I first heard storyteller Melanie Ray perform many years ago at a storytelling festival on the Sechelt Peninsula. I only dimly remember the story—I know it featured a red hen—but what I do remember is the way Melanie told it. Time opened up when the story began. She did not hurry, even when the action speeded up. This easiness with the story is what I call “the teller’s delight”—that subtle quality of being engaged in the telling, while also enjoying the tale.
Not long ago, at the first Victoria Storytelling Festival, I heard Melanie again. Ten years had passed. Just as I remembered she was tall, stately, and graceful. (Actually, this part was a successful illusion on the part of the stage performer—Melanie is actually only 5 foot 4 inches tall.) She wore a beautiful full-length dress, made of some lovely shimmering green cloth. Her portable microphone was clipped to the front of her dress, with its battery housed in a little black box attached to the back.
Melanie introduced her telling of the Welsh epic Tristan and Iseult by thanking the Canada Council. The Council’s funding had allowed her to develop the story and afforded her the luxury of having a dress made by a costume designer. Then she warned us that she might cough in the middle of the story—“I have a lung condition,” she said—but we were not to worry. She was not going to die of it, and she didn’t need anything. She would eventually recover and continue with the tale.
All this was important for her to share with us, though at first I wasn’t sure why. Later it struck me that storytelling works because of the relationship that develops between a teller and her audience. How does a storyteller connect with her listeners? Authenticity is the key. When we feel the presence of the person speaking, when we know even just a snippet of her own story (“This is where my dress comes from, and don’t be alarmed if I collapse in a fit of coughing”) we’re ready for her to take us away on a journey. We have evidence that she is human (just like us) and therefore we trust her.
Her preamble complete, Melanie began, unfolding the tale image by image, scene by scene. In real time she had a blue backdrop behind her and two potted ferns on either side of the small stage. In story-time she took us to a jousting match at the court of King Mark in Cornwall, and then to a battle-field in Lyonesse, and from there to the shores of Ireland, her voice rising and falling, her gestures graceful and complete. Occasionally, she stopped to take a sip of water. There were one or two moments when she corrected her own use of language, replacing a current, colloquial expression—“Okay”—with “Very good,” or “Very well.” Once or twice, she coughed.
After the intermission, now some two and a half hours into this epic tale, Melanie’s voice began to fade in and out. One moment it would be strong and clear, and the next it would drop and waiver. It wasn’t Melanie’s strength that was ebbing, it was the battery on the portable microphone. And then a curious sound began to add itself to the story. It was like a small drum, beating a regular two-beat rhythm.
Finally, the volunteer in charge of the sound system came up on stage and gave Melanie a hand-held mike. He disconnected the portable microphone and removed the small black box that was fixed to her dress.
“What was that sound?” Melanie asked as they completed the exchange.
“It was your heart,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, suddenly becoming very still. “It was the beating of my wee heart.”
She took the hand-held microphone and continued the story to its bittersweet conclusion. But in that brief interruption she had given us something that amplified the meaning of the story, and illuminated our experience of hearing her tell it. The beating of the storyteller’s heart—heard and felt by all her listeners—signaled to us her human vulnerability.
We heard Melanie tell a tale of great enduring love. We also experienced the fleeting beauty of her own fragile being, in the unique cadence of her voice, in the cough that overcame her, in the thirst that overtook her, in the words that slipped out unbidden, and in that mysterious, yet familiar sound—the beating of her heart.
Stories only survive because of the ones who tell them, shaping them and bringing them to life in their own unique ways. The gift of story is rare and precious because the teller is just as subject to the laws of impermanence as the rest of us.
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