This month’s question questions beginnings.
A bolt of lightning had zapped the electrical circuits, plunging the Fairy Tale Lobby into darkness.
Sagacia, busy plucking Murzik’s claws from the bib of her pinafore told Simplia where she could find a stash of candles. Simplia groped her way to the cupboard under the espresso machine and rummaged around, praying the barista had set no mousetraps. In less time than it takes to tell, she had retrieved a double fistful of votive candles and tiny glass saucers and had distributed them amongst her Magical Friends.
What a lovely scenario: The Fairy Tale Lobby providing refuge for a band of storytellers. There was only one thing missing. No one could lay their hands on a match. Or a flint. Or a Zippo lighter. Simplia was hit with the realization that all of her Magical Friends had quit smoking. Probably about the same time she had. And there they sat. In darkness. On a stormy night.
Simplia said, “Somebody tell us a story to pass the time.”
Silence ensued. Nobody rose to the task.
“What’s with you all?” she demanded. “Usually it’s hard to get a word in edgewise, and now suddenly you’re all tongue-tied?”
“My mind went blank when the lights went off,” came a voice from the darkness.
“Yeah, same here. I just can’t get revved up to tell a story into pitch darkness.”
“Me, too. For me, eye contact is absolutely essential.”
At that moment, as if on cue, the postmistress appeared in their midst, illuminated by the beam of her Army surplus flashlight.
“Special Delivery for Vasilisa the Wise,” she announced.
Sagacia reached out to receive the letter.
“I’ll sign for it,” she said. “And before you go, could you shine your light this way so I can read who it’s from?”
The postmistress obligingly trained her beam on the envelope’s upper left-hand corner. The return address read, “Stymied in Steilacoom.”
“Open it!” everybody urged. Including the postmistress.
Sagacia obliged. Aloud, she read:
“Dear Vasilisa the Wise — I’m stuck. Over the course of my life I have read many wonderful fairy tales, from all four corners of the world. They live in my heart. They play in my imagination. But I have never heard them spoken. I am unable to tell them. My fairy godmother was in cahoots with my nursemaid, and at my christening she decreed that whenever I heard the words “once upon a time,” I would slip into a sound, restful sleep. While I slept, godmother and nurse indulged in endless games of pinochle. I am now a grown man. Granted, I have never suffered from insomnia or sleep deprivation. But neither have I experienced the joy of recounting a fairy tale to a companion, because as soon as the first phrase — “Once upon a time” — leaves my mouth, I’m zonked! Can you advise me? Stymied in Steilacoom”
Simplia said, “I’d call him Stupid in Steilacoom, myself.”
“Simplia!” Sagacia was shocked. “Your tactlessness is going to get you in trouble one day.”
But all the Magical Friends agreed.
“Really!” they said. “As if ‘once upon a time’ were the only way to launch a fairy tale. Why, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of ways to wind them up and set them in motion.”
“All right,” said Sagacia. “Rather than criticize the poor fellow, let’s put our heads together and create a list for him of some of our favorite fairy tale openings.”
Suddenly, the Fairy Tale Lobby was humming with conversation, and soon the conversation gave way to full-bore stories. Nobody seemed to notice when the postmistress slipped out, taking her Army surplus flashlight with her.
The lights never came back on that night. But the rain had softened to a gentle mist by the time the Simplia and Sagacia headed for home.
“I just hope our Magical Friends remember to write down all those wonderful opening lines so we can send them on to Stymied in Steilacoom,” Sagacia said.
Simplia didn’t respond. Her head was somewhere else.
“What if Homer had let the absence of eye contact shut him up?” she wondered.
(illustration by Walter Appleton Clark, The Canterbury Tales)
Fairy Tale Lobby 
Murzik would say, “Zhili byli…” and I’m partial to the Bulgarian, “Imalo edno vreme…” but I also often begin with “Once” and go on from there.
When I think of good beginnings, I like Judith Gorog’s start to “A Story about Death” (from the book A Taste For Quiet): “It was a Tuesday morning in spring when Death walked in our kitchen door.” Or at least that’s how I remember it–when I last looked at her story, I saw she’d left out some details.
Sometimes it’s nice to start in media res, that is, smack in the middle of the action, then back up toward once upon a time.
If you’ve ever heard Clare Murphy tell stories, then you know a great beginning. I was not in her tent at Timpanogos when she taught the call and response and did not catch all of it, but I hope she’ll tell it to you. Her website had a few floating about on the first page. http://www.claremurphy.org
I wonder if you shortened the “Once upon a time…” to just “Once…” if that would break the curse. Try it, what have you got to lose? If it doesn’t work, then you got a nap, if it works, a story!
My personal favorite folktale opening does not work with any tale, but it still amuses me. “The Devil… sat in Hell… and he was ***** bored.” XD Heard it from a Norwegian storyteller.
On a more serious note, I really like the “There was, and there wasn’t” kind of openings :) That’s the one that’s most common in Hungary.
My favorite opening only works with one story that I know of: “Davy hated fish!”
What is the title of that story that begins “Davy hated fish!”? I saw the video of you telling that story at the St. Louis Storytelling Festival this year and thought it was just awesome, both the story and the telling.
Thank you! It’s called “Davy and the Devil.” I’ve found print versions on a few folktale/fairy tale websites. It’s from the British Isles. Taffy Thomas included it on his recording “Take These Chains from my Heart.” I first heard it at the Australian Storytelling Festival and Conference in Fremantle WA in 2005, but I do not know who that teller was. I recorded it in 2010 along with a few other Western European fairy tales on a CD titled “No Tricks. Just Magic.” And here’s where you can find it: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/meganhicks3
Those are my favorite, too, Csenge! They charge right in to the magic!
Mark, You have made me rethink the beginning of one of the tales I tell! “Alena wanted to go and outside and play with her friends and take her baby brother with her, but she couldn’t. Baba Yaga’s Black Geese had been seen flying over the village and she knew the risk was too great.”
Stymied in Steilacoom, here are some suggestions…
Other beginnings: “It was so long ago that no one is really sure what happened, but this is how I think it occurred.”
“Back before my Great, Great Grandmother was a baby, in a country far from here…”
“When time was just starting to wake up and the world was new…”
“When the world was new and needed a spanking to start it crying…”
“Once, so long ago even the sage is uncertain when it happened…”
“The moon once told me this story, so it must be old…”
“My mother told me, so it must be true…”
“Once, when the animals and plants and people all spoke the same language…”
“Before man got greedy…”
“A long, long time ago, I can still remember how…” (hang on, maybe that one’s taken)
I hope this helps.
Peace,
Simon Brooks, simpleton (as the tags read below)
http://www.SimonBrooksStoryteller.com
That’s right, you have been called a Simpleton. Maybe we’re related! “When the world was new and needed a spanking to start it crying…” Obviously, not a Leboyer birth. These are wonderful “wake up calls.” Thank you.
Thanks for sharing that Simon, I love it! And the others are great too.
“Fado, fado” (long, long ago) is the abbreviated traditional Irish beginning. Though it’s not as wonderfully creative as Mark’s answer, it evokes a strong response in people who grew up with it.
Terse and poetic. “Fado, fado” is haiku on steroids. Like the shard of a hologram, containing the image in its entirety. (Heavens. Who’s going all stream-of-consciousness now?) Anyway…thank you!
I use a version of that for my oldest Irish stories–“Fado fado in Eireann, long, long ago in Ireland…” and sometimes..”When the red deer and gray wolf still roamed the land, and the hills were still covered with trees…”
Or for a longer intro “Before computers or television, before books or paper, before the first tales were written down, there was…”
Yo, Mark! What a wonderful creative exercise. At first I thought you were doing a stream-of-consciousness riff … which I suppose you were … and then you shifted the perspective and tightened the focus on how revving up the narrative engine. Thanks for a lot to ponder here.
Dear Stymied,
I am so sorry that you have never heard any story the way it should be told. What a terrible curse it was to have been placed upon someone. There was only one thing that could have stopped the curse from taking hold that night. It seemed as if the cold, howling winds were a portent for what was to happen. The dark of night had no effect on the happenings inside at the christening. The flickering candlelight threw ominous shadows upon the walls of the sacred place. The eyes of the nursemaid met those of the fairy godmother, and their devious thoughts formed a powerful bond between them. He was the happiest of babies, always smiling and laughing; until that night in the cathedral. I should tell you that centuries ago, when the world still believed in magic, even common folk knew there were secret ways to triumph over evil.
The above paragraph may have described the circumstances of your christening, or maybe not. But each sentence by itself, could serve as the beginning of a story. Try playing around with mix-and-match, or substitute other nouns and verbs in specific sentences: “There was only one thing that could have kept her from going out into the cold dark night.” What’s the best, or the worst thing that could happen to your hero? Tell us what that would be, then tell us why it didn’t happen that way in the story. Find a beginning line that makes the listener “beg” to hear more. If you search for it…you will find it.
Oooooo Mark, that’s some powerful stuff there!