December 15, 2024 - On this midwinter full moon we're joined from across the sea by Gerald Charles Dickens, who talks with us about our favorite story - his great-great grandfather's classic Christmas ghost story, A Christmas Carol. Join us to find out all about Gerald Dickens' childhood memories of A Christmas Carol, its origins and its sly sleight of hand.

• What is it about A Christmas Carol that it remains such a classic and a powerful story?
• In defence of Scrooge the businessman - not a complete villain?
• Charles Dickens' early childhood with a father in debtor's prison, child labor, humiliation, lonliness and parental abandonment
• The importance of books and stories in Dickens childhood
• The Man who Invented Christmas
• Dickens' writings and his marvelous descriptions of food, celebration and togetherness
• The tradition of ghost stories for Christmas, and Dickens' love of ghost stories
• The haunting tale of TheSignalman, and its real-life, deadly inspiration
• Dickens' terrible PTSD related to rail travel
• Gerald Dickens' favorite A Christmas Carol films
• Gerald's American tour of his one-man show of A Christmas Carol and how he got started working as an actor with his grandfather's writings; the eucatastrophe of forgetting his notes!
• How Charles Dickens' stories lend themselves to actors' interpretations
• Favorite lines from A Christmas Carol
• Was Marley Scrooge's only friend?
• Noticing something new in A Christmas Carol every time we read it
• Dickens' influence on our now-traditional celebrations of Christmas
• Gerald Dickens talks about his own books, including his experiences over 30 years of touring with A Christmas Carol - Gerald Dickens: My Life on the Road with A Christmas Carol
• What it's like to stand on the same stages as his great-great grandfather
• Another book by Gerald Dickens, Dickens and Staplehurst: A Biography of a Rail Crash - the real life traumatic incident that led to the writing of The Signalman

Mentioned in the podcast:

On the Road with Gerald Dickens blog - https://geralddickens.wordpress.com/

Gerald Dickens' website, videos and books - https://www.geralddickens.org/

Charles Dickens' books read as audiobooks by Gerald Dickens: https://www.audible.co.uk/search?searchNarrator=Gerald+Dickens

Denholm Elliott in The Signalman - I couldn't find it on Youtube at the moment, but Tom and I were able to watch it here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6c73c3

Tom's stories recorded during lockdown, Tales for Troubled Times: https://www.orkneyology.com/tales-from-tom.html

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We're bringing you a brilliant conversation on with this full moon night, with visiting friends R. Carlos Nakai, of Navajo and Ute heritage - and the world's premier performer with the Native American flute - and Will Clipman, passionate world percussionist, poet and performing artist.

(Please pardon the scratchy voices and coughing in this epsode. We'd been having a lovely time together roaming around Orkney together with RC and Will and their wives, Pam and Sherry, for several days before we recorded this. Unfortunately, along with the stories, music and breaking bread we also passed around a pretty bad cold.)

We're so pleased to bring you this far-reaching and musical conversation among friends. Join us to hear about these and many other things:

• R. Carlos Nakai speaks of ancient tribal history from his early home in Arizona
• About ceremony, culture, storytellers and gathering knowledge from the elders
• Will's early beginnings with drumming; being born to a musical family in Philidelphia; What's in the "boom boom room"?
• The musical marriage of RC's Native flute and Will's passionate percussion
• The Native "culture of women" - life creators
• RC: Learning how we belong - "Who are you?"; philosophies and stories of all of our clans all over the world
• Will: finding his Swedish Sámi roots; the Sami Pathfinder and the ceremonial drum
• Singing the songs of humanity, and the ancestors' residing in the music
• We all have one human story
• The magic of music, improvisation and what the listener brings to the music
• Anthropologists as listeners
• Shapeshifter and the wallaby dance
• Working with children: mythic creation, mask-making and storytelling; the power of saying, "Yes!"
• A musical treat, and a bit about how RC and Will approach performing together
• Singing to the sea; praying to the water
• Drumming inside the Dwarfie Stane
• Will tells a Sami raven tale, and other stories from RC and Will's Indigenous cultures
• The freedom of poetry and making music
• Elders in many cultures; the knowledge within us

Website for R. Carlos Nakai: https://rcarlosnakai.com/

Website for Will Clipman: https://www.willclipman.com/

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This full moon October night, we're having a Halloween-appropriate visit with Hjörleifur Helgi Stefánsson: Icelander, author of Icelandic Folk Tales, fabulous traditional storyteller ... and Tom Muir's pet Viking.

No Picts were harmed during the making of this podcast.

A peedie warning: Not surprisingly, some of the conversation is a bit dark for the very sensitive, or bairns. See topics below and proceed informed.

Join us for a blether between two storytelling northmen, mildly spooky at times as is suitable for the Halloween season, where you'll hear about:

• Storytelling traditions old and new in Iceland
• "Destination Sagalands" (EU project) - friends made in the Nordic lands, and fun personal stories
• Finding a unique voice for stories and storytelling
• Hjörleifur's book, Icelandic Folk Tales
• Storytellers like being admired!
• Hjörleifur's family stories tradition
• Life in an Icelandic turf house
• Hjörleifur tells the story, The Merman Laughs (and eating rotten shark!)
• The dark details of making of a supernatural slave to steal neighbors' milk from the cow; the primal fear of the people living in turf houses
• How to make necropants
• Raising the dead
• About Icelandic rímur, and samplings of rímur, "sung with gusto" by a man with a golden voice
• Iceland and her trolls
• A troll folktale
• An Orkney ghost story from Tom
• A comparison of Orkney and Icelandic tales
• Announcing a new book-in-the-making with Hjorleifur and Orkneyology Press!
• Hidden People tales

Also mentioned:

Cape Clear festival website https://capeclearstorytelling.com/ and Rhonda's personal Cape Clear video https://youtu.be/mEInv4Miz3A?si=CpvVk6pbwc1-VXK_

Hjörleifur's Icelandic Folk Tales book link: https://thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/icelandic-folk-tales/

Heather Yule, storyteller: https://www.heatheryulepapertales.co.uk/my-story

Liz Weir: https://www.lizweir.org/

Terry Gunnell's Hidden People book: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1687155.Terry_Gunnell

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On this full moon night we had a visit from a young Scottish-Dutch storytelling friend, who is also a great grandneice of Orkney's beloved poet, George Mackay Brown. Please enjoy our blether with stories.

In this episode you'll hear about:

• Ailsa's experience of learning about her heritage from Tom
• Orkney stories and their histories
• letting folk stories continue to grow in our own time
• encouraging new storytellers
• the delights of spontaneity in storytelling
• a wee tale from Aberdeenshire - Fittie's Portion
• "young" storytellers, and how not to be defined by age or other labels
• Ailsa's School of Storycraft for kids
• telling stories about things you care about; defeating apathy and reconnecting emotionally
• local history storytelling
• stories about kindness; "heart stories"
• Ailsa tells her heart story, Kate Crackernuts, which is not - as is commonly misunderstood - an English tale, but was collected in the Orkney Islands
• finding earlier versions of folktales
• Gaelic waulking songs
• ... and a bonus story, which Ailsa first heard from her granddad, Fraser Dixon: The Story of Tam Bichan - from Dingieshowe, Orkney
• contact Ailsa Dixon here: https://tracscotland.org/storytellers/ailsa-dixon/

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Join Tom and Rhonda as we continue our discussion around old Orkney customs and traditions. This time you'll hear some quite surprising and amusing details of marriage and death customs in Orkney.

A few things you'll find out in this Ower wi' the Moon podcast:

• Signs and dangers around the Orkney wedding celebration: good luck, bad luck and how to evade the trowies
• The costs of speerin' night, when the prospective groom asks the bride's father for her hand; warning: don't show up empty handed!
• The exact nuances of arranging the marriage banns in Orkney and its surrounding legalities
• About the Westray "dons" of the Spanish Armada, and what allegedly happened if they married "outside" the dons
• What did the moon, the tide and the "airt" of the wind have to do with the fortunes of an Orkney marriage?
• Old-style wedding invitations ... and drams (naturally)
• All about the Orkney foot-washing ritual, and the general hilarity that ensued
• Withershins - "going against the sun"
• The dangers of bodily bits as relating to curses; and what's this got to do with the king's poop?
• A wedding story from Noltland Castle in the island of Westray
• How to make your hogboon part of the wedding celebration, and why it's important to do so!
• The wedding walk - much longer than a walk down the aisle; hijinks along the way; and the importance of wiping out your tracks
• The origins of pre-wedding blackenings in Orkney
• The mesterhousel, the hansel wife, the bride's cog and other Orkney wedding celebration rituals
• Orkney wedding games, bog cotton (Loki's oo) stockings and feminine divination mysteries
• Baking. brewing, eating, drinking and dancing!
• 
  
• Different kinds of Orkney cogs
• Curses, ill omens and selkie abductions: dangers to watch out for during weddings
• The tragic story of Henry Graham and his love
• Orkney death customs, traditions and beliefs
• Omens of death: rainbows, ravens and angels' music
• Wailing vardens and ganfers in Orkney
• The story of the Bokie Hound of the Balfours
• Forebodings of death in dreams
• The leekwak, touching the corpse and of ladies losing their senses
• The danger of grieving too much
• Supernatural Orkney death customs: good luck and bad, and getting the biggest blessing
• What did you do with a drowned sailor?
• The posh end of the cemetery
• Unbaptized infant stories
• ... and many more interesting Orkney traditions.

Encourage us in our heritage preservation work on Ko-fi

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On this full moon night, Tom speaks with one of our authors, Ian Scott - otherwise known as Ian o' Antabreck - lifelong resident of Orkney's most northerly island, North Ronaldsay. Ian has recently gathered together for publication his first decade of A Letter from North Ronaldsay, which he's written for The Orcadian newspaper for over thirty years. Tom and Rhonda have very proudly produced this first volume of Ian's Letters through our Orkneyology Press, which is now available for purchase through our website.

We hope you enjoy this blether among friends.

Join us to find out ...

• About North Ronaldsay toonships ... and what's a toonship anyway?
• Hogmanay traditions; North Ron as compared to Sanday (and other Orkney) traditions, where half of Tom's folk come from; where was the whisky, and what finally stopped the auld Hogmanay traditions?
• On home brew
• Old milling and brewing practices, which Ian observed in his miller-father's life and work
• The old and new North Ronaldsay standing stone Hogmanay traditions, and what's it all got to do with the full moon?
• The reluctant uptake of the Gregorian calendar in Orkney
• Cold evenings in warm places: visiting and playing games with folk in the mill ... and other warm places
• Orkney schooldays in earlier times: What was it like boarding in the hostel for school in Kirkwall Grammar School (and a year in Holm) as a bairn the old days, when they only returned home on rare occasions? Powdered milk, snowball fights, freezing "digs" and unmarried teachers.
• And what about those hair-raising postboat rides before the ferries and planes were available?
• Crops and old-style thrashing
• What it was like studying at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen
• Orkney's thriving arts community
• Ian's paintings and sculptures, including his favorite sculpture: the Longhope Lifeboat Memorial
• Ian's lobster fishing days
• The North Ronaldsay praam, how it came about and why it's such a good boat design for Orkney sea conditions
• Ian's artistic study trips in Shetland, Iceland and Faroes
• About sculpting and Ian's most well-known public works, including the Longhope Lifeboat Memorial, the statue of Arctic explorer John Rae in Stromness, the George Mackay Brown busts and the Stanley Cursitor portrait, all of which can be seen in Orkney.
• Sylvia Wishart, Ola Gorie and other Orkney artists
• The story of North Ronaldsay's Old Memorial Hall

Mentioned:

A Letter from North Ronaldsay - buy it direct from the publishers, Orkneyology Press (if you'd like to purchase the book in the way that best rewards the author and publishers) :https://rebrand.ly/2e9qpuf

Ian Scott's author page on Orkneyology: https://www.orkneyology.com/ian-scott-orkneyology-press.html

Don't Tell Bab! - Annie Harcus (Annie Rousay)

The Longhope Lifeboat Memorial - https://hoyorkney.com/attractions/hoy-history/lifeboat

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On this full moon night, Tom and Rhonda discuss some of the main rituals and customs necessary to safeguard important life events, from pregnancy through birth and baptisms, and onward to concerns and superstitions around courtship. Tom will tell us a few stories related to these customs and give a bit of history to help folk understand the very sensible reasons for these early Orkney practices.

Join us to find out ...

• Why you should avoid insulting a witch when you're about to go sailing (which has nothing to do with our topic, but is interesting and perhaps valuable information nonetheless)
• Natural signs of an upcoming birth; precautions taken to avoid trouble during the precarious time of pregnancy and the earlierst months of life; how to avoid attracting the evil eye; keeping the trows from kidnapping mother or child
• All about the howdie wife - an important and respected woman who takes folk into the world and helps them out of it
• The Orkney meaning of "wifie"
• The story of the bairn of Langalour
• Different strengths of home brew, their names and when to drink them
• Christening stories
• Why Orcadians never let the hearthfire die
• Divining customs for discerning the identity of one's future spouse
• Why one of the Stones of Stenness has holes in it
• Tales from the Odin Stone, and the unbreakable Odin Oath (with a handy escape clause)
• The pathetic story of Pirate Gow and the Odin Oath

Mentioned in this episode: The story of the Hudson's Bay Company man who was a woman: https://www.orkneyology.com/isobel-gunn.html

In Part 2 of Orkney Customs: Hatch, Match, Dispatch Tom will tell us more about "match" customs - courtship and marriage - and also Orkney death customs. See you on the next full moon!

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Tonight, Tom and Rhonda Muir of Scotland's Orkney Islands have a moonlight visitor - our very dear friend, author, researcher and storyteller Dr Erin Farley of Dundee. Those who love stories and Scotland will find much of interest, among these:

• Erin's abiding passion for worms: giant worms causing creation and destruction, the The Muckle Mester Stoorworm; Jörmungandr the world serpent, Ragnarök ... and a bonus: a charm against the worm in your tooth (toothache)!
• Looking at the landscape from a seafaring position
• Researching and preserving oral history in Scotland
• Stories of the old lighthouse keepers, including our mutual friend, Lawrence Tulloch of Shetland
• The Grey (bearded) Lady; and deep storytelling
• Sir Walter Scott in Orkney
• Acedemic writing as energy vampire vs. stories of the people
• Dundee roots: slavery; sufferagettes; carving out a place through poetry; William McGonagall; and stories around the Tay Bridge disaster
• Storytelling and the pressure to achieve; the rewards of taking things slowly
• A telling of the story of Jockie Barefoot from Erin's book, Angus Folktales - a tragic Angus tale of an evil lanlord
• The Twins of Edzel as performed by Tania Allan - A BSL interpretation of a Scottish folklore tale. Inspired by ‘Angus Folk Tales’ by Erin Farley. The Twins of Edzell is the story of a dedicated mother of deaf twin brothers and the hearing world that is unable to accept them. Filmed on location at Balvaird Castle, Perthshire. https://sfdh.org.uk/project/the-twins-of-edzell/

So come thee wiz, pour yourself a dram and settle in for a good old-fashioned blether among friends.

Orkneyology website: https://www.orkneyology.com

Podcast theme music courtesy of Fionn McArthur.

"Ower wi' the moon" artwork created by Jenny Steer

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