The Muddy Little Bell: And Other Stories, Legends, Dialogues and Essays

By Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate

About the book

The Muddy Little Bell consists of stories, legends, dialogues and essays, based on the authors folkloristic writing style. Each story is self-contained and was inspired by an incident happening in the authors life or by a city or a countryside where the author was living or visiting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483616056

Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate

Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate was born in Kitale of the British East African colony, today’s Kenya, and was raised until school age on a farm with the name Kalua-Estates. She received her basic education in various European countries as well as in a boarding school in Lucerne, Switzerland. Even though Lucerne is in the German Swiss, the school conducted all its classes and communications in French. Her BA and MA degrees were earned at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her Ph.D. studies were completed at the University of California Berkeley and the University of California Los Angeles. She holds an AA degree in creative writing from the Palmer Writer School, at-tended several years of memoire writing through the Monterey Peninsula College, where she had the opportunity to share her writings with fellow students, most of them outstanding writers, and bought several courses in creative writing from The Great Courses. As professor in academia, she has numerous academic as well as creative writings presented at national conferences and published in academic journals as well as in local papers. She is the author of twenty-four books, with two volumes of memoires in the final stages and a novel about a father and son moving to Alaska almost completed.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate.

Cover Illustration by Marvin Tabacon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 05/06/2013

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Contents

Introduction

Stories / Legends / Dialogues and Essays

A Leprechaun Named Smith

The Muddy Little Bell

The Bus Farce

Bucking Change

Confusion at North-Pole Junction Zero

The Application

Destination Tucson

The Dinglestown Cart

Nameless

Not Another Confusion!

I Don’t Even Know Your Name

Wrong-Way Sven

Legend of the Salt

Trembler

Conversation with a Salmon

This to a Good Mother

Memories of Summer’s Last Moments

Dedicated

To Friends, who Write Children and Adult Stories

For a Family Market

And

To Children

Reading or Creating Stories

Acknowledgement

T he author wishes to acknowledge the assistance by the following in putting together the stories, legends, dialogues and essays for this book:

Spencer D. G. Ludgate for his childhood enthusiasm and input;

Ruth Margarete Geldreich (nee Boehnke) for her belief in her daughter, the author, and for encouraging her to keep on writing and drawing.

Introduction

T here is always more to a Tale, may it have as basis a Fairy Tale or a Legend. As long as there has been an oral tradition, there have been Tales or Legends. There are hardly any people on this Earth, who do not have some type of Tales in their culture. However, the telling of Tales appears to be more predominant in countries of a long history. The Tales have been passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation. Within each family, there exists one individual, who is particularly adept to telling Tales. That might be the grandfather or the grandmother, the mother or the father, an uncle or an aunt or anyone else.

In the past, Fairy Tales, Tales and Legends made good entertainment, told by a flickering fire, when the weather was storming outside or when to explain something, a crooked bridge, a lonely house, anything. Tedious work or monotonous chores were usually sped on, when a Fairy Tale was about to be spun, or a Legend to be told. There are many other functions of a Fairy Tale; but, none as important as serving as an education and socialization means for children. Legends often served as education and socialization means for adults as well.

When I was a child growing up in Kenya, where I was born, and later in Europe, the Fairy Tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, by Bechstein and by Anderson did not only entertain me and my older sister as reading material, which once read were shelved with other books; but, as situations of life that could be imitated. The stories, which my mother spun, were much the same. She hoped, we would get something out of them.

I was fortunate to grow up on a farm in Kenya or in small towns in Europe. All the children in my circle at one time fell under the spell of Fairy Tales. Within each child slumbered the desire for adventure and a sudden deeper interest in a child of the opposite sex and his or her role. My peers and I looked to the heroes and heroines of our Fairy Tales. Their spirits had become much a part of us and our families during dreary winter nights, when our fathers and mothers or anyone else in the household reached for the Fairy-Tale book, or my mother set out to tell a tale she had created.

The spirits of Snowhite, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, the handsome prince, the kind but ailing king, or the bumbling third son, who had been cheated out of inheritance, manifested themselves within us. We began to model our lives according to theirs. We thus became actual counterparts in a real world to Fairy-Tale characters in a world of wonder.

All of these characters had a certain lack in their world, which had to be rectified. The neglected, the ridiculed and the mocked were rewarded and respected in the end. The youngest son or daughter, stepchildren, sickly rulers and the not so bright, who faced an imbalance of justice in the outset, persevered to see a generous balance in the end. This generous balance in the end was our goal as well.

In Europe, if a girl’s hair was long and black and her skin white, she inevitably became Snowhite; and if her hair was golden and long, she was a princess; and if this golden hair was extra long and the tresses extra thick, she was none other than Rapunzel. Boys identified with such masterly roles as daring kings and princes, vassals and on rare occasions even a villain; but, only then, if it was the kind of villain, who in the end revealed a good character and thus became subject of reward. Generally, villains were not chosen. Those roles were pushed onto children least liked. The disadvantaged, hard working, striving and suffering worked toward a reward in the end. They were by far more admired and respected in reality as well as in the world of Fairy Tales than villains. They were obviously the more likely characters after which we modeled our lives. Unlike the American counterpart, where actors feel that their acting abilities are not well-rounded until they had played the roles of the most dastardly villains, children of my age in Europe stayed away from these roles. Should a child find him/herself in a position of having the role of a villain pushed upon him/herself, he/she often became subject of ridicule in real life.

In their long development through oral tradition, Fairy Tales always adapted themselves to the environment of a specific time of telling. When we were taken in by the spell, we too incorporated into the Fairy Tale our own world. Therewith we brought an individual Fairy Tale closer to reality and made it more possible for all to become part of it.

The roles of Fairy-Tale characters were acted out in various ways. These were often under the tutelage of teachers or group directors, or within a circle of friends, or just by an individual him/herself. Performances took place on meadows, in a community hall, on the market square or in a backyard, where blankets drawn over clotheslines marked off the stage. At times, the teacher’s podium served as stage.

Once parts were distributed, we actually became the hero or heroine, or the members of their supporting cast, and we were expected by the community to live accordingly. The community had fallen under the same spell as we had. There was an excitement bringing back to life once again a Fairy Tale, as had been done so many times before, only by other generations. Sawmills offered wood for the construction of sceneries, free of charge; old-clothes and rag drives brought in material for costumes; and many members of the community offered traditional costumes from attic trunks. Classrooms remained open after school, where we constructed sceneries, sewed or altered costumes and rehearsed. Rehearsals, however, took place anywhere and at any time. The more we grew into our parts, the more we were recognized by all just as that character. And when we ran errands, the butcher or the merchant called us by our Fairy-Tale name, and our ego was raised considerably. It was up to us to show all, that we were worthy our roles.

The performance itself, often turned into a town festival. We changed into our costumes while still at home. When we left, the townspeople followed us to the site where the performance was to be held. Too quickly it was over. Life went back to its routine, until suddenly someone decided to put on another Fairy Tale and the excitement started all over again.

Fairy Tales also helped us in socialization as we grew up. We often took on the role of a character in jest, while playing together, and these roles carried over into the following day or even the next, when we were known by our peers only by the names of fictitious characters, and were expected to behave in their manner.

European Fairy Tales, as example, are often considered to be gruesome, frightening children. These are mostly non-European beliefs. A child in Europe grows into a Fairy-Tale age and through it becomes selective. The child does not identify with these gruesome characters, but learns through them how not to be gruel. This is enforced by the equally gruel and merciless punishment the gruesome character receives in the end.

When I, as a young child, and my peers selected Fairy-Tale characters, we identified with the virtuous ones. Their virtues became ours in playing their roles. Their lives became our lives, and we knew that in the end, the good and hard-working, often suffering ones, were rewarded. We hoped for the same reward.

As means of education vehicle, Fairy Tales taught us right from wrong. As means of socialization vehicle, they taught us social involvement, creating friendships and how to understand the lives of others. Fairy-Tale characters were given tasks to perform, they had to obey and follow certain rules, often undergoing strenuous tests in order to gain the reward. Those who looked for shortcuts, deceits and other vices, did not make it. Through imitating Fairy-Tale characters, we actually lived the lives of grownups, only in a miniature world that was still whole.

The stories I have written or told over the last forty years, base heavily on European traditions of Fairy Tales with a modern slant.

My first book, Tales and Bedtime Stories, is now on the market. It focuses on children stories of modern times. My second book, The Muddy Little Bell and Other Stories, Legends, Dialogues and Essays, contains longer children and adult stories, legends, dialogues and essays that may also be of interest to folklorists or writers of family or children books. It contains a series of stories that were inspired by something that happened in a town where I was living or visiting.

My third book, will be titled, The Lucia Rider. It will contain novellas for family readers. Some of the titles are, The Town’s Child, The Island for Rent, and The Lucia Rider.

Brigitta Gisella Geltrich-Ludgate

Monterey, California, USA

Stories / Legends / Dialogues and Essays

Titles and Places of Inspiration

A Leprechaun Named Smith

(Story Inspired in Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada; Based on a Farmers’

Story-Telling Tradition in Kenya, East Africa)

The Muddy Little Bell

(Based on a European Easter Legend)

The Bus Farce

Fairy Tales Still Happen

(Story Inspired in Los Angeles, California, USA)

Bucking Change

(Story Inspired in Monterey, California, USA)

Confusion at North-Pole Junction Zero

(Story Inspired in Carmel, California, USA)

The Application

(Dialogue Based on a True Incident, Los Angeles, California, USA, 1978)

Destination Tucson

(Inspired by a Canyon Tour, Southwestern USA)

The Dinglestown Cart

(Story Inspired at a Shopping Center Somewhere in

Southern California)

Nameless

(Story Inspired by a Dinosaur Exhibit in Monterey, California, USA)

Not Another Confusion!

(Story Inspired by the Story Confusion at North-Pole Junction Zero)

I Don’t Even Know Your Name

(Story Originally Published in the 1983 Special Issue of

Ahnene Publications¹)

Wrong-Way Sven

(Story Inspired by a European Cruise, Summer 2012)

Legend of the Salt

(Legend Based on a White Mountain Apache Legend of Naming the

Salt River in Arizona² )

Trembler

(Inspired by Creation Legends, Where the World Was

Created on a Fish)

Conversation with a Salmon

(Dialog Based on an Activity During a Writers’ Workshop,

Carmel Valley, California, USA)

This to a Good Mother

(Essay Inspired in Monterey, California, USA)

Memories of Summer’s Last Moments

(Essay Inspired in Greater Detroit, Michigan, USA)

A Leprechaun Named Smith

(Story Inspired in Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada; Based on a Farmers’ Story-Telling Tradition in Kenya, East Africa)

O n weary Sunday afternoons, when the family met at my parents’ house in Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada, and we started to reminisce, particularly my parents, one of the stories