This weeks episode is about a remarkable woman from Victorian Wales called Lady Charlotte Guest and her quest to preserve the folklore and legends of her adopted homeland, which would be published as the Mabinogion, widely regarded today as one of the most important collections of medieval prose literature in Europe. The stories it contains began life as part of an oral storytelling tradition in Britains ancient past, featuring political intrigue, bickering royalty, warring armies, noble warriors, brave princesses, wizards, magical technology, trickster like anti heroes, monsters and many other archetypal characters and settings. Before it’s publication there was no such genre of fantasy fiction and it’s influence on our understanding of Arthurian legend as well as other works by authors such as J.R.R Tolkien, Evangeline Walton, Alan Garner and Robert Holdstock cannot be taken for granted.
My guest is Siân Esther Powell. Siân is studying for Masters in Celtic Studies and is the creator and host of the excellent Celtic Myths and Legends Podcast. We talked about Lady Charlotte and the scale of the project she undertook to locate and preserve the stories that would make up the Mabinogion, explore what these stories can tell us about ancient Britain and the use of stories in that time to engage with the imagination, and of course look at one of the fantastic stories that make up this incredible work.
You can find Siân on Twitter here.
Episode 117 - Kingsley Dennis - The Inversion
Episode 116 - Laura Lewis-Barr - Psyche's Cinema
Episode 115 - Sharon Hewitt Rawlette - Coincidence, Synchronicity and Life after Death
Episode 114 - Dr Josh Bullock - Weekday Worldviews
Episode 113 - Gary Opit - An Introduction to Australian Cryptozoology
Episode 112 - Dr Richard Sugg - Ghosts, Fairies and Wonder Dogs
Episode 111 - Charis Cotter - Ghost Stories from Newfoundland
Episode 110 - Natalie Doig - Weird in the Wade
Episode 109 - Sue Terry - Esoteric Fiction and the work of Alan Garner
Episode 108 - Dr Diana Walsh Pasulka - Experiences with Non-human Intelligences
Episode 107 - Victoria Jaye - The Demon Folklorist
Episode 106 - Claire Casely - The Faery Whisperer
Episode 105 - Fred Andersson - High Strangeness in Sweden
Episode 104 - Simon Miles - The Map and the Manuscript
Episode 103 - AP Strange - Master of Mystical Flapdoodle
Episode 102 - Lionel Fanthorpe - Renaissance Man of the Paranormal
Episode 101 - Emily Leon - Esotericism, Modern Art and Hilma af Klint
Episode 100 - Shannon Taggart - Séance: Spiritualist Ritual and the Search for Ectoplasm
Episode 99 - Emma Kathryn - Wild Witchcraft
Episode 98 - Emma Heard - Weird Wiltshire
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Dairyland Frights
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL