Lewis Hyde | The
Gift
Well, this particular book has the ‘gift’ of offering you such newy-dewy insights of the most tasteful and graceful order, every time you read it anew!
Celebrating the
Creative Spirit within You!
Today, in a long time, I had the lovely opportunity of talking to a very senior professor, who
is so passionate about creativity!
The call lasted
for one hour and forty two minutes to be exact, and all along, we were
discussing the various facets of creativity and how it could be made to relate
to our academic set-up of today’s, where the ‘creativity part’ has taken a
nose-dive for sometime now, for various reasons, what with the ‘creativity code’
or the ‘machine code’, adding to our list, and slowly intruding into the much
celebrated ‘creative space’ of humans!
I was in fact,
reading through a lovely article on ‘Creativity’, by this vibrant professor,
which has insightful analogies and impactful lines for anyone who loves upping their
creativity quotient!
There’s this lovely comparison that she’s made between ‘The Thirsty Crow’ and Henry Ford, who according to her, are both
alike, innovators!
And Professor then proceeds to examine the concept of ‘Creativity’
through seven beautiful lenses –
Creativity is
like a bird
Creativity is
like electricity
Creativity is
like breathing
Creativity is a
muscle
Creativity is
insight
Creativity is
‘magic’
Creativity is
‘your signature’
Then, for my little
part, I told her about a book I’ve been so obsessed with recently, (yes! reading
it for the third time in a span of ten months’ time!) by Lewis Hyde, titled, The Gift!
You might want to
read out our past post on The Gift here!
Well, this particular book has the ‘gift’ of offering you such newy-dewy insights of the most tasteful and graceful order, every time you read it anew!
Suchmuch is its charm!
Suchmuch its impact! On us, the readers!
Would so love sharing with y’all from that particular part of the Scottish folk tale from the middle
of the nineteenth century, from off Lewis Hyde’s The Gift!
It’s titled The Girl and the Dead Man
Once upon a time
there was an old woman and she had a leash of daughters.
One day the
eldest daughter said to her mother, “It is time for me to go out into the world
and seek my fortune.”
“I shall bake a loaf
of Bread for you to carry with you,” said the mother.
When the bread
came from the oven the mother asked her daughter, “Would you rather have a
small piece and my blessing or a large piece and my curse?”
“I would rather
have the large piece and your curse,” replied the daughter.
Off she went down
the road and when the night came wreathing around her she sat at the foot of a
wall to eat her bread.
A ground quail
and her twelve puppies gathered near, and the little birds of the air.
“Wilt thou give
us a part of thy bread?” they asked.
“I won’t, you ugly
brutes,” she replied. “I haven’t enough for myself.”
“My curse on
thee,” said the quail, “and the curse of my twelve birds, and thy mother’s
curse which is the worst of all.”
The girl arose
and went on her way, and the piece of bread had not been half enough.
She had not
traveled far before she saw a little house, and though it seemed a long way off
she soon found herself before its door.
She knocked and
heard a voice cry out, “Who is there?”
“A good maid
seeking a master.”
“We need that,”
said the voice, and the door swung open.
The girl’s task
was to stay awake every night and watch over a dead man, the brother of the
housewife, whose corpse was restless.
As her reward she
was to receive a peck of gold and a peck of silver. And while she stayed she
was to have as many nuts as she broke, as many needles as she lost, as many
thimbles as she pierced, as much thread as she used, as many candles as she
burned, a bed of green silk over her and a bed of green silk under her,
sleeping by day and watching by night.
On the very first
night, however, she fell asleep in her chair. The housewife came in, struck her
with a magic club, killed her dead, and threw her out back on the pile of
kitchen garbage.
Soon thereafter
the middle daughter said to her mother, “It is time for me to follow my sister
and seek my fortune.”
Her mother baked her
a loaf of bread and she too chose the larger piece and her mother’s curse. And
what had happened to her sister happened to her.
Soon thereafter
the youngest daughter said to her mother, “It is time for me to follow my
sisters and seek my fortune.”
“I had better bake
you a loaf of bread,” said her mother, “and which would you rather have, a
small piece and my blessing or a large piece and my curse?”
“I would rather,”
said the daughter, “have the smaller piece and your blessing.”
And so she set
off down the road and when the night came wreathing around her she sat at the
foot of a wall to eat her bread.
The ground quail
and her twelve puppies and the little birds of the air gathered about.
“Wilt thou give
us some of that?” they asked.
“I will, you
pretty creatures, if you will keep me company.”
She shared her bread,
all of them ate their fill, and the birds clapped their wings about her until
she was snug with the warmth.
The next morning
she saw a house a long way off … [here the task and the wages are repeated].
She sat up at
night to watch the corpse, sewing to pass the time.
About midnight
the dead man sat up and screwed up a grin.
“If you do not
lie down properly I will give you one good leathering with a stick,” she cried.
He lay down.
After a while he rose up on one elbow and screwed up a grin; and a third time
he sat and screwed up a grin. When he rose the third time she walloped him with
the stick.
The stick stuck
to the dead man and her hand stuck to the stick and off they went!
He dragged her
through the woods, and when it was high for him it was low for her, and when it
was low for him it was high for her.
The nuts were
knocking at their eyes and the wild plums beat at their ears until they both
got through the wood. Then they returned home.
The girl was given
the peck of gold, the peck of silver, and a vessel of cordial.
She found her two
sisters and rubbed them with the cordial and brought them back to life. And
they left me sitting here, and if they were well, ′tis well; if they were not,
let them be.
This story also
gives us a chance to see what happens if the gift is not allowed to move on. A
gift that cannot move loses its gift properties.
Traditional
belief in Wales holds that when the fairies give bread to the poor, the loaves
must be eaten on the day they are given or they will turn to toadstools.
If we think of
the gift as a constantly flowing river, we may say that the girl in the tale
who treats it correctly does so by allowing herself to become a channel for its
current.
When someone
tries to dam up the river, one of two things will happen: either it will
stagnate or it will fill the person up until he bursts.
In this folk tale
it is not just the mother’s curse that gets the first two girls. The night
birds give them a second chance, and one imagines the mother bird would not
have repeated the curse had she met with generosity. But instead the girls try
to dam the flow, thinking that what counts is ownership and size.
The effect is
clear: by keeping the gift they get no more. They are no longer channels for the
stream and they no longer enjoy its fruits, one of which seems to be their own
lives. Their mother’s bread has turned to toadstools inside them.
Another way to
describe the motion of the gift is to say that a gift must always be used up,
consumed, eaten. The gift is property that perishes. It is no accident that the
gifts in two of our stories so far have been food.
Food is one of the most
common images for the gift because it is so obviously consumed. Even when the
gift is not food, when it is something we would think of as a durable good, it
is often referred to as a thing to be eaten.
For more such
lovely folktales, please grab for yourself a copy of The Gift and promise yourself that you’d read it at least a minimum
of ten times over and over again! ;-)
As such, continuing
further, on this, our long conversation on ‘creativity’ over the phone, I also
gently persuaded madam to write down her thoughts on a blog, which would be, in
a way, a real sharing of one’s gifts, that the youngest daughter so ably did in
the folktale!
The youngest daughter of this folktale so reminds me of my own cousin Dr. Gabriella who is also the youngest paapa in our house, and who always so loves sharing and celebrating the lovely gifts bestowed upon her.
The youngest daughter of this folktale so reminds me of my own cousin Dr. Gabriella who is also the youngest paapa in our house, and who always so loves sharing and celebrating the lovely gifts bestowed upon her.
And if you feel, words are
the gifts you live by, go ahead and celebrate them rightaway! As in Byatt’s Possession, where Christabel LaMotte
says in her letter to Ash, ‘Words have been all my life, all my life - this
need is like the Spider’s need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk
which she must spin out - the silk is her life, her home, her safety - her food
and drink too - and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but
make more, spin afresh, design anew!’
How trueee!
And today I was
doubly delighted when a vibrant alumna of ours at MCC, Aparna mol, sent me the
link to her latest blogpost! A beautiful way of celebrating and sharing one’s
gift to the world!
I’m so happy and
delighted to share the link to Aparna’s blog HERE, [and to the top right of our
blog as well!]
Please do read
through her post and give your valuable comments for her.
Well, Aparna has
been one of our bestest students, and has always been the pride and the delight
of all her teachers! She has also cleared her NET with JRF! Apart from having written
a lot of feature articles for various magazines in Malayalam, Aparna has also done
such noble work during the Kerala floods by helping the deserving and the needy,
in her own ways!
Kudos to you dear
Aparna mol! We are so proud of you!
And yes! This
post would be a clarion call to all ye creative spirits out there, to please
bring your gifts to the world! By sharing your gifts you grow and grow, like ‘blossoms
of snow’ forever!
To be continued…
