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- For the band see, The Storyteller (band)
The Storyteller is a live-action/puppet television series created and produced by Jim Henson.
The series retold various European fairy tales, created with a combination of actors and puppets. The framing device had an old storyteller (John Hurt) sitting by a fire telling each tale to his talking dog (a puppet, performed and voiced by Brian Henson). The series was scored by Rachel Portman.
Episode list
Series 1
Each half-hour episode was written by Anthony Minghella. Only nine were completed:- "The Soldier and Death"*
- "Fearnot"
- "The Luck Child"
- "A Story Short"
- "Hans My Hedgehog"
- "The Three Ravens"*
- "Sapsorrow"*
- "The Heartless Giant"*
- "The True Bride"*
* this episode first aired in the US as part of The Jim Henson Hour.Series 2
Henson later attempted a follow-up, Greek Myths, which had a different story-teller (Michael Gambon), but the same dog. Only four episodes of this series were made:Episode guide
Series 1
The Soldier and Death
From an early Russian folk tale. A soldier returns from 20 years of war with nothing but three biscuits in his sack. Soon he must outwit devils, save a kingdom, and try to outwit death.Fearnot
From an early German folk tale. The Storyteller recounts the adventures of a boy who goes out into the world to learn what fear is.The Luck Child
An evil king sets out to kill a 'luck child', the seventh son of a seventh son, whom it is prophesised will one day be king. The child's luck is a gift, and cannot be undone. The same is true of prophesies...A Story Short
An adaptation of the stone soup fable, the Storyteller tells of a harsh time when he was forced to walk the land as a beggar. Finding himself in sight of the castle kitchen, he picks up a stone and fools the castle cook into helping him make soup from a stone, by adding it into a cauldron of water and slowly adding other ingredients to improve the flavour. His efforts win him an audince with the King who promises to give the Storyteller a gold crown for each story he tells, one for each day of the year...but on the final day, the Storyteller awakens and can think of no story...Hans My Hedgehog
From an early German folk tale. A farmer's wife drives her husband mad with her desperate measures to have a baby. She wants a baby so badly that she doesn't care what she gets, even a hedgehog. That, of course, is what she gets: a baby covered in quills, as soft as feathers. His mother calls him 'Hans My Hedgehog' and she is the only one to love him; his father grows to hate him for the shame, and so eventually Hans leaves for a place where he can't hurt anyone and where no-one can hurt him. Deep inside the forest, for many years Hans dwells with his animals for companions. One day a king gets lost in Hans' forest and when Hans helps him to escape, then king promises that he will give to Hans the first thing to greet him at his castle - which the King secretly knows to be his dog. It so happens that it is the King's daughter to greet him and he is reminded of his promise to the creature. When Hans shows up to claim and marry his prize the entire castle is in uproar, but the princess accepts her fate and marries Hans. Soon she discovers his secret, when he leaves her asleep at night and sheds his quills to become a handsome man, she rests on his shedded quills which he has left behind. However when Hans discovers she has learned the truth, he returns to his Hedgehog form and leaves her. She wears out many shoes searching for her husband, and one day after many seasons of searching, comes upon a little hut in a forest. When a raven flies in to sup at the table, it turns into her beloved hedgehog. She has found him and holds on to him with true love until he relents, and all of his animal characteristics disappear, allowing him to assume his human figure for good.
The Three Ravens
From an early German folk tale. After the Queen dies, an evil witch ensnares the King, and turn his three sons into ravens to rid herself of her rivals. The princess escapes and must stay silent for three years, three months, three weeks and three days in order to break the spell. But after she meets a handsome prince, this is suddenly not so easy...Sapsorrow
This is a variant on the Cinderella tale. The girl whose finger fits the ring will become Queen; the law decrees it. The girl whoes foot fits the slipper will marry a handsome prince. What a lucky girl, you might think? Oh no...for when the princess slips on her mother's ring for safekeeping, the King finds out and must marry her: the law decrees it. The princess goes into hiding, becoming a creature of fur and feathers helped by her forest creature friends, until she meets the handsome prince...The Heartless Giant
From an early German folk tale. A heartless giant, who once terrorised the land before being captured and imprisoned, is befriended by the young prince Leo who, one night, sets him free. His older brothers go after the giant to capture him, but do not return, so Leo sets off to find the giant himself. Once found, Leo decides to find the giant's heart, but this is no easy task - it sits in an egg in a duck in a well in a church in a lake in a mountain far away. No easy task indeed.The True Bride
Based on East of the Sun and West of the Moon, a Norwegian folk tale from the Norske Folkeeventyr. A Troll had a daughter, but she left straight off. So the Troll took another to replace her to wait on him hand and foot. Her name is Anja and she has no father and she has no mother, so the Troll is her other. Setting her impossible tasks, then beating her with his "contradiction stick" when she invariably fails, she wishes one day. Her wish is heard by the Thought Lion, a wondrous beast all in white, who completes her impossible tasks for her. When she finds her true love, he disappears one day, so Anja sets out to find him...in the hands of the Troll's evil daughter, the Trollop...Media
The stories have been made available through a variety of media.VHS
In the UK, all 9 episodes of series 1 were made available in 1989 on a set of 4 VHS tapes.In 1999 four of the stories were re-released by Columbia Tri-Star across two VHS tapes in both the UK and the US. These were "A Story Short", "The Luck Child", "The Soldier and Death" and "Sapsorrow".
DVD
Both series 1 and 2 are available in region 1 & 2 DVD format. They offer no extra features other than the original episodes in their original stereo format.Books
Two versions of the book have been published; the text is the same but the pictures differ. The text, written as a series of short stories by Anthony Minghella, is adapted slightly to fit better the medium of "short story". One (ISBN 0517107619, Boxtree) features a photograph of the Storyteller on the cover; the illustrations within (by Stephen Morley) are the silhouettes as seen in the program, and photographic stills of the episodes alongside the text. The other version (ISBN 0679453113, Random House) has full colour hand illustrations by Darcy May, depicting the stories alongside the text.External links
1980s TV shows in the United States | Fantasy television series | Muppet television series | Television programs featuring puppetry
"The Storyteller"