Ep 54: Mythstories Museum of Myth and Fable
Have you ever visited a museum dedicated to myths? In episode 54, Fiona Boyle, the spokesperson for Mythstories Museum of Myth and Fable, walks us through this amazing online resource. Founded over 20 years ago by Dez and Ali Quarréll the physical museum amassed a wide collection of paintings, artifacts and educational resources to help make intangible stories tangible. Over the years, Mythstories Museum has helped to introduce young people to traditional oral storytelling, through storytelling clubs, workshops in schools, family story walks and more! Due to logistical challenges, however, the Mythstories Museum has recently transitioned from a physical venue to an online educational resource for teachers and storytellers everywhere in the world. Don’t miss out on this outstanding episode!
Links mentioned in episode
Links: https://mythstories.com/
The Processional Giants– this link has more information on their history- I actually remembered it wrong in the podcast, they were made for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics
The Story Scroll from Bengal– (there’s also the one made by our home-ed group)
The kamishibai we made for the library
The Wrekin has two origin stories: The Giant And The Cobbler and Ercol and Wrekon. There are three other stories of giants living on hills on the website- The Clee Hill Giants, King Gogmagog of Oswestry Hillfort and The Treasure Of Stokesay.
The Inuit myth I mentioned is Sedna, Goddess Of The Seas
The storywalk film project is Wise Words In Wild Places, my favourite films from it are Ned Pugh of Llanymynech and Sabrina
Kenyan environmental
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Fabric of Folklore website
Welcome, folksy folks. Welcome to Fabric of Folklore podcast. I’m your hostess, Vanessa Y. Rogers, and this is the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of folklore. This podcast explores folktales, mythology, storytelling, and fairy tales in all its grime and glory. We really try and delve into the history of folklore to unearth its truth, its beating heart, to hear it sing the song of humanity. Stories bind us together as humans because we are storytelling creatures. We shape our identity, our communities, our sense of place through our use of stories. The reason I am passionate about this topic and continue to do this podcast is because I believe when we understand folklore, its history and origins, it helps us to pave the way to better understanding not only ourselves, but those who are from different communities, different cultures. Storytelling is a way to build bridges. It’s a powerful connecting force. So if that’s a podcast that you want to continue to listen, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. Whether you’re watching on YouTube or you’re listening on your favorite podcasting platform like Apple or Spotify, hit that subscribe button so that you get our notifications every week when our podcast drops. And if you’re a longtime listener, please consider giving us a five star review. It is so helpful for those algorithms so it can spit out recommendations recommending fabric of folklore to other people who might enjoy this podcast as well. We have an amazing, really fascinating show for you today. Our guest, Fiona Boyle discovered storytelling through the myth stories run away with Words Club when she was a teenager. She went on to win the National Young Storyteller of the Year award in 2017. Myth Stories Museum of Myth and Fable is an online storytelling museum curating traditional tales from all around the world. It was founded over 20 years ago by Dez and Ali Quorl. Am I saying that right, quarrel?Fiona Boyle: 2:12
Yeah.Vanessa Rogers: 2:13
Okay. And amassed a wide collection of paintings, artifacts, and educational resources to help make intangible stories tangible. Over the years, Myths Stories has helped to introduce young people to traditional oral storytelling through storytelling clubs, workshops, in schools, story walks, and more. Myth Stories is where words work. Fiona now helps to run myth stories social media and is currently exploring how stories can connect us to the natural world. So thank you so much for joining us, Fiona.Fiona Boyle: 2:48
Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m really excited to talk about myth stories with you.Vanessa Rogers: 2:54
So give us a little bit of the background of Myth Stories Museum. It’s been around for 20 years. That’s pretty remarkable.Fiona Boyle: 3:03
Yeah. So, yeah. So Des and Ali started it, I think 1998. It kind of started as a website and then kind of moved to, had their first kind of physical museum in 1999. And, yeah, it started off with because Des was an artist and still is, and he was making these artworks based on Shropshire mythology and indian mythology and wanted to kind of collect them in place and, yeah, and then use them to kind of tell stories to people. And then kind of the storytelling community at the time just kind of throughout the years of kind of donated like artifacts. So we have Helen east donated a lot from her travels in like India and South America and kind of bringing back these storytelling artifacts. And then kind of as time went on, they kind of started commissioning artifacts. So they were like, oh, we need a specific kind of artifact to tell stories in a particular way. And, yeah, and then kind of just built the collection.Vanessa Rogers: 4:01
And what was its goal? What was its initial goal?Fiona Boyle: 4:08
To basically spread storytelling and kind of give people a way to engage with it and then also to kind of use it to kind of promote literacy to young people. And, yeah, just kind of connect everyone to the stories that are out there.Vanessa Rogers: 4:25
Now it’s gone through several transitions and now it was an actual physical museum, but now it’s mostly an online educational resource. Can you talk us through a little bit about those transitions?Fiona Boyle: 4:38
Yeah, so it’s had, yeah, it has had a few transitions. So, yeah, like I said, so it kind of started off originally as a website. Obviously back in the very early days of when websites were a thing, they actually had a friend who kind of did like software development. So they kind of built the website and then it was actually featured on the UK. You kind of had this like national grid for learning, which was kind of used for teaching in school. So kind of that’s how it started off. And then had the physical first museum in Wem and then kind of moved to so I had to move starting Shrewsbury and then kind of moved back to Shrewsbury and then, yeah, and then, but kind of running a museum means like renting the space and finding spaces that will let you stay and kind of when, yeah, when they stopped being able to have the museum at the university center in Shrewsbury, Desinali kind of, you know, they’re kind of in their seventies now and we’re like kind of ready to step back from it a bit. So, yeah, so they’ve kind of sent the artifacts off to different places. So there’s, I wrote the name down. There’s the folklore center in Hebden Bridge has all of the books. So they’ve got over 5000 books of storytelling and folk tales collected. So that they took all of those and two of our processional giants. So these, like, massive giant sculptures, which are kind of were used in kind of processions. So they would be carried by, like. Yeah, so they were made, I think it was for the Commonwealth Games and. Yeah, kind of. It’s traditional thing in kind of different european villages to. Yeah. Build these massive giant sculptures and kind of carry them. And so ours were made out of, I think it was, like, paper mache. So, like, bits of paper, like, stuck together with glue. But they’re, like, huge and, like, taller than humans.Vanessa Rogers: 6:36
Are they telling.Fiona Boyle: 6:36
Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, they’re, like, maybe three humans high. So they are properly gigantic. Yeah. And ours are of the green knight and Morgan le Fay from, like, King Arthur’s, like, arthurian legends and. Yeah, and so there’s. In Belgium, there’s a museum called the House of Giants, which has loads of these processional giants. So it ended up. Yeah, those two ended up getting shipped in kind of different parts across to Belgium, where they are now.Vanessa Rogers: 7:09
And what characters are these giants? Are they from traditional stories?Fiona Boyle: 7:16
Yeah, I think some of them are representing traditional stories, so, like. Yeah, with ours being from the arthurian legends, but I think they’re just kind of. Yeah, related to, like, local folk. And maybe some of them kind of make characters just for the processions, but, yeah, and then the rest of our artifacts kind of went to two different schools, so we kind of put them in, like, mini storytelling museums, basically, so that the school children can use them to learn about storytelling. And, yeah, we still have a few artifacts knocking around if anyone wants to set up their own little storytelling museum and school.Vanessa Rogers: 7:57
My geography of England is abysmal. What area of the UK are you in?Fiona Boyle: 8:05
So we’re in Shropshire, which is on the kind of west of England. So it’s right on the border with Wales.Vanessa Rogers: 8:12
Okay.Fiona Boyle: 8:12
So, yeah, it’s not a county many people have heard of. You wouldn’t really know it unless you’re from the UK, even some people in the UK, but, yes, very close to Wales.Vanessa Rogers: 8:25
So I’m really curious about these processions that these giant paper mache statues are being paraded in. Are these, like, what type of parades are they being used for? Are there, like, specific folklore processions that happen in every village? Tell us more about this.Fiona Boyle: 8:46
Yeah, I think in the UK, I don’t think this is really a thing anymore. I think it used to be, but in kind of continental Europe, I think that does still happen, I think. And, yeah, and they just kind of do parades in, like, traditional dress and with these giants kind of. But, yeah, ours were made kind of specifically for the. I think it was the Commonwealth Games in, like, 2008 or something. And, yeah. And it kind of took, like, four people to carry them, and they’d be kind of inside the giants, like, looking out through, like, a little mesh bit. And, yeah, it was originally meant to be carried by two people, and then they’d made it, like, way too heavy, so they had to kind of adjust it. But, yeah, this used to be the kind of centerpiece of the museum, so you’d kind of come in and be seeing these massive giants. Yeah, it was a kind of good way of getting people to kind of, you know, be in that kind of space of thinking about stories where there’s. Yeah. Big giant sculptures there.Vanessa Rogers: 9:47
Huh. So can you tell us about any of the other artifacts that y’all, you’ll have currently or have passed on to the different locations?Fiona Boyle: 9:58
Yeah. Oh, there’s so many. I think my favorite when I went to the museum was there was, like, a romany caravan, so kind of a traditional painted caravan that they kind of had part there with different, like, objects and stuff. Because obviously, the romany kind of traveler tradition is very, like, big on storytelling, and so you could kind of sit there and be told stories. They have, which are the ones I like. There’s these little kind of enamel nested boxes, which were. That was one that was commissioned by the museum. So they’re kind of designed so that you kind of take them apart as you’re telling the story, and it’s kind of a three part story. So it tells the story of a kind of, you know, kind of lord of the winds, where kind of. So it’s a three sisters story, basically. So the three sisters are going to, like, need to go marry someone, and the first two do it wrong, and so they die, but then the third one gets it right. So it’s kind of one of those stories, but then, yeah, they kind of have these little enamel boxes you can take as you’re telling. So it’s, again, just a real kind of tactile way of, like, interacting with the story.Vanessa Rogers: 11:10
So, like nesting dolls, except for made out of enamel.Fiona Boyle: 11:15
Yeah. And that was kind of designed. So they commissioned. Commissioned a sculpture, like, sculptor, metal worker, and again, he kind of worked with a group of schoolchildren, and they decided which designs they wanted to be put on them. And so it’s kind of a very, like, collaborative process, so, yeah.Vanessa Rogers: 11:35
Cool. And then who. So now that you’ve transitioned to a website, what? Who uses it currently, yes, I think.Fiona Boyle: 11:48
It’S a mixture of people. So storytellers kind of educators are kind of the main people. We want to be using it so that they can. We have so many educational resources for, you know, for people to kind of make their own storytelling artifacts or just, you know, people combine videos and stuff for the stories and. And, yes, that’s kind of. And we have lots of, like, specific kind of. Because in the UK we’re going to have key stages which are the different, like, age groups, so we’ll have ones target, like, targeted at specific key stages so that, yeah, just hopefully teachers can kind of take them and be. And use them to teach literacy and, yeah, just kind of help their students kind of engage with the material.Vanessa Rogers: 12:34
And why people, like, casually, hopefully, yeah. Why do you feel that using folktales and mythology is useful in teaching literacy?Fiona Boyle: 12:51
I think it’s really useful. I think especially if you can do it in the kind of way of teaching oral storytelling, it really gives people a different way of engaging with it. And I think reading or writing does because I think there’s lots of children that, you know, might really struggle with, you know, reading and writing and that makes them feel like they can’t kind of access stories, but it’s such a different way of doing things when you’re. You’re telling the story kind of improvised. It’s not about writing it down. And I think it can just give people, they can really kind of take ownership of it. And I think lots of times doing like, workshops in schools, lots of storytellers will see, there’ll be children that would always, like, act out and be really difficult and then once they can be involved in stories, it really. Yeah, really gives them something. And again, and it’s also like another part of. It’s kind of like our history and our heritage, which in some places, like in Wales, they kind of have a bit more of a, like wanting to kind of revive that and connect. Connect children to that. But, yeah, I think, yeah, learning about storytelling can just. And spoken word is really important and that’s something that’s kind of been a bit lost, I think, from the UK curriculum. Like, even in our GCSE’s, which is you take, when you’re kind of 1415, we used to have an element of our english language, one which was a spoken element, and they’ve taken that out and it’s kind of all reading and writing now, so, which I think is a shame because I think, yeah, that kind of.Vanessa Rogers: 14:29
So in your testing process, you would have like, students stand up and do a storytelling. In the past, you’re saying that was removed, but that was part of your testing.Fiona Boyle: 14:39
Yeah. So not storytelling in the same, like, in the way that we do it, of kind of folk tales and stuff. But there’d be an element of kind of, you know, doing stuff with spoken word or having to, like, speak instead of just writing. And now it’s, I think because it was a bit harder to assess. They’ve kind of taken that out. And again, there’s just people that don’t, you know, they don’t connect with, like, putting words on paper, but when they get to, like, speak words out and, you know, they can really kind of thrive with that. So. So, yeah, it’s just those different skills that people have and, like I say, ways of literacy that, you know, even if people aren’t that good at reading, they can. They can still be great at telling stories.Vanessa Rogers: 15:17
Absolutely. And I, you know, you might be one of the first people to say it in such a unique way, but I think that is such a good point that in education that storytelling verbally can be so drastically different than the written word, and those are entirely different skills and skill sets. Yeah, that’s so interesting.Fiona Boyle: 15:45
Yeah. And also a really interesting thing with storytelling is that the listener is a really important part of it. Like, storytelling is a two way process, because if you’re telling, you can’t tell a story unless you have someone to listen to it. Otherwise you’re just kind of talking to yourself. So they’re kind of sitting and listening, which obviously is a useful skill for anyone to learn the kind of listening thing. And then all the audience are so important to the story because they’re kind of creating the story in their head as they’re listening. So it’s that kind of two way process which you don’t really get with many other art forms. And when we’re telling stories, we’ll, you know, I’ve kind of been taught to do different ways of, like, engaging the audience so that they kind of know they’re kind of a part of it. So you might be like, oh, and then the purse. She was making a soup. And then what different vegetables was she using? And then you get people to suggest vegetables and you kind of weave it into the story. So they’re like, oh, I get to kind of control this and be involved in this. And.Vanessa Rogers: 16:40
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, because that is so true. Because in other forms, such as writing, the only type of feedback you would get would be later on after someone is has read it on their own, but you don’t get, like an engaged, on the spot type of feedback that you do in oral storytelling.Fiona Boyle: 17:01
Yeah.Vanessa Rogers: 17:05
So you do other things, or at least you did. Do you still do the family story walks?Fiona Boyle: 17:12
I think we did them quite recently. It’d be nice to do those again. But, yeah, I think 2021. We kind of. There was a big kind of project for that called Wise Words in wild places, which was kind of doing storytelling and then making kind of films of them to kind of explore how people reacted to different kinds of images while they were listening. But, yeah, that was kind of also done as a series of story walks and. Story walks. I did quite a few and I was involved in the away with words club, and it’s a really nice way of kind of connecting people to landscape and place with stories. So you kind of. And, you know, children enjoy that as well because you don’t have to kind of sit in one place for a long time. So you kind of walk to different locations and then you tell things that kind of connect to it. So you might stand by a really nice tree and then tell a story about trees, or it could. So sometimes it’ll be kind of transplanting stories. So you’ll say, okay, there’s a similar theme in the landscape, but then in the UK, a lot of our landscapes and lots of our landmarks do actually have. Already have stories linked to them. So you can go and say, okay, here’s the story about this place. This is how this hill came to be or something like that. And, yeah, it’s just kind of giving. Giving people the chance to kind of look at the landscape in a different way and kind of see it through that lens of story is really nice.Vanessa Rogers: 18:39
Do you have one that you remember from one of those story walks?Fiona Boyle: 18:45
Yeah. Do you want me to tell you one?Vanessa Rogers: 18:48
We love stories.Fiona Boyle: 18:50
Yeah. So I think my favorite. Well, there’s one that’s kind of really well known in Shropshire because we have at least the part of Shropshire where I’m from is quite flat, and then there’s just this kind of one hill that’s kind of very distinctive. And, yeah, it actually has two stories of how it came to be, but the kind of most famous one is that basically there was this giant, and one day he got really annoyed at the people of Shrewsbury and he decided he was going to go and down the river Severn, so it flooded and destroyed the whole town. But he knew Shrewsbury was quite a long way away, so he got a big spade of earth and carried it on his shoulder and started walking all the way to Shrewsbury. And he kept walking and walking. He was getting tired and tired, and he sat down for a rest and then coming up the road was a cobbler and he was carrying a great big bag of shoes that he was going to mend. And the giant saw him and he said, oh, you cobbler, how long? How much further is it to Shrewsbury? And the cobbler saw the giant and he knew giants were bad news, so he thought quickly and he went, well, I can’t tell you how long it is, but this is how many pairs of shoes I’ve worn out walking. And he tipped his bag out and all these shoes fell and the giant looked at the worn out shoes and he couldn’t bother to go the rest of the way to Shrewsbury, so he just dumped his spade of earth down, and where that mound of earth was, that became the reeking.Vanessa Rogers: 20:23
So is the. Is the hill in, like, kind of a random location? Is that the kind of.Fiona Boyle: 20:28
Yeah, it’s just kind of the only hill in the area and it’s just kind of got, like I say, got another story that there’s a smaller hill next to it called the Arkle and, yeah, that there were two brother giants who kind of, because it’s a thing in uk mythology where lots of giants, like building hills and sitting on them. So you get lots of. Lots of hills connected to kind of giant myths and. Yeah, so there were these two brothers who kind of built a hill and then they fought over it and then one of them killed the other one and then kind of buried their body, and then that created the mound of the little hill next to it called the Ark, or it’s like, seen as, like a sleeping giant. So. So, yeah, it kind of shows how much of a landmark it is that it ended up with two stories. Funny, we have also a really interesting thing about that story is there is basically the same story exists in Germany, kind of from around the same time, so it’s. Which you get a lot with. When you look at. You might have found this as well. When you look at stories, you kind of get them popping up in different places, kind of. You’re like, how did those kind of the same story end up, like, here and there?Vanessa Rogers: 21:34
So, yeah, I do find that quite a bit and it’s so interesting and sometimes you’re like. But there’s no connection between these places and yet they have almost the identical story, so it’s really fascinating how that happens. I did not know that about England having so many giant folklore stories, that’s really. That’s really interesting.Fiona Boyle: 21:57
Yeah, they’re kind of a big part of it. And there’s this theory that they kind of, like, represent the Celts because there’s lots of stories of people kind of christians coming and defeating giants. So that might be kind of. Yeah, what they kind of represented. And then it got kind of turned into being giants. But, yeah, we’ve got a lot, especially in Shropshire in Wales, there’s. Yeah, there’s quite a few. Quite a few on the mid stories website as well. So we kind of collected some of those interesting.Vanessa Rogers: 22:27
And then some of the other things that you were doing were workshops and performances. Can you walk us through any of that?Fiona Boyle: 22:35
Yeah, so the workshops could be. Yeah, could be lots of different things. So I was, when I went to the storytelling club, when I was about, like, 1314, a lot of it was kind of just teaching us how to tell stories, basically, is what most workshops would be. So kind of usually kind of taking a very well known story, like, you know, three little pigs, you know, kind of a brothers Grimm type story, and. Yeah, and then kind of learning how to break it down into parts and kind of build it up in. In your own way and just kind of teaching people all those, like, skills that you probably wouldn’t have if you were just kind of like, oh, I want to tell a story. So, yeah, and then the, like, performance skills and you have to project your voice, things like that. So that’s kind of some of the workshops or they had quite a lot that were to do with kind of making your own storytelling artifacts. So it would. Yeah, so they. For example, they did one with a kind of. They did a series of workshops with a home educating groups, so kind of with them. And they did things like making their own story scrolls. So there’s a thing in, I think it’s Bengal, India, called these things called story pats, which are these scrolls that people would, like, unroll as they’re telling the story, and they’d kind of sing the story as they went. So then kind of getting children basically, to make their own ones of those, they’d each draw kind of part of it and then you kind of staple them all together and then telling a story. So, again, it’s just finding different ways to engage with it. So people love kind of doing arts and crafts, then it’s kind of a way to kind of make it their own and. Yeah, and then performances could be. Yeah, just because there’s lots of incredible storytellers around Shropshire and around the UK. So just kind of getting them to perform to people in different places also when I was. Because, yeah, desinali have always been great about kind of championing young people, so they’d always get us to do performances and stuff. So we did some in kind of some open air museums. So in the Shropshire, there’s a thing called this till, which is like an old victorian reenactment museum. So we’d kind of go around and tell stories to people there and kind of perform in the open air kind of as people were walking past and stuff like that. So kind of did the more formal, like people sit down and watch, but then also just kind of being in different spaces.Vanessa Rogers: 25:10
So how much of that is continuing now that it’s mostly an online website? Is the group still. I know that they’re still working with educational institutions like schools, but are they physically going in and doing workshops in those schools or how does that look now?Fiona Boyle: 25:30
Yeah, I think at the moment we’re in a bit of a kind of, like, transitional period still because the whole move to an online museum was kind of during the pandemic and stuff. So, yeah, it’s kind of thinking about what we want the new space to be, but it’d be great to kind of get performances up and running again. And that is because obviously, when we had a physical museum, you know, that was somewhere people come and stuff. But a lot of the work we’re doing was still the kind of stuff out in the open and stuff. So I would, yeah, really love to kind of get some of that stuff going again and. And, yeah, but then also from having the website and stuff, it means that hopefully people can come and find stories that they love on it and then go perform them as well. So there’s that kind of. That element of it as well is that people can. And, you know, these are obviously with these kind of stories, there’s no copyright or anything. Like people can just take them and tell them to other people, use them for creative writing. You know, they’re there for people to be able to use.Vanessa Rogers: 26:29
And that was one of the things that you did in your workshops, right. The retelling of folktales. Can you walk us through how they would work with folktales and what retelling looks like?Fiona Boyle: 26:45
Yeah, so I think different storytellers kind of have their own way of doing things, but the way we would do it was so you find a story in kind of different ways, but, like, let’s say you found a story in a book of folk tales, you kind of take that story sometimes. You’d see if you can, like, find other versions of it so you can kind of compare, and then you do what we call kind of bare bones in the story. So you just take it and go, okay, what are the essential parts of it? So, you know, bullet pointing where the story goes. And then you kind of. Yeah, and then you basically kind of think of the scenes of each story, and then you kind of add your own embellishments if you want to. You might kind of change where it’s set. So if you have a story that’s maybe, I don’t know, set in Canada and you want it to be set in your town, you kind of add in those, like, local bits and. Yeah, and then you kind of just practice telling it to other people and it’s all kind of improvised. So you’re not kind of memorizing a script or something, which may be the kind of. Yeah. The difference with storytelling as, like an art form to something like writing or like poetry or something is that it’s all improvised. You’ll kind of. You’ll have your structure and you’ll have maybe phrases you want to say, and then. Yeah, and then there’s kind of storytelling elements you can add in. So we had, they call them fireworks moments. So you kind of go, okay, what’s the big scene that you want people to know about? And then you’ll kind of make sure you’re describing senses and stuff in that bit. Or you might kind of lower your voice a bit so that people lean in, and then that’s kind of story kind of traditions. So, you know, things like rule of three. So there were like, she did this once, she did it twice, she did it three times. So it’s kind of all those things you can add in that kind of make it a traditional story. So, yeah, that’s probably kind of how you retell it, and then you just kind of keep telling it and kind of get it out your mouth and then. Yeah, and finding different people to tell it to because that’s going to be kind of different. Makes the story different every time and then.Vanessa Rogers: 28:50
Yeah, and it makes it different from, for instance, a theater performance where the lines are memorized and you do it the same every time, presumably. But in storytelling, you don’t memorize word for word the story. Is that right?Fiona Boyle: 29:10
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And I actually kind of, before I did storytelling, I was. I’ve been involved in, like, theatre and stuff. So I was very used to kind of working from scripts and it kind of took them a little bit of time to get me, like, into that thing. But they were just, like. They’d say, like, just imagine that you’re, like, telling a story about, you know, when you were on holiday and something funny happened. Like, you don’t have a script that you write out to say that. So it’s kind of a similar thing where, you know, you’re just kind of learning the beats and the. And the structure of the story, and then you get to. And it’s a cool experience to do, like, telling stories like that because sometimes you’ll be telling it and something like pop up that you hadn’t expected. And it so kind of gets to be a new experience for you as much as it is for the audience, which is. Yeah, which is really good. And there is something very. Yeah. That I really enjoy about kind of telling some of these stories that can be, like, thousands of years old and then you’re kind of there telling them in, like, a modern context and kind of keeping them. Keeping them going.Vanessa Rogers: 30:10
Do you find it more exhilarating or more nerve wracking to do storytelling in that format where you don’t have a memorized script? Or is it freeing? How do people experience that?Fiona Boyle: 30:25
Yeah, I think it kind of depends kind of who I’m telling it to. So I think kind of because I had that background in theatre, I always found it much easier to kind of tell a story, like, on stage with an audience kind of a little bit removed from me. And that’s something they wanted to. That doesn’t kind of worked on me with. Whereas just telling a story to, like, one person who’s kind of, you know, sat next to you is. Can be a lot. I find that a lot harder because it’s that kind of a bit more, like, intimate. But, yeah, it’s kind of. Obviously, it feels a bit more kind of risky. So you’re like, oh, what if I forget or something? But then you just, as you do it more, you kind of learn how to kind of, you know, how to. How to go back. If you’ve kind of forgotten an important thing, you should, like, bring it back in and stuff. I also think people, in some ways, can kind of. If you mess up a bit, that makes people go, oh, yeah, this is, like, not a scripted thing and it can be a good way of reminding them. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. Yeah, I’ve actually, like, not done it for a few years because I went away to uni and stuff. So now kind of. I’m just trying to start storytelling again. And, like, now I’ve not done it for a bit, you know, because you do it when you’re a bit younger, then you don’t have that kind of self consciousness. So kind of working back into that. It’s been. Yeah, I’m just starting that now and it’s been. Been nice. But, yeah, like, oh, there’s a bit more, like, self consciousness and stuff.Vanessa Rogers: 31:49
There’s some rusty bits to work out.Fiona Boyle: 31:51
Yeah.Vanessa Rogers: 31:54
So myth stories, does it include stories from all over the world or is there a focus on the UK stories? What does that look like?Fiona Boyle: 32:03
Yeah, so I’d say the main kind of. So it’s got Shropshire stories, so kind of the county we’re from because that’s where. Where it was based. So we obviously collected a lot there and also kind of Wales, which is kind of, like, right next to Shropshire, but then the two. So we do have it kind of from all over the world. But then the two main countries we have is canadian stories and indian stories, probably. Like, our indian stories are like, the biggest kind of collection overall because. Yeah, just because Des was really interested in them. And I think a lot of the uk storytellers are, because in the UK we have a big indian community, so that kind of means we kind of have a connection to India in there also. Really great stories. So, yeah, lots of indian stories, lots of canadian stories, and then a few, like, south american ones and stuff. So, yeah, kind of all around the world, really.Vanessa Rogers: 32:58
And do people contribute to the storyteller, to the stories that you have on your website? Like, do you accept different stories from around the world? How does that. How does that work?Fiona Boyle: 33:10
Yeah, so I think we don’t have that at the moment. That would be interesting, actually, if we had a kind of place where people could add their own stories. But, yeah, I think it kind of just. These were stories that were kind of collected over the, like, 20 years of the museums. So they kind of. Yeah, I don’t really know how they found some of them, but, yeah, some of them would be kind of as part of projects. So for our welsh stories, there was this Montgomery show, which is a county in Wales. There they did a Montgomeryshire folklore folk tales project, kind of working off this, like, book of folk tales and then kind of getting schoolchildren to tell the different stories and stuff. So, like, lots of the stories kind of came from. From different projects and then. Yeah, lots of them from Des’s artwork, just kind of the stories he wanted to make art of so it can. Yeah, so they kind of came quite organically, like, which stories ended up getting added.Vanessa Rogers: 34:09
Interesting. And do you have a favorite from the archives?Fiona Boyle: 34:14
Oh, that’s a good question. There’s one that I really like called Sedna, which is about this, Inuit, kind of princess who gets, basically bewitched by, like, a seabird. And she, like, marries him, and he goes off to, you know, takes her away to this, like, rock in the middle of the sea. And then basically. And then her father comes to try and, like, rescue her, and then it makes the seabird angry and then he. He kind of makes this big storm throw up. But basically, we’ll go through the whole story, but it’s the kind of origin story of how marine mammals came to be. So, like, where the walruses and stuff came from. And I really enjoy kind of. Yeah, because I’m quite interested in, like, zoology and nature and stuff. I really love the kind of origin stories, people being like, why is this thing like this? And then kind of having the stories around it? So. Yeah, that’s probably my favorite, but there’s loads of really good ones on there.Vanessa Rogers: 35:21
That’s a really. I’ve never heard that one. Do you know what that Inuit story is called?Fiona Boyle: 35:27
Yeah, so it’s on our website. We call it Sedna Goddess of the Seas.Vanessa Rogers: 35:33
Okay, cool. And so tell us a little bit more about one of the things that you’re currently working on is connecting stories to the natural world. Since you already touched on that, I’d like to hear more about that project.Fiona Boyle: 35:49
Yeah, so at the moment, we’re kind of doing that in a few different ways, but one of the ways is, at the moment, we’re working on a kind of museum guide within the bloom, the connects app, which hopefully will be out by the time this podcast goes. But if not, follow us on instagram and you’ll see what it is. But, yeah, and kind of part of the grant funding we got for that was to kind of create exhibitions within it that kind of explore stories and the natural world, because I just think stories are a really kind of great way of connecting us to the environment and making people care about the environment. There’s an example I talk about quite a bit where there’s this kenyan conservationist called Wangari Matai, and she was, you know, did amazing things in Kenya with kind of promoting conservation and protecting forests and planting trees and stuff. She was really amazing. But she was talking about when she was growing up in her village, there was this tree that they kind of, they believed there was a spirit inside it. So they tell stories about, like, oh, make sure you don’t hurt the tree because it’s got the spirit. And there used to be a stream that ran by it and she would go and play in the stream. And then the british colonialists came and they basically, part of their process of colonization was they banned people from kind of telling their stories, essentially. So they kind of blocked that heritage. And that meant that the tree kind of wasn’t protected anymore. And so it got cut down. And it turned out that its roots had been kind of allowing, you know, meant that the stream was able to exist. So they were kind of holding water. And so after the tree was cut down, the stream went and then, you know, people didn’t have water anymore. So it’s that kind of that thing with stories kind of protecting and, you know, providing cultural knowledge, which. Yeah, which I find really interesting. And we’ve got loads of stories that do kind of connect to nature in lots of different ways. So. Sorry, should I have a drink?Vanessa Rogers: 37:53
Yeah, that’s absolutely fascinating. I haven’t heard that. And we’ll have to get that website of the woman in Kenya that.Fiona Boyle: 38:05
Yeah, so she’s. Sorry she’s not alive anymore, but there is certainly. She died, like, 1020 years ago. But there’s a really good documentary that I’ll send you a link to, kind of that talks about all her work and stuff. Yeah, she’s really inspiring, but, yeah, so we have at the moment, I’m kind of. Yeah, working on kind of like, theming different exhibitions, kind of one of them talking about humans and nature. Because we have a few, you know, quite a few stories of, like, humans connections to nature in kind of positive and kind of less positive ways. In fact, lots of the indian stories have people kind of caring for nature. So there’s the kind of basically the indian version of the, like, flood stories. Now we have the kind of well known, kind of, like, biblical version is, you know, nowhere in the flood. But there was a similar story india, which I think it’s this, like, same age about kind of manu who basically cares for this little fish who’s. Who’s kind of going down a big river and is scared. So he kind of cares for the fish and then, like, as it grows, moves it to different, like, bigger ponds and stuff and eventually, like, moves it into the sea. And the fish tells him he’s actually like a God and that there’s a big flood coming and he has to like, collect all the seeds in the world and put them into an ark. And then when the flood comes, then the. Yeah, then the fish comes as, like, this big narwhal and kind of tows the ship to safety, and then Mandy kind of sows the seeds of the world. So, again, so I actually hadn’t, like, heard that story until I was kind of, like, going through the myth stories website, kind of trying to find environmental stories. So, yeah, there’s just so many examples of just. Yeah, just different stories that kind of show a connection to nature. And I kind of do stuff, have done stuff kind of from a more, like, scientific perspective of, like, working with environmental charities, kind of volunteering, being like, how can we engage, like, young people with nature? And I think actually stuff like storytelling is just giving people, like, a different routine because, like, I have lots of. From doing kind of science stuff, I have lots of friends who are kind of more interested in, you know, kind of doing scientific surveys and kind of getting really into, like, the science and recording and stuff. But, like, not everyone is, like, interested in that. So if you can find, you know, people are a bit more, like, creative than something, like, you know, they might not be connected to, say, like, you know, learning about a particular, you know, identifying particular species of animal, but they might be interested in learning, like, oh, it has this, like, folklore association or something. Yeah. Just finding lots of different ways that people feel connected. And I think once you feel connected to something, then you’re more likely to want to protect it.Vanessa Rogers: 40:58
Absolutely. And not everyone has a brain for science. It, you know, it doesn’t necessarily click. But most humans have a brain for storytelling, not necessarily themselves being a storyteller. But our brains are definitely geared towards hearing stories and understanding the world through storytelling. So I think that is such an important way to engage with. With audiences, to help them to care about things like the environment.Fiona Boyle: 41:29
Yeah, definitely.Vanessa Rogers: 41:32
There was one thing that I was looking at when I was watching one of the videos online, and I think it was a japanese art form, a box containing picture slides, and it was one of the things that they were using in the classroom to help students with storytelling. Can you talk a little bit about that one?Fiona Boyle: 41:54
Yeah. So, yeah, that’s a art form called Kamisha Bai, which. Yeah, it’s from Japan, and it’s kind of like a really early form of, like, animation almost. So they would say. Yeah, kind of have painted slides that kind of show each scene of the story. And. Yeah. And as they’re telling the story, then you kind of move each slide kind of to the back, and then it’ll reveal the next slide. And, yeah, I actually made one as part of the away with words thing. And I think they kind of chose this as a storytelling kind of technique or, like, thing to workshop with people, because it is kind of has two things. It’s like, so if you’re making your own story, it really kind of forces you to go, because I think, you know, like, I’ve got kind of nine images that I can put on this or however many, and then it really makes you think about your scenes. Okay. So you kind of, like, if you have to do a scene for each one, it’s like, which scene most best tells my story, and then when you’re actually telling it, you’re thinking kind of in the scenes. So it’s kind of good from a telling perspective and then also go from, like, a listener’s perspective. If you’re not used to storytelling, it can be a bit strange to kind of be like, I’m just kind of meant to sit there looking at this person while they kind of tell the story. So being able to see it visually is really good. And then also, then you have the element of you get to make something, and if you enjoy doing artistic stuff, then it means you get to kind of do the drawing and things. So it kind of is a really great art form and in its own right. And then kind of as an educational tool, I think it’s. Yeah, a really good thing to do. And we have resources on our website for how to kind of make your own one or make one with your children if. If you. If you want to, because it’s quite. Quite a fun project. So you just kind of need a, like, cardboard box and some slides.Vanessa Rogers: 43:43
Yeah, that seems so interesting. Did. Do the students do that in groups or they do. They do it individually or do they do one for the whole class? How does that work?Fiona Boyle: 43:52
Yeah, I think usually if they’re doing it as a workshop, they kind of have. Yeah, they’re kind of having, you know, like, doing it in groups, and they kind of might all do one different slides or something or work together to kind of decide which scenes they want to do it. When we did it in the. In my away with words club, we kind of each did our own one, and that was kind of done as, like, a display because the. The club was in a library, so it was made as a display in the library. So had one box, and then people had different. Could then go and pick which of the slides they wanted. Like, which of the story sets from each one that we made, so then they could go and use it to tell the stories if they wanted to.Vanessa Rogers: 44:37
That’s so neat. I almost want to go do that with my kids. Although they’re quite young, I still think it would be a fun little project because it is. It’s nice to have props when you’re storytelling because it’s nerve wracking when it’s just like you were saying, all eyes are on you, and if you have something to hold that’s tangible, then it makes it kind of easier as a focal point, both for the storyteller and for the listener. So I really like that idea and that content is good. Sorry, sorry. With the story scroll, too, is that there’s a similar kind of concept. Right?Fiona Boyle: 45:17
Yeah. And then there’s also one called a kavadh, which is a kind of like an indian. Like, it’s kind of a shrine, but also a storytelling object, like the traditional ones. It’s kind of like a cupboard that kind of folds out and has different panels. Or there’s, like an ethiopian kind of story kind of carpet almost. So kind of like. Again, it’s a similar, like, scroll thing with different ones. So it’s kind of interesting once you start looking for them. You do find quite a lot of artifacts that have kind of been those kind of aids to storytelling and. Yeah, and another nice thing about the camera, shabby, is if you’re telling in groups and, you know, if someone doesn’t feel confident being the one telling the story, then they can be the one kind of lifting up the slides and stuff. So it kind of means everyone can kind of be involved or, you know, you can have one person tell one slide and another person tell another. So, yeah, works really well.Vanessa Rogers: 46:10
And that is something that you don’t necessarily think of naturally. When you think of one of the words that you use on the website is oral heritage, which is basically oral storytelling. But you’re saying that these are used in different cultures all over, and they have different ones per the culture. That’s so interesting. I never knew about that.Fiona Boyle: 46:38
Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting. That kind of more. You like. Yeah, look into it. You kind of. Yeah, all the different. It kind of shows how important storytelling is that you can kind of have this many different ways of telling it. And, you know, we’ve got, like, puppets is another way. So we’ve got, like. You have quite a big collection of puppets because that’s been really used as a. As a way of storytelling. And. Yeah, it’s just been, I think, was so useful for myth stories because, yeah, when people used to come to the museum, so it wasn’t just a kind of museum where you, like, stood and looked at exhibits. It was very much, you know, usually they kind of have desinali or like, other storytellers in there to kind of tell people stories when they arrived. So what they used to have actually was a jigsaw that was kind of based on an old, like, Maya, not aztec myth. Basically, the idea was people could sit and do the jigsaw while they were being told a story because they were finding that people were finding it a bit intimidating if they immediately came in and they were like, oh, we don’t really know what to do with ourselves when we’re being told a story. So they could just, like, sit and look at the jigsaw and stuff. And then that made it, yeah, a bit easier. And so, yeah, it’s going to have the traditional storytelling artifacts and then, yeah, the ones that were kind of created, like Jake Evans, he’s a storyteller and was kind of an apprentice at myth stories for a bit. Made this amazing, like, tree called, like, the wonder tale maker. And there were all these different kind of hanging, like, round, painted, like, wooden things, and then you could, like, select different ones and put them together and make different stories and stuff. So, yeah, just all these ways of getting people to kind of engage with stories that they might not have otherwise.Vanessa Rogers: 48:20
And I’m one of those people as well that I like to have something to do with my hands while I’m listening. So that would really appeal to me having something in my hands while someone is telling me a story. And it also makes it kind of a little bit less intimidating and less intense, like, because if you only have the storyteller to look at, sometimes it just feels like, can I look at something else?Fiona Boyle: 48:46
Yeah, it’s kind of taking the pressure off because it is kind of, you know, it’s something that used to be, like, way more common that you kind of just sit and be told stories. But we’re really kind of not used to it, at least in kind of, you know, more western cultures. Like, we’ve kind of lost that a bit. So it’s kind of finding ways of people being. Yeah, being comfortable with that, which. Yeah, which, like, things like doing the jigsaw and stuff can be good for. And there’s actually some exhibits that, because they had a. There was a deafblind girl who came to the museum and her parents said, oh, there’s nothing really that she can kind of, you know, there’s no way she can kind of interact with that. So they kind of ended up working with a sculptor to make these kind of tactile clay tiles so that to tell the story of the epic of Gilgamesh, which is a really kind of ancient mesopotamian story. So, yeah, these kind of clay tablets. So then she could kind of, like, feel what it was like, and they added, like, sensory things. So in some of the indian stories, they have these kind of cupboards with, like, spices and stuff. And so again, it’s just finding all these different ways for different people to be able to connect to the stories that they might not if it was just someone kind of telling it to them.Vanessa Rogers: 50:02
Yeah. And what are the students and teachers saying that are, what benefits are they seeing in the classroom?Fiona Boyle: 50:13
Yes. So there’s a few. So, like I said, there’ll be kind of some students that really kind of, you know, act out or are quite difficult that when they get to interact through stories, you know, there’s just something about it that I think some people really, or I think most people really kind of connect to. I know for me, kind of having done storytelling, it really helps with, you know, kind of my kind of public speaking ability, like, ability to do presentations and things like that. It really gives you that kind of connection. And, yeah, like I said, it’s just a different way of engaging. Like, it’s. It is quite a different art form to, like, writing and books and stuff, even though, like, you know, I love reading and stuff, but it’s kind of, I think, more different than people realize. So, again, it’s just giving people a different kind of literacy to be able to do. And also it’s like one where, you know, they’ll do lots of, like, group storytelling. So you’ll have, like, you know, like, small groups of students working together to kind of tell a story together. And, you know, they take different elements and kind of plan the structures together. So then you can get, like, you know, the thing of people working together, which is really nice. And then also there is that element I talked about where, like, the listener is kind of as important as the storyteller. And so that can be a great way of teaching children to, like, listen to each other and stuff because they kind of know that they’re important as part of the story. So, yeah, loads of different things. I think it’d be great if it was in all schools and stuff.Vanessa Rogers: 51:51
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the future of Miss Stories museum. You briefly touched on the app. Can you tell us a little bit more about what we have to look forward to?Fiona Boyle: 52:07
Yeah, so, yeah, we’re working to make a bloom an app. So it’s kind of called Bloomberg connects. And it kind of. Their basic aim is to have, like, a museum guide for every museum in the world, I think. Is that eventually kind of working through them? And so, yes, so for lots of, like, physical museums, it will be kind of like an audio guide where, you know, if you’re going around the space, then you can kind of click on different things and it’ll, like, tell you about it kind of through, like, audio, which obviously we’re like a digital space. So ours is a bit different, but, yeah, it’s basically providing a guide to the website and creating, like, our, like, app specific content, like the environmental exhibitions I was talking about. We’re hoping to have a kind of map feature with all our different stories so people can see, like, where in the world they’re from. Just, yeah, loads more things we can add there. And then the idea is to kind of use it to kind of provide a guide to the website. Because what we’re finding at the moment is kind of with the way search has changed. So it used to be people would kind of come to a website and spend, like, you know, 20 minutes kind of looking around it and stuff. Whereas now people usually just kind of search for what they want, click on that link and then kind of go. So we’re hoping that through the app, we can kind of encourage people to, like, explore a bit more because there’s so many resources on here, so many, like, stories and, you know, like, different crafts you can do, like we’re saying with the Kam Shabai, you know, like videos. We’ve got so much stuff on there. So it’s just kind of giving people a guide of like, okay, this is the stuff we most want to show you. This is, you know, a kind of starting point for people to be able to explore without, you know, maybe feel intimidated to kind of click on a website and be like, where do I go now?Vanessa Rogers: 54:03
So. And you said that there were lots of stories from all over. Is this going to be targeted towards primarily people in the UK or do you think that it will be a useful tool for educators worldwide?Fiona Boyle: 54:18
Yeah, hopefully worldwide, yeah, because I think we have some. Some of our education resources. We’re saying, oh, it’s kind of good for this, like, age, you know, this key stage for their own UK educators. But there’s no reason that people couldn’t use it from other countries. And I know that, like, in terms of our, like, website visitors, we do get a lot of, again, people from India and Canada because I think when people are looking for stories, you know, because we’ve got so many on there, we get quite a lot of visitors from there. But, yeah, hopefully people from all over. And something else that the guide will be really good for is it kind of provides like, Google translate within the app. So it kind of means that people can access it in like, you know, kind of Google translated in like, different languages really easily. So that will be another thing that hopefully will just kind of broaden out the people who are able to access it. But, yeah, hopefully people from all over the world, like, yeah, if. And, you know, there’s resources that, like, you know, you say have young children and stuff. There’s loads of, like, craft activities and stuff and lots of the stories on there. If you wanted to take someone, tell them your story or, like, use them in your book or whatever, like, we say that they’re all up there and we want people to use them. So.Vanessa Rogers: 55:30
Yeah, absolutely. Well, what have we missed? We’ve covered quite a bit of ground. What do you feel like we haven’t covered?Fiona Boyle: 55:41
I guess you did ask in your list of questions, you asked about the storytelling in caves. Yes.Vanessa Rogers: 55:47
Please tell us about that.Fiona Boyle: 55:50
Yeah, because I had actually, I had to go and ask this lally about that because that was a bit before my time, but, yeah, that was so cool because they basically, they were doing a storytelling event and someone came along to it who was like, managed an estate and he was like, we’ve got this cave on our land. Would you like to do a story performance in it? And they actually. So the cave kind of like a bit kind of up a cliff, so it wasn’t immediately accessible. So they actually got, like a local conservation firm to kind of like carve steps into the cliff and like do add a rope, handrail and stuff. So people were able to get there and then. Yeah, and then they had, I think it was ended up being like six different performances of different storytellers coming and telling, you know, different. So someone told, like, you know, kind of underground stories, basically. So someone told like, the Midas’s labyrinth, you know, with, like the Minotaur and stuff. And someone told stories of dragons in caves and things. So, yeah, it’s, again, that thing of, there is something really nice about being able to tell kind of site specific stories. So to be able to go and be in a space and hear stories about it. And. Yeah, they actually. And they had one kind of, like, musical performance, and they had a bulgarian singer come, and she was really worried that her voice would be too powerful and would, like, bring down the cave at the ceiling. Luckily, that didn’t happen.Vanessa Rogers: 57:14
Yeah.Fiona Boyle: 57:14
Yeah. It all sounds amazing, but that was 2006, so kind of a bit of it. Too young to come along to that. But who knows? Maybe. Maybe that’s a goal for the future. Do more. More stories.Vanessa Rogers: 57:24
Maybe in the future. I fear that in our litigation style world, things like that are less. Are less likely to happen just because people are so afraid of lawsuits. That would have been really amazing to experience. We have a caveat near us that does Christmas caroling at Christmas time, and we haven’t ever gone, but it’s been something that’s on my bucket list for a while because I would just imagine that the acoustics would make storytelling or singing just so much more magical.Fiona Boyle: 58:01
Yeah. Yeah. That sounds amazing.Vanessa Rogers: 58:05
Well, thank you so much, Fiona, for joining us. This was quite delightful.Fiona Boyle: 58:11
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.Vanessa Rogers: 58:15
And thank you, folksy folks, for joining us on this myth story museum. What did you learn today? Were you inspired by this myth story museum? Are you an educator or a parent? Have you used myth story or telling storytelling in your classroom or your home? And what did that look like? What benefits have you seen? We love to hear from our audience. So if you’re watching on YouTube, please comment down below. If you are connected with us on our social medias, like Facebook or Instagram. We have a Facebook group specifically for continuing that conversation, but we love to hear from you on any of our social medias. We’re also on Twitter and a little bit on LinkedIn, so we really encourage you to continue that conversation. And like I said before, please subscribe if you haven’t. You’ve been listening to fabric of folklore. Thanks for unraveling the mysteries of folklore. And until next time, keep the folk alive.