Alan Responds to the Rebuttal
by Alan Irvine

Four things occur to me upon reading Marie and Annie's article.

First, I completely agree with their thoughts as to why this story is so
popular, and I can appreciate why so many storytellers feel that it is a
story that needs to be told. I think this has a lot to do with why this
story, relatively minor piece in the Arthurian corpus, has become the main,
ofteh the only, Arthurian story modern storytellers tell.

Second, when I talked about the punchline of the story, I was not trying
to belittle the story, nor imply that it was simply a joke. I was, however,
at a loss for a better term. As Carol Birch has pointed out, we storytellers
do not have a language of our own for discussing stories and storytelling, so
we often must resort to borrowing terms from other art forms. Perhaps I
should have talked about the climax of the story or the moment of epiphany
(terms borrowed from literature,) but somehow those terms did not carry quite
the right meaning. I settled on punchline (borrowed from comedy) for its
sense of a single line that brings home, or punches home, the meaning. If
anyone has suggestions for a better term, I would welcome them.

Third, I am not surprised that Marie can tell this story and keep her
audience interested and involved. My question is can she make the story even
better? Should she settle for an okay story when, by re-examining the
struture of the story (any story) can she make it even more effective, bring
the point home even more powerfully?

Fourth, I am somewhat puzzled by Annie's reaction. From what she says
about the story and her approach to it, it sounds to me like she has done
exactly what I advocated in my article. Rather than simply retelling the
same exact version that everyone else does, she has thought it through and
reworked it into her own version, with a unique Gawain, who only appears in a
story that is recognizably Annie Hawkins' "Lady Ragnell."

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