Taffy Thomas - Midwinter Folk Tales

This collection of folk tales is dedicated to all who love to tell stories by a fire in the heart of winter, and, of course, those who love to listen to them or read them by that same fire.

For,

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and a talk beside the fire, it is the time for home.

Edith Sitwell

As a touring storyteller in the oral tradition, I am only able to deliver my 250 or so performances a year with support. This is made even more necessary by the fact that my personal odyssey included a massive stroke at the age of 36. I am supported in my journeys and shows by my wife Chrissy who generously gave up her own life running a dance studio to help me reinvent myself from the time I couldnt walk, couldnt talk, and couldnt use a knife and fork. I have a number of storytelling mentors, including the wildly eccentric Ruth Tongue, who I met in Somerset when I was but a lad. Later in my storytelling journey, two of Scotlands Travelling People, Betsy Whyte and Duncan Williamson, became both sources of stories and massive influences. As my award-winning Ancestral Voices performance begins

If I stand tall, it is because I am standing on the
shoulders of those that have gone before.

Many of my other major influences are credited in the introductions to tales they have generously passed in my direction.

As a writer I have again a number of influences and mentors. Firstly my wife Chrissy is my muse, occasional censor and tireless support. She has also taught herself to utilise if not love the computer a tool I have so far chosen to ignore. All the stories in this section started off being told before they became painstakingly handwritten versions in my ever-mounting pile of exercise books sorry trees! In an attempt to keep a storytellers voice, in developing the next stage from exercise book to computer, I half dictate and half tell each tale to one of my volunteer electro-scribes. Chrissy again heads this team, along with our youngest daughter Rosie and our part-time PA Tony Farren. The bulk of the time on the keyboard, however, has fallen upon our friend and volunteer helper Sue Leeming. The next stage is when the copy is e-mailed to the generous and ridiculously talented Steven Gregg who almost instantly e-mails back a magical illustration before shaping the ever-growing file of tales and illustrations into a manuscript. Without him this book would probably have never reached completion. My mentor in writing and publishing is the wonderful Helen Watts of Aston Hill Editorial, near Stratford-on-Avon. She is a helpful, positive critic and an inspiration to me through her own writing. Declan Flynn and the team at The History Press are kind enough to publish me, encourage me, and cope with my pestering phone calls in the knowledge that I dont really do e-mails. As a storyteller, I prefer talking to people.

Two inspiring songwriters, John Tams and Dave Goulder, were kind enough to allow me to quote two of their finest pieces of work to top and tail this collection. Their reward will be on licensed premises when next we meet! As a storyteller passionate about the oral tradition, I will continue to tell and write folk tales presenting and preserving that tradition for as long as I am able. Knowing this, perhaps the bulk of my gratitude should go to you my listeners and readers. If you like the stories then have a go at passing them on and take your place in a truly spellbinding chain.

St Nicholas

Jack Turnip

Adams Fall

Fish, Flesh or Fowl

The Coney

Stargazey Pie

The Farmers Story

A Warm Glow

Room for a Little One

The Cherry Tree Carol

Herod and the Cock

The Miraculous Harvest

The Legend of the Robin

The Legend of Tinsel

Ploughing on Christmas Day

A Song for Anyone to Sing

The Christmas Goose

Trefors Turkey

The Three Trees

The Christmas Cat

Offside!

William and the Bull

Downt Lonnin

Introduction

Puzzle A

Puzzle B

Riddle 1

Riddle 2

Riddle 3

Riddle 4

Riddle 5

Riddle 6

Riddle 7

Three Mince Pies

Horse Play

The Poachers Curse

The Chess Puzzle

The Ghost Ship

The Mistletoe Bough

The Cow that Ate the Piper

The Dragon of Winter

The New Years Bell

The Apple Tree Man

Fairy Gold

Up Helly Aa

The Twelve Months

A wrinkled, crabbed man they picture thee,

Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey

As long moss upon the apple tree;

Blue lipt, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose;

Close muffled up, and on the dreary way,

Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows.

They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth,

Old Winter! Seated in thy great armed chair,

Watching the children at their Christmas mirth,

Or circled by them, as thy lips declare

Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,

Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night,

Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire,

Or taste the old October brown and bright.

Robert Southey (17741843) wrote those stanzas in Cumbria as Poet Laureate and friend of the Romantics such as Wordsworth and Coleridge. In his book Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland (1899) a lesser-known writer, Daniel Scott, wrote:

The labouring ox is said to kneel at twelve oclock at night, preceding the day of the nativity: the bees are heard to sing at the same hour. On the morn of Christmas Day breakfast early on hack-pudding, a mess made of sheeps heart mixed with suet and sweet fruits.

Taffy Thomas is a never-ending giver, a beloved communicator of the highest order and because of his stories but most particularly because of him we all live happily ever after.

I hope the words of my winter song that follows create the perfect climate for this collection of Taffys Midwinter Folk Tales .

Cruel winter cuts through like a reaper,

The old year lies withered and slain,

Like Barleycorn who rose from the grave

The New Year will rise up again.

And the snow falls

And the wind calls

And the year turns round again.

And Ill wager a hatful of guineas

Against all of the songs you can sing

Someday youll love

And the next day youll lose

And Winter will turn into Spring.

And the snow falls

And the wind calls

And the year turns round again.

There will come a time of great plenty

A time of good harvest and song

Til then put your trust in tomorrow, my friend,

For Yesterdays over and done.

And the snow falls

And the wind calls

And the year turns round again.

John Tams

When I am considering the extent to which the television has damaged our rich oral tradition of storytelling, I often think that while there is truth in this, perhaps the reduction in the numbers of open fires in private living rooms, bars, cafes and restaurants has done just as much, if not more damage. Wherever there is a fire, folk cluster round it and yarn. Wherever folk yarn they resort to storytelling, because most treasured knowledge of families and communities survives by being encapsulated in a narrative tale.

Right from childhood, both my parents and my grandparents houses were sometimes chilly. The open fire, therefore, was the heart of the house: that and the dining table. I learned to embrace the fact that the British climate then bitter in winter and warmer in spring and summer provided a rich seasonal variety. I actually enjoyed wearing thick woolly jumpers and corduroy trousers in winter, and relished the opportunity to read or talk by the fire. When spring and summer came, the switch to short trousers and cotton short-sleeved shirts to toss a ball around outdoors for all the hours of daylight was something to celebrate. I was horrified when my godfather, Uncle Jack, an RAF boffin, converted his house so that it would be the same comfortable temperature every day of the year. How comfortable, but how boring!