bohemiancoast | 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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My Dad was from the Isle of Man - His version was told to my Sister and I on heavy weather nights to tune us in to the power of nature I reckon, growing up in Oxfordshire as young kids. I loved it because he would go extra deep in his voice, and slower too (the slower the phrasing the better not the words themselves) - like a cross between Richard Burton and an old cold deep Saxon story teller - being part Viking both my Sister and I were spellbound with the passion of it all - even if told several several several times in a row almost making us pee with laughter - I miss you Dad xxxx Peter Richard Kegg xxxx Here it is -

'It was a dark and stormy night.. and Antonio, chief of the Brigands - said unto Sebastian - "Sebastian! Spin us a yarn!" - and Sebastian spun as follows... 'It was a dark and stormy night...'

Ilkeston Derbyshire told by my father around 1950 after 11 years in the RAF probably heard from his father who was a soldier in the First World War (Sherwood Forresters Regiment)
It was a dark and stormy night
And the stars were shining bright
And the Captain said to his men "I'll tell you a story"
And this is what he said.........

( G A Pick)

The version my brothers and I heard around the campfire from our father was as follows:

Twas a deep, dark, damp dismal night in the middle of the Hartz Mountains.
Twelve bandits were seated around the fire.
One Bandit, speaking suddenly said: "Scuddy, tell us a funny story".
And Scuddy, seating himself on the window sill, told the following tale.

My daughters were raised on it, much to their chagrin.

"Twas a dark and stormy night And the moon was shining bright And the Captain said to the Lieutenant: "Lieutenant! Tell us a story!" And this is the story he told-- "Twas a dark and stormy night And the moon was shining bright And the Captain said to the Lieutenant: "Lieutenant! Tell us a story!" and so on. My father was from New Hampshire and Massachusetts. HIS father was from many places having been on his own from the time he was 8 until he joined the Marines at 15 or 16- pre WW 1. Dad told me this story whenever I asked for a bedtime story. I eventually figured out that it was his way of not telling me a story. Grandpa would tell me stories but not anything about his childhood until he chose to tell me after I was out of college. I figured that this might have been something Dad got from Grandpa given the more military slant to the story.

it was a dark dark night, and the wind was blowing, the rain was pouring, and the skipper said to his mate, mate, tell us a tale, and this is the tale he told.....

it was a dark dark night, and the wind was blowing, the rain was pouring, and the skipper said to his mate, mate, tell us a tale, and this is the tale he told.....(repeat)

My father who was born in Derbyshire in 1931, went to school in Shropshire and was in The South Wales Borderers used to say this rhyme to annoy me as a child when I asked for a story:-

It was a dark and stormy night
And the captain said to the mate
"Aaaaaay mate tell us a story.
And this was the story he told.

It was a dark and stormy night etc etc

I grew up in South Africa where my grandfather (who was born in 1887) used to say:

It was a dark and stormy night
And the the rain came down in torrents
And I turned to the skipper
'Skipper, tell me a tale'
And the tale he told was as follows..

It was a dark and stormy night etc

Mine too :-)

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Oral traditions

Official Version

it was a dark and stormy night

Dark and Stormy Night

Dark and stormy night

we got told one similar by Dad

It was a dark and stormy night.

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Re: The one my Grandad used to tell