Scottish Shores: Gothic Coastal Environments ended on 6 March 2023, celebrating its closing with an evening of tales of spooky shores from acclaimed Orkney storyteller Tom Muir. At our final, public engagement event, we were joined by more than 100 people from a dozen different countries.
Emily and Giulia introduced the evening and recapped the work advanced by Scottish Shores over the past year, before Karl Bell spoke about the importance of folklore to the project’s research. Tom’s stories held us mesmerised, and afterwards Monica Germana hosted a warm and exciting discussion with him!
See the recording and description of the evening below.
Scottish Shores: Folktales of the Coast
18.00 Welcome and introduction: Emily Alder and Giulia Champion
18.15 Folklore in the Scottish Shores project: Karl Bell
18.30 Storytelling with Tom Muir, introduced and chaired by Monica Germanà
19.30 Q&A with Tom
19.45 End
Image credits: “the Loch Ness monster” by Carla216 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Glossary & Further Storyings:
- Selkie: A selkie is a shapeshifting character of Scottish (and other) folklore between human and seal, find out more here.
- Nuckelavee: The nuckelavee is a horse-like demon from Orcadian folklore, find out more about it here.
- Find out more about The Battle of the Sea Mither and Teran, here.
- To find out more about Tom’s work and Orkney, see here and his website Orkneyology, here.
- Tom regularly participates in Storytelling festivals including the Cape Clear Festival and the Orkney Storytelling Festival.
- If you enjoyed the final story, you can also find it in Sheila Douglas’ The Last of the Tinsmiths: The Life of Willie MacPhee (2006).