Getting Better Acquainted

This is the 23rd episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. And just like that, it's the end of the season! We're going out on a story that actually shows us what happens when someone has a problem and wonders "What would Snufkin do?" Sniff is inconsolable over the loss of his favourite toy, a small dog called Cedric, with b...

This is the 22rd episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. How many times has Moominpappa gone off with the Hattifatteners? Are they really as wicked as they're cracked up to be? What does the birch bark scroll mean? Hop along and find out none of the answers to these questions! This is supposed to be a story about the Hatt...

This is the 8th bonus episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. Our guest Ali Baker is a researcher in children's literature with a particular interest in children's voice and children's rights, so it's no surprise she chose to come on and talk to us about The Invisible Child! Ali makes a strong case for Bjork as a Spirit o...

This is the twenty-first episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. This week we're reading one of Tove's most famous short stories: The Invisible Child. It's a pretty bright and funny story with very dark themes. We both like it, but it doesn't quite live up to the hype, for us. Little My is picking poisonous mushrooms (wha...

This is the 7th bonus episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. Our guest Lou has been a Moomin fan since childhood, and the character ey relate to is the Groke (iconic). This chat is lots of things, and one of the things is a couple of autistics marvelling over the Hemulen Who Loved Silence, with a sideshoot through Susan...

This is the twentieth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. Is this the underrated best story in this collection? We really think it might be. What can a Hemulen tell us about work under capitalism? Will any of us ever get to be pensioned off? This is a beautiful story about introversion, access needs and the dangers of...

This is the nineteenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. This story's title promises so much in terms of dragon content! In actuality there is hardly any dragon in this story, but what there is, is very good. Nina likes this story a lot anyway, Dave's more on the fence. How understandable to want a small pet of your...

This is the 6th bonus episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. There's so much to say about The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters that we invited Ruby on to say some of it for us! We ponder on the exquisite combo that is cosy and creepy, lament the missed connection between Gaffsie and Fillyjonk and scribble all over our...

This is the eighteenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. This week we're reading The Fillyjonk Who Believed in disasters, certified banger no matter who you ask! It's a melancholy, funny, poignant story that feels almost too real. Join us as we relate a little too closely and discuss the anxiety and depression of th...

This is the seventeenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. Carrying on with our read-through of Tales from Moomin Valley, our story this week is A Tale of Horror! But don't get too excited. The scariest thing about it is the Whomper's daddy. This story, despite not being our favourite, gave us lots to yap about. We t...

This is the 5th bonus episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. To round off our spring miniseason we've got a final (for now) look at The Spring Tune, with special guest Matt Miller, a poet and theatre maker. Matt's take on this story is fairly different from all the other takes we've heard so far! It's about smoking, doin...

This is the 4th bonus episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. This week we've got a special guest in to talk all about the music of Tove Jansson, and the game we talked about last week (Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley) AND the short story that kicked off this miniseason (the Spring Tune). Martin is a musician, a podcaster...

This is the 3rd bonus episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. We're popping in with something a little different for you this week, it's a video game review! That's right, we're almost topical! Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley is a beautiful, relaxing, not quite open world exploration of Moomin Valley through the eyes and...

This is the sixteenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. The crocuses are up, the cherry trees are in bloom, and Snufkin is tramping back to Moomin Valley - it must be time for our spring miniseries! We're kicking off with this beautiful, perfectly formed gem of a short story from the collection Tales from Moomin Val...

This is the fifteenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. We're wrapping up this year on the Podgoblin's Hat with Tove's Christmas offering: The Fir Tree. It's got everything you want from a Christmas story: the light and the dark, the fear and the wonder. There's even a little cameo from the Moomin family gun. We cha...

This is the fourteenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. We're wrapping up Moominland Midwinter this week, and despite being only three chapters, it's 70% of the words in this book, so do strap in for a mammoth episode. There's a whole raft of new characters: the lonely and the rum, a flock of small creep, a very me...

This is the thirteenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to series 3! We're back with a banger: Moominland Midwinter. Nina has had this book hyped up by everyone who knows she's doing this podcast, and despite all the hype it doesn't disappoint. In this first half of the book, the unthinkable happens: Moomin...

This is the twelth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. To wrap up season two we are bringing you the last two picture books set in the Moomin universe written by Tove Jansson. Both of these books are a bit difficult and inaccessible! They're very interesting to Moomin fans in that they show the later stages of Tove's...

This is the eleventh episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. We're breaking from our normal format for these next two episodes to bring you Tove Jansson's picture books. The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My is really ahead of its time in terms of interactivity and the use of holes cut out of the pages. It's a simpl...

This is the tenth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. Content note: discussion of suicidal thoughts in the What Would Snufkin do part of the podcast This book splits three ways on Midsummer Eve: Snufkin is enacting revenge on a Park Keeper, Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden are having a party with a Fillyjonk, and the...

This is the ninth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. It's summer in Moominvalley and this book truly hits the ground running. There's a volcano casually going off in the background, and another flood, and the Moomin family has to relocate to a strange floating house. Also, Snufkin is nowhere to be found and Moomintro...

This is the eighth episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. We're back with the second half of Moominpappa's memoirs, in which our brave hero becomes the subject of a country run by an Autocrat, starts a colony and meets his wife. Moomintroll has some very sensible notes for his Pappa in this half of the book, Sniff has so...

This is the seventh episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to a new season of the Podgoblin's Hat! This week, Nina is reading the Exploits of Moominpappa and Dave is reading the Memoirs of Moominpappa. Our theme for these books is Memoir. This episode is all about unreliable narrators, self mythologising and...

Our special guest for this episode is Medieval historian Dr Eleanor Janega. Eleanor joins us to shout about how much she loves Comet in Moominland, share her Moomin memes of choice and talk about how Tove Jansson draws on medieval storytelling tropes like weird little guys you find in the woods, comets, and really good food writing. There is a case made for Moominmamma as an agony aunt and a scath...

This a bonus episode of The Podgoblin's Hat, with Nina and Dave. You can find it on it's own feed wherever you get your podcasts. It's also the last episode of the first series of the show. In this first guest episode, we're talking to Heidi Gilhooly, a lifelong Moomin fan and translator. Heidi did a comparative study of three versions of the Trollkarlens Hatt: in Swedish, Finnish and English. She...