“A good storyteller has the ability to transport you into dangerous realms and back again” Storyteller Dougie Mackay talks Guid Crack, myth, and Robert Burns.
So what does Guid Crack mean to you?
Dougie: I’m the guest speaker at this Burns inspired ‘Amorous Beasties’ themed meeting. I think there’s almost a storytelling spectrum where there’s something like a solo gig in a theatre. It’s high end, you want to be quite tight and quite polished. Then there’s maybe something in a school which is fairly fluid and really doesn’t take much prep, and there’s a lot of interaction, and banter with the kids. It’s a lower pressure environment where I feel more relaxed.
I think Guid Crack is somewhere in the middle.
It’s the obvious go-to place when you first get into in storytelling in Edinburgh . There’s an opportunity to tell, and you see people at all different stages of their storytelling journey. It’s a nice place to go in and see different styles, different levels of experience, and to try something out with a really forgiving audience.
What has your own journey into storytelling been?
Dougie: I’ve been storytelling for 10 years. There there’s probably three different threads that weave together to explain how I got started. First, I’ve got a background in community and youth work, so I’m always looking for things that might be useful from a facilitation point of view. Then also about the time I got into storytelling, I was gonna become a dad, so my ears were primed for things that that might be a good parenting skill. Lastly, I then just saw someone do it: I went to a gig. Of course, I’d been to rock concerts and hip hop gigs, but hadn’t thought of storytelling in the same way.
Part of me recognized it as a performance, and I was like, oh I think I could do that myself.
How would you say storytelling as a practiced art differs from sharing tales at a bar, or around the camp fire?
Dougie: I think there’s a relationship between being able share stories informally, and being able to stand in front of an audience like it. Storytelling is definitely an interesting medium; I think it is almost a cousin to performance poetry, even certain forms of theatre, and certainly comedy.
I think the professional storyteller may differ in explicitly leaning on, and valuing folk tales and myths. It’s unusual in contemporary culture to value what is old and abstract. There’s the picking of tales that could easily be written off in the modern world. I mean, on the face of it, why would you want to hear a creation myth about the sun and the sun’s children?
Except it’s almost as if the more value you place on them, you begin to catch the more subtle, and more abstract values. You deepen in appreciation of old imagery, and it makes for a doorway into old indigenous culture near, and further afield. There’s definitely an element of wonder built into professional storytelling.
Guid Crack has met for years in the top room of the Waverley Bar, do you think a pub setting matters?
Dougie: Absolutely! I think the thing about storytelling is it’s responsive, and the environment is part of that. So, you know, the storyteller is an ingredient, the story is an ingredient, the audience is an ingredient, and so is the venue. All these things work together to create the experience.
I think what’s really nice about Guid Crack, as opposed to say storytelling performance in a theatre is that it does have that feel of the Ceilidh. It’s a smaller step away from those anecdotal tales at the bar or around the kitchen table, and very much rooted in the intimacy of a gathering that would be more difficult to find on stage with an audience in a row.
Would you say there’s any line to be drawn between Robert Burns and the Scottish tradition of Storytelling?
Dougie: I think there is. I’m not a Burns expert, but I think he was very much rooted in the lives of everyday folk; working class agricultural workers. It’s similar, I would say, to Scottish contemporary storytelling in being rooted in people. There’s that phrase, ‘storytelling is best told eye to eye, mind to mind, heart to heart’, which I think chimes with Burns.
He also has that soft spot, or an interest in the natural world. It’s a theme which shows up in these old folk tales and, and I think he himself, was looking back at older traditions, wasn’t he? He seemed inspired by the folk tales that came before him, and was I suppose lending his own poetic eloquence to that.
I think he was really a champion of the traditional scene, looking to Scots more than English and all the rest of it. So I think in terms of being connected with everyday people, with the land and championing the older, traditional culture there’s some similarities.
What do you have in store for folks who come along to Guid Crack on the 28th?
Dougie: Well, not being a Burns expert myself, I don’t want to give any expectations of an exemplary performance of the Baird, but I guess we will be drawing inspiration from some of the themes prominent in his work.
I’ve decided on two for this ‘Amorous Beasties’ night, one involves a love-lorn warlock from Prestonpans, who tries out a love charm that doesn’t quite work out as he wishes.
The rest you’ll have to come along on the night to discover
Talking of the supernatural, I’ve always felt there was more distinction between Scots and Irish faerie tales than maybe most folk realise, what are your thoughts?
Dougie: Yeah, I definitely feel like they are cousin cultures. Maybe Scottish culture is more of melting pot of the gaels, but also anglo influences. I think a lot of the old folk tales also reflect the landscape, and parts of Scotland are quite different from Ireland, more mountainous, colder. Maybe that gives rise to harsher tales.
To wrap up, what do you say to those who maybe haven’t discovered traditional storytelling?
Dougie: I think storytelling has that feeling of being familiar, yet brand new at the same time; there’s something uncanny about it, unpredictable. There’s something really wild and gnarly about a lot of these old tales. Yet, at the same time we can’t help but relate, whether that’s from stories we heard in childhood from a grandmother, or maybe Grimms’ Fairytales. It’s dynamic, you know? It’s always different, and it can be something really fresh in the modern world. It’s a bit different from other contemporary arts.
There’s something fun about finding stories that haven’t been sanitized. I think a good storyteller has the ability to transport you into dangerous realms and back again. You might be shocked, or momentarily terrified, but hopefully by the end of the night you’ve walked back out from the story, and wont be having nightmares for weeks…There’s opportunites to speak to the darker as well as lighter aspects of the human psyche. These folk tales and myths are often packaged in such way to help you engage with the rough side of life.
In some ways it’s so simple. It’s easy to overlook it…but if you look at the most thriving cultures, they have storytelling at their hearts. It’s innately human.
(Featured Image: Mara Menzies sharing tales at a Guid Crack meeting © Peter Dibdin)
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