Woodlands are full of possibility…
In the morning we invented people to inhabit the woods:
…like Baba Yaga in her hut on chicken legs:
We made puppets of our people and made a story together:
Once upon a time there was a girl who met a fairy who invited her to a fairy party, but the fairy flew too fast ahead and soon the girl was lost. She walked and walked until she came to a hut… Did she knock on the door? Of course, she did! And was there a fierce old woman inside who might be a witch? Yes, there was!
Several of the children were quite sure that the girl should avoid the hut.
“But she would stay lost in the woods,” I protested.
So, anxiously together we persevered – just as heroes and heroines do in stories, moving deeper into discomfort and danger, probing the unseen and unknowable – and seeing in our watchful fearful progress into the story how to have faith striving to meet challenges and overcoming obstacles to where a place of greater contentment and security awaits.
The storyteller’s daring in exploring the continents of unknown tales gives their child listeners the bravery to face the world. For storytelling takes courage to reach out to the new… uncertainty is always creative.
Horst Kornberger, ‘The Power of Stories’
In the afternoon we made people who changed bodies and changed places – like the Goose Girl and her maid (‘The Goose Girl’, Brothers Grimm) whose story I told later.
Legs, heads, bodies were swapped (as in Consequences) and strange new characters emerged
Where would such people live? Of course there were many possibilities…
