KnotWork Myth & Storytelling

OUR STORY Deep in the forest in the Scottish Borders, there’s a hidden cottage that’s home to a shapeshifting witch. In this ghost story, a handsome, duplicitous laird falls in love with the woman who can turn into a hare, and his entire world is turned upside down. OUR GUEST Katy Swift is a storyteller, maker, mother, and lifelong gatherer of the stories, skills, and ways of living that root us back into the more-than-human world. A Northumbrian lass with Highland and island heritage on her father’s side, she has made her home in Scotland for nearly twenty years and carries that lineage forward through her love of the Gàidhlig language and the old tales. Today she lives in the Scottish Borders with her partner and their two wee boys, in a landscape thick with ballads, hawthorns, and haunted towers. These threads come together in The Wildcraft Way, her online course and community for families who want to walk the Celtic Wheel of the Year together through foraging, herbal remedies, seasonal recipes, Waldorf-inspired songs, traditional skills, and the stories that have always marked the turning of the year. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mama.moon.storytelling The Wildcraft Way: https://www.epiphany-learning.com/program/wildcraft-way-samhain-and-introduction OUR CONVERSATION This story takes place at Littledean Tower, a lesser-known Borders ruin where visitors still report a feeling of unease From the Flames We Rise, a 2023 gathering at Traquair honoring the folk burned as witches in Peebles, and the new memorial on Tweed Green Stories as living, evolving things, retold and embellished around the cèilidh fire all winter long Isobel Gowdie of Auldearn and her 1662 confessions of hare shape-shifting, flight, and the King and Queen of the Fairies Listening from both places: skepticism, belief, and a Gaelic otherworld that waits at crossroads, woodland edges, and beneath the hawthorn Guising, turnip lanterns, and what American Halloween has kept and lost of Samhain Laying a place at the table for the year’s dead How to Kill a Witch by Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi of the Witches of Scotland podcast SUPPORT THE SHOW Love the show? Subscribe to Myth Workers’ Hearth on Substack to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and join our community of myth, land, and living wonder. www.mythworkers.com WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

OUR STORY We return to the archives for a story of the Fens of East Anglia, retold by Mitlé Southey. The moon becomes trapped in a marsh pool. Without her light, the bogles and beasts of the darkness take over the Fens. Through a combination of community care and the wisdom of the old woman at the edge of the bog, the local people finally find and liberate the moon. OUR GUEST Mitlé is a Circle Holder walking the ancient path whilst contributing to a modern movement. The founder of Circle School, she teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, retreats and courses since 2016. She believes in the power of connection, community and circle to provide a path of integrity back to ourselves, and authentic relationship with the more than human world. As a woman of British heritage, Mitle’s circles and courses are deeply rooted in the old Western wisdom traditions and British native mythology. As a former lawyer now learning the old ways, she is seeking ways to fracture the current systems that uphold oppression and is committed to increasing her capacity to hold diverse, inclusive and safer spaces for those marginalised by those systems. When not in Circle, she can usually be found out walking or in a cosy corner with a book and a cup of tea. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gatherwithmitle Substack: https://mitle.substack.com/ OUR CONVERSATION We can see ourselves in every character and every element of the more-than-human-world in this story. This is a story of community and connection and of Sister Moon who is so caught up in overgiving that she loses track of her own needs. The power of the unknown and finding answers when people come together as a community. The mark of the heroine: the “do it together” ethic as an alternative to the hero’s journey. Mitlé’s experience of holding circles, both in person and online, and how we are called to continue to adapt How the “architecture of circle” can help us today. What is being included or suppressed in a circle? What is said or unsaid? The power of silences and words? Conversations about power and biases, and what perspectives are welcomed into a space. Western culture’s limits of time and how it contrasts with indigenous cultures where circles last as long as they need to go. What we can learn from indigenous traditions that gathered in circle. Questions of cultural appropriation and Inclusion. Mitlé’s source: from the folklore collected by Mrs. M.C. Balfour from the 1890s. WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

OUR STORY Mis staggers away from a gruesome battle on Kerry’s Dingle coast and finds a home in the mountains. Over 200 years, she becomes at one with the wild, covered in feathers and living completely apart from the human world. Eventually, the harper Dubh Ruis finds a gentle way to bring her home. HEAR THE WHOLE STORY This preview episode is part of our Turas series. Upgrade your membership to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and unlock your access to Turas, the subscriber-only podcast series, plus monthly invitations to gather live with the Myth Workers' Hearth community. Subscribe: www.mythworkers.com IN THIS EPISODE Why "apocalypse" doesn't mean the end of the world, at its ancient Greek root, but an uncovering or unveiling Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor's new book End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World, and the "politics of Hereness" inspired by the Jewish Labor Bund The Battle of Ventry, instigated by the invading Dáire Donn (the self-styled King of the World) How the story reads differently at different points in a life, from a young feminist grad student to now Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's essay, ‘Mis and Dubh Ruis: A Parable of Psychic Transformation in Irish Writers and Religion Sources for the story: The Druid's Cauldron retelling — https://thedruidscauldron.org/2022/10/17/mis-and-dubh-ruis/, and Brian Ó Cuív's edition via Corpas na Gaeilge — https://corpas.ria.ie/index.php?fsg_function=3&fsg_id=492 WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

OUR STORY “Driftwood Man” is a timeless tale of longing and belonging, existential homesickness and ultimately coming home that’s at once deeply Irish and unmistakably global. This original story emerged as artist-performer-activist Dee Mulrooney emigrated from Dublin to Berlin and speaks of the longing for home, land, and belonging. OUR GUEST Based in Berlin, Dee Mulrooney weaves a rich tapestry of experiences, emotions, and insights into her creative practice. Rooted in the complexities of inhabiting a female body, her work emerges from the profound influences of her upbringing as a working-class Irish woman in the patriarchal, misogynistic landscape of 1970s Catholic Ireland. Her background profoundly shapes her identity and informs her artistic journey, where she fluidly navigates drawing, painting, writing, performing, filmmaking, and music. Through her alter ego, Growler—a vibrant, full-body vulva costume—she channels the voices of women past, transforming pain into powerful storytelling and performance. This character is a nod to her ancestors. Growler embodies the spirit of resilience, connecting generations and facilitating healing. With over two decades of experience as an educator, Dee champions community and empowerment, drawing inspiration from celebrated artists and the potent power of women's narratives. Find Dee at deirdre-mulrooney.com, on Instagram, Tiktok, and FB WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com Love the show? Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth on Substack to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and join our community of myth, land, and living wonder. www.mythworkers.com

OUR STORY Nobody believes Phaeton's claim to divine heritage: Helios, the sun god, is his father. The boy sets out on a quest to find his dad, and when they're finally united, Helios promises to fulfill one wish. Phaeton asks to drive the chariot of the sun for a day. It all ends in fire, ruin, and a geomyth. OUR CONVERSATION Matthew opens with Z.R. Ghani's poem "The Reddest Red." Full text of poem. Ovid's telling of Helios and Phaeton as a geomyth, a story that may preserve the memory of a real meteor that streaked over Greece centuries before it was ever written down How myth takes time: a "mythically literate" people needed centuries to turn a single terrifying event into a story that could be held and retold A detour into Manchán Magan's theory that Cú Chulainn's warp spasm may encode a meteor sighting, too Travel, the personal spiritual quest, and the "forward-leading wake" that changes a place as more people go there to experience it Matthew's course, Committed to Heart, Committed to Memory, and his "conviviums," communal practices of memorizing and reciting poetry together online OUR GUEST Matthew Stillman is a life-long New Yorker, a lover of language, culture, and a practitioner of bigger questions, wondering aloud, and sitting in mystery. He has spent a lifetime studying and practicing with aspects of Eastern and Western spiritual discipline, alongside years of deep engagement with long-form improvisational comedy. He is the author of Genesis Deflowered, a book of biblical erotica written in Elizabethan English that looks at how we might heal the fracture between sex and spirit in our culture. Matthew is also the conceiver and producer of The End of Poverty?, a feature-length documentary about the origins of poverty and why it persists in a world with so much wealth. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Directors' Choice commendation, and Matthew has spoken at the UN four times about it. He started a skin care company, Primal Derma, where he works to reclaim older, forgotten threads connecting the health of place, animals, and humans. At the end of the episode, you'll hear about Matthew's current project, in which he teaches the dusty and deeply beautiful skill of poetry memorization and recitation through his online course, Committed to Heart, Committed to Memory. Classes are starting now. Learn more at stillmansays.substack.com Find Matthew at: @stillmansays (IG) / Committed To Heart, Committed To Memory (FB) WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com Love the show? Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth on Substack to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and join our community of myth, land, and living wonder. www.mythworkers.com