This Saturday, August 27th, the last Saturday in August is
a day that began in 2013 with the idea, "What if for one day everything stopped... And we all just listened to the music?" You really don't have to be so formal as to register, but if you want some of the program's music videos, to register, or any of the related products (t-shirts, children's book, free graphics, and more), or maybe you just want to enjoy music go to
https://playmusicontheporchday.com/Often I like to include music in my storytelling. I especially enjoy getting my audience to participate in my programs, so an easy to learn musical refrain is perfect! Today's story has exactly that from the aptly titled book, The Storyteller, by early promoter of the Kindergarten movement and children's book author, Maud Lindsay. The entire book can be found on Project Gutenberg for even more.
One quick note, Lindsay uses the old name of "chapman" and explains in a footnote that it means "peddlar." Nowadays saying someone is a peddlar might leave younger audiences thinking of someone on a bicycle. I'd prefer to call him a "traveling salesman", even though there aren't many nowadays, as it explains what he does for a living. I would also first ask if anybody is named or knows somebody named Chapman. The meaning of last names is fascinating! Never knew before this about Chapman.
THE SONG THAT TRAVELED
ne
day when all the world was gay with spring a king stood at a window
of his palace and looked far out over his kingdom. And because his
land was fair to see, and he was a young king, and his heart was
happy, he made a song for himself and sang it loud and merrily:
"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright, And blue the
cloudless sky; And not a bird that sings in spring Is happier than I,
than I, Is happier than I."
Now it chanced that a ploughboy at work in a field hard by the
palace heard the king's song and caught the words and the air of it.
He was young and happy and as he followed his plough across the
dewy field, and thought of the corn that would grow, by and by, in
the furrows it made, and of his little black and white pig that would
feed and grow fat on the corn, he sang:
"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright, And blue the
cloudless sky; And not a bird that sings in spring Is happier than I,
than I, Is happier than I."
"A right merry song, Robin Ploughboy," called the
goose-girl who tended the farmer's geese in the next field; and she
leaned on the fence that divided the two, and sang with him, for she
was as happy a lass as ever lived in the king's country.
The farmer's wife had given her a goose for her very own that day,
and the goose had made a nest in the alder bushes. There was already
one egg in it and soon there would be more. Then she would send them
to market; and when they were sold she would buy a ribbon for her
hair. It was no wonder that she felt like singing:
"The hawthorn's white, the sun is
bright, And blue the cloudless sky; And not a bird that sings in
spring Is happier than I, than I, Is happier than I."
 |
|
SHE LEANED ON THE FENCE THAT DIVIDED THE TWO.
|
The chapman,from whom she bought her ribbon in all good time,
learned the king's song from her; and as he trudged along the king's
highway with his pack upon his back he, too, sang it; for there is no
better weather for peddling or singing, either, than that which comes
in the spring.
A soldier just home from the wars, and glad enough to be there,
had the song from the chapman; and in turn he taught it to a sailor
who took it to sea with him.
The sailor was going to the far countries, but if all went well
with his ship, and with him, he would be at home in time to see the
hawthorn bloom in his mother's yard another year and another spring.
He kept the song in his heart for a year and a day, and then,
because nothing had gone amiss and he was homeward bound, he sang it,
too:
"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright, And blue the
cloudless sky; And not a bird that sings in spring Is happier than I,
than I, Is happier than I."
On the sailor's ship there was a minstrel bound for the king's
court to sing on May Day; and the minstrel learned the song from the
sailor.
He was a young minstrel and very proud to sing at the king's
festival, so when it was his turn and he stood before the throne he
could think of no better song to sing than:
"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright, And blue the
cloudless sky; And not a bird that sings in spring Is happier than I,
than I, Is happier than I."
Now the king had been so busy about the affairs of his kingdom
deciding this question and that, sending messengers here and there,
and listening to one and another, as all kings must do, that he had
forgotten the song which he had made. But when he heard the minstrel
it all came back to him; and then he was puzzled.
"Good minstrel," said he, "ten golden guineas I
will give you for your song, and to the ten will add ten more if you
will tell me where you learned it."
"An easy matter that," said the minstrel. "The
sailor who rides in yon white ship in your harbor taught it to me."
"The soldier who even now stands guard at your majesty's gate
gave me the song," said the sailor when he was asked.
"I had it from the chapman who travels on the king's
highway," said the soldier.
"I heard the little goose-girl sing it," said the
chapman when they found him.
"'Tis Robin Ploughboy's song," laughed the goose-girl.
"Go ask him about it."
"The king sang it first and I next," said the ploughboy.
Then the king knew that he had made a good song that everybody
with a happy heart might sing; and because he was glad of this, he
stood at his window and sang again:
Lindsay started as a music teacher, so this story fits her so well, too. It also helps as once again the song travels.
Have fun with music and story on or off the porch!
*******************
This
is part of a series of postings of stories under the category,
"Keeping the Public in Public Domain." The idea
behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the
authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel
strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the
20th century. My
own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public
Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy
discovering new stories.
At
the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates
projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an
audience. Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing
of Public Domain stories will not occur that week. This is a return to
my regular posting of a research project here. (Don't worry, this
isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future
storytelling to an audience.) Response has convinced me that "Keeping
the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other
postings as often as I can manage it.
Other
Public Domain story resources I recommend-
There
are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for
folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's
database, Yashpeh,
the International Folktales Collection. I have long
recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded
Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so
you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression
you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
You may have noticed I'm no
longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his
offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking
specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez
claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales,
folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for
phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
Between those two sites, there
is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait,
there's more!"
The
email list for storytellers, Storytell,
discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional
suggestions:
-
Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible
through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's
wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google
search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ . It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016 and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.
- Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com
doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her
way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for
finding new books and stories to love and tell.
You're
going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT
go to the Internet Archive
Wayback Machine to find some of these old links. Tim's
site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a
full-time job. In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that
Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she
could no longer maintain it. Possibly searches maintained it.
Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim
Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old
Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library
(something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine. It
took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally
in December of 2006 it appears!
Somebody
as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website
is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.
I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can
be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that
becomes the only way to find them.
You
can see why I recommend these to you.
Have fun
discovering even more stories
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