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Four of Brian's Stories

by Brian Fitch

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1.
Tatterhood 32:14
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2.
The Black Bull of Norroway 43:12
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3.
The Crystel Sphere 22:08
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4.
The Castle in the Rosy Clouds 26:21
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about

About these stories:

Tatterhood comes from Norway, the Black Bull of Norroway has multiple British iterations, with this version being specifically English, The Crystal Sphere is one of the few Grimm's tales I tell (German), and The Castle in the Rosy Clouds is from Sweden. While most of these places reflect my personal heritage, I didn't choose them for that reason. The request to make this recording came in mid-December, and I always tell these stories in January and February, so they ended up here for you to listen to...northern tales for the cold season.

On storytelling:

I first witnessed the power of storytelling, and learned how to do it myself, from my early mentor at CCC, Susan Edwards. I had to find and select stories that felt good to me, and that were appropriate for 3-5 year-olds, which is why few of Grimm's are in my repertoire. Story-telling is ancient, and existed in every culture across the globe and throughout history until recently. A good story is archetypal, it reaches into the human psyche and helps us process mental-emotional realities that can't be easily worked out in the outer world. To share a story in the right manner, one has to enter it as a psychological reality, regardless of whether it ever happened or even could have happened. It isn't about mundane life, but about the transformative magic that we can all feel if we open ourselves to it. Joseph Campbell and Bruno Bettleheim are two of the most well known writers about the importance of myth and story, but my favorite essay is from J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-stories." Tolkien and his colleagues in "The Inklings" coined the term "mythopoeic" to describe their work, and that also describes the mood I try to work from in offering each story to the children. And every time I succeed in reaching that mood, I see the clearest evidence for the value of stories in the wonder shining from the children's eyes.

-Brian Fitch,
March 2019

credits

released May 19, 2019

Stories recorded live at CCC on a samsung galaxy s7 phone and a Zoom H2n hand recorder and edited and mastered on Audacity. Sound quality is commensurate with recording conditions.

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Sounds of Children's Community Center Berkeley, California

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