Thanks a million to Liam O’Shaughnessy for his review of our recent weekend workshop and performance with Daniel Morden
Fadó Fadó, way way back many years ago, Daniel Morden was a featured storyteller at the 2012 edition of the Cape Clear International Storytelling Festival. It was the first time I sat in awed silence in a packed roomful of strangers, listening to a master storyteller transport us through time and space. It really was an experience I will never forget. Daniel’s tales that weekend lit a fire within me, and that passion for storytelling continues to burn brightly. And I’m not the only one! Though we didn’t know each other at the time, several current members of the Gab were in attendance that weekend. The connection between the Gab and Daniel Morden is a deep and profound one. When Mary and Deirdre announced that they would be welcoming Daniel to Blarney for a weekend concert and workshop, well, I was only delighted.
The festivities began as good stories often do, on a Friday night. The Church of the Resurrection Blarney, which was to be our home for the weekend, was bustling with quiet anticipation as I arrived and the seats began to fill. The gorgeous church, with soft lighting and playful shadows, shifted and settled into something warmer and more alive as the crowds grew and anticipation built. The echoes of the empty space were replaced by the murmurings of quiet conversations, the rustling of large winter coats, and before long the ambient playing of Stevie O’Brien as the remaining crowds took their seats.
BAT Deirdre O’Mahony set out the plan for the evening, with a series of stories from Daniel, interspersed with music from piper Stevie O’Brien and fiddler Fanny Leenhardt, and singing from mezzosoprano Gráinne Stafford.
Through the course of the evening, Daniel told four stories, each distinct, each opening a different door for our imaginations to walk through. He began with the tale of the Green man. As we learned the following day, this is the kind of story which Daniel loves to tell: something ancient and earthy, rooted deep in the Celtic folklore tradition. It’s a story which has it all, magic, gambling, quests, love and loss. It was a tour-de-force performance from Daniel, leaving very little doubt as to why he’s considered one of the finest storytellers working in the English language today. After a musical interlude, Daniel changed pace and regaled us with a traditional story from Armenia. This tale was much darker, but with the barriers between the crowd and the world of the stories already completely melted after the tale of the Green man, we lapped up this story of conflict and betrayal.
After the intermission, Daniel told two more tales. He hadn’t planned to tell these stories, but he was struck with inspiration from the musicians. First, we heard Daniel’s version, of his father’s version, of one of Aesop’s fables. Set in an old graveyard at night featuring a grieving widow and a lonely watchman, it was a tale of sorrow and loss followed by new love and hope. For his final story of the evening, Daniel transported us to ancient Greece, where Zeus and Poseidon, disguised as poor humans, visited a town which was violating the ancient laws of hospitality. It was a tale with deep themes, moments of laughter, and some incredible imagery.I overheard more than one person afterwards wondering about the real place behind it—modern-day Phrygia—and whether that lake still exists, where the oak and linden trees grow together, intertwined.
Daniel’s performance was magnificent, but the weekend was only beginning!
The Saturday workshop began with the 15 of us sitting in a semi-circle around Daniel, proudly sporting our name tags, and wondering what we were in for. The event was billed as designed for those with little or no prior experience with folk tales, but that promise did little to quell the nerves! We started with a question, what is a story? It sounds simple, but it led to quite an interesting discussion. Next Daniel told us a lovely short story about a man who couldn’t tell a story, and we spent the morning working through it—breaking it into plot points, themes, and vivid images that could anchor it in memory. These exercises were incredibly helpful and practical, and I’m sure many of us workshop attendees will be using them throughout our own storytelling journeys.
After lunch we split into two groups, with Daniel telling each half a different tale. Then, in pairs, we practiced the techniques from the morning on this new story with our partner. We then got the chance to tell the story as a duo to a pair who hadn’t heard the story yet! It was a very enjoyable exercise (and might I say Pauline and I formed a magnificent storytelling duo). To close out Saturday, and gently lead us into Sunday, we turned to the challenge of bringing folktales to life from text. Have you ever read a story on the page and found it falls a little flat, especially when you’ve heard it told aloud? And even when the written version works, how do you take it off the page and make it your own?
Before we called it a day, we were given a written account of an old folk tale. It was a hastily written, poorly translated, sorry-state of a story. But that was exactly the point. In that form, the story is boring, dull and lifeless. But come Sunday morning, Daniel performed his magnificent version of the story, and then guided us through how he took the tale from text to performance. Non-linear storytelling, embellishment of characters and imagery all play a role, but our word of the weekend was most definitely “paralinguistics”.
After Daniel’s example, it was time for us to follow suit. We had each brought a folktale to the event, and now was our time to bring it to life. Taking some time to apply all of the tools and techniques we learned over the weekend to our stories, we finished the day in the best possible way, by telling stories to each other.
Storytelling isn’t just about performance; it’s about community, about passing things on, about keeping something alive. We had a fantastic weekend engaging with the tradition, guided by one of its modern masters.
And I’ve no doubt that, for years to come, we’ll still be telling stories about the weekend Daniel Mordan came to Blarney…
– Liam O’Shaughnessy
The Gab 