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WOSAS : F496 WOSAS/CD181/track1
R535.wav

Blue Deer, The
a Green Man story

Sound recording, story; The Blue Deer, an adapted version of a European wonder tale, transformation and riddling tale, told by Ben Haggarty, as part of a performance A Ladder to the Moon, by The Company of Storytellers, at A Bit Crack storytelling club, The Cumberland Arms, Byker, New Castle Upon Tyne, 3rd February 2006

Music played by The Company of Storytellers Hugh Lupton, Sally Pomme Clayton and Ben Haggarty, followed by story told by Ben Haggarty. A story of sex-change and transformation from human to animal and of riddles to gain a brides hand in marriage. A hunter jumps over a blue deer lying dead in the forest and turns into a women. She marries a King and has a child. A series of further changes occur with the women turning from women to mare, from mare to bitch, from bitch back to hunter- all the time watching over the husband and son, until the son becomes King. The hunter helps find the King (his son) a wife, using riddles, by telling three lies that are not lies, all relating to his previous incarnations.

Ben Haggarty has added the element of the Green Man into this story. It is an adpated verison of a traditional tale.

audience:- adult
    recording quality
condition:- good
completeness:- complete
duration 21 minutes, 28 seconds:-

The Company of Storytellers at this time comprised Ben Haggarty, Hugh Lupton and Sally Pomme Clayton.

The Company of Storytellers (C.O.S.T) was formed in March/April 1985 with the expressed aim of performing storytelling for adult audiences. C.O.S.T was actually formed during a tour in East Anglia by Sally Pomme Clayton, Hugh Lupton and Ben Haggarty. The official launch of COST was in 1986 at Common Stock Theatre, London. At this point the members of C.O.S.T were Sally Pomme Clayton, TUUP, Ben Haggarty, Daisy Keable, Hugh Lupton. However TUUP and Daisy Keable did not remain in the group and it is as a trio of storytellers, Ben Haggarty, Hugh Lupton and Sally Pomme Clayton, that C.O.S.T is publicly known. C.O.S.T was disbanded in 1999, but periodically reforms to perform the Three Snake Leaves. The two seminal pieces developed and performed by C.O.S.T were The Three Snake Leaves and I Become Part of It.

storytelling:- storytelling group: The Company of Storytellers

storytelling:- storyteller; musician: Ben Haggarty
male / British / born 30.11.1958

storytelling:- storyteller; musician: Sally Pomme Clayton
female / British

storytelling:- storyteller; musician: Hugh Lupton
male / British / English / Welsh

origin:- storyteller: Ben Haggarty
male / British / born 30.11.1958
Europe


administration:- administrator: A Bit Crack


storytelling:- Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cumberland Arms
03 Feb 2006
storytelling club: A Bit Crack
A Ladder to the Moon


gift from:- storytelling group: The Company of Storytellers


©  The London Centre for International Storytelling: 2007
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