Mythos Podcast

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 Bo...

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...

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...

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 meado...

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 i...

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 coni...

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...

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. Th...

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 upcomi...

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 thr...

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.

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 ep...

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 suc...

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.

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...

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 suc...

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.

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...

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 wit...

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 cr...

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 w...

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 anim...

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 Le...

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 sourc...

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.