StorySpotting Extra: Folktales of Elsa and Naruto

StorySpotting Extra is a new thing I just invented: a report from an actual gig where I got to use my pop culture experience. Because I like sharing fun moments when theory gets put into practice.

This summer, luckily, we got to have our camps with the Világszép Foundation where I work full time as a storyteller. We take children who live in the state care system to our campsite in beautiful Paloznak for a week (per age group, seven camps total) filled with games, adventures, and storytelling. The latter is very important: we tell stories every night - yes, even to the teens, and they get lullabies too! -, and sometimes in the mornings. Kids who have known us for years look forward to these events, and some of them like to give me requests for what kinds of stories they would like to hear. While the "official" stories are selected in advance, there is always ample time in the afternoons and evenings for some extra storytelling. This year, I got two requests: they wanted "Naruto stories" and "Elsa stories." 

The quest was on.

It is always a precious chance for a storyteller to connect to her audience through their fandoms. We can learn a lot from the stories and characters that kids these days are invested in. It is even better if it is a fandom we happen to share: Naruto and anime culture was a part of my childhood too, and I also adore Frozen.

I spent the next few weeks with intensive research. Elsa seemed like the easier ask of the two, since it is a fairy tale adaptation (although pretty far from the original). However, I have never liked Andersen's Snow Queen, and did not want to tell it. Instead, I looked for other tales about powerful women with cryokinetic abilities who are portrayed in a positive light. Suddenly, the search got a lot harder... I returned to one of my old favorites, the legend of Queen Virignal from the medieval German Dietrich cycle. I also tracked down a gorgeous picture book titled Snow Princess, by Ruth Sanderson. This latter is a retelling of a classic Russian folktale, not very close to tradition, but it does have a happy ending (which was very important to me). An American friend helped me track down a copy in time, so I could head out to camp with two "Elsa" stories in my repertoire.

Naruto turned out to be the easier of the two. I started with brushing up on my Japanese nine-tailed fox folklore, which I'm very familiar with from earlier trickster research. Teens and middle schoolers can handle longer, more complex stories, so I added the legend of Tamamo-no-Mae, a fox lady who brought down several dynasties over the centuries, and kept hopping from kingdom to kingdom until he was imprisoned in a rock in Japan, and convinced to change her ways. In addition, a previous StorySpotting article led me to the legend of Jiraiya, a famous ninja whose story inspired several characters and elements of Naruto. It is an epic tale with giant frogs, evil snake demons, and thrilling battles.

All the research was absolutely worth it. The kids asked for the ninja stories right on the first day of camp, and it turned out more than one of them were Naruto fans (I don't know if it's playing on Hungarian TV again, or if it's Boruto nostalgia, who knows). The Jiraiya legend found its perfect audience. I spend more than half an hour telling it. Sometimes we stopped the story and discussed how it had been adapted into the anime, what changed and what stayed the same. We also played with the idea of the legend's rock-paper-scissors concept, where giant toad beats giant slug, giant slug beats giant snake, giant snake beats giant toad. It was very amusing.

The other ninja story was told the next evening. It also took a good half hour while Tamamo-no-Mae rampaged her way across Asia and reached the final battle. After the story, we looked up photos on my phone about the places (and the rock) mentioned in the legend. By this point, the kids got so ninja-happy that they made up a whole ninja movie for their filming workshop. It was an instant blockbuster.

The Elsa stories hit a more personal note. A girl had asked for them in advance, and when we arrived at camp she checked to see if I had them. I told Virginal's legend just to her, sitting on the living room couch. She listened in rapt attention. This legend is very male-focused, but it did not need much creative finagling to focus on the character of the Queen of the Mountains instead. I really enjoyed retelling it from a different point of view, and found new things in the story even though I have worked with it before. 

The second story found itself an even better context. At the end of the week we could bid for pictures taken in the photo workshop by the kids. I bid my dessert for one, and for another, I bid the second Elsa story to the same girl. I got to tell it the last morning before the end of camp, just to her. She loved the Snow Princess, and noticed things in the story that I did not. It was a lovely, personal storytelling experience. And I got a lovely photo for it.

There kinds of "gigs" are my favorite. They have everything I love about storytelling: personal connection, cozy moments, enthusiastic listeners, traditional tales, and geeking out over shared fandoms. I can't wait to see what themes they will ask for next...

The Beauty in the Tale: Medieval Story Camp with the Világszép Foundation

Gather around, people, I'm going to tell you about my day job.
Two years ago I joined the Világszép Foundation as one of their resident storytellers. The Foundation was started in 2010 with the goal of aiding and supporting children in the state care system. Originally it organized summer camps, and then they added a volunteer storytelling program that sends tellers to group homes to tell bedtime stories to the children (we don't call these orphanages because most of the kids are not orphans, they just can't live with their family for various reasons). Since then, we have added several new programs, such as an inclusive kindergarten, inclusive after school programs, volunteer mentors, and career and crisis help. Still, the summer camps remain a large part of our work; we organize 6 or 7 of them every summer in the Story Center in Paloznak, a magical, peaceful lace by Lake Balaton. Storytelling is an integral part of every camp, but for kids aged 8-11 we specifically organize Story Camps around a theme. This year, our theme was Knights and Chivalry, and I would like to tell you more about it.

The camp was five beautiful, sunny days long. We started off each day with nursery rhymes and storytelling, and closed each one with a story and a lullaby (it might seem like nursery rhymes and lullabies are strange for this age group, but they create a connection that the kids rarely get to experience). The theme was all about chivalry, especially virtues: we used the stories to start discussions and activities about how real knights treat each other and the people around them. We had many adventures, built castles, made shields, and even held a tournament at the end of the week, after which we knighted all fourteen children.

Of course all of this would not have been a coherent whole without the storytelling. Story Camp is always especially fun for the tellers because we get to tell to the same audience regularly, opening and closing every day. The story collection for the camp took a lot of research, planning, and collecting to fit the age group, the virtues, the themes, the activities, and the Világszép philosophy - I had a lot of fun compiling it, and I was quite proud of the result. We ended up having nine "official" stories:
Prince Milinkuc (Hungarian folktale about a prince who has an incredible dream that he holds on to through many trials, and an evil ing who sends him various riddles to solve)
Dame Ragnell (A 15th century feminist classic, asking the big question: "What is it that all women want the most?")
Sistram and the Dragon (King Dietrich and his mentor drag a young knight out of a dragon's mouth - teamwork, people!)
The Kitchen Knight (Sir Gareth arrives to Camelot as a kitchen lad, but then goes on a quest with sassy Lady Lynet and proves his worth)
Astolfo travels to the Moon (A snippet from Orlando Furioso where an English knight takes a hippogriff to the Moon to find the lost common sense of his best friend)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I LOVE telling a classic to an audience that has not heard it before!)
The Bonny Lass of Anglesey (Scottish ballad about an epic dance-off between a brave lady and some English lords)
Culhwch and Olwen (Old Welsh superhero team-up with a brave prince and some famous knights from Arthur's court)
Damon and Pythias (A medieval retelling of an old Greek tale of Friendship where one friends offers to die in the place of another)

It is always great fun for a storyteller to tell to the same audience for days. Kids get used to the stories and the medieval world, and become familiar with some of the characters (Sir Gawain, obviously, became a fan favorite). Three of us shared the nine stories above, so the kids also got to hear different styles of storytelling. You could tell that they were very much engaged because they made comments, asked questions, and even corrected us when we said something wrong (sometimes to the point where I had to take a pause to laugh myself).

Beside the "official" storytelling times, I also adored spontaneous storytelling moments, of which we had quite a lot. We had afternoon nap time every day, but since this age group doesn't really nap (or stay quiet) anymore, I offered them that they could join me in the Story Room (yes, we have one) and lie down to listen to some tales. These were my favorite moments of the entire camp: I sat on a couch surrounded by children - some listening intently, some dozing off, and some lying quietly until it was their turn to open their eyes and tell me what I should tell next. They were peaceful, beautiful afternoons filled with stories. At one point the kids discovered that I like superheroes and I speak Marvel (we got into a conversation over lunch about whether or not Thor's hammer is made of vibranium) (it isn't) they came to the afternoon sessions to ask for "superhero stories." I defaulted to Thor and Loki since the interest was already there... and I ended up telling them my entire Norse mythology repertoire. They listened with rapt attention, asked questions, discussed details, compared myth to Marvel, and even acted out some fun moments of the stories (such as Thor pretending to be a bride). Once again, I discovered how pop culture can be a bridge to traditional stories, and I got to nerd out to my heart's extent.
Every once in a while a kid asked for a story when no one else was around. These moments also had a certain kind of magic, and I tried my best to select stories that would fit that very special one-person audience.

I told twenty-three stories in five days, and each of them was a very memorable, unique experience. Whether it was with the whole group, or with a few kids, or just one child, they all carried the story-magic of Paloznak and the Világszép (lit. "Beauty of the World") atmosphere. They were days filled with smiles, hugs, sunshine, swimming, fruit straight from the trees, and peace. It was the perfect place to be, and I would not trade it for any other gig or performance.
I'm already counting down the days for next summer!

Medusa in the backpack, and other stories about teens and role-playing games

Almost exactly a year ago, a high school invited me to their ESL summer camp for teens. I visited with my friend Danielle Bellone, we told some stories in English, and since we had a free afternoon, I decided to introduce the kids to role-playing games. Several hours and three dungeon crawls later, they were hooked. This year the organizers invited me back, by popular demand, to run some more role-playing adventures.
I love my job.

Buy it here

There were 26 teens at the camp, so we divided them into 5 and 6 person groups, and I got a three-hour session with each. Since this time I was DMing alone, I decided to bring some adventures that are perfect for beginners and also make good stories: The first volume of the Uncaged Anthology came out earlier this year, and is quickly gaining much deserved popularity. It turns old Dungeons & Dragons tropes inside out, giving voice to classic monsters, and making players reevaluate their beliefs and convictions. It's an awesome collection of short adventures, I highly recommend it!
I brought pre-made character sheets the players could pick from; my own party helped me by rolling up eight first level characters. We covered the basics (Human Cleric, Wood Elf Ranger, Half-Elf Sorcerer, Elf Rogue, Minotaur Fighter, Half-Orc Barbarian, Halfling Bard, Dragonborn Paladin). Each group selected their characters a little differently, which made for good diversity. I also brought gift D20s for everyone, so that they could continue playing on their own if they wanted.

Here are the highlights:
(SPOILERS! Also, long post, scroll to the end for TL;DR)

Team One (5 girls, all beginners both in English and in RPGs). We played From the Forest They Fled by Alison Huang. In this adventure, the party gets hired to find out why animals have been fleeing a forest. They fight some plant creatures, and eventually encounter a Dryad who is setting fire to the trees. Turns out the forest should burn down every decade or so to help new seeds germinate, but people have been controlling the forest fires, so the trees asked the Dryad for help. The party had to come up with a solution that would work both for the forest and for the people living in it. After some discussion, they decided to convince all 150 villagers to move somewhere else, promising to take care of them - and the adventure suddenly turned into a refugee saga. They were sent away from various towns and villages, until I decided to link up with another adventure, and had them arrive to Canticle Bay, from Cry of the Sea by Alicia Furness. Here, they made a deal with the mayor, who promised to take care of the refugees in exchange for the party's help. The girls worked out a second compromise between the Sirens of the bay and the human fishermen - they designated sea sanctuaries, and convinced the Sirens to teach the humans sustainable fishing methods. It was a beautiful and diplomatic solution, and I was very proud of the players.

Team Two (6 guys). We played Maid from Waterdeep by Bianca Bickford. A mute girl hired the party to look for a missing woman. She couldn't write (in my version of the adventure, anyway), so we spent some time vigorously playing charades until the party got the full story from her, which was a lot of fun. She turned out to be a former mermaid, who rescued a female Bard from a sinking ship. A rich man, who was also on the ship, got angry at her for not rescuing him first, and kidnapped the Bard in revenge. The party went looking for him, chased a servant of his across the roofs of the city, and eventually found the house where he was holed up. Fighting their way though skeletons, zombies, and a Cloaker (when in doubt, add a Cloaker), they had some amazing moments of teamwork, and defeated the rich man / witch man in a heroic fight. The crowning moment of said fight was the Storm Cleric riding on the shoulders of the Minotaur Fighter, yelling "yee-haw" and shooting crossbow bolts (until he got smacked in the face by the door frame, but still). Teamwork won the day.

Team Three (5 guys). They were the most prepared and the most experienced of them all. They had been playing regularly since last year, they knew the lingo, and they were more than ready to clear some dungeons, kill some monsters, and grab some loot. I picked Lost Gods by Natalie Wallace for them, because that adventure starts out as a classic dungeon crawl - and then takes an unexpected turn. The party is hired by a slowly dying city to find their disappeared goddess. They descend into a cave system looking for her, and encounter all kinds of ghosts and specters. The party methodically worked their way through the dungeon, investigating every room, killing every monster, collecting all the loot. Before the last room, where they though the boss monster might be, they took a rest, sharpened their weapons, prepared their spells - they were all locked and loaded for an epic boss fight. Except, when they walked in... a Medusa looked at them from a mirror, and said "Don't come in, I don't want to hurt you!" There was an awesome moment of stunned silence, as gears turned in the players' heads. "Wait, what?" After some hesitation, they began talking to the monster, who told them her story, how she had been turned into a monster by a cruel god, and how she just wants to find a home where she can't hurt people, but she can't sneak out of the city alone.
The party, surprised that they had to plan a prison break instead of a boss fight, eventually decided that they would help her. The brainstorming session that followed was as epic as any fight, until they settled on a plan: the Bard and the Sorcerer went back to the people of the city, and told them that he goddess had sent a message, and wants them to celebrate. Then they threw an epic concert on the main square, drawing all the attention while the rest of the party sneaked out of the city with the Medusa, and went to find her a safe, quiet cave up in the mountains. The next day the Bard and the Sorcerer told the people that their goddess wants them to move to a better place, and pointed them to some more fertile lands. Away from the mountains.
I loved this adventure because it made the players reevaluate their mentality about what a role-playing adventure can be. They were surprised at first that the monster wasn't evil, but once they got over that, they did some stellar teamwork and planning, and made mutually beneficial and very emphatic decisions. They showed compassion and creativity, and it was beautiful to DM them through that.

Pic from here

Team Four (5 girls). Cheerful, talkative, excited group of players. I decided on From the Forest again, because I wanted to see if there would be any difference between two girl teams in terms of solutions and outcomes. There was! They were taken by surprise by the first forest fight, but after that they immediately started brainstorming about how they could capture a creature instead of killing it, or even make friends with one. Since I am a big supporter of non-violent solutions and the Rule of Cool, I allowed them some rolls, and they successfully befriended two Vine Blights along the way. Next followed some charades, in which they gathered information from the non-verbal plant creatures, and found out about the Dryad. They even had a working theory, they thought the Dryad was trying to take over the forest for her monsters, and planned to offer her a nature reserve where she could keep them, Jurassic World style. When they actually met the Dryad (all prepared to negotiate), and found out the truth about the trees, they put their minds to coming up with another solution. The result was pretty spectacular: They negotiated a deal between the Dryad and the people, in which the humans were allowed to cut down enough trees around their village to protect themselves from the fire (promising they would replant, and also leave the Ash Gums alone), and sell the wood so they could have money until the forest regenerates. In return, they promised not to stop the forest fires. It was an elaborate and well thought out deal, and I was very proud of the girls.

Team Five (5 guys, 1 girl). Saved the most chaotic one for last :) They had been waiting all week to get their turn, and jumped in with both feet, picking their characters and preparing for great adventures. I picked Lost Gods, because it worked so well with the previous enthusiastic party. Once again, the differences between two groups of players were both significant and kind of awesome. This party got a little bit more lost in the dungeon, but they did manage to kill off all the ghosts and monsters they encountered. They were also taken aback by the Medusa's confession and friendly nature, but after some consideration, they, too, decided to help her - in their own special way. They stuffed the Medusa in a giant backpack, and had the Minotaur member of the party simply carry her out of the cave. When they encountered the people of the city, they claimed that they did not find the goddess, but they would keep looking - and which point the grateful civilians invited them for dinner. So, Medusa in the backpack, they went and had a nice dinner at the mayor's house... then they waited until everyone was asleep, looted the mayor's office, and sneaked out of the place. Sadly, they Stealth was not exactly the best, so they woke half the city up before they made it to the city wall. In a moment of desperation, the Minotaur threw the bag up on the wall, followed by the (disgruntled) Elf Ranger, and then the party bluffed their way through the crowd, telling the civilians that the Ranger had betrayed them and looted the mayor, and they were going to go catch him. Long story short, they all made it out of the city, went to find a cave for Medusa, cleared it of monsters, and helped her move in.
It was not the most convenient of all solutions, and the party was definitely bringing the Chaotic, but it was, honestly, tons of fun. And some good teamwork.

TL;DR: Conclusions

People still tend to believe that role-playing is some weird, nerdy hobby played by weird, nerdy people (or, you know, Satanists). They are wrong. Tabletop role-playing is essentially communal storytelling which inspires people to work together, create stories, and have lots of fun. In addition, this camp was for ESL students (several of whom were beginners), so I got to watch them speak English enthusiastically, learn new expressions, and forget that they were learning a language while also fighting monsters. All of their solutions were genius, creative, and emphatic, and they instinctively found compromises and mutually beneficial arrangements between people of different backgrounds. Not a single one of the five parties resorted to violence instead of diplomacy. They played well, had fun, and as a DM, I enjoyed the whole experience immensely. I am proud of my players, and I hope I will get to meet them again next year!