Latest / Mooney's Mythic Podcast / Part Two: The story that is working me.

Transcript

Part Two: The story that is working me. · Mooney's Mythic Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, welcome to Mooney's Mythic Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome here, welcome to episode 17.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is part two of episode 17 because I recorded the first part late last night
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: and I didn't tell a story,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just took you around the Oxford Storytelling Festival and then I went to bed and
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I felt all blocked up because I've got this story inside me which I
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: really didn't like which I read to my friend Elsa the other day and I really don't
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: like it it's really annoying and it won't go away so I feel like the only way is
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: through and I'm going to tell it to you and I was thinking about it when I ground
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: my pepper
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a cast iron pepper grinder and I was thinking about it when I sharpened my
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: pencils I've got one of those old fashioned rotary you know it's got a big crank on
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: the side and I can sharpen my pencils it's one of my greatest pleasures sharpening
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: my pencils with this desktop pencil sharpener and every now and again I can get all
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: the pencil sharpenings out and I can use them to light my fire but
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: This story's taken away any enjoyment I have in that, so I feel like I want to tell it.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this story is a story from the Caribbean, and it's called Why is the Sea So Salty?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about why the sea is so salty, I'm suddenly filled like a heavy balloon with tears.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the reason that the sea is so salty is because someone somewhere is weeping.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Of course,
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: the reason why the sea is so salty is because all the uncried tears that have been
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: pushed down and pushed down and denied and forgotten about
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: end up in the ocean, just like all the other unwanted things end up in the ocean.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the sea is so salty because it's where we came from.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's where we evolved from.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's what we came out of.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's the ambiotic fluid of life.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: This story is not about any of those things.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how the story goes.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And at least it's a story about the sea so I can use my ocean drum.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: At least it's a story about the sea so I can think about sailing.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can think about being out on the waves.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember the times that I've been sailing and all we had to drink was
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: desalinated water,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: seawater that had gone through a filter to take everything out of it,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: to strip it of everything until it was just H2O.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And without that salt, without those minerals, for me, it just tasted of sadness.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It tasted of despair.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I was curious to find out why was the sea, why was the sea so salty?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I read this story in a book called Serpent, Siren, Maelstrom and Myth.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a very exciting title for a book.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Serpent, Siren, Maelstrom and Myth.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sea stories and folk tales from around the world.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't disappoint.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's so well researched.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's so beautifully written.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what's more, it really honours the oral tradition.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And even more than that, it goes back and back and back and back.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It tells you all about different versions of the stories and different places that
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: you might hear these stories.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: In short, my story-loving friends, this is a seafaring Bible for anyone who is interested in folktales.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: My friend Elsa, she wanted a story.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was the third or the fourth one of the night.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I chose this story because I looked at how many pages and it was one of the shorter ones.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I told it.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the first word got me.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Crick.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Crack.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is an old Caribbean storytelling way.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's an old way that lots of storytellers still use.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's a great storytelling club called the Crick Crack Club.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw it all around the Oxford Storytelling Festival where people would say a
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: word and they would want the audience to respond with a word.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in that way, how enthusiastically you responded was how much you wanted the story.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a good way to call attention back when something has happened or you feel you might be
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: losing people to the samba band that's walking past outside if you're at a festival,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: or the school bell if you're working in a school.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to try it like this, my friends.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say Mooney's Mythic, and I want you to say podcast.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in that way, we'll drum up some enthusiasm for this podcast.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: We'll vibrate the energy.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Out into the air so that this podcast has got a bit of a shimmer and a bit of an activation.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll know how much you really want to listen to this podcast.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Mooney's Mythic.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Did you?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Did you dare wherever you were with your headphones in?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Did you dare to whisper, to shout, to sing podcast?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's try it again.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Mooney's Mythic.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I heard you.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I heard you in the depths of myself.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I heard you.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a story and we do things three times.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's do it one more time.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mooney's Mythic.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've got your attention.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've got your promise.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've got your enthusiasm.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you why the sea is so salty.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: wasn't always so salty, my friends.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was a nectar.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was a honey-dewed,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: crystal-clear water that could quench your thirst,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: that could fill you up,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: something that you would lap and lap and lap and lap from,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: and it would be all you ever needed.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: But not now.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, not now.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: You might be swimming in the sea.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It might feel like the most refreshing thing.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It might be just what you need on a hot day to dive into that salty water.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if a wave comes lapping up over your face and you swallow a mouthful, it is horrible.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And my friends, dying by drinking seawater is the worst fate.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: You could drink the seawater and your kidneys, they'd get it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you would only feel more thirsty and slowly your whole body would begin to shut
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: down as you drink more water.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes you more thirsty and slowly, slowly, slowly you give up.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: But this is not the story that I am telling you today.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am telling you the story of the shanty house by the sea.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I am telling you the story of a woman and a man who lived within.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they ticked along nicely enough.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jenny and Amos were their names.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jenny and Amos.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they were poor children.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: They were so poor that they would argue over whether they were going to eat the
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: little bit of leather that was left on their bear shoes or whether they were going
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: to share it for walking in.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: They were so poor they didn't even invest in stories.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: They stopped telling each other stories.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: They were so poor they never ate fresh.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they always looked for sell-by date and things that were just about to be too bad to eat.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were so poor.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: They were as poor as a church mouse who had been robbed by a gang of rats.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: They were poor.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was Amos.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: They got sick and tired of being poor first.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he became grumpy about it as his belly growled.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they looked at this tiny little sausage that they were to share for dinner.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he said.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I am hungry.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not hungry for no sausage.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not hungry for no roots that we can dig up.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not hungry for no herbs.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hungry for a big roasting of ham.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hungry for a big roasting of ham that's got honey and molasses covered over the side,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: that's pinched with cloves.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hungry for a thick slice of warm ham.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the more he looked at the little sausage, the more it reminded him of his own little sausage.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he felt small and he felt weak and he felt cross.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he stomped up and down,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: small and weak and cross and small and weak and cross and small and weak and cross.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jenny, she started to say, we've got no money to buy roast ham.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: We've just got this sausage.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But he was stumping about so much that she thought,
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go and have a walk by the side of the sea because my head cannot be
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: clear here.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she looked at Amos and she said,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take this sausage with me and I'm going to think and I'm going to see
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: about getting some nice juicy ham.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she walked by the sea and it was her favourite thing to do.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: The tidal, the lapping, the moon that was just rising and the sun almost disappeared on the other side.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But what she loved most was the glistening and the glinting of the sea.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it did feel her settled, settled on the inside.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And she felt like she had nothing to start with.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So how was she ever going to make more?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this feeling was like an emptiness.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she was walking along and then she saw a man sitting on a rock.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Curious, curious man.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: He had a top hat on and he was smoking a long, long pipe.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she nodded as she passed by thinking, one of them Glastonbury types.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, look at your face.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she was a bit offended by that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: But he kept on going.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: He said, look at your face.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So sad.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, so sad.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I got a bit of time.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I got a bit of time.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm at a loose end as it goes.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: You tell me what your trouble is.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Might be able to fix it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Jenny, she's not usually one to share her problems.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But she told the stranger all about it.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then he took a little puff on his pipe and out to sea he looked.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a tricky one, but I might have a solution.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the devil, you know, and I'm just having a little holiday here on Earth.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know, funny place to go with all the choices I've got, but here I am.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've got a machine down in hell and I reckon it could help you.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you wanted to pay me, you could give me that tiny little sausage I know you've got in your pocket.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very partial to sausages.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can't get them down in hell.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now Jenny, she was a bit surprised to hear that the man was the devil.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she was even more surprised to hear that he had some kind of machine it was offering to lend her.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: She found herself handing over the sausage.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And off he disappeared.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And she sat on the rock thinking, what an idiot I am.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've just given my sausage to a wally in a top hat and a long pipe.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Saying he's going to bring me some kind of machine back from hell and pop.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: There he was.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a kind of machine,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: it was about the size of a bucket,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: and it had a grinding handle on the side.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, you want to make ham?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: You just say grind ham.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll keep going, grinding ham, until you say grind ham no more.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Give it a try, she said.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So she put the mill on the sand in front of her and she called for it.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Grind ham.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And out popped a beautiful ham.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: You should have seen it.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was roasted with honey and molasses and it was pinched with little pricks of clove.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It smelt fine.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But then another one came out.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now she had two hams and it was just about to grind another one when she said, grind ham no more.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: The mill stopped.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: The devil tipped his hat and he disappeared.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this time he didn't come back.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now she ran home with a grinding mill and the two hams.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And she told Amos the story about how all their travels were over.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked at those two hams and he was a generous soul, Amos.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that was what irritated him most about being so poor is that he couldn't share his generosity.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And his first thought was saying, I'll go and get my brother and his wife.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Two hams, we've got enough to share.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as he was calling behind him, he said, get her to make some greens.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And get it to make some potatoes and get it to make a big bucket of stout,
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: he called as it was running down the road.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And excitedly, he came back with his brother and the wife.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it had made.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Potatoes buttered with garlic and it had made green beans that were shiny and
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: wholesome and it had made a huge barrel of stout.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they had an amazing, amazing, amazing time.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now when you have an amazing, amazing, amazing time, you can get a little bit ungrounded.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when there's a large barrel of stout involved,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when there's food the like that you haven't eaten for a long time and you may
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: be eating too much and drinking too much and things can all get a little bit
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: confused in the whole grand scheme of things.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amos was saying,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jenny,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: let my brother,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: the grinding pail,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: so he can take it out on his boat in the morning.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let him take it out.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let him have loads and loads of fish because he was a fisherman, his brother.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Let him take it.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Jenny, she felt there was something that wasn't quite right about this idea.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: But she felt it was to say yes because she was feeling really generous and they
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: played this really crazy game where they were just asking the pail to grind things
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: and grind things and grind things.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder what you would call for.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you could have something arrive right now, I wonder what you would call for.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it arrives.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So she tells him, you just say grind and off they go.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in the morning,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: he wakes up the brother and he sees this bucket,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: this kind of grinding bucket and for an hour,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: A moment, he's got no idea what's going on.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's got a full belly.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's got a sore head and he's got a bucket.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly, slowly, it comes back to him.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: slowly,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: as he's pulling up his anchor and he's pushing his boat out and he's getting on his
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: day and he's got this bucket.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then it comes to him.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just there with the bucket.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: comes to him that this bucket is a magic but already the fish are jumping into his
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: boat and he's not sure if it's the magic of the bucket or if it's just a special
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: day so he's just got all this fish in his boat and he thinks oh this is the sun is
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: streaming down and he's thinking the fish is all going to go off before i get even
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: back and then he remembers the magic that he says
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Grind salt, grind salt.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so, not too slow.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: not too fast the grinder starts to grind salt grind salt grind salt and it's the
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: finest salt and the purest salt and it's hard to find salt in these days these days
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: before the sea was full of it these days when it was just a mineral and it could be
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: it was difficult to extract it from other things this pure white salt and he was
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: like smoothing it all over those fish so happy he was
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was lots of it.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It kept on going.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: He tried shouting.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: at the grinder he tried to tuck it away he tried to put it under one of the shelves
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: under one of the benches but it just kept on grinding and it was filling up and
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: filling up and filling up the boat and this lovely pure white substance it didn't
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: look so harmless anymore it didn't look so precious it looked like it was going to
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: sink the boat and Jim was panicking and in a great panic he just threw the pail
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: over the side
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: He never thought that it wasn't his to throw away.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: He never thought that it didn't belong to him.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so slowly it carried on because nobody said grind salt no more.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: There was no one to say grind salt no more.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to know why that seawater is so salty,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it's still down there,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: night and day,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: week in,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: week out,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: year after year,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: grinding salt,
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: not too fast,
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: not too slow,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: good,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: steady pace.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Mooney's Mythic.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you say it in your head or did you say it out loud, I wonder?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the gorgeous thing about this story is that it does make me think about, for me,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: is that it makes me think about the bottom of the ocean.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me think about the sea.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it also makes me think about consequences and finishing things and getting all
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: the information before I do things,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: all the things that I'm really bad at.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's probably the lesson that
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: in it for me just as i'm talking in the space of the story and i know that the
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: sorcerer's apprentice it um he makes a spell in the sorcerer's apprentice to um i
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: know you're getting the image of mickey mouse and yeah that is a version of it but
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: it's it's goeth um story it's a it's a long um spell it's a long piece of music by
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: goeth and he um
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he starts tidying up, then the spell goes wrong and he doesn't know how to stop it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that was 1797 that he created that ballad.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And also he's the guy that wrote Faust, which is about making a deal with the devil.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm wondering about The Poor Bargain.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: about what the poor bargain is,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: and it brings me all the way round to The Handless Maiden,
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: which is the story that I'm going to be working on at the end of September,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: because it's the father that makes the poor bargain.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's the yang aspect inside,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: the broken yang aspect inside,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: that wants something for nothing,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: that wants something quickly,
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: and it's at the expense of the blooming of the young feminine.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess as a way of preparing for that story,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: these are good places for me to be going to and thinking about and how to,
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: like what happens next?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: How can the maiden regrow her hands?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: How can we untie and untangle those bargains that we've already made,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: those bargains that were made before we were born,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: those bargains that made when we were young,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: How can we unravel those and how can we put everything back in its right place?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in the book it talked about
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say the title again,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Serpent,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Siren,
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maelstrom and Myth,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sea Stories and Folk Tales from Around the World.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I should say that it's by Jerry Smith.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's retold and interpreted by Jerry Smith,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: who I'm going to get in touch with and see if we can have a cup of tea because I
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: think it would be an interesting one.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: But Jerry says that we're drawn to the sea, maybe because deep down at a molecular level,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: We sense that we are built of the same things and subject to the same processes.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are almost the same in terms of its characteristic features.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Our bodies contain the elements of sodium,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: potassium and calcium in nearly the same proportions as are found in seawater.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's really given my soul something to think about.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for tuning in, hanging in for this story.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to come and work with story, be storied with me, then you can come.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're so welcome to come to Wales on the 27th of September.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be working at the Pencoit Centre, which is a really incredible place.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: place where I've done a lot of storytelling and a lot of magical and
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: transformational alchemical soul work so get in touch with me if you fancy coming
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: and I hope you have a couple more dips in the sea before the sun goes down on this
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful summer that we've had I'm going to go to end of the road now I'm just
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: packing up to go to a festival called end of the road which is at the llama tree
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: gardens
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So come and find me.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be storytelling in the Wonderlands if you're there.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm definitely going to go and see Lisa O'Neill.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're there, come and say hello.