03/27/2026
After the success of our curated World Storytelling Day (WSD) event with tellers from Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario, and Argentina on March 19, Durham Storytellers started our WSD outreach program today.
It was a delight for Dianne Chandler and Kathleen Smyth to tell stories to children from grades 4 and 5 at the Ajax Public Library - Audley Branch. The children were very attentive, considering they sat for 75 minutes listening to four stories.
Dianne Chandler told Belle's Journey, which was about an aging farm horse that carrIes a young girl named Molly to her weekly piano lessons. Molly’s father wants to get rid of the old horse, but changes his mind, when Belle brings Molly safely home during a sudden, life-threatening winter blizzard.
Dianne's second story was The Legend of Knockgrafton. A gentle man, with a large hump on his back, falls in love with a beautiful maiden, who he asks to marry. She agrees, if he turns into a straight-backed, handsome man, and brings back gold for them to live on. With the help of the fairies, and the legend of the standing stones on Christmas Eve, he becomes tall and handsome, and returns with the gold. Happy Ending..They get hitched.
Kathleen told a true story about a Canadian heroine, named Minnie Paterson, a lighthouse keeper's wife, who made a harrowing 12-hour trek over 20+ kilometers in a severe winter storm to alert the authorities of a shipwreck. Then, she immediately returned home on the same grueling route to take care of her unweaned infant and four children. She was a true Canadian heroine, who received many accolades for her bravery.
Kathleen's second tale was about The Water Kelpie, which looks like a horse, but is not, and leads its riders to their deaths in the Loch (lake). The story is about a 12 year old boy, who subdues the Water Kelpie, using the advice of a spae-wife (fortune teller), and emplioys the water kelpie to plough his family's fields, and those of others around the loch.
