Listening to the tale

"Filling up blank sheets of paper is, indeed, not the same as the sound of your own voice shaping a tale as it wells up out of your memory and as your own fancy plays with all its twists and turns.  And the best part of it is that finally by some mysterious process you find that you are listening to the tale yourself as much as the listeners around you."

Richard Chase, in the preface to Grandfather Tales.
Illus by Berkeley Williams, Jr.