Long, long ago, maybe it happened yesterday, maybe it happened today ... begins Helmut Wittmann, the storyteller from Austria. He is a small man and wears a hat with a mushroom and a feather stuck to it. In Chennai at the World Storytelling Institute's invitation, he held workshops on how to tell stories.
European countries like Germany, Hungary, Transylvania and Bohemia have a lot of fairytales — stories about leprechauns, fairies, gnomes, dwarfs, princes and princesses. You have read the Grimm's fairytales, right? UNESCO, an organisation that tries to preserve different cultures has declared fairytales as national treasures.
Helmut knows a lot of these. He travels to different countries to tell children and adults these very interesting stories. He doesn't “tell” actually. He acts them out, asks questions (What do you think the prince did?) and gives you a memento in the end.
He ended his story about how a poor man became rich with the help of a single dried pea and distributed a pea each to the listeners. He said, “Take your lucky pea!” I'm going to keep mine as a goodluck charm.
What is a story without music? So Helmut's friend Franz Bernegger accompanies him. Franz plays “bock”, a bagpipe made of goatskin. People made music on bock centuries ago. When Franz cranks its bellows with his arm, plays his lovely tunes and keeps time with his ankle bells, he reminds you of a cowherd on the gentle mountain slopes of Austria.
“Fairytales make you think of your own wisdom,” said Helmut. “They are about life, its dangerous moments, about how to find luck, the right way to live. The best thing about them is they don't preach. They don't say eat a good apple. They just tell you what happens when you eat a bad apple. You learn lessons on your own.” As he travelled with his stories he discovered a thread of common culture across the world. “We have the same problems,” he said. Does he know Indian fairy tales? “Yes, the one about three rabbits in the Himalayas.”
Published - December 26, 2011 03:31 pm IST
