Tonight we have a moonlit blether about these things and more ...
• Guising traditions in Shetland, masks, ceremonies, folklore, the hidden people of Iceland, storytelling around the world and how all is connected to performance - even (or maybe especially) politicians!
• Walter Traill Dennison - the first person to write in Orkney dialect - and his importance to preserving Orkney's stories, customs and traditions
• How is an Orcadian different from a Scot?
• Iceland/Scandanavian connections to Orkney/Shetland?
• Why the national spirit lives within the working classes and what national tales have to do with creating culture
• Why the Danes were annoyed with the brothers Grimm, and are Swedish stories really "better than the Danes"?
• Collectors from many lands - searching for identity
• "The broken isles of Orkney" and Viking romancticism
• The "varden" spirit in Orkney and its similarities to the banshee
• Orkney at the Scandanavian/Celtic crossroads, how the stories are shared and Orkney's own myths
• Do Orkney stories emphasize the supernatural/witches as evil, vs simply supernatural?
• Book of the Black Arts stories in Orkney and Iceland
• The difference between mermaids and finnwives in Orkney
• Tom and Terry swap and compare Scandanavian/Orkney folktales: Witches, magicians, beach creeps, sea creatures, selkie, hidden folk, mermen and mermaids, trolls, land and sea nature spirits; spirits in the mounds, changelings, hogboy/hogboon, the nucklavee, land trows and sea trows
• About Terry's project, the Icelandic database of 10,000 Scandanavian legends to be found in writing, with maps tracing the spread of the tales; also a sound archive to listen to on location - bringing stories back to the land.
• What has the Black Death got to do with communications bewteen the Nordic lands?
• Are Orkney stories more Nordic or Scottish?
• Terry tells about Iceland's Wild Ride
• Wintertime as darkness, earth, knowledge of past present and future, and women
• Bibles, light, mullaca beans (Mary beans) and salt, and how they were used in protecting vulnerable souls in transitional states; in Iceland, it was silver and steel
• Icelandic beliefs in ghosts, power points, premonitions, hidden people, protective animal spirits and dreams; haunted families vs haunted houses; and other supernatural beings
• Three Orkney stories of unbaptized babies
• Trolls in Orkney, and how they developed from Norwegian trolls
• Stories as maps of behavior
• Finding drowned people and the connection with revalatory dreams
• The liminal, dangerous place between high tide and low
• Are the finfolk a reference to the Sami?
• The seen but unseen within the landscape
Links:
Sagnagrunnur folklore database: https://sagnagrunnur.arnastofnun.is/orkney/
More about Terry Gunnel: https://english.hi.is/staff/terry
Terry Gunnell's lecture on family ghosts: https://isfnr.org/2025/08/the-next-online-lecture-terry-gunnell-17-september-2025/
Earlier lecturer on nature of belief: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-3_Gq7iSsg
Terry Gunnell on Shetland guising traditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lC4O46oyFQ
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Orkneyology on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHQSp7iqejatLV9g5OAF7FA
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