What's in a Story? The art of the storyteller in culture & tradition

The night was dark and the wind whistled around, screaming like a banshee as it forced an icy draft through every crack and crevice in the stonework of the small thatch clad house… This is the home of the storyteller.

Stories can evoke memories of childhood, of times past, and bring together people who have a sense of shared experience

Have you ever become lost in the pages of a book, exploring the threads of a story? I love this escape from the world. I need and crave it in equal measures, and lately, I’ve been finding myself lost in old Shetland folk stories, enchanted by their magic, dipping in and out of their pages and wondering at their meanings. I keep returning to them and thinking about the storytellers behind the lore, the folk tales they tell us and the place of the storyteller in society today. It’s sad to think that so many of these stories – the very fabric of our society, the cloth that we are cut from – risk being lost to history forever. Should we grieve the fact that the seasonal patterns of life that went hand-in-hand with the storyteller are under threat in our modern world? In a culture where everything is found at the click of a mouse, are we more disengaged than ever?

Locking people into their magic for millennia, folk tales were at one time an integral part of the lives of our ancestors here in Shetland and beyond, passed down through generations from one-to-another, woven into the very heart of our culture with family lore, love and legend. It was cosy and intimate, warm and reassuring. It involved the meeting of eyes and the exchange of words.  It was not an email trail, or a flurry of messages, likes and emojis on social media. It was real. It was tangible. It was a deeply and profound human exchange.

Shetland, as anyone who has been here between November and January will appreciate, endures a very long dark winter. In its slow and wintery depths, the sun merely lifts her head above the horizon, nods an acknowledgement, offering a tantalising glimpse of light – a reminder that she is still here – before sinking, once more, below the western horizon and plunging the islands into a shadowy darkness once more. And it’s in this shadowy darkness that the tales of time are spun, stories are webbed-out and mapped into our cultural fabric as the storyteller nestles into his easy chair for the evening.

Hands at work, making horse hair fishing lines

Winter in Shetland was characterised by hard work, but a different kind to that of summer, it was a time of preparation, of planning and making ready for the coming year. Of hope and anticipation, of waiting on weather and light. Yet, it was a sociable time, the bitter cold and incessant wind was softened, the sharp edges dulled by time spent in the company of friends and neighbours. So, as the fishing lines were made, the yarn spun, and the kishies formed, people chatted, whiling away the long dark hours in the company of friends.

As the wind rattled at the window panes and the rain lashed at the door, these tight-knit communities would find solace in the company of each other and the storyteller would gather momentum. Nestled around the lowing fire and watching the spunks of peat dancing up the chimney, friends would share news from near and far, seamen would regale stories of faraway lands, exotic customs and unfamiliar fare. Bodies gathered close, listening, sharing guddicks [riddles] and, perhaps, as the night wore on, the chairs would be pushed to the corner as someone took up a fiddle and a dance would ensue.

Interior of the Crofthouse Museum, showing the fiddle hanging in pride of place on the wall above the fire, ready to be brought down for a tune at any moment

And as legs tired, and the lamp dimmed, stories ‒ the telling of a good yarn ‒ was invariably the end result of these friendly nocturnal gatherings. It’s not surprising that many a good storyteller has come out of Shetland, equipped with tales able to challenge even the most highly acclaimed Booker prize winner. Stories which have been passed down through the generations and told around a glowing peat fire.  

Davy Cooper, one of Shetland's storytellers of today.

These stories were shared in an old Shetland which had not experienced the arrival of North Sea oil and all the demographic changes which that brought.  It was a Shetland which had no electricity, no running water and news from outside was slow to arrive, percolated in from passing ships and the infrequent out-of-date newspaper or journal which few people could read. In today’s digital age is the storyteller in demise. There are still one or two champions of the story here today, but in the past there would have been 10 ‒ and every community would have boasted their own storyteller ‒ with a greater yarn to tell, a taller tale to paint.

Lawrence Tulloch, one of Shetland’s most loved storytellers, wrote that “good stories did not have to be epic folk tales, it might be no more than someone telling of a trip to the shop.” But it was the way in which they could tell a story, spin-a-yarn and captivate the imagination of the audience, no matter how insignificant the event or topic might be.

I’m no storyteller. I’m happy writing, but I’m not sure I can tell a story, weave it with magic and drama, mystery and suspense, the way a storyteller might. So, in this digital age, what and who are the new storytellers? Are they bloggers, social media users or writers, or are we on a path to losing this part of our heritage altogether? 

When I began writing this (a while ago…) I was stuck on the freight boat (of all places!) outside Aberdeen thinking about this blog. I began talking to one of the other passengers, a lady, who told me she had been in Shetland researching storytelling. I turned my laptop around to show her what I was writing ‘What’s in a Story’.  ​Now that's serendipity!

Through the window. Shetland Crofthouse Museum

And in that serendipitous moment, against the humming drone of the crippled boat's engine, and under a fractured mackerel sky I realised that actually, as long as we still love a good story, as long as we still enjoy getting lost in the magic of the unreal – there will always be a place for the storyteller in whatever form that may take.

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For anyone who would like to find out more about our storytellers, there are a few whose books and work I can recommend:
 
Lawrence Tulloch from Yell
Andrew Williamson from Mid Yell
Jessie M Saxby, originally from Unst
Jeemsie Laurenson from Fetlar
 
And for general folklore information and inspiration:
 
James R, Nicolson’s Shetland Folklore
John Spence’s Shetland Folklore
Ernest Marwick’s The Folklore of Orkney & Shetland

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