WOSAS : F720 |
WOSAS/CD226/track1 R761.wav |
Connedda
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Shaggy Horse, The
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Sound recording, story; Connedda or The Shaggy Horse, a wonder tale of Irish origin, told by Sally Pomme Clayton a member of The Storytelling Unit, at the fifteenth Storytelling Unit Clubnight, at an unidentified venue, London, 1984 | |
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Introduction to the clubnight and commentary about what storytelling is, the relationship between candle light or natural light, and storytelling and the imagination, by Sally Pomme Clayton, followed by story told by Sally Pomme Clayton. | |
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A King (Conn) and Queen (Edda) love one another dearly, and produce a son Connedda. When the Queen dies the King marries the druid's daughter. She becomes jealous of her stepson, and taking advice from a witch, challenges him to a game of chess. Both the new Queen and Connedda win one game. They are then each faced with a challenge. The Queen must climb to the highest pinnacle of the castle and remain there for a year and a day, while Connedda must go to the fairy world to collect three golden apples, a black stead and the hound with super-natural powers. Connedda seeks the advice of a druid who lends him his horse and with guidance from a bird with the human head, he and the horse travel to the fairy world.Connedda makes the journey successfully with guidance from the horse and the help of magical items which it carrries in his ears. Near the journey's end the horse instructs Connedda to kill him, which sets free a young man who had been cursed by his master, the druid. The young man reveals that his sister had also been cursed, and she was the witch who had given the chess board to the Queen, so that she and he brother would eventually be freed. Connedda returns home, and on seeing his success, the Queen throws herself from the pinnacle of the castle where she had been waiting, and dies. | |
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audience:- | adult; contributing storytellers |
recording quality | |
condition:- | fair |
completeness:- | complete |
duration:- | 0 hours, 14 minutes, 49 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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The Storytelling Unit was born out of the West London Storytelling Unit (W.L.S.T.U) in 1983, with members Marva Cumberbatch, Pomme Clayton, Daisy Keable. In or around 1985 Daisy Keable and Marva Cumberbatch left the Storytelling Unit, at which point Ben Haggarty, (who had been a member of the W.L.S.T.U) joined and worked with Sally Pomme Clayton for a brief period before the group was disbanded. The increased interest and demand for storytelling performance for adults led to the formation of The Company of Storytellers in 1985. | |
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storytelling:- |
storyteller: Sally Pomme Clayton female / British / member of the Storytelling Unit |
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origin:- | Ireland |
administration:- |
storyteller; promoter: Ben Haggarty storyteller: Daisy Keable; Georgiana Jerstad; Georgiana Keable storyteller; musician: TUUP; Godfrey Duncan |
storytelling:- |
London, England
1984 storytelling club: Storytelling Unit Clubnight storytelling club: Clubnight 15 |
gift from:- |
storyteller: Ben Haggarty |