Mix together intensifying gale-force winds, Roaring Water Bay's strong spring tidal race, a Lakota and Kiowa Apache Indian, a young Jamaican of African descent, a sexagenarian shepherd from Armagh, a Dublin actor-cum -cultural raconteur, a musician who's played before President Clinton and Robinson, a puppeteer from Germany via Derry who speaks fluent Irish, and a banjo-wielding Philadelphian acclaimed 'the most notable import to Ireland since St. Patrick'.

Add a dollop of Island houses quivering in gusts and what have you got, especially if you're the director of Cape's 7th International Storytelling Festival and have been praying for good weather for months? Fearful imaginings there'll be no ferries-and no audience to place before this seeming hodge-podge of tellers. All this to drink and no one to drink it.

That's Thursday, the day before the festival's to open.

Friday dawns. You leap to your bedroom window at first light. Yes, the winds have dropped a bit, Force 6 instead of 9, but it's turned soft. A couple of hours later the mailboat captain speaks of such a rough patch between North Harbor and Bird Island that he may have to limit a full load to 50 passengers instead of 96. Hmm. But there's still a chance. See there, a small break in the clouds above the Mizen; what Americans refer to as enough blue sky to make a pair of Dutchman's britches.

That afternoon, after the crew of the Karycraft and Naomh Ciarán II help their passengers steady themselves and disembark following roller-coaster rides, the clouds all but disappear except low down near the Fastnet horizon. And then, mere minutes before the festival is set to officially open, you're able to make the decision to hold the first storytelling concert outside. You've explored North Harbor and found one cozy spot where the wind doesn't whip about, one spot where people can stretch out on dry grass and stone on the end of old Sean Rua's pier.

Now into your hefty pitcher sprinkle people from Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Africa, all over continental Europe. Around 50 groups from England, Scotland, Wales. Groups from the North, from all over Ireland, from Nevada and New York, Pennsylvania and California. Festival Directors from Montreal, Dublin, Courtmacsherry, Shropshire; a senator from Montana, another - his friend - from Kildare. And what have you got? One mighty concoction!

Roy Arbuckle pours our his first song. It's as though he's singing directly to the sea, his eyes shut. I look for seals poking up their doggy heads. A friendly atmosphere surrounds us. Roy's voice carries warmth, yearning. He's singing who he is, sharing himself with the vibrant nature around us.

Next Jack Lynch steps into the semicircle and pours forth like a waterfall a series of cascading proverbs told in Irish and English. In the people-pools about his feet waves of laughter ripple out. The cliffs rising above him act as an amplifier. Lines come so thick, fast and funny I'm laughing my head off instead of planning how to introduce the next teller. When Jack says, his shaking head full of amazement, that 'a borrowed saw can cut anything' I'm stumped. It takes a while before my poor penny drops.

The pitcher, brimming, swirls. Philadelphian Ed Stivender is before us, his banjo going lickety-split, his imagination keeping up with it. A lobster boat purrs into the harbor, berths. As it unloads it's catch so too Ed. He's outrageous, iconoclastic. Yet somehow the boundaries he breaks lead us into worlds where we discover we belong. His comic perspectives on what up to now we may have taken too seriously or repressed. Not that he's putting down beloved saints and clawing sinners, but that he's helping us - through laughter - experience their humanity.

After another stirring song from Roy, I introduce Carroll Russell. I've never heard her tell before, but her clear voice quickly reassures me, and when she breaks into a Jamaican song in the middle of an Anansi tale, her youthful creative energy startles me, takes me by storm. Out of the corner of my eyes I see a crowd transfixed. She's as authentic, as convincing as the ferry that comes in with those aboard waving greetings from the stern deck. They're a perfect backdrop for the welcome she's giving us.

John Campbell's up. His third visit here, he's as natural a carrier of stories as the breeze itself and he quickly reminds me of the truth behind the Bushman proverb: "A story's like the wind; it comes from a far-off quarter and we feel it". John may come only from as far away as Armagh, but that's a breath of honest fresh air. He's the neighbor you always wanted, the person you'd like to bump into when you collect your messages on the pier or sip a draught in the local pub. His stories are about you and me and what goes on in rural Ireland; they're imbued with basic truths, not to mention more than bits of memorable humor, and they roll about on the pier as effortlessly as the waves about the safe harbor or a bale of hay off the trailer on the far pier, the Bull's nose.

The last teller of this first of four major concerts is Dovie Thomason, who draws from her quiver of Indian tales. She lets fly a creation myth, one I heard an Iroquois version of as a boy while living on Owasco Lake in upstate New York. As she breathes life into its flight, I sense the quiet about the harbor intensifying. I see everyone leaning forward. And then it comes to me why. It's not that she speaks in a quiet voice, for she's sometimes the bass guttural roar of a wild mama bear protecting her cub, but that she's released a tale that has the worth of a parable from some ancient new testament we haven't yet heard-and need to.

When she finishes and I, deeply moved, happily wounded, try to stand up to reintroduce Roy, he's already sidled up beside me, gives me a meaningful nudge, which communicates all that's necessary. The nudge says "Chuck, I've a song ready that will carry on from where Dovie left off. Anything else will be an intrusion".

So I sit and listen to Roy's singing, crooning, undulating, incanting. It's the very same story in a different form, no matter whether a turtle or a salmon's creating and saving the world.

When the music stops echoing about the harbor, Roy sits and rich silence reigns as people try to take on board the experience they've just had. Suddenly there's such applause and cheering that I need a few minutes to realize those are tears in my eyes and that no matter what happens from here on out it doesn't matter. I've already been given a heart-full. Why, this whole concoction has proven to distill not into a fancy elixir or contraband poitín, but into something even better, into the purest well water I've ever drunk.

And then I understand how all these tellers fundamentally relate. Jack's the elemental sense of humor, Ed imagination, Carol creative energy, John artistic naturalness, Dovie soul, Roy spirit.

Add to this pot pourri Jan Caspers, the compassionate puppeteer who understands how playful children tick, and Laura Simms, voluntary emcee of insightful expertise, who couldn't keep away and flew in from Manhattan on her way to lead a storytelling workshop in Romania. And, last and certainly not least, not with that hat on, Pat Speight of Cork, whose bilingual wit guided us through Saturday night's cheek by jowl sell-out crowd.

As the weekend progresses, with storyswapping events in local pubs led by Corkonian Bob Jennings and Clochán teller Gillian Rowson, along with workshops and tales beside the fire in island homes and hostels, discussion groups, bird walks, archaeological rambles, flora and fauna trails, we witness the largest crowd yet to ever attend a cultural event on Cape Clear Island, a crowd that the ferry captains tell me surpassed 600 -with 300 at Saturday night's concert-and that Islanders tell me filled every bed on that island, as well as dotting the campsite with 88 tents. This gathering gives standing ovations every evening and at the final Sunday afternoon concert.

Much thanks going to The American Ireland Fund for their essential funding.

Yes, pure well water. Already I'm looking forward to next year's festival, when international inhabitant of 24-years-standing on the Cape, Christine Sawyer, will take over the directorship of the festival. If there's room, lucky me will at last be a member of the audience and truly able to guzzle from the storytelling spring to my heart's content. Sláinte!

This article appears courtesy of "The Irish Examiner".

This article first appeared in Connections Summer 2001 issue