Tongue, Pen, Ear, Page — Collecting and Performing Folktales and Ballads
How do writers collect and re-tell regional folktales? Kevan Manwaring explains his influences, methods, and inspirations for his work in this area.
Of Kobolds and Heinzelmen: Forgotten Creatures Brought Back to Life
German artist Florian Schäfer is creating life-like art dolls & figurines of strange but mostly unknown creatures to fight against their cultural oblivion.
‘Prick Song’: A Tale from Zoe Gilbert
The first tale of Zoe Gilbert’s wonderful novel, Folk, now out in paperback. Read more about the novel here. Listen, for the beat that runs through the gorse maze. It is an early twilight, the opening between last sun and first star, the door of the day closing until, soon, night will seal it shut. There […]
The Grotter & the Strange History of Shell Grottos
Shell grottos have a certain murky ambiguity to their history and folklore. This for me made them all the more enticing to use as the basis for a ghost story in my tale, ‘The Grotter’ in Nyctophobias. Especially with my roots as a Whitstable native in Kent, where grottos are still primarily lit once a year as part of the Oyster Festival celebrations. These grottos are usually stacked in a ‘beehive’ style pyramid, held together with wet sand and illuminated by a short candle.
Folk Tales and Fairy Tales: Seven Miles of Steel Thistles
One of the things I wanted to do was to confront popular misconceptions about fairy tales, such as ‘fairy tales are all about princes rescuing princesses.’