Tonight we have a moonlit blether about these things and more ...  • Guising traditions in Shetland, masks, ceremonies, folklore, the hidden people of Iceland, storytelling around the world and how all is connected to performance - even (or maybe especially) politicians!  • Walter Traill Dennison - the first person to write in Orkney dialect - and his importance to preserving Orkney's stories, customs and traditions  • How is an Orcadian different from a Scot?  • Iceland/Scandanavian connections to Orkney/Shetland?  • Why the national spirit lives within the working classes and what national tales have to do with creating culture  • Why the Danes were annoyed with the brothers Grimm, and are Swedish stories really "better than the Danes"?  • Collectors from many lands - searching for identity  • "The broken isles of Orkney" and Viking romancticism  • The "varden" spirit in Orkney and its similarities to the banshee  • Orkney at the Scandanavian/Celtic crossroads, how the stories are shared and Orkney's own myths  • Do Orkney stories emphasize the supernatural/witches as evil, vs simply supernatural?  • Book of the Black Arts stories in Orkney and Iceland  • The difference between mermaids and finnwives in Orkney  • Tom and Terry swap and compare Scandanavian/Orkney folktales: Witches, magicians, beach creeps, sea creatures, selkie, hidden folk, mermen and mermaids, trolls, land and sea nature spirits; spirits in the mounds, changelings, hogboy/hogboon, the nucklavee, land trows and sea trows  • About Terry's project, the Icelandic database of 10,000 Scandanavian legends to be found in writing, with maps tracing the spread of the tales; also a sound archive to listen to on location - bringing stories back to the land.  • What has the Black Death got to do with communications bewteen the Nordic lands?  • Are Orkney stories more Nordic or Scottish?  • Terry tells about Iceland's Wild Ride  • Wintertime as darkness, earth, knowledge of past present and future, and women  • Bibles, light, mullaca beans (Mary beans) and salt, and how they were used in protecting vulnerable souls in transitional states; in Iceland, it was silver and steel  • Icelandic beliefs in ghosts, power points, premonitions, hidden people, protective animal spirits and dreams; haunted families vs haunted houses; and other supernatural beings  • Three Orkney stories of unbaptized babies  • Trolls in Orkney, and how they developed from Norwegian trolls  • Stories as maps of behavior  • Finding drowned people and the connection with revalatory dreams  • The liminal, dangerous place between high tide and low  • Are the finfolk a reference to the Sami?  • The seen but unseen within the landscapeLinks: Sagnagrunnur folklore database: https://sagnagrunnur.arnastofnun.is/orkney/More about Terry Gunnel: https://english.hi.is/staff/terryTerry Gunnell's lecture on family ghosts: https://isfnr.org/2025/08/the-next-online-lecture-terry-gunnell-17-september-2025/ Earlier lecturer on nature of belief: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-3_Gq7iSsg Terry Gunnell on Shetland guising traditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lC4O46oyFQ Support Orkneyology on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/orkneyologyOrkneyology shop: https://shop.orkneyology.com/Orkneyology on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHQSp7iqejatLV9g5OAF7FA Hosted on Acast. See