Adventures at Abriachan

Adventures at Abriachan

25th and 26th September 2014

a two day workshop drawing inspiration from woods of Abriachan Forest Trust to give us poems, stories, puppets and plays….

workshops began with long scribble-sheets of ideas

workshops began with long scribbly drawings, sharing ideas, looking out of windows and speculating wildly as people arrived.

scribbles became pages in our Old Book of Abriachan

first draft, meet the actual maiden below

The woods gave us  characters to play with, strange artefacts to discuss, goblin camps with troll-snot on sticks* to enjoy, smoke signals to send

Deep in the woods, 1

Deep in the woods,

The wind whispered through the branches,

Speaking in quiet airy voices,

Voices sounding like waves on the sea.

The treetops creaked like sailing ships.

Waiting.

Watching,

Always watching

For sea eagles,

Always watching,

Always waiting.

Distant voices?

Distant laughter?

Children having fun?

Over where?

Over there!

Where?

Don’t go!

a little old house where a little old man sits

Deep in the woods, 2

Beyond the path,

Beyond the pond,

There is an old, old house,

Where a lonely old man sits,

Knitting his beard into socks,

A beard so big he carries it in a bag,

Too old to use the stairs,

Too crumbly to use the ladders,

He zip wires up and zip wires down

When he goes shopping 

For shrimps in Drumnadrochit

Stories and poems grew out of moments, notes and pictures. Unexpected characters grew under our fingers

a poem written as pictures

a rather lovely storyboard

3. Not nasty, just lonely

An old witch lives

In a house made of branches and bracken,

On a beach beside a burn,

Brewing bubbling potions

In a big, iron cauldron

But lonely old man

Met lonely old woman

And they went out for a romantic meal

Goblin Girl, 1...

... and her friend, Goblin Girl 2

Day 1 produced small puppets and instant plays while on Day 2 we took time to make more complicated puppets and build more involved stories, inviting parents, carers and stray passersby to join us for final performances in the Textural Maze

a dramatic moment

3 warriors on a quest for the red ribbon that will stop wars
(they also found an emergency caterpillar)

Goblin Girls out adventuring

a rapt audience

* less educated people call it marshmallow

Thunder-graves

This is a post from a sister-blog of a project I am working on. Derbyshire Myths and Legends has been running as an enrichment of the Summer Reading Challenge in Derbyshire (surprisingly enough!). By the end of the project I'll have done workshops in 20 libraries which have been wonderfully delightful and potty. Even by the slightly sideways standards of the stories we've been creating, the Storm Story with the Burned Girl that evolved all of a sudden in Creswell Library last week was exceptional. So without further comment, I'm going to post that story and some of its associated images. Follow the link above to see the rest of the project blogs and more pictures

Creswell Library

Thursday 28th August 2014

A Thunder-grave in the dark woods

“Walking with an umbrella during a tornado is not a god idea”*

But the girl went walking with her beautiful blue umbrella, anyway

She is buried in a thunder-grave,

Deep in the woods.

A lonely grave,

A single grave,

And there she brings

Thunder, lightning and storms inside the wood

But the edges of the wood are peaceful

And guard the world from her anger.

But one wild tornado escapes

And collects a bus full of panicking school children,

Spinning them round,

Ready to do them to death.

But the bus sprouts wings and 

As an aerobus with rocket boosters

Sails through the storm

To safety.

But the lightning strikes

A goblin house in the Old Widow’s Tree

And the goblin and the two fairies who live in a hole flee

don't trust the Burned Girl!

The storm chases them,

Winds to blow them, rain to beat them,

Even their strongest spell doesn’t help,

And they run and run,

Too wet to fly, too scared to hide.

Down to the lake

Where a girl sails her boat through the storm,

Over a lake horrible with giant waves.

She carries them through the wind and the waves and the rain to...

Who lives in the old cottage behind the gray fence?

There is a bridge there, too,

Over a river behind the house,

A bridge to an island where a rock hides caves.

And might offer a new home to the lost goblin and his fairy friends

“Beware of the person who lives in the house behind the grey fence.”*

* “The things my Mum used to tell me”, numbers 25 and 32

a brave girl who could sail a boat through a storm

By the end of the story, all the characters had taken cover in Creswell Library where they live to this day, hiding in the bookshelves

even the Burned Girl enjoys a good read

with many thanks to all the storymakers, artists and puppeteers of Creswell!

A bumblebee summer

A bumblebee summer

- well, we can always hope! Good sunshine, glowing flowers, increasingly friendly gardeners - let’s hope it’s enough

And it is a summer for creeping toads! I’m involved in events through July and August and am going to start posting them in some sort of order now

Buxton Festival Fringe

weekend of Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th July

Sunday 27th July

Saturday 12th

Grinlow Art and Storytelling Trail

“Come and discover works of art along a waymarked trail in Grinlow woods, July 12th and 13th, with storytelling at the end of the trail. A bunch of local creators, dreamers, makers and arty folk have had much fun and frolics dreaming up woodland installations............”

Grinlow Woods at Poole's Cavern car park (Fringe Venue 94: on Green Lane in Buxton): 11 Jul 6pm to 10pm, 12 Jul 10am to 10pm, 13 Jul 10am to 6pm. Free
Further information: 07970 868 018

I am there telling stories on the Saturday: tales of tall trees and stone people, stories from the green shadows and the still pools and the dripping caves. 

Times: I am due “on” in the story tent at 12, 2 and 4pm but this will be approximate!

last year's tree, flag
 and making combination... 

Sunday 13th

Tiny! Wildness: the return of our annual, ever-so-slightly potty Tiny! adventures. Come and find us in Pavilion Gardens: we’ll be the ones sitting under a tree with flags, bunting and lots of bits. This year we’re going for a new set of Tiny! friends: aiming for nothing bigger than our hands. There might be heroic children, dragons, kings, queens and elephants. Who knows? We are sure some Tiny!PIrates will put in an appearance

Free (and frivolous)

Pavilion Gardens (Fringe venue 33). “Search” for: "Pavilion Gardens, Buxton" and you’ll find us: 13 Jul 10:30am to 12:30pm, 2pm to 4pm Free, Ages 4+
Further information: 07825 177 355

always watch out for a Tiny! Pirate!

Sunday 27th July

And on this day, I’m telling stories in the High Peak Community Arts Yurt in Pavilion Gardens but at the moment, I don’t know just where or when! Watch for details!

Coming up next: Derbyshire Myths and Legends with the Summer Reading Challenge

Nottinghamshire Libraries with the SRC

Hen Harrier Day! Flex your feathers, m'hearties! We will need all our pirates out there supporting some of our most elegant birds!

Large eagles and small people

Fallibroome Arts Week (3)

Large eagles and small people

The badge of Nether Alderley Primary School is an eagle, linking them to local folklore and the Stanley family. Almost inevitably, when this old Toad got his clammy amphibian fingers on the idea it changed a bit. We spent a day telling eagle stories, making up eagle stories, fabricating furiously and being as convincing as possible about our own adventures when ....

It picked me up! It picked me up! I was in the playground when this huge eagle... My hat blew off and I never saw it again...I was eating an ice-cream and when I got really high in the air it fell off the cone and landed on a teacher in the playground....I went away round the world, it was very exciting, I am never coming back...

So we spent a day where "every feather tells a story" with everyone in the school making at least one story-feather for our huge school eagle (wingspan about 4m).

an Interim Eagle: the shoulder spike would be
trimmed and the wings given their final position -
photo to follow!

A classroom in Broken Cross Community School doubled its complement of characters with a swarm of small puppet people with everyone from cheetah's to goblins and a very fat little devil.  We used props: pine cones, plates, kettles, goblets and tankards to set ideas in motion and build characters around objects. There were princesses holding their golden goblets, pirates with treasures and some beautiful dragons....

Away with the Faeries!

and we were! on a hot, steamy day in the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, there were visitors everywhere. Picnics were eaten, streams splashed in. Dogs chased balls and balls chased ducks and ducks chased anyone who might have bread concealed about their persons

the team hard at work

This was an event in the Stone and Water Exploring with Stories project. For other events, have a look at the Explorings blog

troll picnic stuffed into someone's hat!

and among all this bedlam, who would have thought that there were still small quiet corners where the watchful watched.....

you can never be sure who is watching!

Our intrepid goblin-hinters, faerie followers and troll-huggers (more than a hundred in the day), peered and pried and found clues (tiny witch's broomsticks, stray goblin ears and troll eyebrows and even scales from a mermaid's tail!)

Under the bridge,

An old troll sits,

Fishing in the river for shoes

The wicked witch of the waters

Lives in a willow tree

Watching the water and wishing she was by the sea

Our discoveries gave us new stories, new friends to meet. Natalie always brings chips when she comes to the Gardens so she can share fish and chips with a troll. Unfortunately, Adam realised that a lot of the ducks (see above) are actually faeries, transformed by some cheating goblins who then had a party, got drunk and fell over. The fountain is, of course, a faerie bath and when the faeries are bathing, the ducks flee because a) who would want to see a naked faerie? and b) short-sighted faeries have been known to use ducks instead of sponges

musicians of all ages, called us to our tasks

BOOKLOG

References used:

The Fairies (poem) by William Allingham

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony Di Terlizzi and Holly Black

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis

one of our hunters brought Natalie, the Christmas Fairy with her as a book to recommend

by the end, we couldn't tell who was human
 and who wasn't...