The Fragile and Immortal Word

An approach to the art of story-telling and to the unseen side of magical folk tales. What is a folk tale? What is a story-teller? Is today’s story-telling traditional? And if so, by whom was the tradition handed down to us and to whom shall we pass it on? Is story-telling an art? Are there desirable and undesirable ways of telling stories? Is there such a thing as an “ideal” story-teller? Is there something behind the apparent artlessness and the unrealistic element in magical folk tales or are they simply harmless little stories made up in the days when illiteracy was the rule or even  earlier, in times when writing was completely non-existent, tales told by the unlettered and addressed to the unlettered, in other words to those no more than children?

The author, a story-teller herself, attempts to answer these questions basing her arguments on the teachings of renowned practitioners of the art and on her own personal experience. The answers are given orally as it were, not with mind speaking to mind  but with heart speaking to heart. The book’s intended audience is both all those who give performances as story-tellers and all who wish to put their verbal messages across freely, vividly and naturally.