The Lindworm
A powerful fairy tale of redemption leading to a man and a woman truly being able to live together
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My thanks go firstly to the Austrian teller, Kai, from whom I heard a version in German of this tale many years ago.
Secondly, thanks must also go to Stephen Badman for jolting my memory that I had met a version called “King Wyvern” in his book More Tales from Denmark, Retold by Stephen Badman & John Herbert (2009).
More Danish tales translated by Stephen Badman.
Over the years my own telling has evolved, including the rhymes spoken by the old woman, the queen, the princess and the blindworm.
In Dec. 2023, while preparing a programme for local teenagers, a Storytell discussion suggested including The Lindworm. As is often the case, although I am extremely fond of the tale, I realised that I had not told it for at least a couple of years. So I was delighted to bring it back to the stage.
Most of the teenagers knew and had visited Burg Frankenstein, a castle just to the south of our city, What few of them knew was the local legend of Ritter Schorch and the Lindworm. (I have seen the grave stone in Nieder-Beerbach church depicting the double death which ended the fight.)
Following these performances, I decided to record this new video to replace the previous one in the video gallery. That had been made ad hoc at a festival and the technical quality was not so good.
Serendipity is clearly at work with dragons. Yesterday, after making the recording, I chance on this BBC programme about another well-know tale, The Lambton Worm.
More deep tales
The video gallery has become very extensive. So if you would enjoy more tales like this which explore the depths of the human psyche, 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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For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling