Only a few people can say that they earn their living telling stories, but since 1989 Daniel Morden has travelled the world as a professional storyteller visiting arts centers, theaters, libraries, museums and festivals worldwide. He has told Welsh tales in St Donat's and at St David's, from the Arctic to the Pacific to the Caribbean. Daniel says "When I was young, children could walk to school by themselves. Every day as I walked I would make up a story, about myself, or Spiderman, or the Viking God Thor, or some strange character I had invented. When I reached school, if I hadn't finished the story I would walk around the playground, muttering it under my breath. I had to know how the story ended, even though I was making it up." His first book, Weird Tales from the Storyteller, was published by Pont Books in November 2003 and was subsequently nominated for the Tir na N-Og Children's Book Prize. Delighted with his first publication, he said "I wanted to write the kind of book I would have loved to read when I was young. I loved books where I was laughing and shuddering by turns." He is one of the UK's most popular tellers of traditional stories, with a repertoire that ranges from The Iliad and The Odyssey performed with Hugh Lupton to his work for families fusing music and story with Oliver Wilson-Dickson. Daniel Morden and Hugh Lupton were awarded the 2006 Classical Association prize for "the most significant contribution to the public understanding of the classics." Daniel has conceived and presented numerous documentaries on storytelling for BBC Radio Wales. In 2007 he won the Tir na n-Og Award for Dark Tales from the Woods. His latest publication is Tree of Leaf and Flame.
These seven tales are taken from those told by the gypsy
storyteller, Abram Wood, coloured with some ideas from the Brothers
Grimm and other writers, and rewritten in accessible language and
style by the modern storyteller Daniel Morden.
The stories tell of heroes and heroines following their dreams and
making them come true, usually by overcoming huge and dangerous
obstacles, often in the form of powerful and cruel people or
enchantments. They are stories to scare and enthral the readers or
listeners and to warm their hearts at the end when the hero wins
through and his adversary comes to a gruesome end. I particularly
enjoyed 'The Leaves that Hung but Never Grew' for its clever use of
a story that becomes the story, and 'Mary, Maid of the Mill' for
its heroine who ‘wasn’t what they call beautiful, but she had her
wits about her’.
These are tales to be read aloud in a candlelit room to an audience
of any age from 9 upwards. The only drawback to that would be that
listeners would not see Breckon’s wonderful black and white
illustrations, which perfectly complement the text and add power to
it.
*Mari Strachan @ www.gwales.com*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |