Just Passing the Time?

As part of Scotland’s Year of Stories, Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches is organising two events which will take place at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh at the beginning of May.

Donald Smith is one of the workshop leaders for the ‘Learning from the Kist: Storytelling Workshop’, and he has been spending time on the Tobar an Dualchais/ Kist o Riches website undertaking research for the event. In this blog, Donald looks at the significance of tests, challenges and puzzles in storytelling.

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“Storytelling was, and is, a medium of learning, curiosity and imagination, but it is also a form of entertainment. If the storyteller fails in that primary function all else is lost.”

Riddles, guesses and guddicks are just three of the ways contributors describe clever word games. The website is full of them (eg Track 32660).

‘Fits in the hoose, an oot the hoose, an in the hoose whan aa’s deen? The windows.’

‘What’s got a bed and never lies in it? A river.’

‘Fit his twa hauns an ne’er washes its face? A clock.’

‘What’s flying lying, and standing lying? A peewit’s crest.’

Verbal wit and games were ways of passing the time, through long spells of darkness or indifferent weather, without broadband, radio, terrestrial tv or perhaps artificial light. I once asked Willie McPhee - piper, tinsmith and storyteller - why he told stories. And Willie’s stories included some epics in which nine brothers went on nine quests, but all delivered in a consummately laidback and relaxing manner. ‘Och,’ says he, ’it’s a good way of passing the time.’

Storytelling was, and is, a medium of learning, curiosity and imagination, but it is also a form of entertainment. If the storyteller fails in that primary function all else is lost.

That is why so many stories contain tests, challenges and puzzles to keep the listener alert. A classic example is ‘The Three Questions’ which recurs with the same structure but lots of different details. John Stewart (Track 66102) gives a popular version in which a king uses three questions to bully a miller into surrendering his daughter.

But the daughter’s sweetheart steps up to answer the questions disguised as the miller. He successfully fields ‘what is the weight of the moon?’, and ‘how many stars are there in the sky?’, but the clincher is his reply to ‘What am I thinking as I speak to you?’. ‘You’re thinking you are speaking to the miller, but....’ The appeal of this version is threefold: it is witty, the underdogs get the upper hand, and it is told with characteristic Stewart zest.

Inevitably Jack gets in on this act as well, not just outwitting adversaries but solving riddles. In Stanley Robertson’s tale (Track 67481), Jack frees the princess from dark enchantment by solving her riddles. According to Duncan Williamson, (Track 32663), prisoners could be freed if they set a riddle none could solve. His example (‘Upon Oak Leaves I stand....) caught Hamish Henderson’s imagination and inspired his last known poem.

Stories of wit sometimes feature ‘wise fools’. The Middle East has Nasruddin or Hodja, while Scotland has Daft Sandy and George Buchanan, the king’s fool. This is in itself a humorous inversion as George Buchanan was a famously learned, and very serious, Scottish scholar.

Daft Sandy is a favourite of Duncan Williamson. The point of course is that Sandy is not as daft as he lets on. But there is a further twist when Sandy plays to his daftness in order to outwit authority. So, he tricks a gamekeeper into reporting him to the police, but the evidence found on Sandy turns out to be a bag stuffed with grass with three pheasant feathers sticking out the top. From then on accusations against Sandy are laughed off and he can poach to his heart’s content.

George Buchanan often features in Duncan Willimason’s repertoire, but he is also a popular character among Gaelic storytellers. George is the contestant on behalf of the king in a Three Questions episode, but more often he uses earthy humour to best the king.

The king asks for ‘a bit of chicken’ after dinner, but George brings him an ‘an old hen’ ie an old woman instead. George obtains the king’s pardon for knocking off a knight’s hat, omitting to mention that the knight’s head was in it at the time. The ladies of the court expect to find flowers left beneath their gallants’ hats, but George leaves the Queen a turd beneath his headgear. ‘Never let us see your face again,’ says the king, so on his next appearance George shows them his backside. George is a wily anarchist! The historical Buchanan would have been outraged.

To pauchle the ideas of another scholarly George, the folk tradition is full of what George Davie called ‘the democratic intellect.’ Perhaps there is a bit more to it than just ‘passing the time’.

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Donald Smith has been an active participant in Scots and Irish storytelling for over thirty years. He is a regular workshop leader, lecturer and mentor to developing storytellers. Donald started the Scottish International Storytelling Festival and is also a founding member of the Scottish Storytelling Forum and Edinburgh’s Guid Crack Club.