Taffy Thomas - The Magpie’s Nest: A Treasury of Bird Folk Tales

First published 2019

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Text Taffy Thomas MBE, 2019

Illustrations Becca Hall, 2019

The right of Taffy Thomas MBE to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9180 3

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

This book is dedicated to my father, Ivor Thomas, who still enjoys watching the birds and who taught me all their names; thank you dad. It is also dedicated to the memory of my mother-in-law, Audrey, who loved watching birds at breakfast time through the dining room window.

I talk with the Sun said the Wren

As soon as he starts to shine

I talk with the Sun said the Wren

And the day is mine.

Taffy Thomas has been living in the Lake District for well over thirty years. He was the founder of the legendary 1970s folk theatre company Magic Lantern, which used shadow puppets and storytelling to illustrate folk tales. After surviving a major stroke in 1985 he used oral storytelling as speech therapy, which led him to find a new career working as a storyteller.

He set up the Storytellers Garden and the Northern Centre for Storytelling at Church Stile in Grasmere, Cumbria; he was asked to become patron of the Society for Storytelling and was awarded an MBE for Services to Storytelling and Charity in the Millennium honours list.

In January 2010 he was appointed the first UK Storyteller Laureate at The British Library. He was awarded the Gold Badge, highest honour of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, that same year.

At the 2013 British Awards for Storytelling Excellence (BASE) Taffy received the award for outstanding male storyteller and also the award for outstanding storytelling performance for his piece Ancestral Voices.

More recently he has become patron of Open Storytellers, a charity that works to enrich and empower the lives of people marginalised because of learning and communication difficulties; he is also the patron of the East Anglian Storytelling Festival.

Taffy continues to tell stories and lead workshops, passing on both his skills and his extensive repertoire. He is currently working on a new History Press book Storytelling for Families, to enable families to enjoy this precious art form together at home.

Becca Hall is a freelance illustrator, based in the Lake District. After finishing her illustration degree in 2014, receiving a First Class with Honours, and the Illustration Alumni award, Becca has been working on a variety of projects and books, such as this one!

I love to draw and paint by hand, and am a little obsessed with the theme of nature, which is why the Lake District is perfect for me. One of my chosen projects at university was the theme of birds, so you can only imagine my excitement when I was asked to illustrate this book!

In spring 2018 when the birds in The Northumberland National Park were fledging, a new project fledged for this storyteller. The creative team at The Sill: National Landscape Discovery Centre decided to put together a weekend of activities to celebrate the bird life of their National Park. Asked if I had sufficient bird folktales in my repertoire, I worked with National Park Ecologist Gill Thompson and Northumbrian Piper Paul Knox to create a programme of tales and tunes of the birds. This took some research and much delving into my memory. As this performance was well received and the audiences wanted to take the stories home with them, we decided that, with a little more research, there was sufficient material for this book of bird folktales.

It took a reunion with Lakeland artist Becca Hall, who grew up listening to my folktales at her Lake District infant school, to breathe beauty into this collection. We share a love of birdlife and we hope this comes across in our work that follows.

Thanks to all who gave me tales, lyrics and riddles that feature in this collection. These include storytellers Duncan Williamson, Marion Leper and Daniel Morden, and songwriters Bill Caddick and Leon Rosselson. I would also like to thank the fellow writers who have all been a source of information and inspiration authors Francesca Greenoak, Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey, Aesop and Bob Hartman; poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Clare, Seamus Heaney and William Wordsworth; folklorists Katherine M. Briggs, Ruth Tongue, Joseph Jacobs, Bob Patten and Sophia Morrison.

All the team at The History Press deserve my gratitude for their continuing patience and support. Steven Gregg and my daughter Rosie helped battle with a computer that is almost as old as (and definitely more tired than) the author.

Lastly, none of my books or live performances would be possible without the support of my wife Chrissy: I wont go on, I cant go on, I will go on! Thanks Love.

The histories and mythologies of the British Isles are bound together with birds. They permeate our stories and songs, appearing as messengers and harbingers, speaking our secrets, and being our secret other selves. Birds guard us as we sleep, wake our ghosts, herald the seasons. Pheasants and their ownership took on great political class-based significance after the Napoleonic Wars when ordinary people were starving in the fields and turned to poaching, often with tragic and community-destroying results.

Birds sing to us and we have always replied to them, an endless conversation. To sit quietly and hear them in the woodlands in the Spring is one of lifes great pleasures. To hear the lark in the Summer air, the soft cooing of doves, to watch gliding water fowl a world without our birds would be a sad and silent one.

Ive been lucky enough to grow up listening to Taffys stories, and then to have the honour and pleasure of playing for him as Ive grown older. Those who know him know he is an endless mine of magic, treasure and wonder. Those that dont upon encountering him soon grow to love him as I and thousands of others do.

A few years ago Taffy and Chrissy asked me if I would play for Taffys brilliant retelling of The King of the Birds story. I know a few different versions of the St. Stephens Day wren song but wanted to gift them both with their own version, so I put this together from a few different places and wrote them their own tune. Here is a verse, with all my love and gratitude for the years of happiness listening to Taffy weave with words: