Boy and the Devil
Doing a deal with the devil is never easy – but here is how one lad did it
Video not yet publicly available
This tale has been recorded and will be uploaded to the video gallery on 4th Feb. 2025, where it will be available to watch for free – together with many, many other tales.
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If you have a particular reason for wanting to watch the recording before it is publicly available, send a mail and we can discuss this.
This telling is based on the story collected by Danish folklorist, Jens Kamp, in Folk and Fairy Tales from Denmark (trans. Stephen Badman).
The ChazTales blog for October 2024 has an extensive discussion of this tale.
Not surprisingly, the devil is a popular motif in folk tales. Here are a few more I have recorded over the years.
More Danish tales translated by Stephen Badman.
The boy’s three wishes are all well-known folktale motifs. The Lancet has an interesting medical article on the phenomenon of enforced dancing: “A forgotten plague: making sense of dancing mania“.
More comic tales
The video gallery has become very extensive. So if you would enjoy more tales like this, here are a few suggestions.
The video clips here are all amateur quality, shot in various theatres or, as here, in my home studio.
Their intention is just to show the range of my storytelling and give a flavour of a live performance.
Permission is granted for use in non-commercial educational contexts.
The videos are © Richard Martin.
Professionally recorded CDs and DVDs are available here.
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Permission to tell outlines my views on copyright
For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling