Tiger's Whisker
A Korean folk tale of the trauma of war
Video not yet publicly available
This tale has been recorded and will be uploaded to the video gallery during 2025, where it will be available to watch for free - together with many, many other tales.
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My telling of this Korean tale is based on a posting by Eldrbarry on Storytell. There are many other versions on the internet.
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.
A Korean tale of a woman's courage and skill
Wife - loves husband, but he becomes difficult to live with after returning from fighting in a war. Now never happy with her.
She asks a magician if he can help.
"Yes, can make magic powder, this will make husband love you again. But I need a tiger's whisker for this, can you bring me one?"
Woman frightened - but loves husband so is determined to get whisker.
Jungle, looks for tiger. At last finds one asleep. Very frightened at enormous animal.
But creeps close, puts out fingers, starts gently scratching tiger. Tiger purrs in sleep. Woman scratches more vigorously, tiger purrs more and more.
At last tiger is so carried away by scratching, she can pull out whisker without waking animal.
Takes it to magician. But before her horrified eyes, he burns it.
"But now you can't make magic powder to make husband love me!"
"You no longer need a powder. Just use on him the courage and skill you used to get the whisker, you'll have things just as you want them."
This is my skeleton of a Korean tale, based on a posting by Eldrbarry on Storytell.
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For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling