Event Category: Storytelling

Tudor Folk Tales – Dave Tong

Tudor Folk Tales

In Tudor times the ‘common sort’ were no different from us, laughing together, mocking each other and sharing bawdy tales in tavern yards, marketplaces and anywhere else that people came together. These stories were later collected in the cheap print of the period, and professional storyteller Dave Tonge will tell some of his pages featuring smooth-talking tricksters, lusty knaves, wayward youths and stories of the eternal struggle to wear the breeches in the family, for a sometimes coarse but often comic telling of the everyday ups and downs in Tudor life.  Amongst other stories on offer this night you will hear tell a tragic tale of a beloved gyr falcon, a comic tale of a dagger worth nowt and a plain and simple radish that was worth one hundred gold coins…

Dave will also be telling of some of the real early modern people who are also mentioned within the pages of his book. Men and women whose experiences reflect those of the characters in the folk tales that he’ll be telling. People like the trickster and con man, John Venn who was whipped for making men believe that he could find things that were lost. The woman with no hands who given permission to perform ‘wonderous feats with her feet’, on the market place and Agnes Leaman who was shamed, by being processed about the streets of the city on a cart, before being ducked in the river. What say you?

Bio

Dave Tonge is both an author and storyteller, he has written three books: Tudor Tales (2015) Norfolk Folk Tales for Children (2018) and Medieval Folk Tales for Children (2019) and is working on a forth, Trickster Tales From Many Lands. He has been telling tales since 1999, both as one half of Past -Imagined and now as the Yarnsmith of Norwich. He travels all over the UK telling stories at storytelling clubs, museums, heritage sites, fairs, festivals and in schools. He is always happy to travel anywhere, however far.

Dave specialises in tales from from Saxon and Viking through to Tudor and Jacobean times, although he will be the first to tell you that we storytellers grow new corn from old fields and that many of the tales we now claim for our own were brought over by sailors, soldiers and merchants from far away lands, long ago. Dave is then a teller of world tales and as such he does offer sets of tales from specific regions and places as well as from different times.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Dark Fairy Tales by Viktor Wynd on Zoom

Let Viktor Wynd share a nightcap with you, tuck you into bed and tell you Fairy Tales to send you into a deep sleep of strange dreams. Be warned these are not the Ladybird or Disney versions and may not be suitable for the tenderist ears.

This evening Mr. Wynd will tells some his favourite tales heard around the world, from nasty Germans chopping up people and eating them to disgusting, macabre and delightful tales from Borneo, learn of the birth of the leeches, the reason mosquitos are always buzzing human ears, why it is best not to suckle caterpillars – or indeed strange babies and something about bedbugs that might give you nightmares. Giant Octopuses, man eating pigs and a buried moon from Papua New Guinea, or possibly shapeshifting magickal creatures from Wales – the world will be your oyster.

Viktor Wynd, proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History has spent the last twenty five years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales his repetoire includes tales from The Brothers Grimm, The Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Irieland, Africa, Papua New Guinea & North America – so far.

Welsh Fairy Tales from The Mabinogi by Viktor Wynd on Zoom

Let Viktor Wynd share a nightcap with you, tuck you into bed and tell you Fairy Tales to send you into a deep sleep of strange dreams. Be warned these are not the Ladybird or Disney versions and may not be suitable for the tenderist ears.

This evening Mr. Wynd will tell some of his favourite Welsh tales, the ancient tales from The Mabinogion featuring a maiden made of flowers, a horse that can not be caught, Arawn, Lord of The Otherworld, the beautiful Rhiannon and why she was smeared in dog’s blood, Branwen, the magical cauldron and why Bran’s decapitated head carries on talking, Pryderi, a blanket of mist and the hanging of a mouse….

Viktor Wynd, proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History has spent the last twenty five years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales his repetoire includes tales from The Brothers Grimm, The Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Irieland, Africa, Papua New Guinea & North America – so far.

Welsh Fairy Tales from The Mabinogi by Viktor Wynd on Zoom

Let Viktor Wynd share a nightcap with you, tuck you into bed and tell you Fairy Tales to send you into a deep sleep of strange dreams. Be warned these are not the Ladybird or Disney versions and may not be suitable for the tenderist ears.

This evening Mr. Wynd will tell some of his favourite Welsh tales, the ancient tales from The Mabinogion featuring a maiden made of flowers, a horse that can not be caught, Arawn, Lord of The Otherworld, the beautiful Rhiannon and why she was smeared in dog’s blood, Branwen, the magical cauldron and why Bran’s decapitated head carries on talking, Pryderi, a blanket of mist and the hanging of a mouse….

Viktor Wynd, proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History has spent the last twenty five years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales his repetoire includes tales from The Brothers Grimm, The Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Irieland, Africa, Papua New Guinea & North America – so far.

Borneo Fairy Tales by Viktor Wynd on Zoom

Let Viktor Wynd share a nightcap with you, tuck you into bed and tell you Fairy Tales to send you into a deep sleep of strange dreams. Be warned these are not the Ladybird or Disney versions and may not be suitable for the tenderist ears.

This evening Mr. Wynd will tells some his favourite tales he first heard in Borneo some years ago, disgusting, macabre and delightful tales, learn of the birth of the leeches, the reason mosquitos are always buzzing human ears, why it is best not to suckle caterpillars – or indeed strange babies and something about bedbugs that might give you nightmares.

Viktor Wynd, proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History has spent the last twenty five years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales his repertoire includes tales from The Brothers Grimm, The Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Ireland, Africa, Papua New Guinea & North America – so far.

Norwegian Fairy Tales by Viktor Wynd on Zoom

Let Viktor Wynd share a nightcap with you, tuck you into bed and tell you Fairy Tales to send you into a deep sleep of strange dreams. Be warned these are not the Ladybird or Disney versions and may not be suitable for the tenderist ears.

This evening Mr. Wynd will choose some of his favourite Norwegian tales, strange tales filled with Trolls, that, as a rule are not very nice, either to people or each other

Viktor Wynd, proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History has spent the last twenty five years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales his repertoire includes tales from The Brothers Grimm, The Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Ireland, Africa, Papua New Guinea & North America – so far.

Tales of Wonder & Enchantment From The Arabian Nights by Viktor Wynd/Zoom

Let Viktor Wynd share a nightcap with you, tuck you into bed and tell you Fairy Tales to send you into a deep sleep of strange dreams. Be warned these are not the Ladybird or Disney verisons and may not be suitable for the tenderist ears.

From the fabled lands of ancient Arabia come these extraordinary tales of 1001 Nights, full of Djinn, Magic, Enchantment, Great Treasure, Shape Shifting, Voyages & Even Eroticism

Viktor Wynd, proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History has spent the last twenty five years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales his repetoire includes tales from The Brothers Grimm, The Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Irieland, Africa, Papua New Guinea & North America – so far.

Personal Myths: the Weird World of Fake Native Americans – a Zoom talk by Paul Willetts

Over the past 250 years, so many Americans with both European and African heritage have pretended to be Native American that real Native Americans have started jokily referring to them as members of the “Wannabe” tribe. Prominent among this parade of the roguish and the delusional are the famous conservationist, Grey Owl; the ethnographer, Red Thunder Cloud; the civil rights campaigner, Chief Red Fox; the movie actor, Iron Eyes Cody; as well as the conman and Jazz Age darling of the Italian fascist party, Edgar Laplante.

Join Paul Willetts – author of a recent much-praised book about Laplante (King Con, 2018) – for this illustrated Zoom talk, focusing on some of the twentieth-century’s weirdest stories.

“A story so bizarre—and compulsively told—that my jaw remained anchored to the floor throughout”—John Preston, author of A Very English Scandal and The Dig

“This Jazz Age imposter’s life makes for quite a story, and in ‘King Con’, Paul Willetts knows just how to tell it”—The Washington Post

 

Paul Willetts is the author of five acclaimed non-fiction books. His biography of the Soho smut impresario, Paul Raymond, was turned into the movie, The Look of Love, starring Steve Coogan, who described Paul’s book as “a thoroughly entertaining story, told by a writer with a vivid and amusing turn of phrase.” His work has also attracted praise from a wide range of other people, including Edgar Wright, Jonathan Meades, and Richard Holmes. For further info see: https://paulwilletts.com

Your host for this event will be the writer Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country. Edward Parnell lives in Norfolk and has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. He is the recipient of an Escalator Award from the National Centre for Writing and a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship. Ghostland (William Collins, 2019), a work of narrative non-fiction, is a moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – as well as the author’s own haunted past; it was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 prize, an award given to a literary autobiography of excellence. Edward’s first novel The Listeners (2014), won the Rethink New Novels Prize. For further info see: https://edwardparnell.com

[Portrait of Edgar Laplante, a.k.a. Chief White Elk, taken in Bremerton, Washington State, February 1921. Photo courtest of the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.]

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Somerset Folk Tales – Sharon Jacksties

Sharon Jacksties will tell tales from her collection of Somerset Folk Tales published by the History Press

These Somerset tales, newly collected or retold with a strong sense of the land and the waters that shaped them, reflect our enduring interest in the natural landscape. Let these stories from the Summer Lands take you on a journey: across wind-wild moors that plummet to treacherous tides traversed by sea morgans; on a scramble from gorges shaped by the Devil’s spite to caves dwelled in by bitter witches. Discover ancient mines and dragons’ haunts, and emerge into forests and fields to be befriended by bees or bedevilled by fairies; then stroll beside ancient waterways, where willows walk and orchards talk. From Gwyn ap Neath to Joseph of Arimathea, your travelling companions will meet you from legend, history and living memory – from the places where they were once known best. Sharon Jacksties has a sharp eye for the landscape of Somerset and the seen and unseen stories that it holds, a sympathetic ear for the dialect of the South West, and a playful wit that brings this collection of tales to vivid and delightful life.

Bio

Sharon Jacksties www.sharonjackstories.co.uk has been a professional storyteller for over 30 years. She runs storytelling projects with all kinds of groups in Somerset, London and Romania. Sharon was up until recently UK’s ambassador for the Federation of European Storytelling Organisations, until Brexit stopped play. She has won the national Crick Crack Grand Lying competition twice and is also the author of three subsequent folk tales volumes.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Beowulf – performed at bedtime by Hugh Lupton

Beowulf – performed at bedtime by Hugh Lupton

Beowulf is the oldest story in the English language – and it still has the power to raise the hairs on the back of the neck.
It tells of a hero’s life, a life mapped by three blood-curdling encounters.
As a young man Beowulf fights the monster Grendel and his even more terrifying Mother (the original creatures from the Black Lagoon).
Then, at the end of his life, he tries his strength against a gold-guarding Fire-Drake. The story explores the journey we all make from the seeming invincibility of youth to the heroic vulnerability of old age.

Bio

Hugh Lupton has been a professional storyteller since 1981. He tells stories from all over the world, but his particular passion is for the hidden layers of the British landscape and the stories and ballads that give voice to them. He is also a lyricist and a novelist and has published many collections of traditional tales. His novel ‘The Assembly of the Severed Head’ explores the moment the Mabinogion moved from being part of a fluid oral culture to becoming a written text.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon