Small But Bold

by Julie Della Torre

Feeling small and vulnerable? 

Not so the tiny virus that is changing the way we live.

Not so the tiny mosses of the world who hang on and adapt in diversity… and thrive.

Not so the tiny characters of our folk and fairy tales who can show us how to live in the world and who, though small, can change the course of a story.

I have been reading Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book is a mix of science and personal reflection.  Kimmerer explains the biology of these tiniest of plants and at the same time considers what they might teach us. It is a beautifully written book and it has prompted me to carry my magnifying glass on daily walks around the neighborhood to explore tree trunks and rock walls.  Kimmerer examines mosses in our environment, how they grow, reproduce, adapt, compete, soak up water and the myriad of ways they help keep the climate healthy. As I learned the attributes and characteristics of these amazing plants I began to think about stories. I couldn’t find any stories of moss but started mulling over all the small characters in folk literature. What can we learn from them?  Paula has been thinking and writing about metaphor and as I began connecting stories to qualities of mosses, I realized that this is yet another example of metaphor.

There are many small characters found in stories throughout the world. Think of the Tom Thumb tales (Tale Type 700 and 327B), the elves, some fairies, pixies, narnucks, and dwarves. There are mice, ants, hummingbirds, frogs, toads and gnats. There are even youngest brothers and sisters.  Some are helpful, some mischievous, many need to be appeased in some way.

We all start out tiny and helpless, dependent on adults, and remain so for a long time.  As adults we may at times feel small and helpless in the larger world. We may feel small and afraid facing big obstacles, facing death.  Let’s look to small things and see how they survive and flourish and come out on top.

One characteristic of mosses is how cleverly they adapt and evolve. The one thing moss needs to survive is water. Another is a bit of light, but water is crucial. Besides helping to make food, water is central in reproduction. Mosses can’t move. They cling to rocks, cliffs, tree bark and sidewalks.  “Evolution favors specialization avoiding competition and thus increasing the survival of the species.” (p.34) Mosses are very low to the surface and are not mobile.  How can they keep water from evaporating? How can they keep water to live?  How can they keep water to help sperm move to the female? In some species the male is shorter, closer to the surface where there is less evaporation which means more water. Mosses always live in colonies, their stems and leaves twisting and growing together to keep water longer and to help it move from one to another. They form a tiny aqueduct.

Our little heroes also have a hard time moving about.  But they are clever. Many figure out ways to hitch a ride. Some ride in horse’s ears, or on tails.  Look at many versions of Tom Thumb as well as ‘How the Brazilian Beetle Got its Beautiful Colors’ (Brazil). Thumbelina (HCA) is carried on the back of a sparrow and on a net pulled by butterflies. Thumbling (Germany)travels in a cow and in a fox.  It’s good to be small and light and clever.

In some of the stories the small may look so much alike that they can trick bigger foes. The family (community) of toads tricks Horse in Horse and Toad. (Haiti) The same trick is played on Bear by Turtle and his clan. (Iroquois) The wicked prince is brought down by a swarm of gnats in Andersen’s The Wicked Prince. And, Thumbelina needs her friends to save her from the dark places and bring her into the light. Being small, it is good to live in a community or family where you can rely on help.

Mosses are patient and they persevere. “They have a covenant with change. When the dew dries, or the rain is infrequent mosses play the waiting game.” (p. 37) Mosses just stop growing. Dried moss can be kept for years and revived by soaking in water and start growing again. Many of our small heroes persevere and are patient, waiting until the right age to set forth on their adventures. Some are mocked and ridiculed for years.

Some are impudent and sassy such as The Valiant Little Tailor (Germany), Hop ‘O My Thumb (England), and Hasan, Heroic Little Mouse Child (Turkey).

And some just never give up. Thumbling, swallowed by a horse and then a cow, “never lost courage.” The Brave Little Parrot (India) puts out a fire drop by drop. 

As previously noted, mosses live on the boundary area. They live in cracks of the sidewalk. They fill in the areas between big plants. They thrive on surfaces often overlooked. 

Some of our characters live in the boundary areas as well. Think of all the Rumplestiltskins. (Tale Type 500) And the mouse brides (Tale Type 402) even the small dolls such as in Vasalisa (Russia) and The Doll in the Grass. (Norway)

Being small makes it easy to hide, easy to overhear things. Hop ‘o My Thumb hides under the stool and overhears his parents plan to get rid of the children. Thumbling is so small he can hide in a mousehole or in a snail shell to escape danger.

Mosses are so important to our climate and habitats. They help keep the air clean and help cool the earth. When the land is destroyed mosses are the first plants to reappear. Many of our smallest characters show this helpfulness. Here I think of Mouse Woman (Haida) and all the times she comes to the aid of young women by using her wily cleverness. I think of The Elves and the Shoemaker (Germany) and all the ‘mouse brides.’ I think of the many Lille Thumbs who save their siblings and/or bring back treasures to the family.

Cheers to all our clever, persistent, brave and helpful small ones around the world.  

For more exploration look at the SurLaLune website (http://www.surlalunefairytales.com) and The Oryx Multicultural Folktale Series, Tom Thumb by Margaret Read MacDonald.

Riddle Stories With Mom

by Julie Pasqual

     

Julie Pasqual

As a daughter – I have A LOT to make up for!  While I was not a kid who did drugs, or landed up in jail, or any of that kind of thing – I was, and guess still am, the family rebel.  While my five siblings chose the road my parents laid out for them – Catholic High School; College; Grad School; steady, reliable jobs.  I went the opposite way  - public arts high school, no college, left the nest and started performing (with all the uncertainty that entails) at seventeen.  To say that my parents – my Mom in particular, were not concerned about my wellbeing at best, and furious at my choices at worst would be a HUGE understatement.  There were many battles, and times of tension between us, and many immature words to them, that I wish I could take back.                              

        But time, and maturity, has a way of bringing back together what would appear to be torn apart, and so I find myself so much in love with my Mom, that it fills my eyes with tears even to write this.  During this time of Covid-19 – my focus has been quite singular – keep my husband and my mother safe – it is behind every wash of my hands, and every squirt of Purell.  Perhaps it is because I lost time being a brat, that now I do not want this invisible poison to take the mother I have once again found.

        Mom is obviously elderly, so the lock down for her, really is DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOME!!  And this is hard – Mom has a schedule most twenty year olds could not keep up with – there is church, bible study, her beloved craft club – and she can’t do any of it.  Her back isn’t great, and her eyes are weak, but my Mom’s mind is as sharp as the proverbial tack – something she prides herself on, and something – although she never outright says this – she fears losing.  Every time she speaks of a friend who isn’t quite remembering as well as they used to – I can hear the nervousness in her voice.

       So, I began to think – what can I do?  My elder siblings have the getting of food to Mom, and the paying of bills, and delivery of medicines well in hand – what could I offer.  Stories!!  The first night of what I call the “Great Hunker Down” – I picked up the phone, and announced, “Mom, every night, I am going to read you a riddle story – and we’ll try to get the answer together.”  Mom gave a little “Hmph!” – a thing I have heard many times in my life – it says, “This is my crazy kid – but she means well!”

        “While Standing on One Foot” – is a wonderful book of Jewish riddle tales – and I took that as my source.  And here is the thing about my Mom – she is COMPETITIVE!!!  She was not one to let us kids win at a game!  I remember distinctly the first time one of us  - it was my brother Michael, actually beat Mom in Scrabble – we sat, withheld breath, until the last letter was down and erupted in joy!!!  He did it!  Mom smiled, too, she was glad he had won fair and square – but you can believe she beat him the next time!  So, having something to figure out, was right up her alley.  

      The first few nights, I would just call, and she would almost forget about the riddle de jour – but then after catching up with the craziness of this new world, Mom would say, “Okay – what’s my riddle?”  I love laying down the question, and then listening for her pause – thinking, and then her response – she is almost always right, or if not, she comes up with something better.  I laugh hard, and smile, and thank God that I have this time with her.

         There is no telling how long this “Hunker Down” will last, and I can only pray that my Mom remains untouched by this killer of virus, but no matter what happens these riddle story times will be moments I will treasure for the rest of my life.        

Channeling Our Inner Fool

by Paula Davidoff

Since we began our separate quarantines, my grandchildren and I have spent some hours telling and listening to stories in a virtual setting. Last week, I told them The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, a Russian folktale that begins like a three brothers tale, but gets rid of the two older, cleverer brothers very near the beginning of the story. After that, the tale follows the eponymous Fool as he acquires his flying ship and collects a series of helpers on his way toward his goal of winning the Tsar’s daughter to wife. 

When the story ended, Emma, who recently celebrated her tenth birthday, said, “I don’t get it. The fool doesn’t really seem foolish.” 

Children are brilliant. You tell them a long, complicated story and they hit at the crux as soon as it ends. My response to Emma’s remark wasn’t great. Socratic-aspiring grandmother that I am, I didn’t want to fill her up with my thoughts about her idea, so I just told her that her question was very insightful and that she should think about it some more. Not to be outdone by her older cousin, five-year-old Magnolia chimed in, “Next time you should tell us the story about Dummling.” 

Are everyone’s grandchildren as smart as mine?

Emma and Magnolia got me thinking about the archetype of The Fool, and I hope the thoughts that follow will open a conversation about the character. 

Before I told my grandkids The Fool of the World, I showed them The Fool in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck which portrays the character as a young traveler who seems about to step blithely off the edge of a cliff. In the picture, the Fool is looking skyward, and he seems either unaware or unconcerned that his next step will send him hurtling into a dangerous-looking unknown. The card (as long as it turns up right-side-up)  is usually interpreted in a reading as lucky and, I think, it’s a good representation of the Fool in folktales. 

As his story unfolds, we come to see that the Fool of the World is not, as Emma wisely noted, foolish. He’s different and he approaches life with a kind of innocence. He doesn’t complain when his mother sends him on his quest dressed in rags with a meal of dry bread for his journey. Instead, he sings “because the trees were green and there was a blue sky overhead.” He might represent the poet misunderstood by his community or the Grasshopper to society’s Ants. People don’t understand him, so they think he’s useless. But he has some skill or inner strength that enables him to obtain his goal. 

The character can’t, however, simply represent the poet because, as students of folktales know, the archetypes have universal appeal. And everyone, politicians as well as poets, Ants as well as Grasshoppers, should be able to identify with Fool. In reality, we are all at the edge of a precipice and have little power to control where life’s next step will land us. So, what can Fool teach us?

The Dummling story Magnolia referred to is Grimms’ The Three Feathers. In this story, a king sets tasks for his three sons in order to determine which of them deserves to inherit the kingdom. To set them on their way, the king steps outside the castle door and blows three feathers into the air. Two of the feathers fly off in different directions, but the third simply blows straight up and floats back down to the ground. The two clever brothers run off after the feathers that are going somewhere, leaving Dummling standing right where he started, staring down at the feather which landed at his feet. 

Then, looking down, he discovers a door. The door has always been there. He and his brothers must have trod countless times upon it as they came and went from the castle, but only now, as he is forced to look down, does Dummling see it. The door leads to an underground chamber, so Dummling must not only closely examine the surface of the familiar, he must enter it, go down deep to find the aspects of his nature that will make him a worthy king.

In the story of The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, God only knows how the Fool acquires the ship which is the Tsar’s bride price for his daughter, but once he is on board, he goes about collecting travelers who end up helping him attain his goal. Because one method of story analysis involves seeing every character as an aspect of the main character, I think these travelers offer some insight into the kinds of strengths we fools may find if we, like Dummling, stop and look deeply inside. The Fool’s traveling companions are: a man who can hear every sound in the world by putting his ear to the ground, a man who can traverse the earth in split seconds, a man who can shoot things that are hundreds of miles away, a man who can eat huge amounts of food, another who can drink huge amounts, and two more men, each with magical objects. The first of these has a bundle of wood that, when scattered, will spring up into armies of soldiers; the second has a bundle of straw that, when spread around, makes hot things cold. 

My first thought about these travelers is that, except for the last two, their skills are just exaggerations of things most people can do naturally: hear, walk, see, eat, and drink. The fact that they are magnified may mean that, to use them to our best advantage, we need to consider them more carefully, that is, not take them for granted. Intransigent fools look without seeing, hear without listening, and walk, eat, and drink with no intention. 

The objects carried by the sixth and seventh travelers – wood and straw, respectively – are also natural objects, but they’ve been arranged, tied into bundles, through artifice. Bundling makes weak objects stronger; it’s harder to break a bundle than a single stick. Fool needs to collect his strengths and use them together if he is to succeed. 

According to Steven Olderr’s dictionary of symbolic meanings, a bundle of wood symbolizes strength and authority. To reveal his true nature and establish that he is not as dim he seems to the general public, Fool has to assert some authority. In Three Feathers, Dummling accomplishes this through the superiority of the objects he brings his father. The Fool of the World conjures armies to the same purpose.

The bundle of straw is more mysterious to me. One straw is a symbol of weakness, but a bundle can be a sign of danger. The bundle of straw, picked up before the flying ship enters the Tsar’s compound, may serve as a warning of things to come. At one point in the story, when the Tsar attempts to kill Fool, his life is saved by the magical straw.  Also, straw, though useful for many things, is the inferior part of the stalk, the chaff without the grain. So, the straw could be a warning about the fate of a Fool who doesn’t seek to understand himself. That Fool will remain a fool, a husk devoid of human spirit. 

The Fool of the Tarot is poised to fall. I think his attitude reflects neither unawareness nor lack of concern about the future. Like the Fool of the World, he is enjoying the world around him, looking up toward the trees and the sky. In his right hand, he carries his worldly belongings vagabond-style, a bundle wrapped in a cloth hung loosely from a stick. In his left hand, he holds a rose (completeness, beauty, heart). He holds both items carelessly. He may lose them at any moment, but he understands that grasping them won’t change his fate. Fool knows he can’t control where his next step will land, so he looks to the sky and, perhaps, controls the only thing he can – his thoughts.

Stories From a Stone

by Maria LoBiondo

“In the beginning, there were no stories.”

That’s how I begin the “Storytelling Stone,” the Native American origin tale of how people began to tell stories. An orphan named Gah-ka, ridiculed by his tribe, goes off on his own and makes camp by a huge stone that looks like a human face. Leaning against the stone, he is startled by the question, “Do you want to hear a story?”

Of course he does, even though he doesn’t know what a story is. But he listens well and becomes the first storyteller, revered by a new tribe he comes to know and with whom he shares this new thing called “story” that he has heard from the Storytelling Stone.

The Stone speaks only in the winter, when there are no crops to care for and the nights are long. We are in a psychological winter during this coronavirus crisis, even if there are daffodils blooming outside the door. 

If there are positives to be found in this new normal, one may be slowing us down from our normally hectic paces. Stories slow us down, too, take us to a time out of time, absorb us in a different reality for the space of the telling.

Within that time we accept the impossible – that stones can speak, for example. And when we slow down we may find that in fact stones can speak, if we listen.

Stones were the theme of the February evening Luray and I spent with about 20 students from kindergarten through high school with Joys, Hopes, and Dreams at the Arts Council of Princeton, a program associated with HomeFront. The inspiration that night came from “Stone,” a Charles Simic poem Luray recites as a story.

We told several stone stories, a Nasruddin story of pushing a great stone; Skunny Wundy outsmarting the Stone Giant in a skipping stone contest, and the Storytelling Stone, in which Gah-ka has a pouch with objects to represent the different stories he has learned from the Stone.

These led up to the Simic poem. As Luray spoke it, we all listened intently, and then she repeated the beginning of the lines and – with only one hearing and no copy of the words to refer to – individuals, unprompted, called out the remaining words, just as Gah-ka listened so deeply to the Storytelling Stone that he was able to repeat all he heard.

Then Luray laid out stones she had collected and asked each participant to choose one and listen to what the stone said to him or her, just as Gah-ka had objects from his pouch to remind him of stories. From these stones, and “pouches” drawn on paper, new stories were formed.

One youngster drew a memory of rolling down a hill with a friend. Another drew the dog she wished someday to own. 

At the conclusion of the Native American tale, the Stone tells Gah-ka that the stories will no longer be kept in the stones but will live in the people. And the stories do, and will, as long as we share them. They can be triggered by an heirloom piece of jewelry, a photograph or letter, a favorite recipe, a remembrance of a special event. The humblest of materials — even a stone — can inspire a story .

Primary resource for the Storytelling Stone: a Seneca tale retold by Joseph Bruchac in Return of the Sun: Native American Tales from the Northeast Woodlands.

Stone, by Charles Simic: https://t54poets.weebly.com/blog/stone-by-charles-simic