Campfire Stories

[Pandabean]

I managed to get Raymond Mears' book "The Complete Outdoor Handbook" and surprised I had never seen it before. Most of the stuff in it is pretty familiar.
The last page before the appendices talks about telling stories around the campfire. He mentions that our age old tradition of story telling is spoiled by the mass media and entertainment that we have today and that were are losing our ability to tell these.

One quote from the book that I liked (so much so that I may use it for a signature )in this section....

"Friends of the camp-fire are bonded for life, and in a strange way the ground itself seems to retain the magic of the night long after the last dead ember has blown away."

This quote will ring true with many of us and it is mostly down to the experiences we share around the camp fire and during our time in the woods.

I was just wondering if anyone out there had any good stories that they tell around the camp fire?

One thing I have never got the hang of is story telling and remembering the stories to tell and as a result I end up reading (if I do tell) from the page(s) of notes I have.

 

[Everything Mac]

Certainly not any I can repeat. Lol.

I'll be interested to hear some proper ones though.
Andy

 

[Wayland]

I have rarely sat around a fire with friends without hearing stories.

Remember a "story" does not have to be a Homerian epic, we all sit around and tell each other anecdotes and tales of past events and this is the very heart of story telling.

It is the glue that holds any society together.

 

[Filterhoose]

I managed to get Raymond Mears' book "The Complete Outdoor Handbook" and surprised I had never seen it before. Most of the stuff in it is pretty familiar.
The last page before the appendices talks about telling stories around the campfire. He mentions that our age old tradition of story telling is spoiled by the mass media and entertainment that we have today and that were are losing our ability to tell these.

One quote from the book that I liked (so much so that I may use it for a signature )in this section....

"Friends of the camp-fire are bonded for life, and in a strange way the ground itself seems to retain the magic of the night long after the last dead ember has blown away."

This quote will ring true with many of us and it is mostly down to the experiences we share around the camp fire and during our time in the woods.

I was just wondering if anyone out there had any good stories that they tell around the camp fire?

One thing I have never got the hang of is story telling and remembering the stories to tell and as a result I end up reading (if I do tell) from the page(s) of notes I have.

Hey Andy. I've been reading my way through Jess Smith's books http://www.jesssmith.co.uk/publications.html they are laced with wee campfire gems.

Windy

 

[baldscot]

Took the girls and their friend camping last year and they went on at me for ages to tell them a ghost story. I don't know any so adapted a bit of a film (urban legend) and told them it happened near to our camp. I didn't think they were too impressed. Got up the next morning to find they hadn't slept a wink and their pal wanted to call her dad at 4am to come and get her!

 

[Bushcraftsman]

Took the girls and their friend camping last year and they went on at me for ages to tell them a ghost story. I don't know any so adapted a bit of a film (urban legend) and told them it happened near to our camp. I didn't think they were too impressed. Got up the next morning to find they hadn't slept a wink and their pal wanted to call her dad at 4am to come and get her!

must've been a good story then!

 

[Pandabean]

Thanks Windy, I will have a look at these at some point. Got plenty books to read but cant find the chance other than when travelling.

Baldscot, love the story Maybe I need to watch a few outdoor horror films. A mix between Wilderness, Dog Soldiers and another Scottish one that I can't mind the name of.

Gary, as you say there are always stories around the campfire and its always a great laugh.

One thing I was trying to get at was when I was down for my first moot 3 years ago there was some story telling over at the main chute and there was one guy, sorry I can't remember his name, who was excellent at telling a story. One I do kind of remember was the Story of the Squeeky door. Hopefully someone will also remember this.

No one else got any good stories?

 

[Mesquite]

Maybe I need to watch a few outdoor horror films.

[video=youtube;FgsPzydgzxE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgsPzydgzxE[/video]

I love the Old Empty Barn one

 

[Pandabean]

Haha. There was nothing in it!

 

[Mesquite]

Haha. There was nothing in it!

Yup...

 

[drewdunnrespect]

Thanks Windy, I will have a look at these at some point. Got plenty books to read but cant find the chance other than when travelling.

Baldscot, love the story Maybe I need to watch a few outdoor horror films. A mix between Wilderness, Dog Soldiers and another Scottish one that I can't mind the name of.

Gary, as you say there are always stories around the campfire and its always a great laugh.

One thing I was trying to get at was when I was down for my first moot 3 years ago there was some story telling over at the main chute and there was one guy, sorry I can't remember his name, who was excellent at telling a story. One I do kind of remember was the Story of the Squeeky door. Hopefully someone will also remember this.

No one else got any good stories?

his name on here is womble now when u search fro him if you do make sure u dont get womble lancs cos thats karen and not the right one cos the womble i am on about is a bloke and is a really good story teller

drew

 

[Pandabean]

Thanks Drew. That was the name. His stories at that moot were really great. Is he still around here anymore?

Can't believe no one has any stories that they wish to share. We are afterall around a virtual campfire.

 

[nickliv]

I'm sure I related the story of the middle aged chap, the kit kat foil, and his old chap at the Glen Tanar meet last spring. Unrepeatable here, sadly.

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2

 

[drewdunnrespect]

Thanks Drew. That was the name. His stories at that moot were really great. Is he still around here anymore?

Can't believe no one has any stories that they wish to share. We are afterall around a virtual campfire.

womble is around and was ment to come to this years moot but i dont think he did in the end and well why not pm him and find out

drew

 

[CBJ]

I'm sure I related the story of the middle aged chap, the kit kat foil, and his old chap at the Glen Tanar meet last spring. Unrepeatable here, sadly.

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2

That was a classic

 

[Swallow]

IMO the power of the story lies with the story teller not the story itself. There are some people I know/have known that if they tell you something you'll be in stitches but try repeating that story to other people and you get the same reaction as when you show a dog a card trick.

In that vein the written word is not a good medium for stories. And trying to remember written word is probably going to get in the way of what (i think) needs to be done, which is to live the story internally so it is very similar to a memory. If your internal visuals are taken up with picture of words, there is not much space left for the visual story. The more real a story is to you in visuals, sounds, smells and tastes (rather than remembered words either by sound or visuals) the more it will affect your feelings and therefore the way you talk about it. And because it affects the way you feel and talk about it the more impact it will have those listening.

(maybe that's a reason I prefer people's personal stories rather than Myths or fictional ones).

Being a Celt you probably have these abilities in buckets whether you are aware of it or not.

Something that does come to mind is a quote from the Russel Means book "If you've fogotten the name of the clouds, you've lost you way"

If you look at the earliest form of written versions of Beowulf, transcribed from the spoken word of the minstrel, a travelling story teller, you see use of startling, almost magical imagery. Beowulf and firends "travel the whale road" they "oar-dipped accross the roofs of the fishes". These works make pictures, evoking the myriad of life around them, the searing richness of experience...all this was soon sacrificed for efficiency. The spoken words is the realm of storytellers, poets and visionaries, it is a plastic and indefinitely expandable medium. Written language crosses into the domain of word-accountants, "experts" who spend their lies compiling catalogues of words, immense ditionaries trying affix an exact , almost numerical value to every utterance and human emotion. Certainly this can be a fascintating pusuit but it's the antithesis of creative process, which is what speaking in a free language used to be all about

I have noticed Celts (I make no statement here about other nations) still have a measure of that descriptiveness.

(Never ask an Irish person what's wrong with them if they look ill.)

 

[sandsnakes]

The art of storytelling is not lost, but our language has be come constrained in its written form. The lyrical nature of Shakespearian times was in part due to the acceptance of making new words and concepts. If you consider the Japanese they still produce hiku poetry


"The primary purpose of reading and writing haiku is sharing moments of our lives that have moved us, pieces of experience and perception that we offer or receive as gifts. At the deepest level, this is the one great purpose of all art, and especially of literature."

• • (Bill Higginson)
    
    The art of the fireside story is similar, a good story always has a point. The point can be moral, sight, sound, experiance or knowlege. Lifting in soul at a point of darkness or bringing reason at a point of chaos.

 

[nettles150390]

Gunna re awaken this thread, I love story telling as people who know me will attest, I like the old native american stories of why something is as it is. I'd love to be able to make up a story might try that today.

 

[John Fenna]

A lorra lorra folk think my tales from Africa are just campfire tales....

 

[Zingmo]

Kids make a great audience for "off the top of your head" stories, they are so much less critical than adults. Mine always insist on a story with their cocoa when we are away. There have been hundreds (Collie-Wally the lifeguard dog, The very lonely lampost, King Edward and his potatoes...), almost all of which I have forgotten but which they often remind me about. I made a few rules for myself as I am often called on to make up a story after the mainbrace has been spliced...

• The main character(s) need not be human or even animal.
• Names need to be memorable and preferably alliterative. (You have to be able to remember them as you go along)
• The story should be about or involve something you saw or that happened today.
• Give yourself time to think; speak slowly and use repeating sequences (... he went down the stairs, across the kitchen floor, through the catflap and out into the garden... etc) to give yourself time to work out what happens next.
• There should be some drama; a crisis or something that gets an emotional response (don't be afraid to make the audience sad or scared, just so long as you know how to get to the happy ending)
• The plot needs a twist or it will just be a series of events. Think of this early on, but keep it hidden like a trump card until the climax of the story.
• Keep it short, bring it to an end when it fits rather than trying to drag it out.
• Tie up all the loose ends, kids want to know what happens to everybody/thing.
• Oh... and when we're in Wales, there has to be a dragon!

It can be an intensely intimate thing which makes you very vulnerable to the audiences ridicule, and (like cryptic crosswords) it is something I cannot do when tired and stressed; my mind has to be drifting with the current and free to go where it pleases. Give it a go, but choose your audience carefully.

Z