Round the Herne

 There are quite a few stories told of the legendary Rabbi Loeb who lived in Prague during the 1500s. Several of them centre around his creation of a golem, an animated clay servant possessed of supernatural strength but unable to speak. This was recorded partly because my Jewish friends are celebrating Yom Kippur and partly because of the horrible terrorist attack on the Manchester Synagogue. I've always found the Jewish people I have known to be positive and supportive towards pagans, perhaps because they recognise a fellow minority religion that has often come in for violent suppression.  The nauseating level of anti-Semitism that has been building in this country for some years is deeply worrying. Not only do I worry about what will happen to the people I know (not to mention the much larger numbers of people I don't know), but I am also minded of what someone so famous I have forgotten their name called the Canary in the Mineshaft. When authoritarians get away with attack...

 My reading of a children's story by Anna Wahlenberg (1910) from the lovely book  "Swedish Folk and Fairy Tales" (with delightful illustrations by the Swedish artist John Bauer). With Yuletide on the horizon, it's well worth tracking down a copy - would make for a lovely gift. Apologies for the unspeakable attempt at an accent for young Peder Lars, but I couldn't resist the lure of hamming it up. I might do some of the other stories at a later date, if I get the time.

 As today is St George's Day, I thought I would share a short story about a dragon - the Krepel is part of the folklore of Bytom in Poland. The area where the dragon once lived is no longer forest land but part of the city itself (as to what became of the dragon in the long-term, alas I do not know - there are no accounts which I could locate answering that one).

 I dreamt up this story for the Invocations concert held in Bungay a couple of months back, where I was acting as MC and sharing stories and poetry in between acts. This was my final tale of the night. It is inspired by Suffolk folklore, including the story of the village of Woolpit (which derives its name from wolf-pit, nothing to do with sheep). The music and graphics were arranged by my friend, the Australian Pixie, using Canva (which is way beyond my technical capacities).

 Wanted to do this for St George's Day but work got in the way (and I must admit to feeling  reservations - not being a Christian, it seems rude to presume to chip in). However, as the national day for all things English, I thought it would be nice to share some poetry from a man who, though Indian-born, was once thought of as the poetic soul of the nation - Rudyard Kipling (I could do with a Rudyard Kipling right now).  Whilst he has other poems that are more explicitly based around patriotism, I like these ones because they centre on history and folklore. The three poems are - Puck's Song, The Land, and The English Way.  Make sure to drink tea whilst nibbling a scone as you listen.

 This reflection on the ethics of storytelling was prompted by a discussion on a radio broadcast that I took part in the other week. This considers some of the moral issues that might impact on the stories that people tell around the camp fire.

 The festival of Wolfenoot (November 23rd) was inspired by a child as a way of celebrating wolves and dogs and seems to have caught on in the way that things which touch a psychic pulse do. It had been my intention to get all techie, set up a live podcast and tell wolf stories as a fundraiser for The Dogs Trust. Sadly the combination of my own paucity of technical skills (the donations platform, which seemed mainly geared to businesses running taxable services rather than charity events, confused me no end) along with awkward life events at home and work made the live cast fall apart. Instead, now my throat is feeling a bit less raspy, here is recording to mark the day - with the request that, if you like it, you donate to The Dogs Trust directly (maybe add a message saying you have done so, to encourage others). The first story is of Ivan of Shiganska, allegedly a Russian village, who encounters a mysterious woman in the woods. This is followed by a spell-poem collected by Elliot ...

 Recorded this spiel partially in response to a question asked about the Suffolk Jungian Circle recording on alchemy and partly because of various other things going on. Greek mythology has two related concepts for stories (or subsections of larger stories) of katabasis and anabasis - respectively the journey into the Underworld and the return to the land of the living. This is paralleled in the Christian tradition by notions of the Harrowing of Hell, in both versions a key feature is that the traveller is going into the Dark Place in order to retrieve something - a lost loved one, a treasure of some sort etc. As the recording hopefully emphasises, there are lots of different ways to understand what the Dark Place is and the nature of the voluntary journey there. A lot of people end up in Dark Places, but they rarely go there willingly so it is debatable whether the notion of katabasis applies to all such terrible experiences or only to ones of a voluntary nature (and ones with an ...

 It being St George's Day, I decided to record a story about a dragon - this one from Biscerne, battled by the local squire Sir Maurice Berkeley. The fate of the dragon is very reminiscent of a lot of stories where a magical or divine being becomes part of the landscape. It would be a fascinating topic for a book, if someone has not already written such a thing. I've never seen Bolton's Bench to know if the shape inspired the legend or if it stems from other sources - the photograph is not especially suggestive, but perhaps this is the result of changes over time, farming practices etc. Who knows what the hill looked like in the 15th century?

 This is my version of a Brothers Grimm story abut a joyless princess and the dozy Herbert who manages to charm her without even trying - recorded to mark April Fool's Day, when the gullible pretend that they are not prone to believe any old tosh (especially on social media) for the other 364 days of the year and that it is only other people who are foolish. 

 To mark the Roman festival of wolves, Lupercalia, here is my take on a Brothers Grimm story of the Great Musician - I have altered the end, which was frankly dull and morally bankrupt to something more in keeping with the festival of the Wolf Gods. This is the fourth attempt at recording this, today has been much subject to fabulus interruptus. 

 This is (very loosely) a tale for the Jubilee, in as much as the main character ends up as royalty. Myrsina's history comes to us through Greek folklore. Amongst other things, there is a salutary lesson on not pampering your children to the point of their becoming useless.

 It being April 23rd, my mind turns to dragons and the numerous folktales about them. This story from Albania features a singularly charmless family as its central characters and a reminder about why we should be careful who we let have influence over our children's minds (cranky, manipulative teachers included).  There are forty dragons featured in this tale, though it has to be said that they really don't do anything very draconian and, as is so often the case with a lot of folktales, there are many loose ends left untied - like what happens to the governess, why are forty dragons squeezed into a castle, and ought the romantic "hero" be on a police watch list? Possibly when this story was first doing the rounds, audiences would have been familiar with other stories that would have put the dragons, the governess etc. into context. I did consider doing a story about the bolla, a type of dragon that only opens its eyes on April 23rd, but aside from a few scraps of myth...

  My reading of the final story from Ruth Manning-Sander's book "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974). The last tale is a German one, 'Elsa and the Bear'. It is a variation on Beauty and the Beast, a trope that riles and inspires people in equal numbers. Those who get irked by it often do so because they interpret it as a moralistic story that encourages young girls to marry abusive monsters (of the more human sort) in the naive hope that they can transform them into handsome princes through patience and compassion. Those with a more upbeat view are sometimes just romantics who believe in the power of redemption (as do billions of Christians, of course, though I think it would be stretch plausibility a bit to see Elsa as emblematic of the Holy Spirit or the Shekinah bringing a lost soul back from its bestial state). Others take a more Jungian view that Beauty and the Beast are two sides of the same person - Higher and Lower Selves and that the one can eventually transf...

  My reading of the seventh short story, "The Dolphin", in Ruth Manning-Sanders (1974) children's anthology 'A Book of Magic Animals'. This entry hails from Mallorca and recounts the saga of a rather drippy brother and a much more organised sister whose royalist shenanigans are assisted by the titular talking dolphin. The outcome for the sister is really rather appealling.

  My reading of the sixth story from Ruth Manning-Sander's children's anthology "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974), entitled 'The Small-toothed Dog'. This is basically a British version of Beauty and the Beast with a canine twist. Stories of this trope have come in for some stick in recent years as normalising abusive relationships, giving young girls the fancy that if only endure plenty of beastly behaviour eventually their future husbands will turn int handsome princes. Whilst there is undoubtedly a tendency for people to believing that infinite patience will turn vindictive curmudgeons into romantic figures (an ideal that cuts across gender lines), it seems unfair to blame fairy stories for pushing such an agenda. Colette Dowling blew that idea up out of all proportion and made a mint with her "Cinderella Complex". A Jungian reading would see Beauty and the Beast not as two separate people but as differing aspects of the same person. Whereupon it be...

  My reading of the fifth story from Ruth Manning-Sanders children's anthology "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974) - a curious Russian tale called "Eh, Eh, Tralala!" about a magical cat, a gormless chicken, and a cunning fox. I think I deserve some sort of award for managing to say Little Cock so many times without sniggering. If anyone is wondering what Dracula is doing in a Russian story, I can only assume that he had stopped off for a rest after a long flight.

 The fourth story from Ruth Manning-Sanders children's anthology "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974) is 'Lilla Rosa', a Swedish tale about a princess with the inevitable wicked stepmother who falls victim to various magical shenanigans. Not sure if the linden tree in this story is the original Singing-Ringing Tree of awful, badly dubbed 1970s children's TV fame. It's a frothy piece and I don't want to start reading too much symbolism into it, but the shapeshifting struggle near the end (a common theme in many legends, folk-songs and the like) ca be understood as reflective of the ways people change in response to grief and being caught up in treacherous family dynamics - and how difficult it is for those who love them to hold on to the essence of who that person is amidst the dark times when they seem to have become something alien and frightening.

  My reading of 'Mainu the Frog', the third story in Ruth Manning-Sanders' anthology "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974). This is an African tale - I'm not sure which country because the book does not specify - about a talking frog that acts as go-between to arrange the marriage of a sky maiden to a mortal man. I suspect that magic frogs cannot be any more ineffective than the current fad for dating apps.

  My reading of the first story (The North-west Wind) from Ruth Manning-Sanders anthology "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974). The book was a gift from a friend, Kathryn, who acquired it from the book stall run by another friend, Adam, at Lavenham antique centre This story tells of a talking monkey, an irate French farmer with an outrageous accent, and the House of the Winds. The latter element of the story reminds me a little of Irish myth which accounts for sixteen winds, each with their own colour. Copyright issues permitting, I will endeavour to read more of the stories over the course of the summer holiday - ideally all of them.