Halloween filled the entire month of October, it seemed; we were running from one end of the city of Chicago to the other – private parties, coffeehouses, campfires and Village and Park functions.  We added the Girl Scouts to our list of satisfied audiences … as I wrapped myself in greasepaint and fur and told tales as a werewolf at several of their overnight ‘campouts.’
Tellebration! at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry; I joined another dozen Storytellers for a day-long extravaganza:

 

And I added Iowa to my list of states-told-in; I shared the stage with members of the Northland Storytelling Network for an evening’s entertainment at the Mandolin Inn in Dubuque … .

Christmas opened, for me, at Tinley Park’s McCarthy Park where I told stories to a classroom’s worth of pre-schoolers and their families … it closed in Dodgeville WI where Celeste and I worked a week’s worth of Stories and Crafts From Around the World.

One of my favorite stories to tell – and one that I try to tell as often as possible – is a Japanese folktale known as The Rock-cutter or The Stone-cutter.  I believe it was first introduced to our English-speaking world through Andrew Lang’s wonderfilled Crimson Fairy Book in 1903 … though it must have been around before then, retold and told again by soldiers and sailors and other travelers who visited Japan.  Since then it has ‘suffered’ some marvelous incarnations.  the most notable of these are Gerald McDermott’s The Stonecutter, A Japanese Folk Tale. 1975, and Demi’s The Stonecutter, 1995.  My personal favorite, however, was an animated

 

http://tale-teller.com
 

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