Still, the stories are layered and rich, even in English. This one seems sadly appropriate for the week after a crazed gunman in Arizona opened fire on Congresswoman Gabrielle Griffins. As I type, she lies in a hospital, a bullet hole through her head. Six others died.

It’s the day of their memorial service. Sarah Palin is accusing her opponents of “blood libel” for objecting to her placing shooting targets, aka crosshairs, on a map of Democrats (including Giffords) who voted for health care. President Obama is flying to Tucson to attend the service. His 2008 election unleashed a flood of racism and rhetoric that heightened the pervasive fear broken open by the attacks of September 2011.

The tragic shooting is leading to a lot of soul searching in a nation where bombast has replaced rational discussion in all too many arenas. Mainstream and independent media are filled with discussions about mental health, gun control, political discourse, social justice, and the need for civility.

The simple tale of a mouse and a kitten is ostensibly about two creatures who are predator and prey by nature. Their coming to that realization is normal, in the scheme of things. However, folktales are never about the surface story. Children are not born knowing who is predator and prey. They are not born recognizing The Other as enemy. This little story points out the problem, not the solution, but perhaps it can lead to some open discussion about tolerance and accepting differences.

Here, from the storyteller who gave me Man with No Brain and Habra with the Lion, comes the tale of the little mouse and the kitten.

One day, a little mouse said to his mother, “I’m big now. Let me go outside and play on my own. It’s not fair to keep me cooped up in this hole.”

The mouse’s mother had always watched over him carefully. She feared the dangers that threaten small mice. Most of all, she feared the cat, who would pounce on her child and eat him.

But at last, seeing how much her son had grown and how keen he was to explore the outside world, she agreed. “Very well, but don’t stay outside too long, and, above all, beware of the cat. He is our greatest enemy.”

The little mouse was thrilled. At last his dream was coming true. He was going outside alone, with no parents to scold him.

The little mouse was outside on his own, for the very first time (Photo by Som Juan, somjuan's Flickr Photostream)

He ran outside, cheerful and proud. He felt like a grown-up mouse. He could go anywhere he wished, all by himself. He scurried around. Sometimes he stopped and raised his head, looking to the left, then to the right. Then he ran back and forth, delirious with happiness.

He was full of his new-found joy when he saw a little cat. “Oh, hooray,” he said to himself. “I can have a nice friend if this pretty little creature will play with me.”

The kitten was also out on his own for the very first time. As soon as he saw the little mouse, he said to himself, “What a pretty, sweet little creature. If only he wants to play with me!” He approached the little mouse as softly as he could.

The little mouse was delighted. “Do you want to play with me?”

The cat replied, “Yes, I do!”

The two young animals began to play tag. They wrestled and rolled on the ground. They boxed with their paws. They bit each other’s ears. They ran around in circles, chasing each other’s tails, but always gently, delighted with their game.

Tomorrow we'll meet again and play like we did today (Photo by Buffa from thebuffafamily Flickr Photostream)

They forgot everything else until the sun began to set. The little mouse said to the kitten, “That’s enough for now. I’m afraid Mama will scold me. Goodbye.”

The kitten replied, “I’m sorry we have to stop. Goodbye. But tomorrow morning we’ll meet again and play like we did today.”

The little ones returned to their homes. When the mouse saw her son, she was relieved.

“Where were you, my child? I was so afraid for you. You were gone the whole day. I was very worried. I was afraid the cat had devoured you. Never stay outside such a long time! It’s not safe.”

But the little mouse was full of the day’s fun. He was impatient with his mother’s warnings. Finally he interrupted, “Oh, if I told you everything… I made a friend. We played together all day long. Oh, Mother, if you could see how cute he is, how handsome, how friendly. I’m sure you would like him. From now on, when I go outside, I won’t be alone. Now I have a friend to play with, from morning till night.”

His mother grew thoughtful. “Yes, my son, that’s good. That’s good. But tell me a little about your friend. Can you describe him to me?”

“Oh, Mama, if you only saw him! It’s true he’s a little bigger than I am but not too much. And his head is a little large and round. And his fur is as soft as silk, so nice to stroke. And he is yellow, and his tail is about that long and thick. And he doesn’t talk the way we do. It’s so pretty to hear him. He says, ‘Me…ow! Me…ow! Me…ow!’ Or he says, ‘Me…ew! Me…ew! Me…ew!’”

Mother Mouse was no longer listening. She had nearly fainted. What she had dreaded most had happened. It was a miracle her child was still alive.

“My dear child, your little friend is a cat! Creatures like that eat mice. He must still be very small and not yet know that mice are his daily food. But beware. His parents will tell him. Don’t go near him again.”

The little mouse didn’t understand a thing his mother said. How could such a sweet little friend ever think of eating him? He turned to his father.

Father Mouse laughed softly. Finally he said, “My little son, cats are our most dangerous enemies. Listen to your mother. Stay inside, safe from the cat. We’re warning you for your own good.”

That was the scene in the mouse’s home. Now let’s see what happened when the kitten went home. His mother was also upset and asked why he had stayed outside so long.

The kitten said, “Dear Mother, if you’d only seen the little friend I met. He’s so handsome, so cute. We played together all day long. We pretended to fight. He bit me; I bit him. He made me fall down. I made him fall down. I’m so lucky to find a good friend. I’ll never be alone when I go outside to play.”

Mother Cat was delighted to see her child so happy. Finally, she said, “Tell us about your pretty little friend.”

Little fool, and you didn't eat him? (Photo by Kevin Dooley from kevindooley's Flickr Photostream)

“Oh, Mama, if you saw him! He is little, much smaller than I am. He has a pretty, thin little tail. His little head isn’t round like mine. But he has such a pretty nose, narrow and pointed. His ears are pointed too, and so small. And he doesn’t talk like us. He says softly, ‘squeak, squeak’.”

“Little fool,” said his mother. “And you didn’t eat him? That was a mouse! And mice, you little nitwit, are what we eat. Do you understand? Cats eat mice. Always. And you actually had a mouse between your paws and let it get away and are proud of yourself? I am ashamed to have such a stupid child. Tomorrow, you must look for him. As soon as he is near, pounce. Grab him and gobble him up. Do you understand?”

The kitten could not believe his ears. “Eat him? But why? And then who would I play with?”

His father burst out laughing. “My son, listen to your mother. Cats eat mice and have since the world began. Tomorrow we will see what kind of cat you are. As soon as the little mouse comes near, jump on him and devour him. Show us that you are a real cat.

When morning came, the kitten went outside in search of the little mouse. But there was no trace of the mouse anywhere. Not in the courtyard. Not in the street.

Then the kitten saw a tiny hole. He watched it carefully and recognized the shiny eyes of his little mouse friend, safe inside his home.

In his sweetest, slyest voice, the kitten said, “Hello. Come on out, and we’ll play as we did yesterday.”

But the little mouse cried out, “Never! Everything your father and mother told you yesterday, my father and mother told me.”

And so the story ends, of the mouse who learned about cats and the kitten who learned about mice.

Children can be taught fear. They can also be taught compassion and tolerance. (Photo by Denis Defreyne, Flickr Creative Commons)

A post script: In an opinion piece in the January 11th issue of the New York Times, Robert Wright has this to say: “The point is that Americans who wildly depict other Americans as dark conspirators, as the enemy, are in fact increasing the chances, however marginally, that those Americans will be attacked.” His piece is aptly titled: “First Comes Fear”.

And then he was gone. The stories that had rolled off his tongue in an unbroken stream, the Old Medicine Show he had performed for over thirty years, all died with him. Others will tell the stories, but none will be Doc.

I first met Doc when I attended my first National Storytelling Festival. I had been newly elected to the Advisory Committee of NAPPS (the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, which morphed into the National Storytelling Association). But I had never attended the organization’s premier event, the annual festival.

Featured storytellers were met at the airport in Johnson City, Tennessee. Everyone else made her own way. But neither I nor the inexperienced teller I had met at the airport knew the rules. So when we saw a sign that read, “Storytellers”, we aimed for it.

Doc didn’t have the heart to tell us we were on our own. So he and a friend loaded us into his car and drove us the festival grounds in Jonesborough. They knew storytelling innocents when they saw them and spun stories for their open-mouthed audience during the entire drive from Johnson City.

Doc was dumbstruck when he learned I was on the board but had never been to a festival, but he recovered quickly. And neither he nor his comrade made the slightest hint they were making an extra round trip, just to accommodate two newbies.

No one has ever made me feel more welcome than he did that day. Some of his signature stories, such as the “Snake-Bit Hoe Handle”, still stick with me. But nothing sticks with me more than the memory of the southern gentleman who was so kind to this newly minted storyteller.

A video can’t capture the warmth and humour of Doc McConnell, but this telling of Mr. Fox and the Bumblebee at least gives some of his down-home style.

Two of his friends and fans, Joseph Bruchac and John Kirk, wrote a song in honour of Doc. They perform it in this video.

In the September 1, 2009 entry on his blog, Sivers wrote about a talk by Kurt Vonnegut, who explained “why people have such a need for drama in their life”.

He blamed it on the stories we grow up with. Sivers quotes him as saying, “People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories.”

That sent me to Google to see if I could track down Vonnegut’s original talk. Bingo. Found it on Lapham’s Quarterly.

Vonnegut drew a graph on a blackboard, what he called “the G-I axis: good fortune-ill fortune. Death and terrible poverty, sickness down here—great prosperity, wonderful health up here. Your average state of affairs here in the middle.”

Arthur Rackham's Cinderella

He warned his audience people buy books and magazines or go to movies to hear stories that fit the rise and fall and ultimate rise of their expectations. Cinderella fits the graph. Hamlet doesn’t.

Vonnegut says we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece because “Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth…The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.”

It’s worth checking out the Vonnegut talk and contemplating his graphs in the context of the stories we tell, whether it’s around the kitchen table, in ads, on the nightly news, or to a paying audience.

The talk is vintage Vonnegut, provocative and ironic. Reading it made me ponder our hunger for the dramatic, for the rise and fall and ultimate rise. If we need evidence of that hunger, we have only to surf the channels on TV or scan the magazines while we’re waiting to pay for our groceries.

Would it be a different world if we were satisfied with the small ups and downs of ordinary life? Maybe, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever find out.

2010 Olympic red mittens from k-ideas' Flickr photostream

Vancouver Olympics Organizing Committee members had many dreams when they began planning the 2010 winter games. One of them was to send the Olympic torch on a relay that would bring the flame to within 150 kilometres of every Canadian community. In a country the size of this one, with a population as small and scattered, that is one big dream and it makes one good story.

Airplanes had to be pressed into service to bring the flame to the small pockets of population that inhabit the territories of Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. And, of course, the Greece-to-Canada portion was airborne.

Elsewhere torch bearers rowed the flame, danced with it, and attached it to a wheelchair. They held it aloft while snowshoeing, surfing, bicycling, dogsledding, crossing ice, riding in a horse-drawn buggy, and driving a snow-grooming machine. When it finally entered the stadium for the opening ceremonies, it was tied to a wheelchair.

In small towns and big cities, thousands of people lined the path, insisting repeatedly that witnessing the relay made them feel part of the games, part of the country. Coast to coast, red-mitten fever generated pride and enthusiasm.

Canadians don’t spend a lot of time waving flags or bragging about their country. Some parts of the Olympics build-up seemed uncharacteristic, like calling the program to fund athletes, “Own the Podium”. Not that Canadians didn’t want their athletes to win medals, but the slogan was over the top for a country where people are more comfortable with modesty than swagger.

So pundits and bloggers and friends sitting around the dinner table will discuss endlessly what the torch relay meant to them and to the country. They’ll wonder if the opening ceremonies were pageantry or wanna-be, how facilities could have been improved, and why we spent $10,000,000 for a temporary Canadian pavilion that looked like a big tent.

But it’s been a good party, and we are quietly proud. And the torch relay? That stitched us together for a few months. We won’t soon forget it.

It is all part of the story.

• See photos of the relay on the Boston Globe Web site.
• Trace the route on the Olympic Torch Relay Interactive Map and watch videos of its day-by-day progress.

What we were seeing on the screen was mythic, the history of a land and its peoples played out in a spectacular sound and light show. Canadians aren’t known for noisy patriotism, but the crowd in B.C. Place and the thousands watching on flickering screens couldn’t help but be stirred.

I’m sure we all had our own, personal highlights, the moments when we gasped or cheered or shed a tear. I loved the indigenous dancers moving to the rhythm of the pulsing, virtual drum, right through the long entrances of the athletes. The fiddlers and dancers, the Northern Lights, the virtual whales, the dancers all thrilled me.

What we were watching was not just entertainment. It was the Big Story of Canada. It was the shaping of the land and of the water that runs through and around it. It was the sorry history of colonization and the rich tapestry of cultures brought by waves of immigrants.

I don’t remember poetry’s being included in previous Olympic openings, but slam poet Shane Koyczan got it right with his smoothly delivered, “We Are More”. So many lines resonated for Canadians: “…we are cultures strung together / then woven into a tapestry / and the design / is what makes us more / than the sum total of our history…” I’ll drop in a link to his 2007 video of the poem.

The human and virtual tableaux couldn’t tell the whole, complex history of course. But as a short course in Canada’s story, it worked.

Even the lighting of the Olympic flame was thoroughly Canadian. We’d all been speculating on which of the country’s sports heroes would have that honour. Instead of one, it was five.

Rick Hansen carried the flame into the stadium, attached to his wheelchair. He lit the torch carried by speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan. She passed the flame on to basketball star Steve Nash, who lit skier Nancy Greene’s torch, who held her flame to the torch of hockey Hall of Fame star Wayne Gretzky. That the inside torch was only symbolic and that Gretzky alone lighted the official cauldron—and even that a jammed pillar kept Doan from adding her flame—didn’t change the Canadian-ness of the symbol.

The one thing that did mar the opening was the death of a young Georgian, killed in a tragic training accident on the luge course. Seeing flags at half mast, the Georgian team with black armbands and scarves, and a crowd of 60,000 observing a moment of silence, no one could forget the grieving family and friends of Nodar Kumaritashvili.

In comparison with the spectacular opening of the Bejing Olympics, Canada’s may seem modest, but it was Canadian to the core. Vancouver Sun columnist Shelley Fralic expressed it well: “This, then, is the Canada we want the world to see, magical and beautiful, and talented.”

Now if only it would snow.

©2010 Cathryn Wellner

If you missed the ceremony, here are some highlights:

• The Vancouver Sun captures the spirit of the Big Story
• Stephen Hume on why sport matters
• CTV has the full replay
• Video excerpt and photos on cambridge now!

And here’s Nikki Yanofsky singing the Vancouver Olympics theme song, whose lyrics seem very Canadian: “I believe together we’ll fly. I believe in the power of you and I.”