FTX-306 - THE HERO RETURNS

Two Mythic Stories in English

Hugh LUPTON -3- On FTX-304 Hugh told 4 Jack Tales, and on FTX-305 two epic stories, Odysseus and Beowulf. The two told here are both excerpts from long mythic cycles, one Celtic and the other Germanic. THE CURSED SON OF GWYDION & LOKI & THE DEATH OF BALDER come from the "Fourth Branch" of the Welsh MABINOGI and LOKI comes from the Icelandic "Prose Edda" of Snorri Sturluson.

Although from separate cultures, the one Celtic and the other Germanic, these 2 stories essentially tell the same story - the story that seems to run through all mythologies - of the death of the hero and return to life gain. It is the drama of the Mummers Plays, Persephone's return from Hades, Christ's rising from the dead, the seasonal rebirth of Spring after Winter, the defeat of darkness by light, despair by hope and hatred by love, the irrepressible that cannot be vanquished.

1. LOKI AND THE DEATH OF BALDER is taken from the Icelandic, "PROSE EDDA" of Snorri Sturluson. In his version of the story, the death of Balder is final, and it leads to RAGNAROK, the battle at the end of the world. Many scholars, though, see the Balder Story as a Persephone-like seasonal myth in its original. I have left the question open at the end of my telling of this story.

2. THE CURSED SON OF GWYDION is taken from the 4th Branch of the Welsh MABINOGI. I must apologise to Welsh speakers for my pronunciation of names. I may also have taken some liberties with the story (surely its every story-teller's right?) in order to disentangle the central theme, the uncompromising strength of a fathers love for his son.

There are retellings of stories for children by:-Gwyn Jones:WFLSH TALES AND LEGENDS (Puffin); Alan Garner: THE OWL SERVICE a novel with the Mabinogion as its background (Collin Lions); Kevin Crossley-Holland: NORSE MYTHS (Penguin); Roger Lancelyn-Green: MYTHS OF THE NORSEMEN (Puffin). Some books useful in relation to these stories:

.B.Taylor & W.H.Auden: THE ELDER EDDA (Faber 1969); Snorri Sturluson: THE PROSE EDDA (Univ.California Press 1954) Brian Branston: GODS OF THE NORTH (Thames & Hudson 1980) & THE LOST GODS Alwyn & Brinley Rees: CELTIC HERITAGE (Thames Hudson) 1961); Patrick K Ford: THE MABINOGI (Univ. California Press 1977) Gwyn & Thomas Jones: THE MABINOGION (Dent/ Everyman 1974); James G.Fraser: THE GOLDEN BOUGH (Macmillan 1978); John Sharkey: CELTIC MYSTERIES (Thames & Hudson 1975); Joseph Campbell: THE HERO WITH A HOUSAND FACES (Abacus 1975); Robert Graves: THE WHITE GODDESS (Faber 1961); Ruth Finnegan: ORAL POETRY (Cambridge University Press 1977).

Recorded & edited by Peter Kennedy & first published on Folktrax cassettes 1975.

HUGH LUPTON was born in 1952, and grew up in Cambridgeshire. Since the early seventies he has lived 'n Norfolk. - I became interested in storytelling as a result of other interests gradually drawing together and overlapping. I've always (or nearly always) been a writer - of both prose and poetry - and, especially, I've always been intrigued by the sound of words, by the power of evocation, inherent in the spoken word. Then, when I was about eighteen, I discovered folk music - a revelation - and I realised that there was a whole heritage of music and poetry that had depended for its survival, not on the written word or musical notation, but on the mouth, the ear and the memory. A heritage which, in its passage through the generations, had come refined, had been made universal. 1 wanted to make myself part of the process of folk song. Then, later again, I got involved with the theatre - street theatre, pub theatre, puppet theatre - and increasingly I found myself moving towards a fundamental theatre, a primary theatre, where someone with something to tell meets those who will listen to him. These three strands converged and merged and, since the late seventies, story-telling has been my main occupation. Some books that I have found useful, either directly or indirectly, in relation to these stories are:

THE WHITE GODDESS Robert Graves (Faber 1961); THE PENGUIN BOOK OF ORAL POETRY ed.Ruth Finnegan (Penguin I 978); ORAL POETRY Ruth Finnegan (Cambridge Univ.Press 1977); STORY-TELLING Eileen Colwell (Bodley Hlead 1980); LEAF AND GRASS J.R.R.Tolkien (Unwin 1964); THE HERO Lord Raglan (Methuen 1936); THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES Joseph Campbell (Secker & Warburg); FOUR AGES OF MAN Jay Macpherson (Macmillan 1963); THE GOD BENEATH THE SEA & GOLDEN SHADOW Leon Garfield, Edward Blishen (Corgi 1977); THE LOST GODS OF ENGLAND Brian Branston (Thames & Hudson 1957); THE LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO SAXONS George Anderson (Princetown Univ.Press 1966)

FTX-304 FEE FOE FIE FUM: 4 FOLK TALES: JACK AND THE THREE GIANTS, PIRICHAN PICH AND PIRICHAN MOR, THE OLD WITCH WOMAN & Mrs APRIL AND THE SNOWMAN

FTX-305 ODYSSEUS & BEOWOLF Both excerpts from the classic Greek and Anglo-Saxon epics.