The Podgoblin’s Hat

This guest episode is all about the Moomins in Poland!   Our guest Tomasz talks us through some of the great wealth of history the Moomins have with Poland, the interesting musical benefits of a planned economy and his own terror of the fuzzy felt Groke as a child. We also talk about translation and the different adaptations of the Moomin stories.   Tomasz recommends Krtek the Mole and he also sug...

Valentina has a unique pathway into the Moomins. She experienced just one story: The Moomins and the Great Flood, as an audiobook as a child. She never knew there were any other Moomin stories, or even any illustrations. She only found the books as an adult, after years of treasuring the one weird little fable that most of the rest of the fandom didn't even know existed. We talk about the absence...

In a podcast first, we are interviewing a Moomin fan who is still a teenager and discovered the Moomins through Pinterest! Mary talks us through the cottagecore appeal of the Moomins and the popular but non-mainstream place they occupy in the USA.  There's a fair bit of chat about the Japanese animated cartoon adaptations. We talk about the way we love queer-coded things but wish that the queernes...

This episode's special guest is Mendel Skulski, a podcaster, mushroom-enthusiast and musician who wore an excellent Snufkin costume to a fancy dress party. We chat about climate collapse as depicted in Comet in Moominland, and the different characters' attitudes to it. We also chat about the different mushrooms Little My picks in The Invisible Child, and how one might go about identifying and prep...

For this Christmas-adjascent bonus, we're welcoming Helen Zaltzman, a podcaster and thinker about words. Helen came to the Moomins as a young child while she was devouring the entire contents of her local library and volunteered to re-read Moominland Midwinter for us. We talk about how lovely the writing is, the art of translation, and what a relief it is when you revisit a beloved childhood story...

Our guest for this out-of-season bonus episode is Hanna: a lifelong Moomins fan and reader of the books in Polish! We talk about faithfulness in adaptation, the differences between the Polish and English translations, and being out on the raw shore of the Baltic sea. Hanna has a unique perspective on the Hemulen Who Loved Silence, which we read last season. A case is made for quiet people who don'...

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 bejewelled eyes (?!). Even Moominmamma can't help him, so he wanders down to Snufkin's camp and gets told a story. It's a very classic...

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 Hattifatteners, but it might more appropriately be named: The Feelings and Projections that Moominpappa has about the Hattifatteners. Whic...

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 of Little My and reminisces about finding the Moomins in her local library as a kid. We situate the Moomins as a type of fantasy, and Ali re...

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 (what else is new?), Moomintroll is an ass, and Moominmamma is a confirmed witch. It's a good one for cameos of Too-Ticky, and vengeance on father...

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 Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. It's also Brian Blessed as Edward the Booble impersonations. It's a really good time!   Lou's Spirit...

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 sharing your most secret desires with your relatives. IT BANGS LIKE A DRUM. And it generated a lot of conversation for us, during which we...

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 own, who would be attached just to you! How impossible to guarantee this outcome in any way, especially when said small pet is actually a w...

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 copies of Tales From Moomin Valley in pencil.   Ruby's Spirit of the Moomins is the folkloric art of John Bauer , and her Spirit of the Po...

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 this poor Fillyjonk. We talk about the beauty and liberation of destruction, bombed out cathedrals, and monastic lifestyles. Do we ever real...

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 talked about how stories about lying affect children's truthfulness (see article here for more on Kang Lee's experiment, or read the abstract...

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, doing the washing up, procrastination. We play a round of our unofficial but recurring game: which Moomin character do you feel painfully cal...

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, a player of games, so he is ideal for all this!   If you would like to listen along to the music, you'll want to start with this advert c...

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 musical instruments of Snufkin. We discuss the way it feels, the way it looks, the way it sounds. Dave has some nitpicks. We wonder how c...

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 Valley. It's a story about creativity, inspiration, song writing, and how big you need to be to get a name.   We namecheck a lot of books in...

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 chat about different translations of this story, we exchange presents and talk at length about egg nog.   Our Spirits of the Moomins this...

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 melancholy dog and a jock Hemulen. Misunderstandings and unrequited longings abound. Moomintroll finally gets to grips with the snow. Little...

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: Moomintroll awakes from his hibernation and finds himself alone in a world of winter. It is as if he has rolled out into outer space.   This is...

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 journey with her little trolls, and how she felt about them towards the end of her life.   The Dangerous Journey is a portal fantasy t...

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 simple enough journey story, and a vehicle for some really gorgeous art. We compare the translation from the 1960s with the more modern text...