Here is a set list for a space and time travel session I am preparing. Each of these stories has a some kind of link to space and time travel (albeit sometimes that link is tenuous!)
How the earth was made (Native American – a similar story exists in several tribes folklore)
The three wise astronomers (English – based upon the tradition of English devil tales in which the devil is outwitted)
Urashima Taro (Japanese folk tale about a time travelling fisherman)
The archer and the ten suns (Chinese legend explaining how the sun and stars took their place in the heavens)
The proud turtle (Filipino story about a Turtle who wants to fly)
The boy and the moon (Turkish story about a boy who finds the moon in a well!)
I’ve never found space and time travel to be that easy a theme to get into but I have really enjoyed this opportunity to research and interpret these stories. Having said that, the image above is taken from a piece I was presenting in 2009 about the irrepressible Professor Montague Rumpleseed Drake who lead audiences through British history on a time travelling adventure. Then I presented a piece about Dewey Fiction exploring literacy in space (see image below). Looking back on these stories now it seems like a lifetime ago!
I digress. As I was researching these space and time travel stories I found that some of these tales have many variations and that choosing the best version could be tricky. In some instances I have mixed up different versions of the same story (ie where I liked the beginning of one and the ending of another). This might be considered by a purist or an anthropologist to be an affront to culture and of course I’m sensitive to that but on this occasion my choices have been thematic.
Whenever I prepare a story session there are lots of perfectly good stories which bear inclusion(there are no end to the European folk tales I could tell) but I think its important that a storyteller enjoys the story they are telling and that this is part of the reason I get good feedback. Hopefully I do this set of stories justice and that my audience is inspired to discover the different variations for themselves.