you Welcome everyone to Legends of Jorvik episode
four in my bonus mini -series where I get to
invite and talk to the many creatives and talented
and skilled people who make the Jorvik Viking
Festival the amazing event that it is every year.
And this week's episode, I'm delighted to welcome
Jason Buck, a professional storyteller. Welcome
Jason. Hello, thank you very much. Thank you
very much for asking me on. You're welcome. I
really enjoyed your event and I cannot wait to
start quizzing you on the stories you told because
there's some wonderful ones. I wish I could tell
all my friends about it. I can never do it just
this like you did. So I guess we should touch
base then on because many people don't know who
or what a professional storyteller is or how
someone would get into that profession. Would
you mind telling us more? Yeah, sure. I mean,
it's an interesting thing because you're absolutely
right. I mean, storytelling is one of those things
that we all do. We all do every day. We all tell
stories about what we did yesterday or the film
we saw or what's happening or some experience
we have. We just do it quite naturally as people,
as humans. But in Western Europe and Britain
and certainly in England, in the United Kingdom,
storytelling or performance storytelling really
is something that people aren't aren't used to
is something that's died away, less so in Wales
and Ireland and Scotland where people know about
storytelling a bit more. But the thing I'm always
terrified that I think people always assume is
that I'm someone sat in the corner of the children's
library in a colourful coat on a tiny stool reading
the Gruffalo upside down to a group of small
people. But performance storytelling is... it's
what we've done for our entire history since
we could speak and understand our languages.
In terms of the experience, it's a bit like going
to a stand -up comedy gig. You have a storyteller
who is standing there live, sometimes mic'd up,
sometimes not usually, almost never with a handheld
mic because it gets in the way of being able
to point and gesticulate. You're telling stories
to the audience, you're talking to the audience
just like a stand -up comic would. But those
stories, they could be modern recent stories,
or they could be ancient myths and legends, especially
things that we're going to talk today about Norse
mythology or Viking legends. And so it's relaying
those and creating a narrative that people can
sit back and really lose themselves, immerse
themselves in the pictures that the storyteller
conjures in their minds as they listen to the
story unfolding. And the storyteller is all the
characters and describes everything that's going
on. And it really is for all ages. from very
small until they reach a point in the life where
you can hear no more and then drift off to the
next world. Thank you that's a really wonderful
explanation and it certainly kind of reminded
me because you performed to children as well
during the Orbit Viking Festival didn't you?
Well I did a bit of stuff out in the street dressed
in proper Viking clover and I don't mean horned
helmet and a double -headed axe you know in this
sort of tunic and whatnots and things and the
street performance stuff people naturally see
a storyteller and parents often then wheel children
over. At the beginning I think of my career as
a full -time storyteller, I was very much against,
I didn't want to be thought of as a children's
entertainer, and so I very much sort of steered
away from that. But since then, apart from it
being very useful to pay the bills, telling stories
to children are great. It's great because they're
quite happy just to sit down and go, go on then,
and just lose themselves, whereas adults are
sort of a bit more, whilst they're terribly polite,
and will sit and listen, you know, quietly. adults
often are a little bit sort of more reserved
and wondering oh oh god is he going to get me
to do something am I going to be called out or
I'm not quite sure what's happening here whereas
the children just accept it and just kind of
and get on with it but it's two related but sort
of different different different styles of telling
stories I think. So how did you as a storyteller
first encounter experience or work with Norse
mythology or Viking history as a story medium
and matter? I think when I started telling stories
as a storyteller, then somebody gave me, one
of my audience gave me a present. It's a guy
who'd come along to a couple of my shows and
he turned up one day and he said, thank you very
much, Jason. I'm really enjoying your storytelling.
Would you mind if I gave you a present? Of course
not, thank you very much. And he gave me a book.
It was the Penguin. book of Norse mythology.
It was a nice collection and inside was a very
nice sort of note written about how he had stumbled
across my storytelling shows and how whilst he
was going on going through some stuff in his
own life how actually he found that immersion
in the stories awoke a sort of a something that
he said he hadn't felt since since he was a child.
and allowed himself to become immersed within
a story. And so he gave me as a present. And
for a while I just thought, well, that's very
nice. I'll just put that on a shelf. And then
one day I was thinking, I should really, I should
do a new show soon, shouldn't I? And I thought
I should start reading that book. And I hadn't
really gone into Norse mythology much at the
time. And so when I started reading that book
and then, of course, reading other books and
other references and watching videos and looking
at various websites and articles and things,
it suddenly opened up a world to me that I think
I'd always assumed was a little bit probably
tainted by Hollywood, I imagine. It was all a
bit too much swords and sorcery as opposed to
the depth of story and mythology and religion
and history that's there. and then I think it
helps that, you know, I'm six foot four and I've
got a big, you know, curly moustache and beard,
I'm terribly hairy and I can pronounce the Norse
names, so I'm told by some of the people who
either speak Old Norse or various modern versions
of, you know, Scandinavian languages who said,
wow, I can actually understand the words you
were saying, you know, this name or that name,
oh wow, it works great, and so I think a combination
of those things. came together and I really liked
the mythologies, I liked the Norse gods, like
the Greek gods, they are imperfect and they are
flawed like ourselves and it's not just a set
of tales and rules of dogma about an unimpeachable
deity who never arrives. These are kind of tales
about us and tales about gods and monsters. where
that needle is on the, is it a God, is it a person,
and what's the experience kind of moves from
side to side. And I think that's what really
attracted me, that movement between our mortal
experience and tales of gods and monsters. And
there's sort of no barrier between the two of
them. That is brilliant. And I absolutely chime
well with that message about them being flawed
and imperfect. I remember Back in my early days,
back when I was just discovering how podcasting
worked, I was able to be a guest on a podcast
episode of the Yorvik Viking thing podcast back
when it was active and round. with Joanne Harris
and Jessica Simon and Professor Caroline Lowenton,
who is a big Oxford expert in this area. And
I was telling them what I think people get drawn
to is their imperfectness. They're basically
humans who just happen to have really magical
toys, like they've got magical apples that help
them live longer, but his gauntlets and his hammer
and his belt and Odin's got all his trinkets
and frayer hairs. And they squabble, they fight,
they have jealousies. I mean, Loki, of course.
is on the trickster to the underdog and the anti
-hero in the way that modern perception has reinterpreted
and revived and adapted and because we don't
have a lot of core details about them because
these sagas are all bits and pieces and they
were written down centuries after Christianisation
and they'll get me started on what stories might
have been lost because there are probably hundreds.
these gaps have actually enabled them to keep
going, because they're malleable, because we
can then adapt them to reflect whatever society
and we as people are feeling at the time, which
I might like about them. So yeah, just to add
to that, I think that's what keeps the stories
alive. That's a really good point, because I
think once you have religions that have holy
books that say this, this is the truth for our
religion. You can't stray away from that. So
all you're really doing is retelling. There's
no idea. There's not much scope for interpretation
or reflection about what the characters in the
story might be doing or thinking and how that
relates to us. It's all kind of rather clearly
set out. Of course, you understand why people
do that, so they can set down the rules and say,
these are the definitive rules. But at the same
time, yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
It's interesting, I think, what modern culture
has done to the Norse myths. When you look at
things like the Marvel franchise, and a friend
of mine's a head teacher at a school, and they
had an open day, and they studied the Norse gods,
I think it's on the general syllabus, Norse mythology
anyway, and she overheard some child saying to
their parents as they were going through, saw
there was a picture of Thor, and he went, look,
they study Marvel here? Amazing, we must come
here. I kind of, it's very sweet at the same
time, kind of, oh dear. And when I tell stories
about Thor and his hammer to younger audiences,
I have to say, you know, it's not like in the
films, anyone can touch Thor's hammer. Anyone
can use it. It's just that it's Thor's hammer.
And Loki, he doesn't go, ooh, and he's not super,
super powerful staff. You know, he's just a trickster
because he fixes things as well as breaking things.
And I have to sort of put them right on that.
But again, with children, they're kind of like,
Okay. All right, if you say so, carry on. So
yeah, they'll take that and that elasticity is
there. Yeah, it's, I mean, I guess it all reflects
back to the fact that these were stories. They've
always been stories. Of course, the Vikings weren't
illiterate people. They could carve runes, but
that came along later. They only ever used runes
usually on rune stones in the morning for someone
who'd gone off raiding or went sailing and just
never came back. They didn't need to record these
things because they were told and people like
you were around at that time. They had scowls
like professional storytellers. So you're carrying
on a very fine heritage, Jason. And I like to
think, certainly I nodded towards it in my own
little independent research on representation
and indeed interpretation of Valkyries in fantasy
fiction as my humble debut article is going through
peer review and I'm hoping they'll agree with
anything, any of my nonsense and not tell me
it's all honest. even the Scales probably about
then probably omitted adapted or twisted things
because certain people have heard things in different
regions. I mean there's we've got the Saga of
the Volsungs and then we've got the Ring of the
Nibelungs and they both use the same set of characters
but in a different set of circumstances slightly
and yet they're like written centuries apart.
It's incredible how stories I just they just
last don't they? So I have this bracelet here
which on it has, just so you can see there, there's
the runes on it. And it is a quote from the scald,
oh, his name's gone out my head. And what it
says on it, the translation is, what is a skilled
smith of verse? What is a scald but that? What
is skald, name of that, in Old Norse, if you
want it. And it doesn't say what is a skald,
but a knowledgeable repeater of verse, a skilled
smith of verse, Bragi, which is the name of the...
oh yes the skull does the the skull god god skull
deified skull depending where you put it um but
that's attributed attributed attributed to him
and it is talking about a skilled smith of verse
so someone who creates things not someone who
just can remember and reproduce. It's not just
an actor who's learned all the works of Shakespeare
and is able to quote, you know, anything at any
point. There's that ability, but also the ability
to craft and make and create and change. Indeed,
we use the word malleable. So let's use that
malleable Latin alias being changing, being a
Smith and making and changing and shaping. Not
fixed. Oh well I'm glad you agree with me and
hopefully the peer reviews of my little article
will agree with what nonsense I've typed up.
So I guess in terms of, as you pointed out, kind
of like shaping and creating and not necessarily
just repeating stories, obviously when I attended
your wonderful event at Yorvick this year we
heard an amazing as well by the way thank you,
not just my event but my wonderful event thank
you. It is a wonderful event, I really really
enjoyed it and I love how you were there to actually
greet everyone in the room as well, I was like
oh it's the guy who greeted me earlier. You told
a wonderful tale about, I think it was around
12th century Iceland of a young man getting involved
in necromancy in a very long and winding tale
and I loved how you explained about it, it's
all like one step away from evil, no one's out
right evil, it's all like gradual steps. And
I really liked that as an introduction to the
theme of the story. So is that one that you've
sourced or read about and then revived, or is
it one of your own creations using influences
from that time? So there's now three stories
in my head, in my collection, whatever, which
I would class as my sort of dark Norse stories.
And they're all original stories by me, but they're
all um based around or using um um either history
or folklore elements or folklore ideas and tropes
so in that the uh the nábrok the uh the necropants
as they're translated to usually into american
english the necro trousers um and if people listening
if you if you don't know what they are look look
look it up but i've warned you now about what
what you'll find out and especially they have
a pair of them in the museum of witchcraft in
iceland a reproduction pair of them, let's say.
Yes, they're not real. But that was all, yeah,
I came across this idea of these dead men's legs,
the skins that people peel off one man's legs
and peel onto their own and then bringing wealth.
But of course, that's evil and wicked and evil.
And it was only as I was starting to write the
story and look into it and try and find out more
about the nábrok that I was reading information
about how it was suggested that there was a particular
guy in Iceland who was doing very well and his
farm did very well and he became very wealthy.
And as often, you know, in communities when somebody's
doing very well, somebody else gets jealous about
it. And so that, you know, kind of... rumours
and what -nots were created about, well, it must
be black magic. You can't possibly just be because
of hard work and talent and ability and everything
else. It must be black magic. And so saying it
was only black magic that made it possible for
this guy to be prosperous, which is the explanation
for the real Narbork necropants. But it was that
idea of journey, and there's a number of things
I happened to come across. The fact that the
main character plays the langspiel, which is
an Icelandic instrument or an instrument used
in Iceland, which wasn't an instrument I'd come
across before. Okay, yes, for those of you, for
those people who don't know, a horizontal guitar,
a walk horizontal violin or cello with a number
of strings that you can either pluck. and you
can alter the tone of the strings and you can
bow. But I like the idea of this young man starting
off and having a bad, you know, a bad start in
life. He'd lost his father and his stepfather
wasn't nice enough to lose his mother. And so
then he has to go on a journey so he can classic
hero's journey. You know, it may also may as
well have been to frame the hand of the princess,
but it wasn't, you know, for his. It's his beloved's
father to give him permission to marry his beloved.
And of course, as you know, as the story unfolds,
yes, a little step, one more step into the shadows,
one more step away from the light and into the
darkness, bit by bit by bit, without him ever
really doing anything particularly wicked or
evil, except perhaps towards the end. But until...
trying to be successful and trying to become
prosperous so he can go back and demonstrate
his ability to earn so that he can support his
beloved and their children and family to be,
that takes him into the shadows and into the
darkness. But almost in a way that he doesn't
really think that it's... wicked or evil he's
not a kind of and now for the necromancy raise
them it's none of that it's like oh wow yes this
will this will help me that will help me this
will help me and nobody gets hurt on along the
way except perhaps right towards the end yeah
yeah my story well it was it was really good
really good and i love the way you really brought
the audience into that medieval 12th century
-ish Iceland because of course so many people
think of Vikings think of Scandinavia but not
many people think oh yes they did actually do
anything north in Iceland and of course Iceland
do have a thing even now for fairy mounds like
they will I mean I believe it's true, unless
it's an urban myth, that they'll direct a road
around the fairy mound instead of bulldozing
over the fairy mound. So they kind of had those
superstitions and beliefs. I really like how
you drew that in especially when you described
the hero kind of like going into the wilder parts
of Iceland away from where the people and the
villagers are and encountering trolls and hearing
the pipe and the flute and everything and the
music. your your actual kind of vocal talent
it was truly something to behold. I mean not
just like doing the voices but doing the sound
effects and the music and I mean going on to
our next story which is because you told two
that night the next one was about a shield maiden
which of course got me up because of course women
love stories about women and women heroes yeah
and shield maidens are the flavour of the month
when it comes with Vikings. That was also really
interesting especially there's so few stories
from the actual sources about the goddesses doing
anything besides Freya crying tears of gold and
sleeping with the dwarfs to get a necklace and
Frigg telling everyone to stop hurting Balder
and Eden turning into an acorn. That's about
it really apart from hell. Hell is just hell.
Blessed she just got cursed hell for being herself.
That's it. There's no other stories about them
whereas all the male gods have loads of adventures
and so I was really excited to hear because obviously
you didn't reveal it was Freya until the end.
That was a beautiful kind of like pull -along.
But I thought that was really well told, that
one. And so I would just love to know more about
how you came up with that story. So there's lots
of different things in there. And I think that
the main character was inspired by somebody I
know, just sort of physically. And then, but
then I don't know, I'm trying to remember about
how she all sort of came together and all the
things. I think what I wanted to do was, I wanted
to have a strong female, I wanted this, I didn't
set out to say, I want a strong female character
and I'm going to do this. It was just, I was
aware that there was this potential character
there. And then, I've learned over the years,
I think, quite a lot of my stories start off
tragically. And they might end up happily, or
they might end up tragically as well. And so
both those stories I told that night is the young
man finds it difficult, and his stepfather dies,
and he's alone in the world with only a musical
instrument and a small bank of money, and a denial
from his potential father -in -law to marry his
love. And then within the shield maiden, starting
off with her seeing her husband being killed
and seeing her child being killed. which is also,
it can be a difficult sort of, a difficult story
to start sometimes, because I'm not sure adults
always understand that, that yes, of course,
you know, stories can start, lots of stories,
films, books, plays, whatever, TV series, start
off with something awful. But when somebody is
standing there and describing, how you know a
little child is killed by some oracle raiders
by some awful vikings um uh and that kicks the
story off i can because i can see the audience
i can see sometimes there's a kind of a you know
no he's not going to do this sure he's not he's
not he's not going to kill the kill the child
as oh oh god he has oh god he's dead and you
can see sort of early on people are And there's
a little bit of, and I have to be very careful
to manage that. So it's not done in an offensive
or titillating way that people kind of feel.
And especially, of course, with people who have
lost loved ones or lost children or young siblings.
I have to be gentle with that and carry them
on to the next part so that they see there is,
OK, here's a doorway to the next part of the
story. And this is part of the story. This is
not just gratuitous. murder of everyone because
there is also a bit where in that very beginning
after the husband has been killed and the child
has been killed in which these raiders um how
do I put this one of them forces himself upon
her and I have to get the audience to understand
that without getting into detail which no one
wants to hear and would make everybody feel very
uncomfortable and also as a man telling it, it
becomes extra difficult. And so I have to kind
of make it, make sure the audience understand
what's going on, what's about to happen or what
could happen. And then she kills him and there's
a moment of, and I've actually had people in
the audience go, she kills him as a kind of like,
you know, that's a kind of a steam release of
the release valve of everything that's happened
then. And then things become sort of drawn out.
There's lots of bits of folklore in there. I
also wanted her to not be a sort of wailing widow,
sort of dragging herself through the through
the badlands of the world. And so when she turns
up at the nobleman's house and she wins the wrestling
competition because she fights part. And at the
end of the evening, because he sort of said,
well, why did you stay here and keep me warm?
And all the adults, anybody over the room could
understand what he means. And at the end, he
does sleep at the bottom of the bed because he's
lost. But then they keep each other warm late
in the night. And it's a way of kind of like,
yes, she's lost the love of her life. But her
life hasn't ended. And her life hasn't ended
as a woman, as an individual, as a loving, caring
person with needs and passions. And that can
be OK. And then she goes off on her journey.
And that's just a kind of a little kind of bit.
So I wanted her to be able to, again, this is
me so perhaps retrospectively thinking, I didn't
step south to say these are the points to hit.
But I felt that her character was strong enough
so that when she had to got over the grief and
made the decision to go out into the world and
to go and die gloriously in battle so she could
find her husband and daughter, then she was allowed
to do all sorts of things of fighting, feasting,
and the other one that she could enjoy the third,
frolicking, let's say, and enjoy. enjoy her life
as well as being a strong character. Well, you
did tell it and handled those delicate subjects
really, really well. I mean, it's interesting.
now that you've talked about it kind of like
when we think back to some of the North stories
are quite dark. I mean Odin gets off with a lot
of giantesses on his way and Loki does his thing
as a horse. Yes, yeah. And Freya she sleeps around
with dwarves but kind of like there's also kind
of like beheadings like I remember learning about
the story where Odin tricks a load I think the
giants or at least some kind of dumb hype. characters
in a field with and he gives them a magic whetstone
and makes them all super sharp and then they
all accidentally behead each other as they're
sheathing the weak kind of thing and I thought
that's actually really cruel. Yeah absolutely.
But that's just too old it is and I think that's
something that Marvel has definitely taken out
of. They've taken a lot of the darkness out because
they want their classic superhero, they want
the classical villain which is why it irks me
still that they've given Loki horns than Hella
horns. Yeah. So that kind of like symbolism of
evilness. But then in a way, kind of like when
I think back to Beowulf, that's got lots of dark
stuff in it. And yet that was being told probably
around the fires for ages. So it's almost like
stories help us look at these dark things and
confront them or accept them or learn to understand
why they are that dark perhaps. Or almost like
learn a lesson from them. as as you say kind
of like with your first story about the man kind
of like always one step from evil there's always
like some kind of like a lesson and a message
behind each story which it's probably been universally
true for most stories I think because they help
us all empathize with another they help us put
ourselves in those places in those shoes and
these times because these stories are set in
times if not worlds very much different to our
own. I think I read an article a little while
back in the New Scientist magazine, and that
was talking about how reading fiction helps with
empathy and understanding and human communication,
because precisely that. So that engaging with
fiction can safely take us to places that we
perhaps should never and hopefully will never
go. But it does prepare us for those things.
And it is that, we've become a little bit sort
of, I think, since the, oh, I don't know, it's
probably throughout history, but I think of things
like the Grimm's fairy tales, where the Brothers
Grimm collected them from lots of different people,
and actually a lot of them from the woman who
lived next door, and then one of the brothers
married her, and she still doesn't get a mention
as was the Brothers Grimm. But some of the earlier
cuts of those, the earlier ones, even though
they're still tidied up are still pretty gruesome
and then they get less gruesome as people's sensibilities
and that very sort of 19th century Victorian
morality comes in even though it may well be
a double morality of this is what we say we do
and actually this is what we really do in private
or you know to the poor or to women or whatever
but you know this public morality. And then,
of course, coming into the first part of the
20th century, and then Disney took them and polished
them even further. We've stepped away from a
lot of those things. And when I tell stories
to children, if they are gruesome or horrible,
it's usually the adults who are looking at their
child, and looking at me, and looking at the
child, and looking at me. Whereas the child is
just quite happily sitting there. And it's like
the cartoon violence. It's not real. um understand
what's happening and yes there are moralities
and there are lessons but it is that point when
if we can face the darkness in our imagination
that helps us to deal with the darkness in our
real life should we encounter any um otherwise
we've got nothing to call on we've got no no
examples no points of reference to do that with
researching some stories for a show I'm going
to be doing in a couple of weeks with my big
sister, especially on the 18th of May, online
or watch later, if you want to. And it's called
Tales from the Haunted Bakery. And it should
be a nice sort of slightly kind of funny, dark
sort of dark fairy tales, sort of light horror
sort of thing with quite a lot of comedy in it.
But I came across, I was looking for stories
and I came across a Grimm's collected fairy tale
that was in the first edition of their collection,
but didn't make it to any of the others. And
it's called something like The Two Brothers Who
Played at Slaughter. And in the story, two brothers
see a butcher slaughtering a pig and they decided
that they will have a go at this. And there are
a few different versions, but basically one is
the butcher and one is the pig. And the mother
looks out of the window as she's bathing the
baby and sees one of the boys cutting the throat
of the other one. And so she immediately rushes
down to try and stop this. It's too late, he's
cut his brother's throat. And so she hangs her
other son, hangs him, the other boy for cutting
his brother's throat, only of course then to
realize that the baby left back in the house
has drowned in the bathwater. Yeah, that's basically
the story. But this is a folktale, a fairy tale.
And it hasn't made it past the first edition,
because obviously it's far too gruesome. And
to be honest, it's not much of a story beyond
the, if you happen to see your children slitting
each other's throats, make sure you don't leave
the baby in the bath when you go to hang the
other one. But that's a particularly gruesome
version. Some of the fairy tales, Charles Perot
who wrote or collected Red Riding Hood and Cinderella
and Sleeping Beauty. At the end of... to leaping
beauty. The bit where she marries the prince
is only half the story. She stays in the castle
as a sort of secret wife until eventually his
father dies. He becomes king. His wife and two
children go and join them. But his mother is
an ogre. And so when he goes off to war, he has
to hide his wife and children because she wants
to eat them. She then finds them and then instructs
a servant. to kill one of the children and to
cook it. He, of course, does. He hides the child
and cooks some venison instead. And goes to the
second one. And then she thinks she's eaten both
children and what was Sleeping Beauty, only to
discover them, of course, as they're arguing
one day. And she's about to lower them into a
cauldron full of poisonous snakes and toads and,
sorry, venomous snakes and toads and whatnot.
When the prince turns up, sees it's his mother,
she's horrified at being caught out and jumps
into the cauldron killing herself with venomous
snakes and toads. And then, and only then, does
the prince, sleeping beauty and their two children
live happily ever after. But, you know, that's
been totally... Wow. Yeah, yeah, you don't see
that one in Disney. No, even I don't. I mean,
I've got a four -year -old, well, four and a
half year old now going on 13 with the level
of sass and attitude I got this morning. Very
good. And I remember kind of like her Harrymore
from the Tooth Fairy for giving up her dummies
two years plus ago was a nice collection of fairy
tales. And it was only upon reading them to Naomi
that kind of like a lot of the bad guys were
either witches. or evil setmothers, there's not
many bad men, there's always princes or nice
kings, but yeah it's interesting because I've
certainly been doubling myself, oh I might say
doubling, I've been reading some Norse folk tales,
I don't know if I've come across this book before.
I know it, I've not read it, I've seen it but
I've not read it, yes. It's interesting, it's
certainly interesting, it fairies and pixies
and elves and gnomes and dwarves and it has,
it makes me think that yes it's reminiscent of
English folklore and fairy tales but it's very
distinctly different. I mean the last story I
read was called Prince Lindworm which was, it
was strangely reminiscent of Rapunzel in that
the Queen had to eat some flowers in order to
have a baby because she wasn't conceiving naturally
for whatever reason. Yes. and she meets an old
hag as you do in the woods and the old hag says
you eat this one for a girl this one for a boy
but don't eat two and she of course picks one
after a lot of thought and decides it's quite
tasty she might as well eat the other one yeah
as you do um and so nine months went by she gives
birth first to the lindenworm but he slithers
out so quick and out of the room and beyond that
no one sees him apart from the mum so she thinks
she's just hallucinating in the midst of childbirth
and produced the second son yeah but then when
the second son wants to get married they keep
finding that the Lindworm who's a lot bigger
now keeps blocking off all the roads preventing
him going to see any princess goes no I'm the
first born you need to find a wife for me and
the king's like oh all right then um I'll write
to this far off land they'll send me their daughter
if I don't tell them it's a Lindworm she'll come
they don't she comes they'll probably never notice
yeah I know, she discovers him at the wedding,
doesn't flee, she goes through with it and the
Lindwurm eats her. And then this keeps happening
and eventually all the other kings say, no, we're
not sending you our daughters now because I've
heard so -and -so's daughter never came back
and so -and -so's daughter never came back. So
the king is bereft, he goes to a goat's herd
and says, look, I will give you all the wealth
I have in my kingdom if your daughter will just
go and marry this Lindwurm so it will just leave
us alone so we can get my son a nice wife. The
daughter, of course, gets bereft, or about her
fate to be because her father is lured and pressured
by the king and she meets the same hag in the
woods and he goes oh I can solve your problem
for you too. She tells her to wear 10 shifts
like snake skins for the n -worm so on their
wedding night she goes through with it so the
n -worm says will you get into bed and he goes
I'll get into bed if you shed one of your skins
and so they do and so they keep going through
the cycle of shedding skins together and then
when he's basically stripped bare she has to
thrash him with a whip and then bathe him in
milk and then she can cuddle him in bed and then
the next day he's a beautiful prince and then
she's happy because she's got two prints and
she can have all the wealth and she's now a princess
and everyone's happy and thought that's really
rather gruesome actually kind of like honestly
having to shed the skin and then thrash a giant
lynn worm. It's not like they're ever going to
get better it's kind of like oh okay basically
I've changed now I've stopped my matricidal cannibalistic
ways um is it matricide is that right yeah i
don't know i'm rubbish with words between killings
and mothers i think what what spouse i call them
the spouses but yes um but yeah obviously i've
stopped i've stopped eating my wives now and
uh uh yeah okay all right we'll we'll be happy
but again this yeah there's a number that's like
the Arabian Nights, the Sultan who marries and
then after the wedding night kills his wife in
the morning every day. And it's only Scheherazade
who says, well, let me tell you a story. And
he says, oh, I want to know the ending of that.
Well, I'll tell you tomorrow. And she's spinning
it out for 1 ,001 nights every night. And eventually
he goes, all right, I won't murder you then.
I'll keep you. Oh, how lovely. yeah there's a
lot of those things you mentioned earlier by
the way about stepmothers in a lot of the earlier
recordings of fairy tales it's not stepmothers
it's just mothers what makes it even worse but
then i think yes it kind of got cleaned up and
we can't possibly say that mothers do this mothers
would never do that step stepmother there we
go wicked stepmother so before that yeah it's
it's women basically women There is certainly
an issue of what some academics have called kind
of like the male gaze and kind of like stories
being decided and determined by men. I mean I
think this is one thing I've certainly learnt
in my research on Valkyrie is that some scholars
have a big chip on the shoulder of Tim with story
stills and because he's the most famous one of
all for writing down these Norse myths but he
was a Christian and he was a man and he chose
what he chose he didn't write all of them down
by any means he selected it was a compilation
article collection and it was of a purpose because
he was writing as a book to give to a certain
prints I think to help him learn the ways of
being king and connect with his heritage so it
had that whole agenda behind it yeah. It was
certainly that's what made me interesting when
kind of like of course Disney slash Marvel decided
to retail. the the Snow White's evil queen with
some kind of backstory to help justify her evilness.
I've not brought myself to see it. No, nor have
I. I just saw a lot of people going, woke, woke,
woke, woke, and I just didn't know. Again, in
Snow White, it's become, Disney cleaned it up
to this idea of, you know, the prince coming
along and finding her and falling in love with
her and then seeing her dead in the coffin and
giving her a magic kiss to bring her back to
life. In some of the earlier versions, the evil
queen is her mother and who is jealous of her
daughter's beauty and poisons her with the apple,
which gets lodged in her throat and she dies.
The dwarves put her in a crystal coffin and they're
determined to look after her because she was
wonderful and lived with them and looked after
them. A prince turns up, sees a beautiful corpse
in a glass coffin and thinks, oh, I'd like that.
And then he says, can I have it? And they say,
no, no, no, no, we're the caretakers of this.
You can't possibly have it. He says, what about
a lot of money? And they go, OK, you can have
it. And he takes the glass coffin. And it's only
when, on the way back to his homeland, the cart
bumps or breaks, and the coffin falls off, and
the lid slides off, that he then thinks, do you
know what? I think I'll just kiss this corpse
because it's a very beautiful corpse. purely
incidental, or he doesn't know that she's going
to wake up. So it's just a prince kissing the
dead body of a beautiful young woman. And then
she wakes up, coughs out the bit of poison apple.
Then he says, oh, how lovely, you're alive. That's
a bonus. quite clear, quite happy when she was
dead. Will you marry me? Yes, I'd love to marry
you. Let's get married. Well, we should invite
everybody. Why don't we invite my mother, stepmother,
and they do, and she comes along to the wedding
party and then is put in red hot iron shoes and
they watch as she dances herself to death. Yeah,
that's not in my daughter's story. The choking
apple, well, the apple choking bit is, which
is what my daughter picked up. She goes, that
doesn't happen in the film though, does it, mama?
No, she doesn't choke. She swallows the apple,
darling, and it's the spell that puts her to
sleep. But yeah, when you think about it so starkly
as an adult, yeah, he's just walking around and
then kissing a beautiful woman dead or alive,
which doesn't make him happy at all. That's right.
Yeah, she seems to be quite well -preserved.
Why not? I'll have a snog with a corpse, as in
along with that. Here's a large amount of money
for me to take that corpse off your hand. And
the doors go, yeah, right, go on then. And yeah,
so it's very weird. I think one of the things
about stories and the more magical they get is
sometimes things are just bizarre in the stories
and it just helps to plot along and sometimes
you have to sort of let go of the don't pull
at the thread, don't kind of go why did the prince
want a dead woman and why is he kissing a dead
woman in the knowledge that she's dead, not that
there's a magic spell that will wake her. but
that she's just, don't pull at that, don't pull
at that thread. There is an element of, I just
have to accept this as the story goes on and
it's helping the story move from place to place.
And again, quite possibly because the original
storytellers, the original, the bards, the writers,
the chroniclers, even though it was, you know,
mouth to ear to mouth to ear, would have kind
of gone, how do I get from here to there? So
we'll just do that. uh and yeah and everyone's
yeah okay we'll just we'll just accept that we
will suspend our disbelief and our criticisms
and just go with all right that happened we've
got to the next part of the story. Well, I think
you and possibly some of our viewers and listeners
might appreciate this book if they just like
some short stories that are very different to
English folk and fairy tales. It's Viking Folk
and Fairy Tales from Flame Tree Press, their
fables, folklore and ancient stories. I got this
in Norway last year. Lovely. It's certainly interesting.
I'm only kind of like even a third of the way
through it because there's lots of stories. There's
one so far that I've come across that matches
kind of like with the pantheon of characters
from the mythology, but the rest have all been
very much about princes or kings or princesses
and trolls and ogres and all sorts of wicked
dealings and curses of three or breaking things.
It's interesting, but I wonder if you've ever
come across the Cursed Sword of Tiefing Tale.
It's a wonderful tale. I haven't actually got
like a book version of it, but I know it must
be written down somewhere. Because our previous
guests on the Legends of Yorvik mini -series,
the Timetel Theatre did a wonderful dramatisation
of that as the finale show for the Yorvik. festival
this year and it's all about a king who finds
some dwarves prevents them from going home says
you want to make me a brilliant sword so that
can kill anyone and anything and it must be gold
and have a ruby in the hilt lovely okay okay
we'll go do it and they secretly do it but put
curses into it that it will that it must always
taste blood when it's unsheathed and it will
do three evil deeds in its lifetime and there's
a wonderful female shieldmaiden character in
the entire arc because it travels through generation
after generation this sword and into all sorts
of hands of families causing all sorts of tragedy
trauma and mischief and lots of bloodshed as
part of the curse but it's full of draugr and
spells and curses and brother betraying brother
or that kind of thing and there is actually one
element that features a bit of kind of a storytelling
within the story in that one prince well one
guy who then becomes a king once he gets the
sword decides to dispense justice by way of people
proving their innocence and this one guy had
done something so horribly wrong he had to prove
his innocence but he couldn't work out how so
he prayed to Odin for a miracle and Odin said
all right I'll go in your stead. I'll prove my
innocence by giving you a riddle you cannot solve,
dear king." And he gives him riddle after riddle.
The king proves clever and answers some of them.
And then, of course, Odin does what Odin does,
which is a bit of a show off, which is say, what
does Odin whisper into his dead son Baldr's ear
on his funeral pyre? And the king thinks long
and hard. He goes, aha! Only Odin knows that,
which means you're Odin. And then he curses him
again over, because he tried to then kill Odin
in the attack of Revelation. What's that story
called again? What's it called again? The cursed
sword tear thing. Cursed sword tear thing. It's
definitely an Old Norse saga somewhere, definitely
an Old Norse story and it was beautifully adapted.
I've only come across it in one element that
deals with a shield maiden, Hervor, who discovers
that she is a shield maiden by birth because
she was a a slave labor work begin with because
her dad got cursed and killed by the sword originally
so she goes right i'm going to claim my heritage
she goes into his burial mound and touches the
sword he rises up all and says no don't take
the sword dear daughter it'll bring bloodshed
and horror she goes no i'm going to do my heritage
do you proud daddy and i'm going to go off with
this so and and of course things happen to her
later family later on that of course the result
of her taking the sword um but I came across
her character because I read a book about the
forgotten history of Worry Women by Nancy Marie
Brown called The Real Valkyrie, and she uses
her as a kind of a narrative figure to explore
all this evidence that she finds of Worry Women
in North Society up and down, kind of like the
Nipah and Burka and that journey towards Constantinople.
But there was much more to the story that I did
not know, so it was wonderfully told. And you
can actually go watch it all on YouTube, Jason.
And they recorded it all. And it's on the YouTube
channel. I will put the link in the below. And
I'll email it to you, Jason. Yeah, fantastic.
Great. Yeah, that sounds great. It reminds me
also of a lot of those thinking about the sword.
It reminds me of lots of the cursed sword idea.
And particularly, I don't know if he writes so
much now, but certainly during the 60s and 70s,
an author called Michael Moorcock. who wrote
prolifically. He was one of those guys who was
sort of the editor of Tarzan comic magazine when
he was, I don't know, five years old, he was
very young anyway, and then was constantly churning
stuff out. And then he wrote lots of stuff. I
think... I think certain enhancements were used
during his writing process, shall we say, to
encourage his imagination. But it was the 60s
and the 70s. But there is, and in it, there's
a lot of stuff to do with law and chaos. Those
are two big sort of things. And in fact, that
eight -pointed chaos star comes from his books
that we now kind of see everywhere, the eight
-pointed chaos star. And a lot of it. is characters
and people overlapping this idea of the eternal
champion and so in lots of different planes and
lots of different times there's this person and
they are all aspects of the same thing and there's
one particular one called Elric and he is uh
they're called Melniboneans in the stories, but
basically they're like dark elves. They are beautiful,
but wicked and evil, and there's only this last
little island left of them. And once upon a time,
they rode dragons through the skies. George R
.R. Martin, where did you get that from? They
rode dragons through the skies, and they dealt
with the gods of chaos, and now they just sort
of devolved into a sort of... indulgent, decadent
society. But one of them, one of their emperors,
Elric is born albino and with a blood deficiency
that means he's very weak and he has to be taking
potions to keep him enough energy and everybody
thinks he's not really right for emperor because
he's not strong enough. And then eventually he
summons the great chaos god that gives him a
sword called Stormbringer. And Stormbringer,
every time it is unsheathed, it wants to taste
blood. If it cuts or kills, then it drains the
life force and passes some of that on to Elric.
And of course, what starts off as a wonderful
sword in battle, oh, suddenly I'm terribly strong
and even wearing Stormbringer by my side gives
me strength, means that at some point it will
leap into his hand. and kill because it is thirsty
and of course it kills friends and relatives
and lovers and it all goes horribly wrong and
yes at some point he gets involved in a battle
where the more he kills the more energy he has
and the more energy he has the more he can kill
and so it becomes this impossible killing machine
but it is this this double -edged sword I was
going to say, the curse of the swords where it
gives you great power but at the same time it
has its own agendas or its own life or its own
curses or its own direction and you are not the
master of that magical weapon. You are given
privileges and gifts by it but it is in control
of you ultimately and chooses where and when
to act to properly plop on your life. yeah cursed
objects yeah that's a whole other yeah I mean
that's making me think obviously back to the
star of the balsam and the ring of the nibblungs
with the ring of Fafnir's Hoard the cursed ring
which I'm actually going to go see the second
opera of on Wednesday night this week All 16
hours of it or just a kind of part of it? Well
it's five hours and 45 minutes is the Valkyrie
part of the cycle and of course it's the Valkyrie
which is my catnip and as I've spent months in
the Valkyrie headspace I need to honor it by
going actually seeing it see me i've written
so much about how it all started off with well
not just Wagner but primarily his overlooked
costume designer Emil Doppler who really set
the whole image of the Valkyrie up and then that's
just stuck ever since curly things and horned
helmets. The winged helmets, they're kind of
like the breasts, female breast plates, the spears,
the shields, the flowing cloaks. I mean the winged
helmets is the one motif that's really stuck
with them, just like the horned helmets are really
stuck with the Vikings and again it was just
a costume design, it was a piece at that time,
just romanticisation. I do have the things to
agree, ladies and gents, I just can't speak it
at all. Romanticisation. I can't say it either.
Yeah, they've made it romantic. Romanticised.
Because of course, in some of the sagas, like
there's Nyal's saga, which is about a man either
traveling to or going from a battling clan taff
in Ireland and he finds a cottage and he sees
three women and riders ride into that cottage
and then stop and they go in and he peeks in
and they're definitely Valkyries because they're
weaving on a loom made of men's guts and weighted
with men's skulls and the shuttle is like a spearhead
or a saw blade and they're saying oh we're going
to take that one and this one and this is all
going to happen the battle of clan taff and then
they decide what they're going to do with it
and then they ride off with it and go to that
battle and do their choosing. And that is such
a really dark, gritty, gruesome, dirty depiction
of Valkyries compared to how people imagine them
as stupid. Exactly, kind of like large breasted
women, flowing hair, beautiful, kind of like
no sign of blood or grim or dirt on them at all.
Which is why I'm slightly excited to see this.
latest iteration of the cycle especially the
Valkyrie because I've seen some preview shots
coming up through kind of like from previews
and reviewers. and it is kind of like in a present
-day type setting so there's no there's no winged
helmet or anything there's in fact no armor but
they are definitely not clean they look like
they've been through a wildfire because that's
the kind of setting of the battle is like a wildfire
burnt landscape so they're collecting ashes more
than actual bodies which is that's what i've
heard so hopefully i might put together a little
review on that once i've been the scene and lived
through all five hours and thought five minutes
of it. They are streaming it, thankfully, the
Royal British Opera to lots of cinemas around
up and down the country. So as long as you can
afford a cinema ticket, you can go and see it
without having to travel all the way down to
the Royal British Opera House, which I can't
afford to, so. No, quite. But there is, I think,
you're right, there is that romantic, I want
to get that word out now, romantic. There is
a kind of a... There's that, it's that polishing
idea. We've kind of got away from the sort of,
I mean, more recently, probably the last sort
of 20 odd years, I suppose, you've kind of got
depictions of warfare, melee war, hand -to -hand
combat warfare, which are, which have moved away
from Errol Flynn. Where you're kind of saber
fencing and then, or under the arm and someone
falls over and there's a bit of tomato sauce
on the end of the sword. kind of heading towards
more and more visceral depictions of what it's
actually like and more archaeological evidence
being sort of commonly shown, you know, here's
a skull, this person must have died in battle
because you can see that their nose is missing
and in fact what we can see here was they were
hit in the face with a battle axe. Yep. not cleanly
beheaded or stuck under the arm or poked in the
chest, the person was smashed in the face with
an axe, which would have probably, which may
well have killed them instantly, or may well
have put them on their back as they slowly bled
to death, you know, these awful things, war is
awful. And it is, and of course, we say that
war is glorious. And of course, we have to tell
people we want to go, who we want to go and fight
wars at war is glorious. Because if we said You
can end up with your guts hanging out in the
desert and it will take you days to die. Nobody
really wants to hear that side of thing. And
you need that idea of a heroic culture if you
want people to stand up and go out and fight
and be prepared to die. So when you've got this,
you're talking about the Valkyries and covered
in ash and from the smoke of battle, absolutely
people to be covered in all sorts of things.
come out of people's bodies being poked out and
yeah and the and the trophies they would have
taken as well and it's not always a stab under
the arm awful things people would have done to
each other so that they would have finished that
person or made sure they survived because if
it's between the two of you and you've got to
grab hold of something and pull it off or pull
it out or bite it off or gouge it up you know
you'll do that It's something I've certainly
noticed when I first started reading historical
fiction set in the Viking Age that especially
starting off with Bernard Cornwall who is a legend
in his own right in terms of what he's done for
the Viking Age in terms of historical fiction
with his Uhtred series. They've always made it
really clear that kind of like being in the shield
wall, yes it was an honor of prize and some bravery
but it was also the worst position to be in because
you're there where all the blades are and you're
chipping over your goodies and you've got your
friends lying around you and there's arrows they
just like you are with your storytelling they
really kind of like bring it to the fore like
okay this is what's happening but because it's
in a book and it's long ago and we don't do shield
wall warfare anymore we kind of as readers we're
okay to that but I guess it's possibly why so
many people like to read crime fiction where
there are horrible murders going on and there's
like blood all over the crime scene. It's kind
of like filling in that gap almost that we have
lost from other forms of storytelling. I think
people enjoy that the thrill of danger and horror
as Christopher Lee talking about horror a little
while back talking in his very fruity voice about
saying yes because of course we can enjoy that
and understand that it is a story and we can
be part of that story and yet that story is distant
from us um uh and we can we can dip into those
things there's a slight sort of there's a voyeuristic
element to it, that we can enjoy the crime, we
can enjoy the murders, we can enjoy the brutality
of war. I find myself more and more watching
stuff when I'm watching a TV or watching a film,
and the older I get now going, ooh, response
upon a time, I would have been, yeah, hey, ooh,
and I'm still enjoying it, but I'm like, oh dear,
oh no, oh no. Watching some awful wound being
inflicted on someone. um and maybe it is that
we're you know we uh this is someone's phd of
course but you know we need to understand that
as when we are younger we are much more open
and thrilled by the by the idea of of damage
warfare and wounding because those are the people
we need to get up and fight we need fighters
we need fit young people to stand up and fight
there's no point some old geezer like me standing
up and fighting then some 20 year old leaping
around like a flea zipping around me um by this
point i should have bought an enormous suit of
armor or have an army standing in front of me
you know i don't do the fighting anymore i do
the pointing uh at my age but we need the ability
of the younger people who are more willing to
engage in those things i don't know that's just
pure off the top of my head um speculation um
but it is it's one of those things being as a
as a performance storyteller telling stories
to people because you're sort of acting acting
it out and uh without hamming it up um i don't
know if you've ever seen the very early buffy
the vampire slayer film with donald southerlanders
the big evil vampire there's a great vampire
death scene that goes on for about five or ten
minutes with the vampires going oh ah, ee, oh,
hoo, um, oh. And it goes through lots of our
actions. It cuts back to the beginning. You still
go, oh, hoo, ah. But without having it up and
making it ridiculous, there are things that you're
describing to people. And because people are
sitting down and listening to stories and listening
to someone talking to them, if it's someone who
has managed to capture the audience, and there
are a lot of or storytellers who are very good
at remembering stories, but not very good at
telling them and engaging people to different
but related parts. Then by that point, people
are willing to collude with you. and listen to
what you say and just take it on board. Because
they have gone, brilliant, this is a story. I'm
not being convinced to do anything. I'm not at
personal risk. So I can open up my mind and allow
myself to become suggestible in this space, in
this theatrical space and time. But those are
the bits where you can talk about somebody dying
or being wounded. And you can watch the audience
going. Just without, they probably don't know
they're doing it. You know, that the face of
the, you know, empathizing with the character
who's being wounded or whatever, or either that
or yes, you know, and people you would perhaps
normally think wouldn't have gone, go on, yeah,
go on. You can see people really nodding and
becoming, you know, part of the, the, the sort
of the, the narrative experience. I suppose it's
a bit like I often sort of. think sometimes when
I'm telling stories and if I'm talking and I
do this and I start nodding and like you're doing
now you're nodding back because I'm not yeah
you're mirroring me because we're chatting but
when I do it with an audience and I can see people
doing it and I think if I were a stage hypnotist
I'd pick you you you and you um those are the
people who really you know they're listening
they're in they're suggestible they're properly
deeply in there and whether they're particularly
suggestible or whether they have allowed themselves
to open up you know uh given themselves permission
to do that um but it changes the kind of the
psychological uh experience um and i often hear
when people come out of storytelling shows for
start they kind of say i didn't know what to
expect well i thought it was going to be a talk
um and um uh so i could see i could see all the
pictures i could see you know and they could
see that I suggest the pictures to people. And
so long as I don't conflict with what they're
thinking or what their references are, if I were
able to see the projections, you know, out of
someone's forehead style, I would see slightly
different pictures from everybody, but similar
things and people bringing in their own references
to. colour in the edges and supply the details
for things because it's the audience that actually
produces the pictures that a storyteller describes.
If someone invented a machine that could project
our imaginations, I'd worry for you as a profession
because it's almost like our best kept secret.
It's like no one can use our imagination, it's
only us. yeah certainly why i'm interested in
a new game that's come out called split fiction
which is about a sci -fi universe hijacking well
not hijacking it's capturing the imaginations
from writers in some kind of virtual reality
bubble and then making it into a virtual world
so have a virtual story sort of a readable story
yeah but these two things excuse me Two characters
get crossed up, so then they each experience
their own stories. It's a co -op player. It looks
really fun. It's got some great reviews. One's
selling a fantasy, one's selling a sci -fi, and
they're both very distinctly different characters,
but they've all got their own messages and issues
hidden behind their own stories. I want to play
it. I just need someone to play it with. And
hi, I need time to play it as well. Is that a
computer game or a board game? A computer game
called Split Fiction. It's on Steam. I think
it's also on the console and it also works on
cross -platform. So if you had a console and
I have my gaming laptop, you could still play
it, provided one of us had the friends pass that
enables the other one to show up. But yeah, it
looks really good and I like how the actual...
imagination part and the storytelling part has
been explored in the very visual sense and through
a co -op game of all things. Because of course
games themselves are stories we just have to
play complete levels through. But in terms of
retelling stories it's also made me think of
the Netflix film Damsel. I don't know if you've
ever seen it? No. That's a really interesting
take on A, the damsel of being a maiden, but
also an issue of the king and queen having a
problem with the dragon and having to send princesses
off to the dragon. But then the princess learns
why the dragon is the way she is, because it's
not a he dragon, it's a she dragon. And there's
this whole kind of issue of revenge, both from
the human side and the dragon side. And it's
a nice twist at the end, I think. And that sees
both the princess and the dragon get their rightful.
ending I suppose. It's not quite fairy tale but
it certainly it's dark in places because the
character who played, well the woman who plays
there is the woman who plays Eleven in Stranger
Things. Yes, yes she does really well, I mean
she's also in like the Sherlock. home spin -off,
which I never actually got to see either. But
she does really well in that because a lot of
it's basically, she's almost like a fantasy version
of Lara Croft in that she's shoved into a place
where she's got to survive by her own wit and
will and cunning and cleverness. And it turns
out she's not too bad as a survivalist. But yeah,
it was really, really interesting how that came
out. So I do recommend people, if they want to
explore how people are trying to retell these
tales and almost like different points of view,
which is the other thing about story telling
is just different points of view. All of it is
just different points of view. So yeah, I really
like that one because I love dragons. Damsel,
lovely. Damsel. And I like Millie Bobby Brown
as well. I like certainly Millie Bobby Brown
as well. Very satisfying name to say. Millie
Bobby Brown. In terms of you just talked about
different perspectives and different viewpoints,
is one of the things that I sometimes come across
in the performance storytelling world is that
people sort of saying well that's not that's
not that's not the story or why are you telling
that or how why did you say that what did you
do that with the story or um this story is it
one of yours is it a new one so it's not a it's
not a not an old story and it's kind of like
this in some quarters or some people of course
people are people and some people are great idiots
wherever you go um but there is I think with
some people, there's a difficulty of separating
the difference between curating folklore and
stories and myth and legend, which is one thing.
Yes, we must record these things. But also the
idea that stories didn't stop. There wasn't a
point when someone said, all right, we've finished.
Brothers Grimm are dead, are they? Right. Well,
that's canon. And so I think some people find
it difficult to to or challenging when you take
a story and you either change it or adapt it
or completely rethink it. In June this year I'm
going to be collaborating with a storyteller
called Dave Tong who's a brilliant bloke, he
does loads of medieval Tudor tales and his background,
he went back to academia as an adult. um uh and
uh partly through his story and he does lots
of you know he got all the kind of the kit and
the costume and had to go to the college of heralds
uh in london for them to sign off that it was
the right stuff and things and apparently he
walked yeah he said he walked into this room
and you know he had all the bits and pieces and
there with him and he's ready for this interview
and to tell people that and the guy went yeah
that was good anti -climax But he and I are doing
a version of the Canterbury Tales, so medieval
English stories. And because there's certainly,
the reference is there, it's a bunch of people
talking and talking about their own experiences.
And whilst people are millers or summoners, things
that don't exist or aren't trades that we would
easily recognise these days, knights, someone
whose trade is a knight. The stories are just
of of ordinary people and and they're funny as
well they've got loads of bum jokes and it's
absolutely full of bum jokes and people don't
kind of think well it's always medieval stuff
it'll all be holier than thou no there's just
loads of bum and fart jokes in it so we our show
is called uh pound of retails reshod piety pokers
and posteriors um and uh we've had sort of you
know put a little kind of um you know warning
in there that it's not yes yes this is culture
yes this is high culture reinterpretation of
medieval literature with plenty of bum jokes
in it because that's what Chaucer put in there
because people then found them funny and people
find them funny today it's the same absolutely
yeah i mean there is there is humor i think probably
of a different kind found within the Norse mythology
stories. I mean my favourite of course has to
be Delay of Thrym when Thor has to go in bridal
gown to get his hammer back and look in disguises
per themself because they can change gender as
well as the bridal maid and of course there's
other ones. I've talked about a number of weddings
because I'm also a celebrant and so I do funerals
and I do weddings and so when people ask for
a wedding story most still a lot of wedding stories
in general sort of myth are awful because it's
usually someone dies horribly at the end of it
or they've been coerced into it because that's
the point of the story rather than two people
met they fell in love and they got married and
it was all perfectly normal and uninteresting
whereas yeah that story is great it's great to
tell and there's lots of there's a lot of humor
in there and it's a lovely one to tell And, of
course, the ridiculous of Thrin, the giant, not
seeing Thor, who's an enormous thunder god, and
isn't just what's his name, the terribly handsome
Australian guy from Marvel with the hair and
the beard. Supposed to be huge and dressed as,
and it suddenly becomes a sort of slightly 1970s
carry on thing of this enormous thunder god.
uh and of course it's well known that as soon
as you place a veil over a man's head then he
becomes completely indistinguishable uh his gender
and through just not getting it to the point
where he lifts up the veil and tries to kiss
Thor, misses the enormous red bushy beard, red
hair, and says, her eyes, her eyes are all glowing
like coals. And Loki, who again is, he's swapped
into this ambiguous gendered person who then
becomes a young woman, a bridesmaid, who says,
you know, well, she's been crying with excitement,
and that's why her eyes are raw. A very plausible
explanation. Let's move on, yeah. But also, just
to that point, there's a big, with the kind of
the co -opting of Norse mythology by very right
-wing groups. And again, like a lot of things
that people with... very fixed ideologies, have
cherry -picked things. And just because Thor
and Odin are blokes most of the time, not all
the time, but most of the time they're blokes
and they're warriors and they're big and tough
and they're like, right, so that's what men must
mean. And Loki, what about Loki? Because sometimes
he's a woman, sometimes he's a horse, sometimes
he's a fly, sometimes he does this. And yes,
Freya, she's a goddess of love and magic and
war and death. And yes, she sleeps with, simultaneously,
a number of dwarves. And I have a storytelling
colleague called Amy Douglas, who does a lovely
retelling of that. And it's all about, it's,
you know, from Freya's perspective, rather than,
isn't she a bit slutty? And how warped is the
necklace? It's, to quote her final words to the
story, sometimes all a goddess needs is a good
worshipping. And, you know, it's a very sexy
version of the story, which Freya is tie upon
her, you know, her terms, even though the dwarves
are saying, you know, that we've got plenty of,
we've got plenty of jewels, we don't want that.
What we want is some time with you. It's a perfectly
sort of consensual and mutually enjoyable experience
for all of them. Because she's goddess of love.
So she can do that sort of thing. She can do
what she likes with that. She's not the goddess
of monogamy. No. I mean Odin sleeps around a
lot so it's yeah I mean I don't know how Frank
puts up with him personally. Yeah oh absolutely
yeah and it's and he never sort of really I mean
Zeus keeps getting in Greek mythology Zeus often
gets told off or his or his lovers or their children
are often cursed or what not but Odin seems to
get away with it a bit more. what happens in
Jotunheim stays in Jotunheim kind of theory.
But yeah, you're absolutely right. These are
people jumping in and out of bed with each other,
changing gender, changing species, doing all
sorts of wonderful magical things. You can't
pin them down with a narrow ideology to say it
is this and this alone and is a fixed way. If
you want to do that, then the only way to make
it fixed is to say they are all changeable and
do what they wish to do. Yeah, I mean they must,
some part of ancient society must have reflected
these parts to then be interposed on these gods
and goddessing characters. I certainly, there's
a guy who's just set up his own Viking lore and
legend podcast. He's mainly active on threads
so I think he's active on other platforms. His
is more kind of a narrative spelling of his interpretation
and standing of different elements of history
and thankfully it's not too far to the right
and it's not quite based on signers but it's
it always interesting to hear people how people
relate and understand different things yeah and
i know i was talking to him and he goes well
what's your opinion on fray and i said well fray
is awesome she's always overlooked she takes
half the debt it's not all though she takes half
the day it's best choice oh my gosh i did not
know so yes people do not know Freya takes half
the dead yeah i mean that's why i loved your
story so much especially because it really honoured
the fact that families might want to go to folk
van they might not want to go to Valhalla i mean
where do the children go when they die do they
get recruited and booted up to own heart i can
never say that word own heart nope the worthy
dead basically you see how i struggle with illness
i can't even say that word um kind of thing and
of course But yes, I really get that. I really
get that. But a lot, as you kind of mentioned
earlier about Snorri Sturluson, a lot of the
Norse mythology has come down to us through a
Christianization of stuff. And of course, without
putting any sort of pejorative spin on it, the
Abrahamic religions, that's Islam, Christianity,
and Judaism, are all from a patriarchal deity,
an omnipotent patriarchal deity. And there are
books of law for each different version of the
religion that you may or may not subscribe to.
And then, of course, all the other off -splits
that people have created since then. So when
somebody says, yes, this is Odin, you can kind
of think of him a bit like God, if you want.
And then you can think of so. And maybe they're
a bit like somebody or other. You know, you get
this synchronisation. Of course, that happened
in the pagan heathen world of Western Europe,
where people came in and went, no, you've got
to get rid of that. Why? You've just got this
one god and he's dead and his son arrived and
he's dead. Oh, but he rose from the dead. Oh,
well, like Balder. Yes, if you like, just like
Balder. And then syncretizing saints with goddesses,
you know, you've got... Brite or Bridget in Ireland
and Saint Bridget and the combination those are
the Celtic gods and all those because it works
diplomatically when you're trying to convert
an entire population from the culture that they
have only ever known and see as their culture
to something entirely new when you're sort of
saying yeah we've got this off spin of a Jewish
subcult from the Middle East that doesn't sell
quite as well. as saying, well, no, it's about
eternal life, and there's a thing here, and all,
do you know what, your bits in your feast days
are very similar, they're kind of the same. Maybe
this is just a refreshed version. And so, you
know, all the, and the Christianized, or the
Christian copying down a recording, or the copying
down a recording of Christian, by Christians,
of the Norse myths, even if they, were trying
to be as objective as possible. It would be very
difficult for them not to add when you have a
number of different sources or a number of different
versions to pick one that you have a natural
affinity towards. And I think you've kind of
read some other versions of myths written down
by other monks who are not snorri, and some of
them feel very Christianized, which of course
is what would have happened to them. It wouldn't
be what they originally would have been, but
it was what gradually would and has happened
to them. which is why you have people who now
sort of co -opt things and they'll go this fits
my ideology because it's like that without understanding
the bigger world and the more elastic world and
how people used and shaped and bent stories to
their needs and to the cultures and to the people
and a lot of the time storytellers would have
gone what will go down well in front of these
people? well in front of this nobleman or king
or yarl or whatever he'll pay more if i say something
brilliant about whatever um so i'll do that and
i'll keep my head and i might get you know so
these aren't true and accurate representation
representations they're filtered through human
experience and culture uh and just the individual
storyteller going oh i've got a good idea let's
do that here because that's what we yeah that's
a very very good point of course as well as performed
to the royalty and the powers that be, not just
the common folk. Of course there's loads of praise
poems, Cnut, King Canute, bless him, had loads
of good praise poems written by other people.
There was of course the famous poet Eagle Scallows
Crimson, who was the famous enemy of Eric Bloodaxe
and his wife Ben Hilda, the witch queen kind
of thing, and he wrote a poem that saved his
head. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, you would. If you
can either die, you can say something favorable.
Well, my Lord, let me tell you about a heroic
thing that's just like you. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Of course, people do that. Yeah, again, there's
a romanticization. Was that it? Romanticization?
That was it. I think you said it correctly, right?
It just popped out accidentally there. Yeah,
there we go. I wasn't looking at it, and there
it was. Of how storytellers, bards, skulls, all
the kind of the storytelling, wandering storytellers,
jobbing storytellers, And it's this idea of sitting
around a campfire somewhere and telling people
the truth, the ancient legends, or sitting at
the end of a long table in an inn with people
quietly sitting there with their pints and their
pipes. And of course, those are instances and
how people do it. It's the equivalent of me turning
up to a pub theater today. The only difference
is now because it's a less heard of. a less familiar
type of art then you know people come along and
they buy their drinks and they all sit down quietly
and look at me because that's what you do in
a theatre and they all sit politely for a while
and they clap in the middle bit and then they
come back after a wee and a drink and they sit
down and they watch again and they clap in the
end bit you know and I'm sure some people just
don't get it or don't like it it's just not their
thing you know and other people really love it,
because it's, you know, that we all do. But that
romanticization, and it doesn't feel right now,
I think I said it right the first time, that
somehow everyone would sit down, it would be
the same experience for everyone, and it would
be the same stories told over and over again.
No, you had good storytellers, bad storytellers,
well -known stories, little -known stories, stories
they made up on the spur of the moment, something
that changed, something that in the room inspired
them and meant they changed the story, audiences
who were half -cut three sheets of the wind on
their ale, some who were nice and jubilant, all
those different things come together to mean
that the stories, and by that I also mean the
myths and legends of people, religions and cultures,
all the years, the stuff that we have written
down now is just what the last person wrote down.
And that has to go down. And then everyone went
and said, well, because that's written down there,
that must be the real one, and we'll go with
that. I know I've made a series of little short
shorts as YouTube calls them because Instagram
calls them real so they can't call them that
so YouTube calls them shorts showcasing a couple
of my Viking -y books including some nice illustrated
editions of Norse myths and I know one of the
most popular ones is my Neil Gaiman's one with
art by Levi Pinfold and I had a comment just
yesterday saying hi is this the same story as
as Neil Gaiman's has, because I've read his paperback,
hairback version of his retelling of Norse mythology.
Yes, it is the same stories. I don't think all
of them are there. And then the same person commented
on another book, which I've got by Kevin Cossie
Holland, which is his illustrated version. It's
done with liner print. It's gorgeous. I must
confess I've not read it yet. I've had it for
a very long time. It's signed, but I've not read
it yet. And they said, are these the same stories
that Neil Gaiman tells of? And I'm like, yes
and no. Any book on Norse mythology is always
the retelling. and I had to say these stories
are written 200 years after christianization
and the characters will be there but their story
arcs might be slightly different they might have
different features different hair colors kind
of thing I know I was speaking in the last episode
to Katie Smith an illustrator from Your Carchaeology
and she made the one and only your Victoc Trump
card set and she's depicted Loki as blonde which
I actually find really refreshing because so
often he's depicted as a red head just to stand
out differently from a usually blonde Thor or
a brown Thor or sometimes he's red but I've always
seen Loki as red I've never seen him blonde anywhere
else and I thought that was really nice to see.
So it's just really interesting to see how some
people do as you say think across one book they
think that that's it that's all I need to read
so this other book is exactly the same. they're
not but it's that beautiful difference that variation
that helps these stories keep living so well
and of course through your beautiful skill of
a storyteller they go even further yeah it's
very much that um and i think um uh it's the
idea of um things like when we have things like
the bible we have a thing there that i sure not
a lot of people a little rather I'm saddened
to see more and more people sort of think that
these were the words that Jesus and the apostles
wrote down, as opposed, again, to sort of saying,
no, no, no, these were written down hundreds
of years after the event, and not by the people
who originally said them or spoke them, but by
people who had been told by ear to mouth and
ear to mouth and ear to mouth and ear to mouth
over those hundreds of years, and then they were
written down. and then they were edited by the
Romans. And then, but because it's in a book
and people refer to things like the Bible or
the Torah or the Quran, people say, well, that
must be the word, the literal word of people.
Whereas I think it is unhealthy to think about
that because then it becomes law and reality.
And the same with, yeah, the Norse. Because Snorri
Sturluson wrote down a thing of all, we've got
one record of it. Yeah, this is what happened.
But I think that's just people's lack of experience
and understanding with that there are many different
sources for cultural items. What we do is, and
what we do as entertainers or authors or writers,
whatever, is to say, well, I'm going to write
one down and I'm going to do this. I have my
own version of the Viking story, illustrated
Viking stories as well, which is my retelling
of those. And I wouldn't say it was the right
one, but it's the copy. and the transcription
of how I tell the stories and how I, as a storyteller,
am comfortable telling those stories and how
they have been received. And I have changed the
telling of those stories over time. And the ones
I wrote down will have changed from the first
time I told those stories, which would have been
researched from a whole number of inputs. But
yet again, you kind of think, well, that's the
answer. Yeah. But it's not. We have all these
different kind of things. And it's healthy, I
think, to understand that we have these. this
cross -pollination and numerous sources for things
because then we should be able to look and understand
and analyse that information and those stories
ourselves to come across our own understanding
of meaning. Yeah, it's not always evident, as
you say, it's almost deliberately hidden that
these stories aren't taken straight from the
word of the person who first invented the story.
For example, were part of my Valkyrie research.
I was looking at different stories of Valkyries,
especially the build -up to the Saga of the Volsons,
which is my main focus. And there is an early
tale of Prince Helgi, Hunding's Bane, his second
poem, because he's got three about him. But I
was looking at the second one. And in the second
one, he finds a Valkyrie. She gets his victory
in battle, but she's betrothed to someone else.
So he goes killed at someone else. some one of
his friends betrays him and he dies and then
she dies from grief because she's like oh well
I've got no purpose to be here now as you do
yeah yeah but in the end in the edict poem itself
in the translation that I've got I think it's
in the poetic edda that's it I've got the poetic
edda by Caroline Larrington and it says in the
words of the scribe in a later story I was told
in Pagan times, which is the biggest red flag
you could find, these two characters were reincarnated.
He was known as Hafdan something and she was
known as Favars. Kara, Kara Haftan's daughter,
and she too was a Valkyrie. And I'm like, where
is that? And that was it. So they say it's known
as the Song of Kara. And I'm like, where is the
Song of Kara today? That is missing. That is
lost. That has not been chosen to put in. It's
got a little footnote. That's all we have. And
it's sad to see that there were more stories
about these female characters, Valkyries, mythical
or semi -shield maiden in roles. And that we've
just lost them. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes, it's
interesting the whole, the number of, when you
talk about, there seems to be a bit of a sort
of a crossover between Valkyries and shield maidens
and things. Yeah, in the ball songs and when
Sigurd comes across Brynhildr and, you know,
she says, you know, I'm a Valkyrie, you know,
and Odin cursed me and popped me with a sleepthorn
because I didn't, you know, I beat the side that
he wanted to win in battle. um but yet she has
a lineage and she has a parentage you know a
mortal parentage which she refers to there's
a brother um uh uh isn't that brother something
like a till of the hun or something i think so
yes but it's a strange kind of like mishmash
of history mixing with the mythological parts
i think also in that because it comes out of
scandinavia we always think oh vikings and sagas
or that's got to be norway could be sweden and
then yeah maybe iceland at a at a kind of a third
not finland that's completely different uh oh
could be denmark um but you suddenly realize
that this they're in um what's it called, Francia,
which of course is Germany. Oh, they've come
down the Rhine. And so actually it's happening
down there, not up in the wilds of Norway, not
even in Denmark. And so yeah, it is a hotspot
of all sorts of things that you come across.
But yeah, so that these, again, these sort of
supernatural characters have ill -defined boundaries.
And you can talk about the Valkyries who, yes,
who ride down from the skies and collect the
souls of the glorious dead. You know, the angelic
side of them. Oh, that's a nice thing as well.
We can blend that with other religions. They're
like angels. That's it. Just think angels. Yep.
Don't get me started on where people are giving
them wings from in imagery. I don't know where
people are getting that from yet. I haven't quite
pinned it down. No, I suppose, you know, it'll
be, again, a romanticization. of something probably
from a Victorian inspired things, winged helmets
and what not, which comes from the idea of angels
having wings, whereas only a few types of angels
have wings. Some of them are absolutely bonkers,
swirling balls of light with a thousand eyes.
But we see fewer of those in the stained glass
windows because they're not as pretty as the
things that look like us. But yes, there's ill
-defined boundaries. So yes, sometimes they are
these angels. Sometimes they are the cup bearers
of Odin who wait on his table. And he would,
if he were an important person, sorry, like any
important person in the early medieval period
and before, if you're important, you have servants
and you have people who wait on you. So part
of that is just. That's the culture today. And
yes, you may well have had women wait on you,
but warrior women as well. That would be even
cooler if you are a warrior and a heroic culture.
And you have these other things between basically
someone who's a waiter, someone who's a psychopomp
escorting the souls of the dead off to shield
maidens. And they're somewhere between kind of
strange spirit woman warrior and just a woman
who's a warrior, a warrior who happens to be
a woman, which is unusual and therefore defined
as a shield maiden. I don't know, I was going
with that, but yes, lots of ill -defined values.
It's fine, it's all really, really good. I mean,
I could quite happily talk to you for ages, but
I am aware of the time because I am doing this
during my working day and I know you've probably
got your own plans. So we do sadly have to try
and wrap this episode up to a close. But gosh,
I could talk to you about all these things for
absolutely hours because I just have that many
ideas and views. And it's lovely to find someone
who connects on the same level as well, which
is why I do this podcasting because I don't have
anyone in my modern life. does understands my
connection i mean one of my mum friends and i've
said this before in previous episodes i won't
name her because i know she doesn't listen but
i might embarrass her she says like like who
is thor and how do we know about him and like
those are two very good but very big questions
yeah how do we know about thor i said i don't
know how to begin with that one darling because
you don't know marvel so that's often the starting
point for most people You should meet her on
a Thursday and ask her about that and say how
do you know that because it's Thor's day today.
I wrote that in junior school. I will try that
with her when I see her later this week. Thank
you so much but before we go please do let our
viewers in the snow where they can hear your
stories or see you perform in person. Yes, indeed.
So I'm based in the UK, based in the West Midlands
of England, but I do perform all over the UK.
I also perform online as well, quite a lot. So
if you can sit in your pajamas with a cup of
coffee or a can of beer and you can either watch
live online or you can watch later. All my online
shows are recorded and then just the story bit
is available later if you can't make the thing.
But the best way, the easiest places to find
me are either on Facebook or on my website or
Instagram or even Blue Sky. and if you just search
for Jason Buck Storyteller, don't just search
for Jason Buck, you'll get a Texan politician
and an American football player and all sorts
of other things. But yeah, Jason Buck Storyteller,
you can find me there. Yeah, and I regularly
perform live in person and also online. So you
can find me in those places. Brilliant, well
I will also put the links down below to the two
episode recording you did of your Shield main
story because I read to watch that in the build
-up to this recording and I still loved it, even
though it was a couple of years ago, which shows
how stories still retain such power. no matter
how long ago they were told. I was also like,
final question, do you think you'll be back at
Jorvik in 2026? I believe I will, I've sort of
snuck into the edge of Jorvik, both back in 2020
when I snuck into the edge last minute into the
Jorvik fringe and as I did this time, I think
it was only because I did a bit more of my own
publicity and gave them links to events and things,
and they thought, oh, okay, this bloke seems
to, he seems to be all right in sort of self
-promotion. So we'll put him in on the thing
as well. So I just kind of snuck in the back
door. But I think after I did some of the street
storytelling, I did the show and the show sold
out. Lovely, lovely. often that show does at
Dark Norse, they sort of said, oh yeah, give
us a shout out next year. So in what form I'll
be back, I don't know, but I would like to think
that absolutely, yes, I will be back at Jorvik
in 2026. Brilliant. Well, I hope to see you again
in person in 2026, if not attend one of your
online storytelling sessions maybe one day, all
being well with getting the kid to bed and that
whole circus. Thank you very much for inviting
me on. Yeah, it's been great, Chats. The time
has zoomed past. It has. It's a shame I can't
make these episodes too long or people may well
need them into their own day. It's been a real
pleasure, Jason. Thank you so much for being
a willing and happy guest. It's been a wonderful
conversation. And for viewers and listeners,
stay tuned. Do hit subscribe wherever you're
listening and viewing. There'll be the usual
Valhalla Conversations episodes coming up. I've
got a guest planned for every month right up
until October. Even November, it's only December
I need to fill in. But I am still trying to see
if I can recruit any more Yorvik festival members,
events, persons to make this mini series a bit
longer. But that's why I've always used the word
mini, because everyone's busy and everyone's
doing things. But thank you very much for listening
and being wherever you are. And thank you very
much, Jason. My pleasure. Thanks all. Bye bye.