Here is the Russian tale of Ivan Bears-Son. With origins in a cave and what seems to be a fated encounter with darkness and then an underworld teeming with light and life, this story has all the mythic elements that permeate the winter solstice and the journey to the vernal equinox. Story Sources: Russian Wonder Tales by George Post Wheeler; A Branch from the Lightening Tree by Martin Shaw; The Book of Symbols edited by Ami Ronnberg and Kathleen Martin As always, a huge thank you to Co-Ag Music,...
Mar 24, 2024•56 min
It is a strange thing to think of death as nutritious, that death can make living things into the elemental stuff of life. But as summer’s verdant life begins to succumb to an inevitable end, as death transforms the landscape, the strangeness of that thought recedes, becoming something full of sense and meaning. This is especially true as I walk through a local woodland and beneath my feet are the remains of arboreal death - humus, that dark organic matter that forms in soil when plant and anima...
Dec 01, 2023•41 min
Eggs are an ancient symbol. The magical properties, burial rites and folk beliefs surrounding eggs are many. In this first episode of Earth Lore, a Mythos series that retells ancient myth and traditional folklore surrounding the cosmos, earth, flora, fauna and natural phenomena, we will look at cosmic origin myths that feature magical primordial eggs. With a brief introduction, there will then be two retellings of myths from Finland and China. Music courtesy of Co-Ag music (copyright free music ...
Apr 14, 2023•34 min
In Baltic folklore, birds are mediators of heaven and earth, between the living and the dead. Their music is heraldic and their song a prophetic chanting. Birds inhabit and embody the dynamic force of space, soaring through the invisible ether of the atmosphere. In this story, we will journey to the thrice-three realm, to the garden of a Baltic King, where, amidst bone white birches and tall meadow grasses, there dwells a bird only accessible to the truly wise Music (Youtube) This Fascinating Wo...
Feb 26, 2022•47 min
October, in much lore, is a spiritually potent time and the oft stated idea that the veil between worlds is thin at this time holds true in traditional Latvian practice. The living would prepare their homes for a visit from deceased ancestors, with the house cleaned and table laden with food for the occasion. To open this feast, an elder of the home would call the names of all the ancestral dead in living memory, inviting them to eat with the living. In this story, we follow a young man into a L...
Oct 30, 2021•28 min
The mythic origin tales of Baltic amber are full of magic, and the pre-history of the golden-umber resin-stone is no less awe-inspiring. This pine-tree resin was fossilized 45 million years ago, during a period of intense warmth that caused the pines to exude huge amounts of sap. There is an inherent enchantment in handling something that warms to the touch and is the remnant of a prehistoric coniferous forest. Even more otherworldly are those pieces of amber that contain the tiny remains of thi...
Sep 24, 2021•37 min
In this episode, we journey again to Lithuania: we will go to the noble hall of an ignoble count and to a sylvan lake, to meet a washerwoman of great spirit, whose patrons are full of earth and water magic. A massive thank you to Co-Ag Music and Jēkabs Zariņš for their permission to use their music. ' Meža diesma,' 'tehniskas variācijas,' and 'Grandparent's Blessing' by Jēkabs Zariņš ' Taste the Fear,' and 'Who will save my soul,' by Co-Ag Music. Jēkabs Zariņš: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC...
Aug 20, 2021•36 min
In this episode’s panorama of ancient woodland, northern seas and shamanic underworlds, the world-traversing magic of the grass snake clashes with the bone-deep force of ancestral longing and family drama. From forest pools to pearl-white sands, from black-deep ocean caverns to a verdant underworld, we will explore the magic landscapes of Lithuania, in one of her most famous pieces of folklore. This story was brought to life by the music of these talented musicians! - Co-Ag Music on Youtube - "T...
May 09, 2021•53 min
Goddaughter of the Rock Maidens. The name of the story lit up my imagination, as did the brief outline of a plot in W.F Kirby’s 1895 English translation of famous Estonian tales. In just a few sentences, I sensed a powerful narrative: nature spirits and underworlds; a young girl tutored by powerful female fey-folk and enchantments and serpent kings. For all my listeners, consider joining my upcoming Story Heritage Webinar on Power & Powerlessness. The aim is to explore the wisdom and insight...
Feb 28, 2021•47 min
It is November in an Estonian village and it is the Time of Souls, when dead ancestors return and roam, visiting homes and enjoying the pleasures of life in the sauna In this time of extended night, there are forces afoot, and not just those of deceased ancestors. There might be Nututaja: the evil eye, whose envy distresses and disturbs the new-born, and is one amongst a number of supernatural threats around the globe that threaten the infant. Perhaps a symbol of the immense world - with all of ...
Nov 04, 2020•38 min
A quick introduction to the Baltic States and why a journey into the folkloric realms of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is well worth your time.
Sep 30, 2020•6 min
Welcome to episode 1 of 'Folklorica Baltica ' - the fourth season of Mythos focusing on The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In this episode, follow the journey of a young girl who dares enter the dread Wood of Tontla...and who discovers strange magic and hidden blessings. Music credit goes to some fine Estonian folk musicians who very kindly allowed me to use their music in this episode. Do explore their music for something beautiful and different. Kirtana Rasa (artist): Monet Ai...
Sep 08, 2020•39 min
Welcome to Story Therapy, a Mythos mini-series exploring the relationship between narrative and mental health, particularly traditional tales as a therapeutic space where difficult emotions and circumstances can be acknowledged and explored. In this series, experts, mental health practitioners and storytellers will share stories from folklore, myth and legend and we will explore to what extent such tales provide space for delving into what it means to be human, delving into what drives us and wh...
Jul 06, 2020•38 min
This short episode is a part of the Lockdown Lore series - a short story published bi-weekly for a bit of escape and respite. Listen to Dan Tovey tell an unusual story about a very strange woman turning up to a candy store after closing hours.
May 14, 2020
This short episode is a part of the Lockdown Lore series - a short story published bi-weekly for a bit of escape and respite. The story was inspired by the idea of avenging forest spirits - creatures made of the forest itself (much like the recently released 'Birch' from indie folk horror online station Crypt TV), as well as more traditional monsters like the Slavic Leshy. For more information on the guest storyteller, Jason Buck, visit www.jasonbuckstoryteller.co.uk and follow his page on Faceb...
May 03, 2020
Welcome to Story Therapy, a Mythos mini-series exploring the relationship between narrative and mental health, particularly traditional tales as a therapeutic space where difficult emotions and circumstances can be acknowledged and explored. In this series, experts, mental health practitioners and storytellers will share stories from folklore, myth and legend and we will explore to what extent such tales provide space for delving into what it means to be human, delving into what drives us and wh...
Apr 29, 2020
This short episode is a part of the Lockdown Lore series - a short story published bi-weekly for a bit of escape and respite. In this Polish folktale, a dragon is outwitted when a soldier decides to heed the wisdom of Mother Forest.
Apr 10, 2020
The Sami are the Nordic region's indigenous people: though they share a similar ethnic identity, they inhabit a vast geographical area - from the Atlantic coast of Norway, the lakes, rivers, mountains and forests of Norway, Sweden and Finland to the Kola peninsula of Russia. These stories were collected by a Danish ethnographer, who lived among Swedish Sami. Here is what she has to say about their storytelling tradition: ‘In the protective light, everything may be named, all the horror and sorce...
Nov 04, 2019
From Norway’s verdant mountain pastures where lonely dairymaids tend the seter, or summer farm, to the shadowed forests of Sweden and Denmark, we will encounter the strange beings of the summer wilds. This episode will focus on folktales whose backdrop is the summer season, when the lush reproductive potency of the world is obvious and abundant. Across the Nordic world, Midsummer is celebrated with huge bonfires, and traditionally, was believed to be rich with magical properties. Agrarian Finns,...
Aug 31, 2019
In Scandinavia’s most ancient literature, there exists primordial giants whose actions - and very being - are identified with the origin and creation of the world. Engendered in the great chasm called Ginnungagap, where the frozen waters of the cold-realm Niflheim and the hot breath of the fire-realm Muspel met, the frost giant Ymir and a cow named Audumla were the first created beings. In this creation story, the combination of fire and ice made life possible: some mysterious life grew and thri...
Apr 14, 2019
Dark northern forests of ambiguous shadow and sinister presence. Ancient churchyards with secrets beneath searching feet. Inhuman beings of terrifying power made even more powerful during the spiritually potent winter season….these are all elements of the Swedish tradition of Arsgang (Oshgong), or the Year Walk, in which an individual completes a kind of divination journey through night-shrouded woodland. Through forest, field and churchyard the year walker journeys, hoping to gain insight into ...
Jan 27, 2019
The hulder-folk, sometimes referred to as the hidden-folk or subterraneans, are preternatural beings that populate wild areas and are given to enticement and abduction. While thought to live beneath the ground, they are often sighted, heard and experienced in forests, mountains and moors. In this episode, we will catch glimpses of the huldra, a stunningly beautiful woman with long hair and an animal’s tail; we will encounter Danish elves, far from the sweet beings of Christmas tradition but rath...
Oct 25, 2018
In this episode, you will hear London-based storyteller Sarah Liisa Wilkinson retell two stories from the the Kalevala, a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. From frozen wilderness to the very land of the dead itself, these stories focus on a feisty girl named Aino and the loving and courageous mother of the feckless Lemminkäinen. If you're interested in learning more about Sarah and her work as a storyteller, visit th...
Mar 01, 2018
In folklore across the Nordic world, the human soul or ‘hug’ is a force to be reckoned with and is intimately connected with the body. Indeed, if a person were to be somehow separated from their hug, perhaps through magic, they were said to have been ‘hugstjalet’ or ‘hug-stolen - a folk explanation for people who showed abnormal behaviour and psychological disorders. The soul, or ‘hug’, is a source of power and manipulation of the hug is the source of all magic. The hug could free itself of the ...
Oct 20, 2017
From the dread KGB to the Western consumerism that threatened communist values, this episode will look at urban legends told fairly widely in the Soviet Union from the 1960s to the 1990s. This is a taster episode of the Urban Legends series that will be available only to Patreon supporters. If you would like to support Mythos Podcast monthly please go to www.patreon.com/mythospodcast.
Sep 01, 2017•21 min
In this episode, hear stories about a particularly special manifestation of the unclean force: those water-bound spirits who are also said to be spirits of the unquiet dead; human spirits who perhaps committed suicide or died an untimely or tragic death. Perhaps because of the terrible nature of their deaths, they have been transformed, their spirits manifesting into sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful forms. Despite their appearances, the beings in this episode are nearly always deadly. S...
Aug 11, 2017•50 min
In this special guest episode, professional storyteller Vanessa Woolf tells a fascinating tale involving a mysterious tomb in Brompton Cemetery, London. Unfasten your doors of perception with an extraordinary tale of occult, magic and a secret time machine in Victorian London. Music by Co-Ag Music (available on Youtube) London Dreamtime storynights are secret storytelling adventures in hidden corners of London. Vanessa tells eerie, exciting, scary and fantastical stories for adults in London’s f...
Jun 23, 2017•35 min
In lore across the Slavic world, from the northern Slavs of Poland and Russia to their southern kin in Croatia and Slovenia, there are the so-called ‘unclean’ spirits of forest and field, home and bathhouse. And the more domestic of these unclean spirits - those of the home and bathhouse - is our focus in this episode. Now, we will meet these mysterious beings, in whom mingles the earthly and angelic, in whom dwell the deep powers of ancestral longing, order and homeliness. For a little boy in a...
Jun 09, 2017•28 min
Lady death mowing down a victim with her scythe. A demon of the harvest fields in the shape of a mourning widow. Is it any wonder that folklore symbolically conflates death and the harvest in such potent images when the harvest was the very heart and pulse of the agricultural communities of the ‘folk’? We will encounter these beings whose very nature combines life-giving harvest and death-giving exhaustion from labour - we will encounter harvest demons in the golden wheat fields and the life-str...
May 05, 2017•36 min
From the last bastion of primeval woodland straddling Poland and Belarus to mountain-top pine forests in the Czech Republic, from swampish realms in aforementioned Polska to Serbian forests ringing with shrill hunting cries, meet the female huntresses, child-snatchers and protective spirits of Slavic lore. The vision of Mythos Podcast is to retell stories with a sense of magic, as if they were entirely real. With a brief introduction and analysis, the emphasis is on the stories themselves, with ...
Mar 31, 2017•41 min
