2025/10/01 by Jane Elizabeth Bonsall, Daisy Black · 1 voice
Computer Science · #Library Science and Information Systems
paper · doi:10.16995/olh.24109
openalex publication_date 2025/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.This paper reflects upon the two performances of The Seven Sages of Scotland (July 2023, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh; September 2024, Byre Theatre, St Andrews) and the preceding workshops to consider the process, impact, and outcome of creative adaptations of medieval material. These performances drew on the late medieval Scottish Buke of the Sevyne Sagis, and each performer adapted a discrete portion of the text: either the frame story of the empress who falsely accuses her stepson of attempted rape, or the embedded tales of the storytelling contest that ensues to determine the prince’s guilt or innocence. The resulting performances displayed a range of narrative styles, Scots dialects, and interpretive strategies – all while encouraging reflection and critical assessment in the audience about questions of bias and hearsay. By thinking through critical adaptation theory, and reflecting on the methodologies employed by [Workshop Leader]’s storytelling workshops as part of the adaptive development process, this explores how medieval narratives with misogynist, violent or discriminatory elements – like The Seven Sages – may be responsibly retold. Drawing upon audience response surveys and follow-up interviews with the performers, we then consider the impact of such adaptations upon general audiences, upon medievalists, and upon performance artists and storytellers. What performances like The Seven Sages of Scotland ultimately reveal is the important role creative-critical medievalism may play in both the public-facing aspect medieval studies, and also in our understanding of the affective nuances and contemporary resonances of medieval narratives.