March 23, 2019
The Pursuit of Dermot and Grainne An Irish story. A telling by Martin Shaw. Finn alone as dawn comes. Not the visionary, prophet, warrior, but Finn as bleak widow, of spasmed back, fragile knee, grey locks. Barely a stretch of flesh not vivid with scars. Older. Finn alone, as he always was, even in the […]
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March 8, 2018
The Huntress An Inuit story. A telling by Martin Shaw. There was a woman who dreamt of the sea. Back when there was a village called Tikeraq, there lived a man and a woman. But it’s not really their story I’m telling. It’s their daughter’s story I’m telling. She was a huntress, famed for both her […]
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December 12, 2015
The Listener From the Seneca story: Haton-dos, the Listener. A telling by Martin Shaw. There was once a boy making trouble in the village. There’s always a boy making trouble in the village. He was sent to the hut of his uncle, a place where the settlement drifted into the vastness of the dark forest. One […]
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October 6, 2014
The Crow-King and the Red-Bead Woman A Yakut Folktale telling by Martin Shaw *** What follows is the bones of the Crow-King story and then a stanzas version that is arising from the actual experience of telling the story over the last months. Both should give you a good feel for its disclosures. *** There […]
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February 6, 2014
Combing the Dragons Hair: The Earth-Gnome A version by Martin Shaw There was once an elderly King with three daughters. As he grew towards the end of his life, he became obsessed with an apple tree in the center of his garden, that, when harvest came, produced perfect, blood red apples. He loved those apples, […]
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December 6, 2012
Walking the Story A Story by Martin Shaw What follows is a ‘walking the story’ – Martin Shaw walking the land (in this case Dartmoor National Park in England) – covering a physical geography that features in the Devon folktale; ‘The Raven of Chaw Gully’. It is part of a wider forthcoming book where he […]
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