couple of your ideas.
I certainly agree that there is a difference between the way we have connected with stories and the way our forebears did. I, like you, developed an interest in storytelling as an adult through theatre work and my development as a storyteller involved a lot of reading, research and rehearsal. As far as I'm aware none of my forebears did this. But then again, my forebears were basketmakers, millworkers, carpenters and officeworkers, rather than storytellers, earning a crust from schools and library visits! Neither does this mean that they were exposed to a 'hearthside' tradition of storytelling, whereby adults would entertain children and other adults with long, epic folk and fairy tales, transmitted orally through the generations.
It might be useful for us to differentiate (or at least be aware of the differences) between our relationship with tradition as (professional)storytellers and that relationship as human beings. When you point out that most of us are not dyed in the wool tradition bearers, I think that is quite right, in the sense that my own storytelling work is very eclectic, drawing material from many cultural traditions. I do this for a number of sound educational reasons, since most of my work has been within schools.
Is there not also a sense that when we say we're not tradition bearers we actually mean that we're not bona fide bearers of a somewhat idealised notion of a 'hearthside' tradition?
I must say that I for one am a little uncomfortable with the term 'hearthside' tradition because it carries with it romantic, cosy images pre-industrial peasant culture and even if this kind of storytelling did occur in exactly the way we like to imagine it, I'm pretty sure that most of us would have to go back quite a few generations to find evidence of it.
On the other hand, of course, we are all tradition bearers by the very fact that we are human beings and all human beings, even those who lead high tech cosmopolitan lives, contribute to and bear storytelling traditions. I myself, being an atheist, am only involved in secular, social traditions, whereas others who are following this conference may also be involved in sacred and spiritual traditions. Therefore, my own traditions centre around the social situations in which I find myself, which are essentially the family and the pub (and to a lesser extent professional contexts). These are both strong and vibrant storytelling traditions of which I am a part and, in the case of my family, many of the stories are retold many times as they are passed from generation to generation, whilst each generation adds its own stories and each branch of the family develop its own particular stories that are pertinent to them. And I'm sure that most other people enjoy similar experiences with their families.
Interestingly, perhaps, these are pretty much the same traditions as those in which my parents participated, and their parents before them. So whilst I may be engaging with storytelling in a different way from my earlier forebears, I am, at least on a human level, continuing the storytelling traditions of my recent forebears. It's only that as a professional storyteller I want to reach back to my more distant forebears and to engage with other cultural traditions, as well!
In fact, this all leads back (in a roundabout way!) to the discussion I had with my colleague from Cameroon, which you wanted me to elaborate on, Michael. The context was that I was asked to give a short talk to a lecturers' conference about the value of storytelling within Higher Education. What I did was no great shakes, as I had little time to prepare, so I said a few pertinent things about the function of stories within society and then filled the rest of my time by telling a couple of stories.
One story was a true story from my own family's repertoire and the other was a version of the Scottish traveller tale 'Death in a Nut', which I got from Duncan Williamson. My Cameroonian (?) colleague said afterwards that the session had put her memory back in touch with her own storytelling traditions and she went on to describe her life as a child in the village being told a range of traditional tales, myths and legends by her grandparents of an evening - in other words, something not so very
different from the 'hearthside' tradition, as we understand it. However, what I found interesting was that, although she enjoyed 'Death in a Nut' (which, not surprisingly perhaps, reminded her of a number of stories from her own culture), it was actually my personal family story that really triggered the memories for her. What I suppose this was, was a recognition that here there were two very different traditions, but they were our traditions, they were living traditions and equally important in spite of their differences!
So I agree with Michael that we do need to be more specific about our understanding of tradition. However, at the same time this needs to be tempered by the fact that we are all going to come up with different definitions, and I don't see anything wrong with that. I think that we should celebrate the fact that there are many different storytelling traditions, new and old, all equally valid, and not all conform to the romantic, idealised form.
As a footnote, I also wanted to say that I loved the references to Tomas O Canainn. In particular, I liked the story of Martin Freeman discovering that the singers from whom he was collecting attributed unintelligibility to antiquity, to which they in turn attached greater value. The modern folklorist, of course, would also ask to what extent this might be the transfer of Freeman's own agenda onto that of his informants! If antiquity was one of Freeman's own value criteria (which it was for most folklorists at this time), then the singers would have become aware of this very quickly and it would have been quite natural for them to absorb (even subconsciously) this attitude, especially if Freeman was seen as the academic expert who was able to interpret this material. The question of the influence of the collector on the material s/he collects is a very interesting one and one that has been explored by a number of folklorists in recent years, and particularly well by Lee Haring in his article 'Performing for the Interviewer' (Southern Folklore Quarterly, vol.36, 1972, pp.383-98). Well worth a read, if you can get hold of a copy!
PS I also like Michael's idea of artistic statements.
posted 27/7/98