Pauline meets "Auld Craobhie," the ancient oak from Stanley Robertson's story
Events Archive: 2008
The Grampian Association of Storytellers held their first Satellite Meeting of
2008 on the 23rd February at Archaeolink Prehistory Park. It was a great success and further Satellite
Storytelling sessions in Aberdeenshire will be held for children in the future. For further details, see the GAS website or please feel free to contact me. (See "contacts" page). In the photo, Anna gets everyone dancing to the Frog Song!
In June, Stanley Robertson took a group of us out to the Old Road at Lumphanan to meet
Auld Craobhie, the ancient oak tree from the story in his book "Exodus to Alford." We heard a lot of the history of the area, with special relevance to
the Scottish Traveller folk who regularly used to camp up the old road. We had a right fine picnic in the shade of Auld Craobhie and sang some of the
ancient scots ballads we have been learning from Stanley.
Whilst visiting relatives across the pond in August, I was very pleased to meet up with some members of the
Montreal Storyteller's Guild. We swapped a few stories and it was lovely to see the similarities between the Montreal Guild and our own group of
storytellers, GAS. I really enjoyed myself and look forward to hopefully meeting up again some time in the future!
In September, Maggie and I told stories at "Bodgefest" in Dunnottar Quarry. What an amazing
setting for storytelling. Hopefully they'll do it again next year - if so, I'm camping over!
My second last event of the year was a Hallowe'en storytelling session at the Burn
O'Vat Visitors Centre. Hallowe'en really is my favourite time of year for storytelling - and dressing up! There are so many ghost stories associated with the North
East of Scotland. Here's a link to the event - snh.org.uk and also to the poem I wrote
after a childhood experience at the Vat! - Witches At The Burn O'Vat
The year's grand finale was, once again, Wickerman at Archaeolink and the storytelling
challenge that is the Haunted Caves! This year we covered the tale of an Aberdeenshire graverobber, The Big Gray Man of Ben MacDhui, Osbarn the Smith and
the Aberdeen witch trials - noting specifically the wicked deeds of one Jonet Wishart who was eventually burned for her sins on heading hill. I've already
got a few plans for 2009, but I'm keeping them to myself for now!
These were just a few of my favourite events from 2008. Throughout the year, I was busy with GAS events (see the GAS web page, link below) and various
events at Archaeolink.
Click here for an archive of what Pauline got up to in2007, 2009, 2010 and this years events page.
For many other Storytelling events in Aberdeenshire and in Scotland, please see GAS workshops and other events, GAS First Friday Flings and Non-GAS Storytelling events
