The Wondertale Maker was created for Mythstories in 2016 with Lottery Funding by Arts Council England. It was made by Artist Lucy Moxon and devised in collaboration with Mythstories’ Apprentice Storyteller Jake Evans.
While serving his apprenticeship at Mythstories, storyteller Jake Evans was set the task to come up with an installation that would allow visitors to Mythstories to make their own tales following the structure of the classic wondertale. He worked with artist Lucy Moxon to translate the formula of traditional story openings, heroes, helpers, villains, dilemmas and ritual endings into an exhibit that could be manipulated to help the story develop. The resulting Wondertale Maker is a tree adorned with the different elements that make up the classic archetype.
Users start by choosing a story opening, and work clockwise around the tree making choices as they go to create their own wondertale. The schematic below gives a more detailed explanation.
You could make your own mini cardboard table top tree and choose and design your own traditional story openings leaves, heroes roundels, helpers roundels, villains roundels, dilemmas leaves and ritual endings leaves for the trees branches.
Below are Lucy Moxon’s roundels and a scattering of leaves…
The Wondertale Maker is now part of the Grosvenor Park Academy Mini Storytelling Museum in Chester.
