Round the Herne

This year's Pageant, celebrating pagan mythology through the performing arts, has had to go virtual due to the wretched pandemic and rules that make public gatherings nigh on impossible. Thankfully we have had willing volunteers offering their skills at storytelling, poetry, and song (namely Carys, Nick Ford, Greg McDowell, and Rob Lummis). The links to the YouTube playlist are below -  Welcome – https://youtu.be/mnNNHR3xLK4 Opening talk on shapeshifting in storytelling - https://youtu.be/sf_tJi3RtBU The Indian Boy, the Witch, and the Wolf (Rob Lummis) – https://youtu.be/HqUVfeJslqo Pagan songs from Carys – https://youtu.be/_IYlzjqaRBo Tide of Words (poems about oceanic myths) - https://youtu.be/Pny4LsEwOW4 Arcadian Werewolf Rap (Nick Ford) – https://youtu.be/71m1-wDg3J0 Shifty Sagas (stories about shapeshifting) - https://youtu.be/0Bl7JzSODi4 Reflections on the Golden Bower (poems by Greg McDowell) – https://youtu.be/VGSCBwcUSQc Farewell - https://youtu.be/I...

Heard the sad news today that a husky owned by friends of mine has passed away from health problems. Dogs are family and their loss is always keenly felt. So here is a short story, in a format common to a number of first nations in North America though this is my version rather than one completely specific to a particular culture, to remind us of how important dogs are in human evolution and survival. A number of comparative psychologists and zoologists have suggested that, in the long-lasting relationship between canines and humans, it may well have been the dogs who made the first move and gradually tamed us. If you love a dog or hold fond memories of one in your heart, remember to help out those shelters and charities struggling to look after the ones that humans have let down through their frequent shittiness- donate some food, some time, some money, or adopt a beast in need of a new pack.

As it is now National Storytelling Week, I have asked friends to suggest themes for stories so I can record a few tales for the week. Carol gave the idea of snakes, so this is a short story rather loosely based on a Mohawk account of how snakes came into the world. Unusually for me, this is quite a brief account. There are quite a lot of stories from around the world that see either humans as being sired by one or other animal species, or vice versa. It's a curious way of inter-relating different species and perhaps explaining such things as totemic emblems within tribal culture, and something I may reflect on at more length when my brain is working.  A nice morning was followed by a stressful afternoon, so I'm using this as "narrative therapy" to cheer myself up!

Having spent an absolutely lovely day down at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust (https://ukwct.org.uk/) in Reading, walking with the wolves in the company of two friends (and various strangers), I thought I would round the day off with a wolf story. This is the shortest wolf myth that I know, and comes from the Skidi-Pawnee nation of North America. It tells of how the Wolf Star (called Sirius by Europeans) took an unexpected role in the creation of the world. It's an interesting tale which has echoes to other stories from other parts of the world.

During a week's holiday in Ireland I found myself being volunteered to tell stories at an evening entertainment geared towards introducing tourists to Irish songs, dance and Gaelic poetry. I can't remember ever feeling nervous about a performance before ~ but I suddenly had the sort of angst that Joyce Grenfell described in one of her biographical reflections when she was booked to perform in Vermont and wanted to do a sketch involving a local accent (she was fine doing it in any other country... but how would the native react to hearing a foreigner imitating their accent?) I've told Irish myths and stories a hundred times over, sometimes with one or two Irish people in the audience. Yet the prospect of telling Irish tales in Ireland in front of so many natives raised the embarrassing prospect of watching them cringe every time I mispronounced a character's name ~ and given the range of dialects in Ireland, however I said the names was bound to sound wrong to at leas...

Last night I hosted a small fundraising event for the UK Wolf Trust with an evening of wolf-related stories told in front of a log fire. It was a nice crowd and the event seemed to work very well - so much so, I may try similar things again in the future. One of the stories was a Native American tale about the hunters realising the impact they were having on the local animal population, and finally deciding that someone had to speak on behalf of the wolf; someone had to step outside their own tribal loyalties to consider the consequences of their actions for other beings. As a species we're not very good at considering the needs of others. Frequently we don't even think about the impact our actions have on our fellow human beings, let alone other species. Though the upside of the globalisation process is that we are beginning to realise what happens when we destroy the world around us, or exploit it to the point of exhaustion. I think it's something that modern pagans ...