The true history of the Great Kanchil Stalking

Adventure! Drama! High speed chases! Plot twists! Jungles!

We visited the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich.

Meeting a live Mouse Deer has been on my bucket list for years. Some people travel hundreds of miles to meet their favorite actors, or see their favorite band live. Me, I got on a train and traveled six hours to Munich to see a tiny ungulate that looks like a chihuahua got bitten by a vampire. Sue me.

Mouse Deer bookmarks for
my new book, art by Diána Laurent

Of course if you know me you probably know why I am so obsessed with the little critters. Mouse Deer, or Kanchil is the trickster figure of the folklore of Indonesia and Malaysia. What Loki is to the Norse, Anansi is to the Ashanti, and Br'er Rabbit is to African-American tradition, that's Kanchil for Southeast Asia. Over the course of centuries of oral tradition he's turned from prey animal into the worst nightmare of bigger, stronger, dumber bullies wish as Tiger. In one story he tricks Tiger into eating elephant dung (claiming it is the king's gourmet pudding), and in another he escapes a pit trap by making everyone believe Doomsday is coming. Both tales, and many others, have been a part of my storytelling repertoire, and they never disappoint. Kanchil is a star whether the audience consists of children, adults, or even moody teenagers. Long story short: I was not visiting the zoo to look at animals. I was meeting a celebrity.

Obviously it is not easy to get an appointment with a trickster. I already tried once at the Prague zoo last year, where, after hours of searching, I was informed by a zookeeper that Kanchil is "staff only." Oh well, I thought, there have to be other Mouse Deer in Europe, so I got on this very useful website that lists all zoo holdings. Bingo: Munich, Hellabrunn Zoo, one Javan Mouse Deer. From here, it was easy-peasy to put the zoo on the itinerary of our Bavarian vacation.
(Any allegations that the whole vacation was planned around Mouse Deer have no basis in reality and I have a boyfriend who will confirm that statement.)

Wolverine having a splash

We visited the zoo on a nice, cloudy Thursday. It is an amazing place, one of the best I have ever seen - green, spacious,  lush, with large habitats and all kinds of modern comforts. We got there shortly after opening time at 9am, and spent a good six hours wandering around. The animals seemed content and active - the wolverine splashed around, the pallas cat was hunting frogs, the polar bears were diving, the tortoises raced each other, the red panda was climbing a tree, so all in all, there was a lot to see and enjoy. Kanchil was not marked on any map, but we kept our eyes open, thinking that eventually we would run into it. We did see a bunch of Chinese muntjaks, which are related to Kanchil and also appear in some stories, but no matter how we looked, we could not locate the genuine article. Eventually, around noon we sat down for an ice cream and turned to the Internet for help. With my sporadic knowledge of German (including the essential terms "wo ist" and "kleinkantschil") I figured out that we need to look for Kanchil in the Jungle House. We had already been there and missed him, but now we were going to do better. And not get distracted by the neighboring pallas cat.

Find anything in this, I dare you

The Jungle House is essentially a large tropical green house without fences or walls, in which many different animals share a space with visitors in peace, respect, and 90% humidity. The most noticeable residents are the tropical birds like the pretty white Bali mynas (one of my favorite birds) and the busy little crested partridges (under the amazing Latin name Rollulus rouloul) - but there is also a Mouse Deer in there. Somewhere.

Pretty birb

The problem with tropical green houses is that they emulate the jungle really well - so much so that you can't really find anything in them that does not want to be found. Case in point: we spent more than an hour poking our heads under palm leaves and into bushes, searching high and low, climbing on rocks and observing the foliage from the bridge above - but there was nor hide nor hair of Mouse Deer anywhere. The other visitors (of which there were many) must have thought we were some special kind of weirdos as we rustled around, looking for some imaginary being, and occasionally shot nasty glances at smaller toddling primates that ran around screaming, chasing the partridges. The latter in particular were getting on my nerves: every time something moved in the shadows, it turned out to be just another damn partridge.

There was a sign, someone just turned it

I was starting to get very annoyed at the jungle chickens when I finally spotted something else: a zookeper. I ran up to her and inquired about Kanchil; she told me that there were indeed Kanchil in the Jungle House, three in total, but they tend to hide from crowds and loud noises, and one only has a chance of seeing them early in the morning. I was very disappointed to hear that: for one, not one, but THREE Kanchil were hiding from me somewhere in there, and two, I had absolutely no chance to actually see them until people took their dozens of screaming children home from the zoo. With an aching heart I gave up the search, noting that one can only meet a trickster if the trickster itself wills it so.

Or... early in the morning.

I spent that evening weighing the pros and cons of returning to the zoo the next day (Daryl, my significant other, knows me well enough that he already knew we were going back). Paying the entrance fee another time just to see one puny Kanchil (or three) did not seem like a logical decision. On the other hand, my storyteller self pointed out, we could have been a mere arm's length away from the Mouse Deer the whole time, and trying once more is still cheaper than traveling all the way to Munich a second time, right? It's how you save money. Besides, if we failed again, at least we could say that we have done everything possible, paid the learning fees, and gave the whole mission maximum effort. The rest would be up to the trickster gods.

Jungle in the morning

Long story short, we returned to the zoo on Friday morning. We made a detailed action plan: We showed up half an hour before opening time at the back entrance, because it is closer to the Jungle House. We stood first in line at the gate, wallet at the ready, and spotted the closest cashier in advance. When the gates opened, we took a running start, left the other people behind, bought our tickets, and took off to the Jungle House at a brisk pace. We hurried past elephants and sleepy gibbons, and the few pensioners who got in before us because they have zoo passes, and we made it to the Jungle House way before any other visitor even got close.

There was no one there, except for us... and the maintenance crew.

Take a Boy Scout to the zoo

When we entered in Stealth Mode, we were greeted by metallic clanging and loud conversation: Two men were fixing something on top of one of the habitats. The sound almost made me cry. I could see my chances to meet Mouse Deet evaporating into thin air. It was a pity, really, because apart from the noise, the Jungle House was lovely in the early morning: Mist was covering everything, water dripped from the leaves, the fruit bats were fighting up in the trees, and there were colorful birds gathering in all the sunny spots. Even though I did not have much hope left for spotting a Mouse Deer, we still started on a close sweep of the area. We poked our heads into bushes and shrubbery for a good ten to fifteen minutes, when, walking off the jungle bridge, I noticed an elderly gentleman sitting in a rolling camp chair, staring at a sunny spot on the ground. When I got closer, he smiled at me, and started talking in German, pointing at the spot. I did not get what he was saying at all, except for one very important word. "Kleinkantschil?" I asked hopefully. He nodded with a smile. "Ja, kleinkantschil."
Kanchil chose that exact moment to poke his nose out into the clearing.

There is a Mouse Deer
in this photo

I am happy to say that I managed to cover my mouth before I squealed out in delight. Kanchil, placing his dainty little stick legs carefully on the fallen leaves, jogged across the clearing and hid behind a rock; then, a few moments later, poked his head out again, and jogged back the other way. It was too short an encounter to do anything but marvel and fangirl, but it was for sure: I had just seen my very first live Mouse Deer! While I kept staring at the sunny spot, Daryl, who has the practical training of a Boy Scout, circled around the bushes to the other side, and waved at me to follow. There, across the little stream, was Kanchil again, in person and full profile, a mere six feet away from us! He stared at us a little suspiciously, scratched his ears, nibbled on his own rump, then lifted one hind leg up and started licking it (at first I thought he was eating a stick, which says a lot about Kanchil aesthetics). I stared at the stunning display for long minutes until my legs fell asleep, and the Mouse Deer got bored and walked off into the bush.

There!

Kanchil and Csenge

By now, however, we were on to Kanchil and his tricks: We knew exactly where to look. We returned to the sunny clearing, where we spotted Mouse Deer again. In fact, we spent the next hour and a half going back and forth between the clearing and the stream - and it only took us about thirty minutes to figure out that we were not looking at one Mouse Deer, but two (so much about the Tortoise and the Hare). Kanchil were doing their morning routine licking their fur, drinking water, licking their own eyes, and shaking their little tails. They even graciously allowed us to take some photos (despite the jungle chickens that kept trying to photobomb everything).
The fun came to a close when more and more people started showing up with their children, and the noise chased the Mouse Deer into the deeper shadows of the jungle. But by then I was content: For an hour and a half in that nice morning, we were at a private audience with Mouse Deer! We paid our price for the experience, but it was totally, completely worth it.

Go out into the world, people, and chase down your Mouse Deer!

Tricky Borders: FEST Storytelling Conference, 2019.

"Tricky Borders" - this was the title given to the 2019 FEST storytelling conference by the organizers, who represented three countries together: Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The conference this year took place in the Euregio, where the borders of those three countries meet. Our headquarters was on the Netherlands side in Rolduc Abbey, and we took short trips to Aachen and the Belgian countryside. No wonder that in a place like this our main focus this year was borders - and tricksters who tend to cross them.

The day of arrival was mostly spent by talking, meeting new people, and greeting old friends (while consuming lots of cold drinks in the scorching heat). I was happy to see George Macpherson again - I met him at my first FEST conference in Lausanne in 2009, and I have read all of his books. Next to old friends I also made some new acquaintances from exciting places such as Luxembourg, Lithuania, and the Leprechaun Museum in Dublin (it was their first time at FEST, and I was happy to see them, as I am a big fan of their storytelling work).
On the first full day of the conference we had an all-day General Assembly which was smooth and well organized. We voted on the site of the 2022 conference (hello, Vilnius!) and a new Executive Committee member (hello, Agnieszka Aysen Kaim from Poland!), learned about the current and future storytelling projects FEST is supporting, and got a glimpse of the storytelling competency system that is being developed (more about that later). In the evening there was a performance titled Nowhere Lane, by Belgian storyteller Joe Boele who told stories about the life of Roma communities in the mid-20th century. The show was based on a book written by another white person who traveled with the Roma, and it was a well constructed performance, although there were some parts of it that made me feel uncomfortable about the authenticity of presenting these stories twice removed from the original source.

On the second morning of the conference we took a bus to a modern art museum in Aachen, where we spent the morning with lectures on the intersection of science and storytelling. George Macpherson told us a legend about Dian Cécht and related it to modern medicine; Giovanna Conforto talked about the importance of storytelling in science communication; Dr. Anke Groß-Kunkel from the University of Cologne introduced us to a fascinating multisensory storytelling project for people living with Profound Intellectual Multiple Disabilities. Over lunch break we wandered around downtown, visited the Aachen cathedral, ate ice cream, and talked, and then we got back on the bus and went on a short tour around three countries. We briefly ventured into Belgium, circled back to the Netherlands, got off the bus, walked across to Germany (visiting Charlemagne's huntingchapel on the way), then got back on the bus, and returned to Rolduc Abbey chased by a thunderstorm. It was a lovely trip, peppered by frequent text messages from my cellphone service provider, pinging "Welcome to Belgium/Germany/Netherlands" every few minutes... 

Friday afternoon was filled with various workshops and talks. I went to George Macpherson's "Traditional storytelling" session where he told us stories and we listened in awe, and occasionally asked questions. After that I migrated over to Sam Cannarozzi's "Science and Storytelling" talk, which was a delightful surprise: Sam decorated the whole room (including himself) with various versions of the periodic table. When we entered, everyone got assigned an element (by dice or by cards; I got Phosphorus), and Sam told us interesting facts and stories about each of them. We hunted for mythology references in the table together, and learned a lot about the history and discovery of many of the elements, from alchemists to chemists. Lots of fun!
The Friday evening presentation was brought to us by Chris Adriaanse, a storyteller and linguist from the UK, who told us about the various trickster-tools Trump and his campaign apply to manipulate people. The talk was peppered by trickster stories about Tyl Uilenspiegel (by Regina Sommer and Tom van Outryve), and sparked intense conversations among storytellers about whether or not Trump qualifies as a trickster. For the record, in my opinion, HE DOES NOT.

Saturday was another day full of workshops. In the morning I joined Regina Sommer's "The Tricksters of Tomorrow" circle, where we spent three hours brainstorming about what makes a trickster, what tools tricksters have in the modern world, and what role tricksters can/will play in social and historical change in the present and future. We came up with some fascinating ideas and systems, and we even considered organizing a trickster-themed gathering to work on them more.
In the afternoon, instead of going to workshops, I participated in creating videos for FEST's new storytelling competency system. The plan was introduced to us at the General Assembly by Veva Gerard. It is a great idea for organizing and outlining what competencies play an important part in training storytellers, and is detailed and organized enough to be the basis of accrediting storytelling programs in the EU. It contains competencies grouped by aspects of a storyteller's work such as Artist, Performer, Researcher, Team Player, etc. It is still in its testing phase, but it is flexible enough to be useful, color-coded, and the creators even brought us some games so that we could test and discuss it. In addition, they set up a studio to record short video snippets of storytellers talking about the importance of various competencies. I recorded three of them, and while I was waiting for my turn, I played around with the colorful little cards outside the door. The idea was to pick my eight most important competencies out of forty, and see what colors (themes) they represent. Here is my "storytelling fingerprint":

Purple: researcher, Blue: craftsman, Orange: team player,
Green: artist, Yellow: performer

I also shuffled them around and picked the eight competencies I personally deemed most important to teach to beginning storytellers. Here is my "teaching fingerprint":

Grey: entrepreneur

The system is still being tested and refined (they just put Tradition Bearer back into it, after some convincing from Irish, French, and, er, Hungarian participants), but I think it is a great system and a very useful idea. Congratulations to the developers!

All that was left for Saturday evening was the closing ceremony. First, we got to witness the performance of the people who participated in the mixed reality storytelling workshop. It was great fun to watch them tell stories and use virtual reality technology to illustrate them. After the show, the organizers of this year's conference handed the torch over to the Turkish delegates, who will host us next year. The evening concluded with a surprise: Paola Balbi, accompanied by a jazz musician, presented us an excerpt of a historical storytelling show about early feminism in Northern Italy. Paola is a storytelling powerhouse, and despite the late hour, her performance was utterly captivating.

Of course FEST conferences (like all storytelling gatherings) are a lot more than just workshops and presentations. In-between sessions there was a lat of talking, laughter, dancing, singing, debating, getting to know each other, and solving the great philosophical questions of our time (usually with beer). It was a fun, well organized, informative conference - in three countries at once.

We shall meet again next year in Turkey!

MythOff Athens: Mythical Firsts

The theme for this year's World Storytelling Day was "Myths, legends, and epics" - and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to organize a MythOff! With the support of the Federation for European Storytelling, six international storytellers and three artists banded together to bring my favorite myth-telling event to a new country: Greece! You can't even wish for a better setting to tell some myths.

Interestingly enough, we found out, Greek audiences are not usually that much into mythology. Mostly because the Greek myths are commonly known and taught, most Greek storytellers tend to select less often told stories. We had no idea, while working on the event, if anyone was going to show up at all, and if they did, how they would like the show.

In the end, we had almost seventy people in the audience, and an amazing storytelling evening to remember.

The MythOff took place in the Museum of Cycladic Art (one of my favorite museums in Athens), in one of their spacious presentation rooms. At the front of the room, behind the stage area, there was a long table where our artists were seated. That's right! For the firs time in MythOff history, we had artists creating illustrations for the myths, real time, while we were telling! Each story got its own picture, and the storytellers got to take them home. I'm still reeling from the awesomeness.
The voting happened at the end of the evening, with the use of small white pebbles. People dropped them in the vessels marked by the artists, to pick their stories, and placed them next to the pictures, to select their favorites. The artists insisted on being a part of the competition, but the choice, frankly, was near impossible.

An now, for the play-by-play:

Round One: Fire Thieves

I was lucky to be the first teller of the evening. I told the Abkhaz Nart saga of How Sasruquo Plucked Down a Star (and then acquired fire by tricking a terrifying giant). It is a great tale of a bullied hero, a powerful mother-goddess, and lots of funny shenanigans. To match all that, Vasileia Vaxevani told the Greek myth of Prometheus with equal humor and drama. Even Herakles made an appearance at the end.
Voting question: If you wanted to have a cigarette, and had to ask for fire, whom would you rather ask for it?
The winner: Prometheus!
The pictures: Ironically, the Fire round had watercolor pictures, and the Sea round had charcoal. Out illustrations were created by the incredible Yannis (John) Rubus (you can find his art page here), who didn't only draw incredible scenes for both myths, but also received the winner's crown (or rather, souvenir hairband) for the best art.

Round Two: Women

Since it is directly attached to the Prometheus myth, we got to hear the story of Pandora next, told by Maria Terzaki with great eloquence, and subtle hints at how many different ways that story can be understood. The other half of the duo was Mattia Di Pierro from Italy, who told the creation story of Lilith and Eve, and managed to surprise us more than once.
Voting question: If you had to ask for help creating something (or someone), whom would you rather ask?
The winner: Pandora! (or rather, her creation team)
The pictures: It is only fair that myths about women were illustrated by a woman, the wonderful Eugenia Koumaki.

Round Three: The Sea

The first storyteller of the last round, Torgrim Mellim Stene, arrived from Norway, and brought with him a story from Greenland. The story of Sedna tells about a girl who marries a sea bird, but her father tears her away from him. In the enduing battle, she is thrown into the sea with her fingers cut off, and thus becomes the mother of all three creatures, and the goddess of the waters. This story was matched by Ifigenia Kakridoni, who told the bittersweet Greek myth of Scylla and Glaukos, with a guest appearance from Circe. It seemed that the audience was less familiar with this than the other Greek stories, and they sounded both surprised and delighted.
Voting question: If you had to get a makeover, which transformation would you rather choose?
The winner: Sedna!

The pictures: This round was illustrated by Dimitrios Kasdaglis. For the last story, he set up a flip chart and we all got to watch him work onthe figure of Glaukos while listening to the myth. It was enchanting. 

The whole evening went great, and people seemed to have lots of fun both with the stories and with the setup of MythOff. They were already talking about having another one while we were counting the votes! We celebrated the event with dinner and drinks, showing off the artwork to each other and to the Internet (I already have mine framed). I am sure this was not the last time MythOff came to Athens. I can't wait to see what happens next!

From Homer to Assassin's Creed - Epics, games, and digital storytelling

This week I attended a conference organized by the Haus der Märchen und Geschichten of Aachen, and the University of Cologne with the support of FEST. The conference was on the contemporary adaptations and associations of Homer's Odyssey. I was invited to present a lecture on my dissertation topic (soon to be published as a book with a hot half-naked gladiator on the cover), forum-based role-playing games as a form of digital storytelling.
Incidentally, this was also my first time ever visiting Germany.

I arrived in Cologne on a Wednesday, and since I was greeted by icy winds and rain (later turning into a hailstorm and a nearby tornado), I spent the time before my AirBnB became available inside the cathedral. It is a gorgeous Gothic  building that one can spend a lot of time inside. Among many interesting things, I got to see the reliquary of the Magi, of which I have fond memories from university lectures taught by Dr. Németh György (apparently, the reason why Balthasar is usually portrayed as a black man can be traced back to a Roman gemma used to decorate this reliquary). I cheerfully wandered around the cathedral for a few hours, grateful for all the things to see - since the nearby Roman-Germanic Museum proved to be stubbornly closed to visitors.

The conference itself took place in one of the lecture halls of the University of Cologne. Most of the presentations were in German, which I could more or less follow in the morning, but by the afternoon, my brain was beginning to lose track of things. Still, I was proud of catching the gist. There were presentations on the narrative structure of Homer's Odyssey (Dr. Katharina Kostopoulos), the adaptations of the epic into film and comics (Dr. Michael Kleu), Assassin's Creed Odyssey and its historical and narrative elements, and Odyssey motifs in Tad Williams' novels (Dr. Simon Lentzsch). I myself talked about forum-based role-playing games, their similarities to certain mechanics of oral tradition, and how they adapt mythical characters and stories into text-based gaming. Participants were eager and interested, and we had some good Q&A after the lecture.

The treat of the day was, obviously, the storytelling. Daniel Morden and Hugh Lupton were invited to tell us their two-hour rendering of the Odyssey, in English. Both of them are masterful storytellers, and hearing the epic told by them, coming alive in spoken word, gave me chills all over. The organizers made sure we had hot tea, cookies, and chocolate, so that we could appropriately immerse ourselves in the listening experience. It was a lovely way to spend the morning.
In the evening, we closed the conference with a free and lively discussion, and invited the remaining participants to join us for delicious dinner at a small café. It was a great company of researchers, Classicists, storytellers, gamers, and other fun people.

Since my flight was scheduled for the evening of the next day, I had another half a day to explore Cologne. Getting off the tram at Neumarkt I ran straight into the March 15th #FridaysforFuture march, and got to witness thousands of children and teenagers protesting for climate action. It was an incredible experience that restored a lot of my faith in humanity. The kids are here to save us all.

Since it was also raining pretty hard by then, I decided to underground, and visit the Roman Praetorium. It is a great archaeological site that no one else seemed to be interested in at the time, so I got to wander around alone in the Roman sewer system and the covered ruins area. (The sewers also figure into a fun legend about the building of the cathedral, in which they allegedly were dug out by the devil.)

It was a short trip, but a lot of fun. Cologne is a nice city, and the conference was great - not just because of the storytelling, but because I got to see so many researchers from different fields come together to share our enthusiasm for old stories and new adaptations. I hope FEST will support other events like this in the future. Game on, people! :)

An island on a sea of stories: Cape Clear Island International Storytelling Festival

It was almost exactly 10 years ago that I sat in a cafe in Jonesborough with Dovie Thomason, and she told me about Cape Clear for the first time. It sounded like a magical place, the kind storytellers would wish to find their way to, and I have been dreaming about going there ever since.
Well, dreams do come true sometimes.

This year I had the absolute privilege to be a featured teller of the Cape Clear Island International Storytelling Festival. I flew from Budapest to Dublin (a special thanks to the Hungarian Embassy in Dublin!), then took a road trip down to Cork, with my gracious host and friend Jack Lynch, and Lyn Ford, a lovely storyteller friend I already knew from Ohio. At the end of the road trip we just caught the 5 o'clock ferry from Baltimore to Cape Clear (we might or might not have stopped to hit some book shops on the way). By the time we were aboard, I could already catch my first glimpse of what awaited me for the weekend. Most passengers on the ferry were either storytellers, or audience, or both; the island only has about 100 inhabitants, but that number swells by the hundreds when the festival comes around. I quickly made friends with one of the other featured tellers, Daniel Morden from Wales, who braved the icy rain on top of the ferry with me, and helped me spot dolphins, seals, and birds (while we also discussed folktales and myths of all kinds). On the island we were greeted by our hosts and organizers, and set up in a cozy B&B, with delicious food cooked for us and tea ready. It was easy to tell that we were going to get horribly spoiled by the end of the week, but no one seemed to worry about that.
(Special thanks go out to Daphne Babington, Liz Weir, Maura Monagle, and Karen Edwards for making us all feel like we just arrived home)

The great thing about Cape Clear (apart from the warm hospitality) is that everyone who is there made a great effort to be there. We had audience members from as far as Canada and New Zealand, but even if they just came over from the mainland, or down the road, audience members were set, eager, and ready to come with us into every story we told. You could not wish for better listeners even if you tried. On top of all that, we also had a team of young volunteers that kept everything moving smoothly, and were there whenever we needed something - whether it was a lift to the top of the hill, or a song.

Each evening of the festival had a concert in a school building on a scenic spot of the island, and each day sported many other storytelling events at various locations. We opened the program with Hear All Tellers, where everyone had ten minutes to show off their stories and their style. Next to the four featured storytellers, we also had with us John Spillane, an amazing musician from Cork, who framed all the performances with beautiful songs in Irish and English. I brought Hungarian folktales and legends, and Lyn Ford brought Affrilachian stories; Joe Brennan, from Wexford via Donegal, told some wonderful Irish tales, while Daniel Morden told stories from all around the world with great humor and eloquence. On the first evening concert, he even ventured to tell a Hungarian folktale... I might have encouraged him to do so, because it is such a rare treat to hear a great storyteller from abroad tell a Hungarian tale. Daniel did it justice, and we had fun with him calling on me every time he had to pronounce "vasorrú bába" (iron-nosed witch) in the story. On my part, I told a legend about Attila the Hun; he came up earlier in a conversation, and I asked the audience if they have heard about him. Most people raised their hands; but when I asked how many of them heard good things, they all laughed and no hands went up. Therefore I told the tale of Attila and the comedians, and introduced them to another side of the Huns; the next evening, I went on to telling the legend of Attila's son, Prince Csaba, and the creation of the Milky Way (which we call the Road of the Warriors). For the rest of the weekend, I was mostly telling Hungarian folktales (among them many of my favorites from my new book), as well as the one Nart saga that I included in a moment of inspiration, since I only know it from two places, Ireland and Ossetia. Among the stories, I had the chance to tell my "feminist" re-telling of a Hungarian folktale called The Gossipy Women, a funny story that originally was told to prove that all women gossip - but in my version, it is told to prove that women share information and help each other in many secret ways.

The evening concerts were always a treat. They were framed by John's wonderful music (among them a song that I immediately fell in love with), and always closed with us singing popular Irish songs together with the audience. Con Ó Drisceoil also joined us for one day, and made us laugh with his songs until we were in tears. I'm not going to say that we exceeded seating limits on the Saturday night concert... I'm just going to point out that some people were standing on chairs, leaning in through the windows to hear us. It would take too long to list all the magical tales I heard over the course of the weekend, but there are many that I will remember fondly. I especially loved Lyn Ford's Cherokee story about Rabbit's heart song (funny and wise, as most trickster tales are), Joe Brennan's Irish version of the Hiding-from-the-Princess story (one of my favorite tale types), and Daniel Morden's telling of an Aesop's fable about love after loss.

I also had the chance to go on a walk across the island, led by Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil and Geoff Oliver. The sun came out for those two hours, and we listened to all kinds of tales about island life, folklore, and wildlife as we walked from North Harbor to the south. For the rest of the weekend, Cape Clear was wrapped in romantic Celtic fog, showing all kinds of picturesque faces of itself; one could walk around, admire the wildflowers, eat the blackberries, and watch the tide come in and go out in complete peace. It really is a magical place.

Sunday evening, after the last concert, we all walked down to the harbor, to say goodbye to the people who were leaving on the six o'clock ferry. In the tradition of the festival, we did so by waving long stripes of toilet paper in the air, singing "Go home, ya bums!" at the top of our lungs as the ferry moved away, carrying people who returned out heartfelt goodbyes with heartfelt gestures. In the evening, we had dinner in the pub with the organizers and the volunteers, told stories and jokes, sang songs, and laughed a lot. The next morning, we got on the ferry to return to the mainland, and, in a way, reality.

All those stories about magical islands in the sea seem a lot more realistic now. I know for sure I have been to one of them.

Where in the world is Juanita Harrison?

She had me at the title, really.
I love reading travel journals; the older, the better, and extra great if it was written by a woman. I came across Juanita Harrison's book by accident, but even before I clicked on the free ebook, the title already sold it:

There is so much love and joy in that title, there was no question whether I was going to like this book.
And then it got better.

Here is what we know about Juanita Harrison: She was born around 1891 in Mississippi, she was a woman of color, she worked various jobs in the US and Cuba, until in 1927, at the age of 36, she decided to travel around the world, so she packed up a suitcase, got on a ship, and set out on a 7 year adventure.

And then it gets even better.

Here are some things I absolutely adore about Juanita:

(Yes, this book is the grammar pedant's worst nightmare, which makes it even more awesome)

1. She is not a rich lady waltzing around the world. She calls herself a "rover"; she freelances wherever she goes, taking odd jobs to earn money. Whenever she has enough for the next leg of the journey, she quits immediately, and "loafs around", enjoying her vacation, until the money runs out.

2. She values fun over objects. She regularly gets rid of her entire suitcase (once she gifts it to a maid at a house she works at), and she only ever mentions buying two frivolous things: Postcards, and books. See why I like her yet?

3. Talking about books: Wherever she goes, Juanita visits the local library to read about the places she is visiting. She also spends time in various libraries for fun.

4. In general, she spends on adventures rather than things:

"I left New York with a ten dollar hat on my head but it rained so often in London and Scotland that it have taken all the life out of it I thought of buying another but for that money I can go into so many grand old castles and manisons that I can still see beauty in it."

She runs to save the taxi money for the opera, and when she finds some coins on the ground, she goes back to the world fair a second time to look around. She takes dance lessons in Spain, goes to public baths in Japan (and shows off her pink bra), visits cabarets and festivals, and especially enjoys crashing local weddings and funerals to see what they are like...

5. She claims her space and she does not apologize for it.

"I got a passage on the Orient Line on a lovely boat and they say the 3rd Class are as good as the second on the other lines. I gave my likes and dislikes a Cabin without children and uper berth, and will be ready to fight to get what I want once on boad so no one need piety me."

6. She sets her boundaries and sticks to them.

"I dont want anyone fooling with my room rent, my room is my personal self they can give me my food or little presents but I dont want any one to be able to come to my room."

7. She decorates her spaces, even when she only lives in them for a few days; she hangs curtains, buys flowers, and scrubs the floors. The short time while she works at a mental institute for children in Spain, she makes sure they get new, nicer pots.

8. She has a great deal of common sense. She sews pockets to her "bloomers", never lets her passport out of her hand, scrubs washing basins before she uses them, shops at local markets, and always pretends to stay at a hotel when someone walks her "home."

9. She punches men who try to hit on her too aggressively. Apparently, she has a mean upper cut.

10. She does not hate men, however, and is also not afraid of them. In fact, she enjoys flirting, and makes comments about the men of various countries, especially the really hot ones.

"I like best to tease with the handsome blue caped policeman, because when I have heard enough I can step away from his beat which he can not leave."

11. She takes deep, absolute, and pure enjoyment in everything she does. She walks barefoot in the grass around the Taj Mahal, and takes a nap in the shade. She drinks fresh milk in the Netherlands while watching the sunrise. She takes everything as an adventure; she climbs a lamppost to get a look at the Spanish Queen, laughs herself silly on a ship tossed around by a typhoon in Japan, and seriously considers getting arrested in Germany just to see what that's like. Even seasickness is registered as "fun" in her journal.

12. She is perfectly happy and content with traveling alone. She turns down several traveling companions (men and women alike), and does everything on her own time, in her own way, and exactly as long as she wants to.

13. She never has a bad word about any nation or culture. She calls most of them "gentle and kind," and goes out of her way to spend time with people, even when they try to put her with the "European" passengers. She prays, but she always prays in whatever church, temple, synagogue, or mosque is the nearest; she is open to learning about other people's ideas.

"another Gentlean a Very smart Professor and a strong Buddish He talked for 2 hours to me on that faith and I was so thankful it was just what I wanted to hear I sat very quiet and took it all in he spoke about it said I was a good listner as most Christians argue."

14. In 1935, she settles down in Hawaii. Her way of settling down involves buying a tent (grandly named Villa Petit Peep) that she can carry in a bundle on her head, and moving around whenever she feels like it. This is what she says about settling down:

Well never in all my life have I slept so wonderful as in my Tent the 4 holes in each of the windows where the ropes drow up the Shade make 12 holes and when the light is out and the door and Windows closed the lights of the street shine through the holes and on to the Top of my Tent and it look just like the Stars. I'll get a serfe boad and Take a few Hula lessons just to add gayness to that list of things the check bought. 

 I want alway to be where wealth health youth beauty and gayness are altho I need very little for myself I just want to be in the midst of it. 1 have reversed the saying of Troubles are like Babies the more you nurse them the bigger They grow so I have nursed the joys.

***

Just as she appeared on the stage of world literature, Juanita gracefully stepped off of it. We don't know what happened to her after the book was published. We don't even have a picture of her. She wandered the world for 7 years between the two world wars, seeing it as the most beautiful place to be, living every day as the most beautiful day to be alive.

We should be teaching this, for so many reasons. Juanita Harrison should be on reading lists everywhere. We should be talking about a world traveler who did not discover, research, or exploit; we should be talking about a woman (of color) who traveled alone by choice and was not ashamed or afraid for one minute of it. We should be talking about how she had no grammar or punctuation, and yet she lived for libraries and the opera. We should celebrate her empathy and her friendliness, her confidence, her sheer joy and her insatiable curiosity.
Or, at the very least, some Literature major should look into what happened to her after she landed in Hawaii. I would love to know.

Let's remember Juanita Harrison.

Red-haired girl goes traveling - Storytelling festival in Transylvania!

This fall I was invited to be a featured teller at a Hungarian language storytelling festival in Transylvania (which is a region within Romania with a large Hungarian and Hungarian-speaking Székely minority). I could not have been more excited about the invitation. The last time I visited Transylvania I was 9 years old, and the place stuck in my memory as a land of endless beauty and magic. In addition, the program they requested also holds special meaning to me: My new storytelling show, titled The Cheerful Prince and the Girl with Red-gold Hair, contains folktales from my upcoming collection, Dancing on Blades (available January 2018). These stories, collected from uniquely talented folk teller Pályuk Anna at the turn of the last century, have been with me since the beginning of my storytelling career, and I am just as much in love with them now as I was 10 years ago. I finished the last round of editing on the book the day before I left for the festival.

The festival, attached to the Day of the Hungarian Folktale (September 30), lasted a whole week. I visited three cities, and had eight performances. The first two days were spent at the Székely National Museum, where schools brought in groups of children to listen to stories. To the little ones I told world folktales (Utgard-Loki and the Pumpkin Girl won best of show), while for the 6th graders I brought dragon legends (including Dietrich and Sistram), and medieval stories such as Dame Ragnell.

I also had the chance to tell in an almost 500 year old fortress church in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe). The audience consisted of the local Calvinist community, parents and children together, and there was a special magic to telling tales with values (kindness, love, hard work) inside the medieval walls.

In Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc) I told tales on the main square on a chilly yet sunny day, surrounded by children, curious adults, and various TV reporters (watch the video here). It was a dubious choice to make the kids stand in the cold wind, but they cheerfully followed me into the stories, and listened while they wiggled. The best moment of the whole day was when I told Pályuk Anna's tale about the Boy who walked on the clouds, and we all looked up at the fluffy clouds above us while I was telling. It was a bright, unforgettable experience.

In Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș) I told at the Spectrum Theater, to an audience of almost 100 people (and therefore a lovely full house). There were children in the audience, but a lot less than adults, so I could bring out the tale of the Cheerful Prince (Anna's lovely, mother-in-law-positive variant of Rumpelstiltskin), which speaks to adults through emotion and imagery. It was my first time telling it in Hungary (English-speaking audiences always love it), and it worked great.

Returning to Sepsiszentgyörgy for the actual Day of the Hungarian Folktale, we closed the festival with a two-hour storytelling event. In the first hour I told tales from Dancing on Blades (once again, we had a fairly full house of about 100 people), and then handed the stage over to two Csángó tradition-bearers, elder ladies who still carry the oral tradition of folktales, and speak in an archaic Hungarian dialect. Their presentation was lively and lovely (and occasionally hilarious, since they were telling Jesus and St. Peter legends), but I had to work hard to follow what they were saying. It was definitely a unique cultural experience. And fun.

St. Anne's Lake in a volcanic
crater

In the midst of all the telling, I also had time to play tourist a little bit. I visited the former home of Hungary's famous storyteller and story collector Benedek Elek (I would not be a storyteller without him!), the Lake of Saint Anne (according to legend, fairies used to live in it, until they were chased away by the sound of church bell - there's an amazing story about it), Bran Castle (which is a nice historic site, with absolutely nothing to do with Dracula), the Castle of Déva (subject of our most famous folk ballad in which a woman is killed so that the castle can be built), and other famous sites of history and culture. Many of the Hungarian and Székely folktales I read and love were collected in these towns and all over this landscape, which made every river, every mountain, and every castle special, and every forest filled with fairies. Transylvania is still a land full of history, beauty, and tradition. 
(After this, if one more person asks me if I have met Dracula over there, I'm going to beat them with a folktale collection.)

In addition to the travels, I was also grateful for the chance to bring Pályuk Anna's tales to audiences in Transylvania (she was Transcarpathian). The stories took a new life, worked their magic, and, hopefully, will travel on to new places in people's memory. 

I hope to return again soon. 

Speak Story Series, Shepherdstown, WV

I could not have asked for a more perfect goodbye performance for my American experience.

Four days before leaving the USA, and after six years spent studying, traveling, and performing in this vast and fascinating country, I was invited to tell stories in the Speak Story Series of Shepherdstown, WV, courtesy of Adam Booth. I said yes, and I am glad I did. As far as gigs go, this one was pretty close to ideal.

I flew to West Virginia from Ohio; Adam drove me from the Baltimore airport to Shepherdstown. It was a beautiful drive, and I happily immersed myself one last time in Appalachia. Shepherdstown itself is an enchanting place, with a pretty, historic main street, a university, good food, and lots of extremely friendly people. They are used to storytellers visiting, and that makes them great hosts - and an even better audience.

Both of my performances happened on the same day. In the morning I visited the Morgan Academy, a small local school where seventy children, from the ages of five to fourteen, piled into the building's main room to hear my stories. It was an interesting system for a performance: After the first story, the little ones left, and after the second, the next youngest group left too, until I was left with the older kids, whose attention span was longer. I told Hungarian folktales - Princess Hide-and-Seek, Kingdoms of Ice and Fire, Bird with the beautiful voice - because they are fit for wider age groups (for the last one, I asked if a scary story was okay, to which they all yelled YEEES!). The kids had a lot of great questions, and seemed to enjoy the stories; the biggest compliment, however, was that they asked for an encore. One little girl wanted to know what the most popular folktale was in Hungary, and after I tried to shorthand-explain Son of the White Horse, I eventually just asked if they wanted to hear it. The answer was a resounding YES, so I told a fourth story, and had great fun with it. Bonus point: This folktale type also exists as an Appalachian Jack tale. I was told by the teachers that the kids have never asked for an extra story before. This is the best kind of compliment.
(I also loved that the school had its own ducklings and chickens, hatched and raised by the students right there in the hallway.)

The evening concert took place on a theater stage downtown, and was attended by more than a hundred people. I was happy to discover that there were several people in the audience who were Hungarian, or of Hungarian descent. It is a treat to be far away from home, and yet telling to people who have a personal connection to the culture I come from. My set consisted of all Hungarian folktales - stories from my upcoming book, Dancing on Blades, told a hundred years ago by Transcarpathian storyteller Pályuk Anna. I selected my favorites. I told Three princesses and a ring, which is a funny and lovely tale about a king who is too willing to give his daughters away for treasure; then I told the Cheerful Prince, which was Anica's kinder, more feminist telling of Rumpelstiltskin (with a good mother-in-law). Next, I decided to tell Mistress Tuberose, because my hosts told me they had an upcoming Garden Tour event, and I assumed I had a audience of gardeners. I did. The story worked like a charm, and at the moment where the cruel father tears up the flowers his daughter has planted, the entire audience gasped in horror as one.
I ended my set with Pályuk's version of The twelve dancing princesses. It is my favorite telling of that tale, and one that is kinder to the princesses than all others I have read. When I have time to tell it fully and comfortably, it is a fantastic experience.
This audience also had a lot of questions. I spend almost another half an hour on stage, answering them one by one; once they ran out, and I was presented a gift basket by the organizers, I still stayed for a long time, signing books and talking to friendly, curious people.

The trip only took three days, but I'll treasure the memory for a long time. I hope I will be back one day, and visit Shepherdstown again. Every storyteller dreams of performances like this.

Hero, heroine, ally, foe: Ramayana exhibit in the Asian Art Museum

I did not know until I showed up at the doors that the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is having a temporary exhibit on the Rama Epic. Being in town for Epic Day, I visited two days before opening, and therefore was limited to staring through the doors with longing, like orphans in a Dickens novel. Since the exhibit would be closed by the next Epic Day, I shifted some of my schedule around, and took the BART back to the city on Friday, to catch it on the opening day. After all, it would have been ridiculous to fly all the way to San Francisco for epics, and then miss a museum exhibit about an epic.

Holy crap, was it worth it.

It is hard to put a story - any story - on display in a museum setting. It is even harder to do so with one of the most complex, multi-layered, culturally influential tales humanity has ever told. Presenting the Rama epic in a fashion that showcases it in its beautiful complexity, and makes it accessible to Western audiences at the same time, is a true feat of curating - and something that the Asian Art Museum pulled off with seamless elegance.

Full disclosure: As a trained archaeologist, I am very fussy about signs. They usually lack information that I'd like to know, or provide generic descriptions of items that have all kinds of interesting details. When I took Museum Studies courses, they told us that the average visitor spends 2-3 seconds on an object; cramming written information into that time frame is near impossible. And yet, the Rama Epic exhibition achieved the impossible with care and eloquence. The signs accompanying the objects and displays were concise, well written, and yet they told parts of the story in interesting ways, pointing out small details and explaining things the viewer was likely to ask (such as "Who is that guy in the upper left corner of the painting?").
Displays followed the story in chronological order for the first part of the exhibit. Pictures and other artwork related to certain scenes and narrative highlights were grouped together, so that visitors could walk though the epic and see how different cultures and eras depicted the same scenes differently. In addition, there were several video screens placed throughout the exhibit that played short clips on a loop - scenes from various iterations of the Ramayana (such as a 2008 movie, a 1980's TV show, and stage performances from various places in South and East Asia). Instead of trying to tell the whole story at the beginning, or in one handy pamphlet, the creators of the exhibit spread information out to several signs, and then provided an easy-to-follow outline for the major events and characters of the epic:

The second half of the exhibit introduced four of the main characters (Rama, Sita, Ravana, and Hanumna) in all their various forms and appearances, through sculptures, paintings, masks, puppets, and all sorts of amazing objects in vivid colors. We also learned more about scenes where they take a leading role, and how they fit into the larger cultural context of the epic.
My storytelling mentor, Cathryn, a storyteller friend, Margaret, and I spent almost four hours in the exhibit, completely enchanted. Cathryn has told the Ramayana before for Epic Day (I am sad I did not get to participate in that one, it was before I joined Epic Day), and I have read it multiple times (and told parts of the Ramakien for MythOff). We discussed our favorite scenes at length, marveling at small details; it seemed that our love and enthusiasm for the amazing world of the Ramayana was shared by the creators of the exhibition.
(Also, did I mention that the exhibit is accompanied by actual live storytelling events? How cool is that?!)

TL;DR: The Rama Epic: Hero, heroine, ally, foe is hands down one of the best executed, most amazing museum exhibits I have ever seen. If you can get there, make sure you see it!

Long tales for a short night - Night of the Museums in Hungary's first Story Museum

Night of the Museums, happening every year around Midsummer Night, has become one of the big events for storytelling in Hungary. Year after year I have been performing in different venues for amazing audiences. This year, for the first time since it opened, I had the pleasure of telling stories in Hungary's first and only Story Museum and Workshop.

The Museum as tiny as it is marvelous; it is housed in a historical building just below the Buda castle. Walking in, one encounters a tiny inner courtyard with a World Tree (still a sapling), and a Fountain of Life; over the front desk, a giant, friendly-looking, colorful centipede marches across the ceiling upside down. In the front room there are reading nooks, storytelling nooks, coloring tables, and walls full of word magnets. Walking into the exhibition, one first arrives to a blue-and-twilight chamber decorated with the silhouettes of traditional Hungarian fairy tale characters - the Prince, the Princess, the Witch, the Magic Horse, etc. There is also a pile of pillows with fairy tale phrases on them; children can pair the pillows with the silhouettes. Moving into the next room, we arrive to my favorite part of the museum: The Dark Forest. The entire space is criss-crossed with tree branches, and kids can play hide-and-seek while also challenging all of their senses: They have to reach into tree trunks to identify objects by touch; smell bottles to find a particular scent; lean over a star-filled well to pick out an animal sound; and they can even climb up to an elevated platform to a gryphon's nest, and watch the giant egg change colors as they touch it. They can climb over the top of the trees to get to the next room, where they have to defeat a dragon with  a fast-paced touch screen game, dress up in fairy tale costumes, learn more about dragons, and finally sit on a royal throne. I was having tons of fun just sitting on a pillow in the forest, watching children play.

The storytelling happened in a different venue: The inner courtyard of the historical building next door. It was cool, even on this very hot June day, and the audience could sit on small box-like chairs or bean bags shaped like giant green and red apples. In the back corner there was a crafts table, but they were very polite and quiet through the storytelling, and I had a microphone that helped me be heard over the background murmur. I had a nice audience of maybe thirty people, kids and parents/grandparents alike.

I was invited to tell stories of magical journeys - my favorite kind. Right before my performance, there was a Q&A with a very popular Hungarian children's author who writes adventure stories about pirates, and islands, and dragons. Listening to the Q&A I gleamed a lot of useful information about what my audience was the most excited about; once I was on stage, I used what I learned to pick the best stories, and color them in similar ways.
First, I told The King's Daughter Who Lost Her Hair; one of my favorite stories, and also one that always goes over well with children. Since they talked a lot about magical plants in the Q&A, and it involves a voyage across the sea to a mysterious island inhabited by talking flowers, it fit right into the theme. Next, I told the tale of the Princess of Tomboso, mostly because the green-and-red apple pillows reminded me of it, and also because it does involve a sea voyage and a distant island. This is also one of my ever-favorite tales, one that I also included in my book under Teleportation. I love watching kids roll their eyes every time Jack makes a stupid mistake, and I really enjoy the sassy princess too. Last, but not least, I told Fionn Mac Cool in the Land of the Big Men (also included in my book), where I had kids and parents alike helping me remember all 8 of Fionn's magical helpers...

Despite the fact that all three tales were very long (as journey tales often are), and some of the kids were very young, they followed all three with rapt attention. It was a very nice audience, primed and ready for sea monsters, and giants, and flying witches, and all kinds of adventures. I especially felt lucky that I got to tell some of my favorite tales, and see that the kids liked them just as much as I do. Definitely a win-win.

If you are in Hungary mid-June, don't miss out on the Night of the Museums. It's full of fun things like this.