| WOSAS : F675 |
WOSAS/CD220/track5 R716.wav |
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Children of Lir, The
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| Sound recording, story; The Children of Lir, a wonder tale and legend from Ireland, told possibly by Bo Keable, as part of the eighth West London Storytelling Unit Clubnight, at Common Stock Theatre, Hammersmith, London, 18th December 1983 | |
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| Story told by Bo Keable. A King and Queen marry and have four daughters. The Queen dies, so the King marries her sister, who is jealous of the attention the beautiful daughters receive and so turns them into swans. The King's close friend suspects the Queen and kills her. The King discovers that his children have been turned to swans, and that their fate is to live for 300 years on a lake, for 300 years on a cold, barren island, and for 300 years in a small town, and that only if they are loved will they be returned to their human form. 900 years later, a pastor in the small town invites the swans into the church. The swans return to a human form, but not as four beautiful women, but as one old hag and three old bandy-legged men. They live in the church until their death and the swan becomes a sacred animal within the town. | |
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| audience:- | adult; contributing storytellers |
| recording quality | |
| condition:- | fair |
| completeness:- | complete |
| duration:- | 0 hours, 14 minutes, 4 seconds |
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| The West London Storytelling Unit Clubnights or The Storytelling Unit Clubnights were begun by Ben Haggarty, TUUP and Daisy Keable in 1982 shortly after beginning to work together as the West London Storytelling Unit (W.L.S.T.U). They took place on roughly a fortnightly basis during the atumn and winter months, in community centres in Acton, Shepherds Bush and Hammersmith. The clubnights were an opportunity for anyone to come and tell a story, or perform music on the condition that it had a toe-hold in tradition. The performance of original poetry and the reading of original writing was actively discouraged as there were plenty of other fora for 'new writing' elsewhere in London. In 2007 Ben Haggarty explained that the clubnight format was in part inspired by the College of Storytellers, but with the aim of doing something less bourgeois, for a younger audience and which was not dominated by Idries Shah's mission to promote his vision of Sufi storytelling. The clubnights also took inspiration from the anarchy of the London Musicians Collective clubnight events in Camden. The clubnights led Ben Haggarty to inaugurate the First UK International Storytelling Festival at Battersea Arts Centre in London in January 1985. After the 1985 festival a few further clubnights were run, before ending in 1986. The clubnights were superseded by the formation of the Company of Storytellers who pioneered the touring of adult evening shows throughout the UK, and by the formation of the Crick Crack Club in 1987, which focused on the programming and development of professional storytellers, their performance skills and their repertoire for adult audiences. | |
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| storytelling:- |
storyteller: Bo Keable male / British |
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| origin:- | Ireland |
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| Images of clubnight events at Common Stock Theatre | |
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| White master-copy of flyer for clubnight 6, clubnight 7 and clubnight 8. | |
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| Green version of flyer for clubnight 6, clubnight 7 and clubnight 8. | |
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| Click to enlarge images | |
| administration:- |
storyteller; promoter: Ben Haggarty storyteller: Daisy Keable; Georgiana Jerstad; Georgiana Keable storyteller; musician: TUUP; Godfrey Duncan |
| storytelling:- |
Hammersmith, London, England: Common Stock Theatre
18 Dec 1983 storytelling club: West London Storytelling Unit Clubnight storytelling club: Clubnight 8 |
| gift from:- |
storyteller: Ben Haggarty |
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