The Story Spinner also offers interactive half-day and whole-day workshops, led by experienced professionals, to help you make the most of this exciting resource in your school. As well as exploring the links with key National Strategy materials, the session will also focus on using the stories to develop children’s writing and to provide evidence to support periodic assessment.
Story notes for Year 5 by Phil McDermott
This collection of stories on DVD provide rich content for use in Year 5. The units listed beside each story are simply guides on how they can be used with the Narrative Units of the renewed framework.
Persephone. Unit 2
Hades is ignored and despised by the other gods and in the underworld he stews in loneliness and despair. Seeing the beautiful young goddess Persephone, he kidnaps her and spirits her into the darkness to be his eternal companion. Her mother, however, is the mighty goddess Demeter and when she discovers her loss, the consequences afflict the whole of mankind.
Persephone is the quintessential myth, an attempt to explain nature through the personification of its elements. To ancient peoples who without central heating and sturdy housing experienced all that nature had to throw at them, the changing of the seasons was viewed with great wonder and anxiety. Their very existence depended on correct prediction of these changes. The beauty of this story lies in the very human characteristics of the main players; the loneliness and despair of Hades, the youth and innocence of Persephone and the loss and determination of the mother Demeter.
The Forever Boy. Unit 3
Pietr loves his life and when he sees his father get older he resolves to live forever. He then embarks on a journey for many years to find a place where things never have an end. Once there, however, he is enveloped by an unfamiliar feeling.
This strangely beautiful tale from the Romany people is not only concerned with the passing of time, but also that the world is constantly changing and our own pasts and the places we have spent them, are disappearing too. It is also a story that concerns obsession, grief and despair. The anguished cries of the princess are almost as horrific as his final entry into the modern city. It is almost a kind relief when death finally catches up with Pietr and the Storyspinner has made Death a beautiful and kindly young woman who offers him an ending to his story.
The Scottish Laird. Unit 2
When the boy says he can’t tell a story he is kicked out of the castle. That winter night he changes into another person. He lives a long and full life as that person, but one winter night changes back and returns to the very time he was kicked out of the castle. Now he really does have a story to tell.
See what happens when you can’t tell a story! This fascinating tale of time travel refuses to avoid the consequences of living another story. At the end there is real grief suffered by the boy for the people who never lived and real ambivalence towards the life that lies before him. The gender change is sure to encourage some lively discussion. A version of this tale was told to the Storyspinner by the Irish storyteller Kate Corkary.
Palmer and the Mermaid. Unit 2
A fisherman finds a mermaid on the beach and helps her back to the sea. For his kindness he is granted three wishes. But there is a catch. He must return to her after nine years and in doing so condemns generations of his family to the same fate.
The Storyspinner has relocated this story to Dorset from its Cornish origins. Mermaids are the most dangerous fantastical creatures in the British Isles and are nothing like what Disney offers up. In the portrayal of Victorian life and the fisherman’s lot in particular, the story seeks to in some way justify Palmer’s bargain with the Mermaid, making this a myth with real purpose when one imagines fishermen’s wives explaining to the children why daddy won’t be coming home after the storm.
Inn of the Donkeys. Unit 3
A lost traveller comes to an Inn and stays the night. He witnesses foul magic and sees the other guests turned into donkeys in the morning. He escapes and knows that no one would believe such a ridiculous story, so he attempts to put a stop to the magic himself.
The Storyspinner has a secret regard for Third Lady and suspects that the origin of the story lies in the prejudice against successful single businesswomen in ancient China. That said, there are some wonderful scenes in the tale and the ending is left deliberately open, perhaps paving the way for ‘Further adventures of Third Lady.’ The changing of people into donkeys is common in stories from Spain, Italy, Pakistan and anywhere that they are used in the rural environment. And magic is international.
The Spirit Foxes. Unit 2
Riyuchi is the village bully and the older he gets the worse he becomes. When he mocks the villagers’ beliefs they challenge him to disprove them and in attempting to do so he finds himself in bigger trouble than he bargained for.
Japanese traditional stories are renowned for their portrayal of misdirection and this tale is typical. Riyuchi is first convinced by the metamorphosis of the girl, then the murder, then the sense he will get away with it and lastly by the ending. The wearing of masks in Japanese theatre and military history emphasises the point that what seems rarely shows what is. At the end Riyuchi wears a constant reminder of his hubris, but it is a reminder that everyone else can see, but he cannot.