Gey Gallus

Rab performing stories for children

Want a sneak preview of what’s to be found in Gey Gallus: Selected writings of Rab Swannock Fulton?

Here some extracts to whet your appetite:

The Monkey Murders
The Monkey Murders began as savage comedy and ended as bloody tragedy. The first death took place in May 2004. Leopold was a live-in assistant to an English dentist based in Barna. One Monday morning the dentist went to wake Leopold, only to find him lying in a pool of clotted blood, his head cleaved open like a melon. The reaction to the killing was more curiosity than sympathy: Leopold being a chimpanzee.

The City Beneath the Waves
As they sailed into the Claddagh the wind fell wheesht, and the rain turned softer. Yet even now, their adventure was only half done. For standing on the shore there awaiting them was the old woman and her horse, with not a drop of dampness on them. ‘You cannot step ashore’ spoke the old woman as the lads tied their boat fast, ‘except that you sit on my horse and follow me.’ Up the three of them mounted, none of them daring to ask questions of the woman, even when she started walking into the waves with the horse at the side of her.

The Day of the Vote
The morning became very still. The two children had stopped to look back; Jamie from his hiding place watched mesmerised as the sunlight moved like a flame around Cherlie’s wedding finger. Along the paths people stopped walking and talking as they looked to that hand and the light flashing apon its finger. Heather wanted to scream out at Cherlie not this not this please don’t do this. But some queer sorcery had turned all witnesses into pillars of stone. Only a bird tried to break the spell but its song etched across the sky like a sharp fingernail scraping down a plaster wall; skreetching and grating in the ears of all, heightening their sense of horror and anticipation.

Tarbuck Campbell’s Last Supper
The tableau remained completely still. And silent. The small dark beast seemed to be sucking but made no sound. The woman appeared content to have her milk drawn from her by the creature yet gave no murmur of satisfaction. Tarbuck wanted to touch the woman, to put his mouth to her breast to taste her milk. He wanted her to tell him who she was, what she had been, what she felt now. But she remained still and indifferent. Tarbuck took two loud determined steps up to the maiden and her creature, bent down and read a little white placard pasted onto the rock:

Ainu woman suckling bear cub, Japan 1972,

Both killed and preserved in snow avalanche.

Japanese aboriginal people now almost extinct.

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Hi story lovers, here's a copy of the article that was in 7 April 2008 Irish Times about the international launch of www.storytellersunlimited.com. Enjoy!

Project tells tales from Galway to Denver LORNA SIGGINS, Irish Times Western correspondent

MOONBOGS, MILESIANS, Oisín, Fionn Mac Cumhail and the Fianna are subjects of an international storytelling project which was initiated in Galway and Denver, USA at the weekend. The terrorising activities of the "gruagaire" or hairy folk who left Scotland for Ireland to escape excessive drinking and tax dodging were recalled at the Irish opening. It was performed in the Galway City Museum by Rab Fulton of Storytellers Unlimited, with harpist Aite Ursa Tinga. His colleague, Clare Muireann Murphy, gave a similarly scary performance in the Children's Museum, Denver, as part of a "simultaneous" international launch on Saturday evening.

Storytellers Unlimited was founded by Fulton and Murphy in Galway, and is currently touring in North America.The duo have built up an archive of Irish and international tales, which have been recorded on video for a new website which is funded by the Arts Council.The video archive includes some fairly familiar tales: how Cuchulainn got his name, the exploits of the Fianna and the birth and death of Oisín.

The archive also deals with some less familiar subjects, like the history of the O'Quinn family of Co Clare, recorded by the late folklorist, TJ Westropp, and a story called Morag and the Sky Princess, which is a tale of "lust, frustration, dogs and embroidery" from Scotland.The website – www.storytellersunlimited.com – also includes information on teaching projects and performances.

Fulton is due to take to the stage at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, in May.