bohemiancoast | Oral traditions

Oral traditions

Or 'all knowledge is not contained on the internet' in fact. When I was a small child my father used to tell me bedtime stories. Some of them were poems. And one of our favourites was this...

"It was a dark and stormy night
The brigands they sat in their cave
The chief of the brigands arose, and he said
"Antonio, tell us a storio!"
And this is what he said.

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Well, you get the idea. This could go on for some time. It's clearly a fairly widespread meme; the Ahlbergs wrote a book about it, for example.

M has just noticed that Googling for the version I learnt yields no results, though there's an instructive comment thread here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listeners/openinglines.shtml in which various people ascribe it to their fathers or the Scouts.

So. Do you remember this from your childhood? What words did you use? Where were you, geographically, at the time?
I have noted before that despite the work of the Opies, the rhymes remembered and told by children (in playgrounds and around campfires) are not, by and large, well documented as a tradition.

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"Twas a dark and stormy night
And gathered round the campfire
Were brigands large and brigands small,
And the captain spake unto Antonius.
'Antonius' he said
'Give us one of your choicest selections.'
And Antonius spake as follows."

My father regaled his children, and I mine, with this starting in the early 1940s.
It was, and is, often elabourated with commentary on, e.g., the size of brigands relative to the teller or hearer, the storminess of the night, etc. It may further be interspersed with verses from the following.

"Back, back in 73, when I sailed the good ship Nancy Lee,
I'll never forget that awful night,
When the waves rolled up with all their might,
And the ship was sunk and the crew was dead,
when the captain turned to me and said,

'Back, back in 73, when I sailed the good ship Nancy Lee...'"

I recall this from the shores of Puget Sound. My father's background stretched to
Illinois and Montana.

From the Watertown Daily Times of February 28, 1911. Attributed to the Louisville Post.

"It was a dark and stormy night. Around the campfire were seated brigands large and brigands small.
'So our dear brother Antonio has retired from the profession independently rich.' said the chief."

The joke continues on another theme, but the quoted section seems clearly to allude to our subject.

Clearly! Well spotted!

Chanted 3 beats per line

'Twas a daaaaark and sorrrmy noight!
And the rain came down in torrents!
And the Captain said to Antonio....

'Tell us a tale'

And so the tale began....

This recited around Scout campfires at Blaisdon, Glos, UK by Lancashire Scouts 50th Bolton in the late 1960s. My dad a Scout leader who had been in the Army- his brother had been in the navy during the second world war.
I'll have to find out where it came from if he can remember- he's in his 80s now.
Thanks for the thread
:-)
x

Growing up in Texas in the 1980's my mother taught me this version.
"One dark night the rain blew and the wind fell and a group of bandits were sitting around a campfire and one of them said Antonio tell us a storio and so Antonio began... One dark night.....

South London, growing up in the 1990s:
"It was a dark and stormy night, and the wind was blowing hard, and the Captain said to his men, 'Come down to the cabin, boys, and I'll tell you a story.'
So they all went down to the cabin, and the Captain began:
It was a dark and stormy night..."

My Mum used to tell me this "story" at bedtime sometimes. I used to love it.
Her version went:
Twas a dark and stormy night,
And the moon was at its height,
And the captain said to his mate:
"Mate! Tell us a tale!"
And this is the tale he told...

Sometimes she'd change it up a bit and use Bosun instead of captain, usually once the "mate" is telling the tale. Each time she repeated it it would become more dramatic so the words would have longer vowels. Or she'd go quieter and quieter, then all of a sudden shout "boo!" :D

My mother, born in Detroit in 1921 of English/Scottish descent, used to frustrate me with this version when I asked for one too many bedtime stories:
It was a dark and stormy night. And seated 'round the campfire were brigands young, and brigands old. And the captain turned to his brave lieutenant and said, "Alphonse, tell us a story." And Alphonse began...

This is a version that my mother learned , possibly in the 1920s :-
It was a dark and stormy night,
The rain came down in torrents.
The captain said to Antonio,
"Antonio, tell us a tale-io."
And this is the tale-io Antonio spun-io.

It was a dark and stormy night........

Now my 3 year old grand daughter enjoys telling the story!

Father from west riding of yorkshire. Voice got deeper and more scary until you put your head under your pillow and went to sleep!

"The night was dark and stormy, and there were Brigands and there were Demons and the Brigands said unto the Demons Tell us a tale, and the take ran as follows The night was dark......"

The version I remember clearly from my childhood, as told to us regularly by our dad is as follows:

It was a dark and stormy night...

and three bands of brigands met.

"Tell us a tale!" said the leader of one

and this is the tale they said...

It was a dark and stormy night ... etc

I always had visions of three groups of muttering men with hats and hoods and cloaks and dark expressions and cutlasses (a bit like characters from 'Les Miserables') somehow bumping into each other in the rain at some three-directional crossroads. I remember thinking that the telling of the endless story was the only way in which the situation was kept under control, otherwise a fight could erupt at any time (or perhaps that is the way dad explained it to us).

I have enjoyed passing this story on to our three daughters and I will occasionally drop it into a conversation with them with the introduction "Who would like to hear a story?". There are always groans from the girls when they finally hear what the story is, but I know they secretly enjoy it. The other thing I sometimes do is tell the story through several times, but changing the emphasis on individual words, just to drag it out even longer (and annoy them even more); but also to show them how that device can change the meaning of a sentence. eg 'IT was a dark and stormy night' is different to 'It was a dark and stormy NIGHT' (accompanied by raised eyebrows etc). Let us never forget that it is compulsory for dads to tell bad jokes, especially in a household of girls.

The girls and I Googled this tonight, after I retold the 'tale' at dinner, as we were keen to see where it originated from. We live in Brisbane, Australia but both my parents emigrated from the UK as children after WWII.

I know our girls will pass it on to their children (along with a few dad "jokes").

Thanks for the opportunity to add to the discussion - very interesting to see how far the version we learned has strayed from the 'Antonio' text.

My grandmother who is 93 was told by her grandfather in 1928:

It was a dark and stormy night and the rain came down in torrents. The brigand said "Antonio tell us a tale" and Antonio said.....it was a dark and stormy night....

My grandfather was called William Earnest Phillip from Liverpool and he was a master builder.

Twas a dark and stormy night,
Gathered around the campfire were brigands large and brigands small.
The Captain said to Antonio,
"Antonio, tell us a story", and Antonio thus began:

Twas a dark and stormy night...

My grandfather, who lived from 1881-1961 recounted this to me over and over again at my request when I was a child. He spent most of his life in the New York City area, but he did live briefly in the Midwest.

I used to think this was hilarious, but I remember vividly how annoying it was to my mother (his daughter) and grandmother. I still think it is fun!

From my childhood (North London but parents were from Gloucestershire) 'Twas a dark and stormy night And the robbers sat round the fire. "Tell us a story Captain" and the Captain began as follows: "'Twas a dark and story night"

I was trying to remember the actual words Dad used to use.
It was a Dark and Stormy night and the wind was howling wild, Three bad, wicked bandits sat around the camp fire, and one said unto Antonio "Antonio, spin us a yarn" and Antonio began as follows...

It was a dark and stormy night,
Two men stood on the bridge,
And the captain said unto his mate,
"Antonio, tell us a tale,"
And the tale, it went like this:

It was a dark and stormy night,
Two men stood on the bridge...

My father told me this as a child in E. Yorkshire England: It was a dark and stormy night And the rain cam down in torrents The robbers were assembled in the cave And the leader said to Antonio; "Antonio, tell us a tale" And the tale ran as follows: (repeat ad nauseum)

It was a dark and stormy night
And the rain came down in torrents.
And Antonio said to Antonio,
"Tell us a tale."
And the tale began as follows...
(Spoken in an ominous voice and repeated incessantly.)

In the 1950s, my father frequently told us this story at bedtime, usually by special request. We lived in the suburbs north of Chicago, but his family was from the Manchester/Derbyshire area of the UK.

In turn, I frequently shared this story with my own children as well as hundreds of young children during my 25 years of teaching in Pinellas County, Florida.

It is interesting to see how this simple story has evolved over the years. Thank you for rekindling happy memories. :)

My grandfather Hiram Weaver born near Selkirk, Ontario in 1877 and living in Cheapside, Ontario, Canada in the 1940s would recite this on the dreariest, stormy nights in an ominous voice and drawing out certain words. Not sure about gazable or what it meant or was spelled but this is how it sounded:
'Twas on a dark and stomry night
The campfires were burning bright
There were brigands small and brigands tall
And the little gazable said to the big gazable
Tell us an oooold war story
And the big gazable begun
'Twas on a dark and stormy night...

It was a dark dark and stormy night. The wind howled and the ship rolled, and the Captain said to his mate, tell me a story. . And the story went like this......

This was how it was told to me by my grandfather when I was a boy. It is now my 6 year old sons favourite bed time storey. as the storey progresses it gets DARKER and STORMIER but also softer until say about 5 minutes into the captain says ..it's time for young Johnathan to go to sleep!

It was down in the Lehigh Valley, me and my old friend Bill
Bill said 'tell us a story', so this is the story I told...
etc.

Quite different from the other versions but the same general theme. My dad told me this when I was growing up in London in the 1970s / 80s, but I have no idea where he would have got it from - he was born in India, moved to Dorset as a child, went to high school in Canada and then spent several years in the Merchant Navy.

My father recently died age 103. He heard similar story from his grandfather. His grandfather lived in Michigan but was born in Ireland around 1850. It was a dark and stormy night, 3 men were seated around a campfire. One man said, "Jack, tell us a story." So Jack began, "It was a dark and stormy night. Three men were seated around a campfire ..."

My father, born 1904 in Co Mayo, told me this.
The night was dark and dreary, and the rain cam down in torrents. These were the words of Osonio, and Osonio says as follows. The night ....

From my childhood in the United States (central California) in the 1970s:

"It was a dark and stormy night,
and the rain came down in torrents.
The chief of the Brigands said to Antonio, "Tell us a tale!"
and he began as follows:"

(repeat aud nausium)

My Dad (born 1905 in Preston, England) used to sit me on his knee and tell the story as follows:

It was a dark, cold and stooooormy night,
Three robbers sat in a cave.
One said to another,
Antonio, tell us a tale.
And Antonio began…
etc.

We used to have fun eliding the words and running them together, thus:
'Three robbers….. sat'n'a'cave',' and so on.

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Oral traditions

A Dark and Stormy Night

A dark and stormy night in 1911

Re: A dark and stormy night in 1911

'Twas a daaaaark and sorrrmy noight

Antonio tell us a storio

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A meeting of brigands

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Oral Traditions

Oral traditions

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My Mum always said this

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My favorite childhood tale

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Dark and Stormy Night

The night was dark

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