Enter |
Home |
Tour the Studios |
Fabric Arts |
Visual Arts |
| Tall Tales | Paddy and the Snakes - Heaven in Saanichton |
|---|
Heaven in SaanichtonI cannot remember when I didn't know this version of 'Paddy and the Snakes'. What intrigues me is that it is so different from the traditional tall tale. There Saint Patrick tricks the King Snake into getting into the box by leading him into an argument over the size and comfort of the box. When the snake claims that there is no way the box can be big enough Saint Patrick goads him into proving it and them snaps the cover closed on him.
My mother's people were Anglo-Irish, and mostly Protestant. A century ago there was certainly no love lost between the Irish Protestant community in the Ottawa Valley and their Roman Catholic neighbours of all sorts. But I don't remember anything in the story that directly reflects that situation or could indicate any other reason for the variant form of the legend. It may just be a recent, and localized, innovation. Perhaps the storyteller was improvising, rather than following a traditional 'Lives of the Saints' story, to suit his, possibly Protestant Irish, audience.
But you don't have to be concerned with all that. It's great story-tellers' story. Read it aloud to yourself. Then read it aloud to a friend. Then tell it over and over again, judging the occasion very carefully of course. You will tell it differently every time. That's the whole point of being a story-teller. You can play with the characters of Saint Patrick, the King Snake or the 'people'. You can set the Shaggy Dog to rub hair off all over the available legs. Keep away from imitation Irish accents unless you do it really well. I like to end any story with a visual image. And in this case I have tried to indicate with the typography of the last lines how I would imitate the waves and the wind. Watch your audience, especially the older children, they are your true critics. Go to Paddy and the Snakes Top
It's just a coincidence that the first two Tall Tales that I copied to the website have to do with saints. But then stories from the 'lives of the saints' are part of the bedrock of western literature. To the best of my knowledge, this tale has no such antecedents. It is a simple embroidery on the theme of; 'How glad we are to be living in Saanichton.' The seed for it goes back to the late 1990's and a conversation among several of our Volunteer friends over lunch in the cafeteria at the Saanich Peninsula Hospital.
It had been a warm spring morning after a few days of heavy rain and I had walked the mile or so down from the Studios. Along the way I noticed that the irrigation ponds at the Rashleigh's 'Saanichton Farm' were filled to overflowing. Ducks of various sorts were collecting there. The talk at table wandered over to preferences for a personal second coming and I said something like; 'Well, if I get a choice, I'll think I'll come back as a little brown duck on Rashleigh's ponds.' Go to Heaven in Saanichton Top
Top |
Enter |
Home |
Tour the Studios |
Fabric Arts |
Visual Arts |
Copyrights for the entire site
(unless otherwise stated in the page source code):
Text and Photography - © 2001-7 John Oliver Dendy
Design and Art - © 2001-7 John & Elaine Dendy
Web Layout - © 2001-7 John Oliver Dendy
Revised 9 June, 2007