It was a brutally cold winter and a darkness covered the land. The winds blew hard and the creeks were covered with ice and snow. People said they saw the crows gather together at midnight and sing their songs, sad songs that were not earthly but from beyond the broken veil. The people kept their doors locked and only candles burned to keep away the night.
Those that didn’t believe in stories and folklore had taken over the forest. They looked for her with evil in their hearts. Pola was her name and she was the last of the Great Storytellers. She was part Irish and part Native America. Pola hid deep in the forest by an old creek with her grandson Larry and his dog Buddy.
She knew they were hunted by the nonbelievers and when they found her the stories would end, children would cry, and imagination would be no more.
Pola was raised in the old ways and now the town people wanted to take all the books from the old storyteller. The nonbelievers went deep into the forest and stole all the magic from our storybooks. They said never again would we open a book to “Legend has it that …”; “Once upon a time …”, or “In days of old …” They would stop the children from dreaming and forbid make-believe. They would not let the children play.
They said children would never be able to read again as the books would have no life, no imagination nor dreams that told the secrets of storytelling. It was a sad time in the forest. The elves hid in caves by the creek and the owls were silent. The children cried because they wanted to hear bedtime stories read with love and lots of imagination, but this was not to be.
They needed a hero; one that was bold and courageous like the dragon slayers of old. A hero born far from the cities, one that spoke with the owl and heard the songs the crows sang.
Pola reached in her medicine pouch and took out a white owl’s feather. She tied it to Buddy’s collar and gave Larry her vial of Strong Ink. The owl will show you the way through the forest where you will travel west to find the great Artist Raissa Urdailes then take her to the hermit poet Johnny Johnston and ask for The Book of Stories. He has a friend, Len Bernat, who is a soldier and a writer, you must go on a quest to save the magic and rescue Pola, The Last Storyteller. Hurry on your way for soon the night will vanish and the spirit of the trees will not be able to help you find your way. Worry not about me for I am old and can see the veil, but you are of my blood and you must seek out those that will join your quest to save the storytellers.
Coming Soon: Part Two Of The Storyteller Series: The Quest
Reading stories to children or telling them – invented on the spot or retrieved from memory – has been a ritual of children’s day for a very long time. Before letting the children sleep, or on winter afternoons, mothers, grandmothers and nannies would take a moment to tell a story.
Now, other rituals compete with reading fairy tales. A cartoon, a quarter of an hour of video games. All right, please. Forcing the child to anachronistic rules doesn’t do much, except to isolate him from her reality.
Predictable, therefore, that the next generations will have a childhood without stories. And the worst thing is, they’ll never know what they’ve been missing.
The stories offer us the possibility of reading, within each story, the different life paths that conceal important traces of humanity’s journey, of the problems, difficulties and injustices it has encountered and of the way in which people involved have faced and, often, overcome their most difficult phases.
Oh I love this already. Someone stealing storyland right from under our noses. What would life be without those stories and nursery rhymes?
Can’t wait to hear more.
This came into being because someone told me I should never say once upon a time, imagine if you would, no storytelling or folklore. They said I was damaging my grandchildren. So I wrote several stories about just that. Thank you for reading my story
Great idea, sharing again before the next installment. Wonderful, heartening stories deserve to be read more than once.
Thank you Jane. I like having several series going. It seems easier to stay on track rather than writing many different types of stories.
Great storyline Larry! Looking forward to how this continues.
Thank you my dear friend
Larry, you are indeed blessed with your story-telling ancestral blood. Nobody spins a yarn like the Irish and Native Americans! But what struck me most is the ongoing onslaught on fairytales which used to be every child’s staple so as to eradicate sexism. Or so the rationale went. Looking at what young children are reading now in our schools is all about pushing an extreme liberal agenda, particularly gender neutrality. How correct is this? And I don’t just mean politically.
I often feel I live in a world where the magic has faded away
This ought to be within the jackets of a Book. Lovely!
Thank you my friend
Larry, Part 2 now! Totally captivated.
Thank you Jeff. It will be my first post of 2020
What a precious revelation of the gifts of your real life friends whose lives form the plot and theme of your story. I love this, Larry. Raissa Urdailes, Johnny Johnston, and Len Bernat how beautifully illustrative of your valued artistic contributions!
Thank you my friend. A lot of my Bizcatalyst360 friends I have never met.
Oh I love this. The ink in my mind is flowing. What will happen next 😊
I’m writing part two now
Can’t wait to see part 2, Larry!
Thank you Susan
Larry – Strong Ink, indeed. Thanks for mentioning in your story.
My pleasure my friend