Have you ever tried writing a story? Do you know what’s great about writing stories? When you write your own story, or think of one to tell someone, you can choose what happens in it and whether it has a happy or sad ending. You get to decide whether the princess in your story is kind, mean or snooty. You decide whether the snooty princess becomes a friendly princess in the end, or whether she stays snooty forever. If you were writing the story of Little Red Riding Hood, you could make the wolf kind and helpful and have him help Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, and maybe even rescue the hunter. Or you could tell your own version of Hansel and Gretel and the cottage could be home to a lovely kind granny instead of an evil witch, but Hansel could be a really naughty little boy. Wouldn’t that be fun?
Today, I’m going to tell you a very ancient story. It’s about a man called Orpheus and a lady called Eurydice. They loved each other very much. Only then the lady turned into a shadow and the man really missed her. People told this story for a long, long time, and it always had a sad ending. Then, one day a man called Christoph Willibald Gluck came along. He felt sorry for poor old Orpheus and Eurydice, and so he decided to rescue Eurydice. Do you know what he did? He sat down at his desk, picked up his pen, and rewrote the end of the story so that it all turned out well in the end. Words really do have that power! So, if you are all sitting comfortably, let’s begin.
Once upon a time there was a man…
