Mythos Podcast

Latest Episodes:

S03 Episode 4: Forest Visions - A Year Walk Tribute Jan 27, 2019

Show notes

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 woodland. Through forest, field and churchyard the year walker journeys, hoping to gain insight into the future, to know their own fate as well as the fate of their village, to have some knowledge of those issues of life and death: war, crop-destroying weather or fire, disease, significant deaths.

This episode is a tribute to the game 'Year Walk' created by Swedish developing company Simogo.

S03 Episode 3: Mountain, Forest and Moor Oct 25, 2018

Show notes

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 animal’s tail; we will encounter Danish elves, far from the sweet beings of Christmas tradition but rather dangerous figures whose dances can cause madness and whose powers can cause sickness. We will encounter human beings whose lives are forever altered by their encounters with the hulder-folk. The first two stories are Norwegian and the third is Danish. Episode Script at www.mythospodcast.com

Listen to the Fey Worlds episode of Series 1 if you want more folklore in this vein.

Tales from Finland: Special Guest Storyteller Sarah Liisa Wilkinson Mar 01, 2018

Show notes

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 Lemminkäinen.

If you're interested in learning more about Sarah and her work as a storyteller, visit this website:

https://storyjamjar.com/story-jam-conversations/sarah-liisa-wilkinson-talks-about-working-to-deadlines-delving-deeper-and-putting-things-off/

S03 Episode 1: Soul Journeys Oct 20, 2017

Show notes

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 source of power and manipulation of the hug is the source of all magic. The hug could free itself of the body for various periods of time and could live a life outside the body. Unconsciously or consciously, the hug can be used to effect the material world and can even become a supranormal entity, one of the most terrifying examples being the mare, the nightmare personified, a being who puts immense pressure on the chest of their sleeping victim. This projection of the ‘hug’ is considered the cause for the frightening experience of sleep paralysis.

The ‘hug’ can also be used in what is a kind of Scandinavian astral projection. The Vord (or Swedish vård) is not only the doubled presence of every individual but the dream-soul that can separate from the sleeping body. A Swedish folklorist defined the vård as ‘a being attached to the individual’ which ‘sometimes reveals itself either as a glimmer or in the form of the person as a second self, a phantom. The presence of the vård can be felt both by other people and the individual when he is out of doors at night.’

Welcome to Series 3: Folklorica Nordica. As these autumn days descend into the dark days of winter, we will journey into subterranean and spiritual realms - through the folklore of the Nordic world. We will encounter the shamans, the subterranean beings, the wise-folk and healers, and the trolls and giants of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Finland. In these northern lands, we will encounter a fascinating body of tales retold to evoke not only the original magic of the stories but also the beautiful and mysterious regions they come from.

Music by Co-Ag Music (Available on Youtube)

Taster Episode: Soviet Urban Legends Sep 01, 2017

Show notes

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.

S02 Episode 5: Unquiet Dead & Unquiet Waters Aug 11, 2017

Show notes

In this episode, hear stories about a particularly special manifestation of the unclean force: those water-bound spirits who are also said to be spirits of the unquiet dead; human spirits who perhaps committed suicide or died an untimely or tragic death. Perhaps because of the terrible nature of their deaths, they have been transformed, their spirits manifesting into sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful forms. Despite their appearances, the beings in this episode are nearly always deadly. So from the glacier-covered Russian island of Novaya Zemlya to the coniferous forests and fecund lake basins of Poland; from the great heights of the Ukrainian Carpathians to the dark waters of the Slovakian Danube, you will hear tales of water-bound beings who are dangerous to mere frail humans. While in Russia and Poland, we will encounter the Rusalka, the water-bound spirit of a woman who has ended her own life. While in the Ukraine, we will encounter the Rusalka’s sister-lore - the Mavka, the spirit of a woman who has died a tragic and/or untimely death. Lastly, while touring the Slovakian Danube, we will meet the Vodnik, the male counterpart of the Rusalka All music by Co-Ag Music (Available on Youtube) To support Mythos financially, see www.patreon.com/mythospodcast

S01 Pathways & Portals: Special Guest Episode Jun 23, 2017

Show notes

In this special guest episode, professional storyteller Vanessa Woolf tells a fascinating tale involving a mysterious tomb in Brompton Cemetery, London. Unfasten your doors of perception with an extraordinary tale of occult, magic and a secret time machine in Victorian London. Music by Co-Ag Music (available on Youtube) London Dreamtime storynights are secret storytelling adventures in hidden corners of London. Vanessa tells eerie, exciting, scary and fantastical stories for adults in London’s forgotten corners, derelict buildings, muddy foreshores, empty foot-tunnels, urban forests and midnight cemeteries...they often include live music and are usually only lit by candles. Different events run every month and details are on www.londondreamtime.com/calendar

S02 Episode 4: Unclean Spirits Jun 09, 2017

Show notes

In lore across the Slavic world, from the northern Slavs of Poland and Russia to their southern kin in Croatia and Slovenia, there are the so-called ‘unclean’ spirits of forest and field, home and bathhouse. And the more domestic of these unclean spirits - those of the home and bathhouse - is our focus in this episode. Now, we will meet these mysterious beings, in whom mingles the earthly and angelic, in whom dwell the deep powers of ancestral longing, order and homeliness. For a little boy in an undisclosed Russian village, while playing, has spotted a dilapidated bathhouse on the edge of the great Taiga, that vast wooded realm of northern climes - and when he sees the water-rotted wood and the sagging brooding structure he shudders, runs home to his grandfather and asks about its history. This is the grandfather’s story….. All music by Co-Ag Music (available on Youtube)

S02 Episode 3: Harvest Demon & Wolf Shepherd May 05, 2017

Show notes

Lady death mowing down a victim with her scythe. A demon of the harvest fields in the shape of a mourning widow. Is it any wonder that folklore symbolically conflates death and the harvest in such potent images when the harvest was the very heart and pulse of the agricultural communities of the ‘folk’? We will encounter these beings whose very nature combines life-giving harvest and death-giving exhaustion from labour - we will encounter harvest demons in the golden wheat fields and the life-stripping heat of the noonday sun in Poland, Russia and Slovenia. We will also meet the wolf-shepherd, an unusual patron to Croatian cattle farmers and their gentle field dwelling bovines. All music by Co-Ag Music (available on Youtube)

S02 Episode 2: Primeval Forest Spirits Mar 31, 2017

Show notes

From the last bastion of primeval woodland straddling Poland and Belarus to mountain-top pine forests in the Czech Republic, from swampish realms in aforementioned Polska to Serbian forests ringing with shrill hunting cries, meet the female huntresses, child-snatchers and protective spirits of Slavic lore. The vision of Mythos Podcast is to retell stories with a sense of magic, as if they were entirely real. With a brief introduction and analysis, the emphasis is on the stories themselves, with each episode comprised of four tales. Listen and enjoy a fresh take on ancient folklore, complete with immersive narrative, lush music and a dark edge.

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