Wolves and Monsters

Scotland's top-knot

When this blog appears I shall be nowhere near any electrical device capable of displaying it. I shall be right up in Scotland’s top-knot and while I’m up there, intend to visit Morag. She’s Nessie’s little known sister, who keeps herself to herself in Britain’s deepest stretch of inland water, Loch Morar. The most reported sighting of her was in 1969 when two local men ran into her, literally, while messing about in a boat. One of them hit her with an oar and the other fired his rifle at her— whereupon Morag sank beneath the water and I’m not surprised.

The men described her as being brown with rough skin, nine meters (thirty feet) long and having three dorsal humps. They said her head was thirty centimetres (a foot) wide and she held it forty-six centimetres (18 inches) out of the water— until they so rudely interrupted her.

The most recent sighting of Morag was in 2013, by two holiday-makers, who claimed to have seen her three times in two days. If I’m lucky enough to meet her, I shan’t offer her violence or even take her picture— I shall try to interest her in a copy of my Odin’s Monster. My monster isn’t one of Morag’s relatives— though perhaps I should consider writing about one of them. I don’t really know why I haven’t written about a kelpie that transforms itself into a long-backed horse, lures people into riding it and then carries them into deep, cold water and eats them. The legend has definite appeal. But so many monsters, so little time…

Odin's Monster by Susan Price

The monster in Odin’s Monster is a ‘Sending.’ This is an Icelandic concept of monster-ness, because the book is loosely based on an Icelandic legend, Thorgeir’s Bull. The wizard, Thorgeir, was supposed to have lived in the 1800s but I moved it back in time and set it during the Viking Age because, well, I like the Viking Age.

A 'sending' was created by a witch or wizard in a bad mood. At its simplest, the witch or wizard murdered someone, in order to enslave their ghost and ‘send’ it against whoever it was they had a grudge against. Hence the name, ‘sending.’ I used this idea again, in another book, ‘The Ghost Wife.’ Once created, a sending like this could plague a whole family for generations.

The sending or monster in Odin’s Monster, is a kind of super-sending. It’s the dead body of a bull that’s stuffed full of other ghosts— of a man, a woman, a child, an eagle, a bear and others. The monster can appear as any of the ghosts trapped inside it. It can fly like an eagle, roar like a bear, speak with a woman’s voice. In the original legend, Thorgeir is a kind of

stalker with magical powers, which is a frightening thought. He creates his bull to torment the woman who’s turned him down. And her family. For generations.

The Ghost Wife

One detail of the legend that I liked is that, although the bull was said to be ‘devoted’ to Thorgeir, if it ever failed in a task he’d set it, then it rushed home and attacked him instead, sometimes even trying to kill him. I used this in my own story: ‘This is the difficulty of making Sendings. Once you’ve made them, they aren’t easy to control.’

Instead of tormenting a woman, I have my wizard, Kveldulf Witch, torment a story-teller named Thord Cat. He wants Thord Cat to tell the story of his life, of all his murders and double-dealings, of which he's very proud.

But Thord Cat dislikes the witch and refuses the commission. (The pay's rotten anyway.) Appalled by this cheek, Kveldulf calls on his god, Odin, to help him in creating the monster and he sends it against Thord Cat, to try and force him to do what Kveldulf wants. Every time the Sending arrives at the farmstead in one of its guises, it demands that Thord Cat tell its master’s story. On ‘the third time of asking’, if he refuses, it will kill him.

This story for 8 to 11 year olds was first published by A & C Black in 1986, so long ago that I can't believe it. Over the years I’ve had a lot of fun reading the story aloud to children in schools. I still do. It never fails to have them leaning forward in their seats, with open mouths and wide eyes. After Thord Cat’s second refusal, the sending, in its woman shape, says, “Next time I come horned.” I always break off there and say, “If you want to know how it ends, you must read the rest yourselves.”

This usually brings on groans and pleas for just a hint of how it ends, a clue… Teachers have sometimes had children write their own ending for the story before they read it to them.

The Wolf's Footprint by Susan Price

My indie best-seller, by a long way, is The Wolf’s Footprint, which is aimed at a similar age-group. So I thought I should unleash my sending again and send it out into the world, coupled with Wolf’s Footprint. I got my brother, Andrew, to do some new illustrations for Monster in exchange for a cut of the overwhelming riches which will doubtless flood in as soon as it goes on sale.

I put together the cover of Odin's Monster, using one of Andrew’s illustrations. The cover’s okay, but I will probably tweak it a little, now I’ve held an actual copy in my hand. I have a couple of other back-list books written for a similar age-group, which I aim re-issue this year.

In the meantime, I’ve just heard that Kate Stilitz’s brilliant musical version of The Wolf’s Footprint is to be staged again, at Tiverton Primary in London— and I shall be going to see it. Looking forward to that enormously.

The Wolf Pack (in Kate Stilitz's production)

Odin's Monster






         The Wolf's Footprint

A Conversation With Kate Stilitz

          Kate Stilitz is the writer who adapted my book, The Wolf's Footprint, and turned it into a musical, as reported last week. She agreed to tell us something about herself for this blog.

Sue Price: I could tell, talking to you that you really love your job. How did you come to be doing it?

Kate Stilitz:  It all began in Mexico where I spent a year teaching

Kate Stilitz

English in a primary school after finishing my A-levels. I had a guitar with me and played a bit and soon found myself getting involved in musical activities. It was a great way of engaging with the children, despite the language barrier. One thing led to another and before we knew it we had created a bi-lingual song cycle. I realised there and then how much I enjoyed working with children through music. After Mexico I came back to London and have been running children’s community theatre projects and school-based performance projects ever since. What really excites me about my job is having the opportunity to work both with the children participating in the projects, and with artists from other disciplines to create something new. In the past I have collaborated with visual artists, other musicians and actors, and for The Wolf’s Footprint I collaborated with a choreographer, Neil Paris.

Sue: Have you written musical plays before? If so, tell us about them please.

Kate: Over the last 15 years I have written and co-written many different musicals, song cycles and other pieces for performance. These range from a theatrical exploration of the life of Mandela and the role of music in the struggle against apartheid, a performance piece about the Solar system using music, spoken word, movement and illuminated lanterns, a song cycle called Riversong , co-written with Jilly Jarman, which tells the story of a river’s journey through poetry, song and percussion

          Folk tales and legends have proved a great source of inspiration for new musicals and have led to new productions of The Snow Queen, The Return of Theseus and Little Red Riding Hood. There was a strong sense of folk tale in The Wolf’s Footprint which was one of the things that attracted me to it.

Sue: What’s the process of writing a play like that? I’m not musical at all, so I find it hard to imagine. Do you start with the words or the music?

Kate:  The works I’ve written have emerged in a variety of ways.

In the case of The Wolf’ Footprint, the starting point was ‘The Song of the Peasants’. I had an image of the villagers out in the forest: night is drawing in, and there they are, desperately searching for plants to eat as they have done every day since the crops failed. I tried to imagine the sense of frustration and hopelessness that the villagers might be feeling, and the relentlessness of the work they are doing. With this in my mind, I started improvising on the piano and with my voice, searching for a clear mood that I felt captured the scene.

          Once I had the music, the words came quite quickly and the play had its start.  It’s not always like that - sometimes the words will emerge first and I have to search for the melody and sometimes they come simultaneously as they did for ‘The Song of The Advisors’. This song came about in response to a section of the story involving the king and his guards, as they are described in the book, and a need to shift the play rhythmically. Neil and I bounced ideas around and in our interpretation the guards became sycophantic advisors or courtiers. Very quickly and playfully, we sketched out a melody and some words and in a matter of minutes that song was born. The words and music for that song seemed to feed each other and it provided the shape for the characters in the play and led to a great scene.

Sue: It was a very funny scene - and you could see that the children were having a ball with it. But I loved the whole play.

Thanks for blogging!

                                     The Wolf's Footprint

Adapted by Kate Stilitz and Neil Paris from the book, The Wolf's Footprint, by Susan Price (copyright 2003) by kind permission of, well, moi.

Music and Lyrics: Kate Stilitz

Directed by Kate Stilitz and Neil Paris

Assistant Director: C J Carroll

Sets/Props/Masks: Ramona Barsalona

Costumes: Caitriona McGarry and Miranda Mayston

Year 6 Teachers: Charlotte Houchin and Isabel Hamilton

And the children of Tiverton School

 

Orchestra! Lights! Cue the Wolf Pack!'

         

The wolf pack

      Children twisting and bending like trees in the wind, their arms forming low-hanging branches, a living forest to be lost in.
          Other children, wearing wolf-masks, climb through a leafy terrac, and slink and prowl.
          A peasant's chorus sing, beautifully, about the turning of the seasons, and the hunger that comes with winter.
          A troop of pompous, self-satisfied courtiers strut and cluck.
          And all the children quite obviously having a wonderful time as they sing and dance and act out their part.
          As their headmistress, Resham Mirza said, it was wonderful to see their courage and freedom on the stage.
          I saw all this at Tiverton School last week - a wonderful primary school in Tottenham.

Kate Stilitz

          I was there because I was contacted, through my website, by Kate Stilitz, Tiverton's music teacher. She had come across my book, The Wolf's Footprint, had loved it, and had turned it into a play, writing the script, songs and music herself. She wondered if I would like to come and see it performed?
          Well, what a silly question. It is true that I detest traveling to London. I don't like London much. It always seems to be roasting hot when I'm there, and gritty and dirty, noisy and crowded - normally I'd much, much rather spend 15 hours traveling to the Outer Hebrides than two hours traveling to London.
          But how many chances do you get to see a story that you wrote interpreted and reinvented by another artist because they loved it? With all the work, and thought, and revision that entails?
          Not many... So there was never any question but that I would go.

The villagers sing a rousing chorus

             It was a roasting hot day. London was as noisy, crowded, dirty and gritty as ever. But the play, and the children's performance - was worth it and more. There wasn't a moment when my attention wandered - I sat there throughout with a big grin on my face. You might say I was biased - but the rest of the audience, made up of parents and children from other classes in the school, were equally absorbed, despite the heat.
          Called on to say a few words after, I said that, although a bit late - my birthday had been the week before - it was the best birthday present I'd ever had.
          I mentioned that I'd written a book called The Ghost Drum, which had been awarded the Carnegie Medal for best book of its year - and that this was better. And I mean it.
          I'm not decrying the Carnegie Medal in any way. It was awarded by librarians who work with children, and who are informed, and often passionate, about children's books and their importance. And they gave me their medal. I'm proud of that.
          But it doesn't quite compare with discovering that another artist has so enjoyed and 'got' something that you've written, that they've been willing to pour their own energy into creating something new from it.
          Thank you, Kate. And thank you, the wonderful cast.
          The wolf-masks were made by Ramona Barsalona,

Daw becomes a wolf.

      Thank you to Kate for the photos - which will find their way to my website eventually.

The King and his court.

     

         The book of the musical is available as an e-reader from:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble (Nook)     Kobo   iBook

       

          It's available from Amazon as a paperback

with black and white illustrations

with colour illustrations

Emails to an Author: The Wolf's Footprint

     Recently, I was delighted to receive the following email through my website: -

Hi - I work at Upperby Primary School Carlisle and one of our classes has been reading ‘TheWolf’s Footprint.’  Their class teacher has asked them to write their own ending to the story and the children would like to email you theirs. I do appreciate you may not be able to answer them all, but I would be grateful if you receive them could you possibly reply to one or even reply back to me.
Thank you.
Mrs Denise Cannon

     I sent back a reply saying that I would be very happy to see the children’s endings.  I enjoyed writing ‘The Wolf’s Footprint, and I love reading it in schools, so I was curious to see what the children had to say, and how they would have ended the book themselves.

     For those who don’t know the book, it’s a fairy-tale, set in that familiar old-fashioned fairy-tale land. It begins like Hansel and Gretel with two children, a girl, Elka, and a boy, Daw, being abandoned in the forest by their parents.  They are rescued by wolves, who show the children how they can shape-change by drinking water from a wolf’s footprint…

     I enjoyed reading the email’s so much, and was so struck by the inventiveness, that I asked if I could put them on my blog and email, and received this reply:

Hello Susan

Thank you so much for your reply. I have just read this out to my first group of children and in fact Mrs Lancaster, their class teacher, just happened to be here also.  They were all really happy when I told them you had replied. Mrs Lancaster, myself and the children are very excited to hear that you would like to put their endings to the Wolf's Footprint on your website so of course the answer is yes we will certainly be looking forward to seeing them on there.

 Best Wishes

From Denise Cannon (ICT teacher) and everyone in Fantasia Class

     The children’s emails follow: - 

Message: our class heve been reeding wolfs  footprint it was amaising elka and daw most be brave we have nilly finnisht it and this is my ennding is hear it gose i woud like elka and daw to live whith the king and the hunters to find find the mother and father and all live in the kins castel so they will help evrybody and the poor people not poor and live happly eaver after hope you like it but not as good as yours. from your biggest fan chloe

Message: Our class has been reading The Wolf's Footprint.It is a very awsome book.I's beter than my story's I love.oh we have done our own ennding .Here's my'n.Daw loocked for Elka and took her to the Man's footprint but all there fammily died .However the King died to and all of them had a funrell. The end.

Message: this is my ending to the wolv's footprint story       when daw walk up he went to the fire, the king said wear gouwing to find your sisster then daw asked cane we find my mum and dad to ok, declade the king.they fownd daw's sisster,mum and dad they where so happy to see each other they went to the fun fair together they had a good day out. and as for the wolve's they stade in the forest they all lived happy ever after.

Message: My ending to the wolfs footprint story is When Daw was hunting they came accross Elka.She wined "Daw how are you a human again?"
Come with me,"ansewed Daw
He lead Elka to the mans footprint.Unfortunetly,there where no water it had all absobed into the mud...Luckily by looking into Daw's eye's she turned into a human

Message: my ending to the wolf's footprint is The King takes Daw to Elka. Daw prswaids Elka to drink from the man's footprint. Daw and Elka live happily however there parents starve to death.

 And, I also recieved this one, from EmilyRuddock -

Message: Dear Ms Price,

I just wanted to let you know how much pleasure your work has brought me. When I was maybe 10 years old I read The Horn in Gene Kemp's compilation Ghouls, Ghosts and Other Nightmares. A few years after I left primary school, that story kept coming back to me but I couldn't remember its author. I tried Google, other authors, and various other websites, to no avail. For years I searched. Finally I found it again. I'm 23 now, I bought Kemp's compilation, and The Horn is still one of my favourite stories within it. It must have affected me in a big way when I was ten years old. Thank you for that. I just wanted to let you know that you made a big impression on a little girl, and an adult won't ever forget that. Emily

     And thank you, Emily!  One of the joys of writing for children is that you get letters and emails like that, and although writers for adults get fan mail, and doubtless enjoy it, I don’t think they can ever get quite such a thrill as your email gave me!

     I must go and look ‘The Horn’ up myself!