Words Go Questing CD

Seven tales of seeking and finding told by
Spontaneous Combustion Storytellers,
Sandy Farley and Tom Farley,
with guest teller, Eric Sabelman

Released by Spontaneous Combustion, 02/18/2005
ISBN 0-9647614-2-4, list price $15.00 US.

• CD Baby at CD Baby: TOM & SANDY FARLEY
• Linden Tree Children's Books and Recordings
• or Spontaneous Combustion

Recorded between the ninth and twelfth months of 2004 at the Jazzical Music Studio of Scott Goldberg in Milpitas, California. Scott also provided the musical interludes between stories.

Story List

[Stories 2, 4, and 6, copyright by Eric Sabelman. Story 3 copyright by Cris Reidel. Used with their permission.]

1. The Owl and the Pussycat - a poem by Edward Lear. We often use this inter-species romance to open our programs.
2. Only Carry What You Need - an original story by Eric Sabelman, first in his cycle of tales about a young man seeking true wisdom. Eric joins us in telling three of his stories.
3. The Orange Cat - an original story by Cris Riedel, submitted to a contest on the STORYTELL e-mail list. Of the submissions we saw, this was the one most suited to our style. We thank Cris for permission to record our tandem telling of this purrrfect story.
4. Voices - a parable from Eric Sabelman's cycle of tales about the young man seeking true wisdom. We have shared it with several groups who found it offered useful insight.
5. Kahukura and the Fairy Fisher Folk - a Maori story of following a leading and the discovery of new technology. Of the tales we heard in New Zealand/Aotearoa, this is one we felt would travel well. Maori elders we consulted agreed with our choice.
6. The Map - an allegorical tale near the end of Eric's cycle of stories about the young man seeking true wisdom.
7. Lily and the King - parts one and two
   There are many variations on the basic plot of this tale of fate, greed, and courage. The Grimm brothers collected it as the Three Hairs of the Ogre. About 1980 we read a translation of an old Bohemian (Czech) version about the castle of "Grandfather All-Know" who reminded us of Apollo. In that version we recognized other characters and themes found in Greek myth. We wove these, along with elements of Hellenistic culture, into a fantasy adventure set around 250 BCE in the lands north of Mount Olympus.

   The territory of Illyria, a real kingdom of that time with its own language and alphabet, is now divided among Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Albania. From 1999 to 2001 we made visits to the area of Lilyıs quest and admit to taking some license with its geography. We also invented most of the human characters. So far as we can tell, there never were Kings Delos or Soli of Illyria.

   As we used Lily in storytelling and story-theatre, we added events and characters until we had a novel length piece much too long for telling. In the past year we have extracted this new version.