Round the Herne

A final story for the season. As I have recorded this tonight, on Samhain, I've aspired to a more traditional flavour in keeping with both the old Gaelic festivities but also the traditions of the Cree who occupied Nova Scotia before the Scots went there. It's a gentler tale than some of the previous ones, and a reminder that the dead whom we honour do not always have to be of our own kind. I had thought about doing a werewolf story, but this one presented itself to my consciousness as more suited for tonight. Perhaps the wolves will emerge from the woods again next year instead! As I've rather flooded this blog with stories of late, I'll take a break and add other things instead for a while - reflections, poetry etc.

Another tale for the Halloween season, this one about a man who wants to redecorate his bed-sit (which is probably a horrible enough prospect in itself). Apologies about the ending - it was meant to be somewhat more explanatory, but for some reason my brain decided to be pretentious and stop where it did. Maybe I'll record a better version in the future.

Another rather revolting tale for the ghoulish season, this one inspired by the Ancient Greek saga of King Erysichthon, who makes the unwise mistake of grievously offending the goddess Demeter by destroying her trees (a timely warning for so many of us in the modern world... and maybe it explains many of the western world's health concerns?) This story was also going to be performed at the Seven Deadly Stories performance that had been planned for this Saturday, but which had to be postpone. I had said in a previous post about doing a YouTube version - so consider this a partial fulfillment of that notion.

A tale recorded for Halloween. Will try and add at least one more before the day in question. Apologies to any gardeners for horticultural mistakes - I'm sure there are many.

I had been planning on marking Halloween with a somewhat ambitious storytelling performance based around the Seven Deadly Sins, drawing on world mythology for an appropriate story for each sin. However, lack of time to properly promote such an event (in all honesty, I am dismally bad at publicising much of anything) and a general feeling of being a bit frazzled has led me to postpone this till early next year. It was going to be a fund raiser for the UK Wolf Trust, so I shall have to come up with some alternative option for that. I may upload some stories and see if I can work out a way for viewers to donate to  the charity accordingly (though it sounds all a bit technical... I miss the days when you could just pass the hat round at the end of the evening). In the meantime, here is a prattle I recorded about the Seven Sins for the PF virtual moot. Not a subject that many would regard as overly relevant to pagan viewers, but this is my spin on the matter.

Yesterday was World Poetry Day, so I started something but - what with teaching evening classes and one thing ad another - fell asleep before posting it. So, a day late, but here is an offering of sorts. Some readers might feel it ought to be a burnt offering, which wouldn't surprise me as I'm not a fan of blank verse. Too often it's a euphemism for badly written meanderings. So at least this is in keeping with the general quality! Not entirely sure on a title... maybe Digital Deities? Digital Deities (or, perhaps, Virtual Mythology?) Narcissus sinks into selfies, Lost from sight. Eyes gouged, Aminias fallen On the stick discarded by his love. Clattering in the empty hall, It dislodges, echoing – Empty memes meaning faded, Pasted into perpetuity, pointless. Theseus lost, his thread unravelling As, harried by beasts Part-man, mostly bull who, Troll-turf tramping with horned hunger Bellowing, stalk each other Armed with sharpened barb...