How to Have Conversations With Folktales

Stories don’t exist in isolation, they’re a happening: you ‘meet’ them. They’re not fixed with some pre-determined meaning, and no explanation can ever be the final word, because there isn’t one.

The indologist Heinrich Zimmer  says this beautifully in speaking about the wonder stories of the folk tradition:

“They have to be questioned and consulted anew… For the life patterns that we of today have to weave are not the same as those of any other day; the threads to be manipulated and the knots to be disentangled differ greatly from those of the past…Our primary task is to learn, not so much what they are said to have said, as how to approach them, evoke fresh speech from them, and understand that speech.”

He goes on to say that in contrast to trying to find methodical interpretations of these tales, delight may be a more productive response:

“Delight, on the other hand, sets free in us the creative intuition, permits it to be stirred to life by contact with the fascinating script of the old symbolic tales and figures…we may permit ourselves to whatever series of creative reactions happens to be suggested to our imaginative understanding.”

So let’s meet stories creatively, play with them and see what comes up! Let’s notice that on one day a story may elicit one response from us and on another day a different response, and that neither is more ‘right’ than the other, it’s an ongoing conversation. How many times have you watched a film you’ve seen before and this time seen something completely new in it for you?

You yourself and what you bring to the moment are always part of the happening.

Quotes from Heinrich Zimmer: “The King and the Corpse”.

If you’d like to download a free 12 page pdf that explores further how the stories we tell ourselves determine what we ‘see’ and how to change them, you can find: “The Cinderella Experiment: Story, Life and Magic” HERE