On this full moon night we had a visit from a young Scottish-Dutch storytelling friend, who is also a great grandneice of Orkney's beloved poet, George Mackay Brown. Please enjoy our blether with stories.

In this episode you'll hear about:

• Ailsa's experience of learning about her heritage from Tom
• Orkney stories and their histories
• letting folk stories continue to grow in our own time
• encouraging new storytellers
• the delights of spontaneity in storytelling
• a wee tale from Aberdeenshire - Fittie's Portion
• "young" storytellers, and how not to be defined by age or other labels
• Ailsa's School of Storycraft for kids
• telling stories about things you care about; defeating apathy and reconnecting emotionally
• local history storytelling
• stories about kindness; "heart stories"
• Ailsa tells her heart story, Kate Crackernuts, which is not - as is commonly misunderstood - an English tale, but was collected in the Orkney Islands
• finding earlier versions of folktales
• Gaelic waulking songs
• ... and a bonus story, which Ailsa first heard from her granddad, Fraser Dixon: The Story of Tam Bichan - from Dingieshowe, Orkney
• contact Ailsa Dixon here: https://tracscotland.org/storytellers/ailsa-dixon/

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Join Tom and Rhonda as we continue our discussion around old Orkney customs and traditions. This time you'll hear some quite surprising and amusing details of marriage and death customs in Orkney.

A few things you'll find out in this Ower wi' the Moon podcast:

• Signs and dangers around the Orkney wedding celebration: good luck, bad luck and how to evade the trowies
• The costs of speerin' night, when the prospective groom asks the bride's father for her hand; warning: don't show up empty handed!
• The exact nuances of arranging the marriage banns in Orkney and its surrounding legalities
• About the Westray "dons" of the Spanish Armada, and what allegedly happened if they married "outside" the dons
• What did the moon, the tide and the "airt" of the wind have to do with the fortunes of an Orkney marriage?
• Old-style wedding invitations ... and drams (naturally)
• All about the Orkney foot-washing ritual, and the general hilarity that ensued
• Withershins - "going against the sun"
• The dangers of bodily bits as relating to curses; and what's this got to do with the king's poop?
• A wedding story from Noltland Castle in the island of Westray
• How to make your hogboon part of the wedding celebration, and why it's important to do so!
• The wedding walk - much longer than a walk down the aisle; hijinks along the way; and the importance of wiping out your tracks
• The origins of pre-wedding blackenings in Orkney
• The mesterhousel, the hansel wife, the bride's cog and other Orkney wedding celebration rituals
• Orkney wedding games, bog cotton (Loki's oo) stockings and feminine divination mysteries
• Baking. brewing, eating, drinking and dancing!
• 
  
• Different kinds of Orkney cogs
• Curses, ill omens and selkie abductions: dangers to watch out for during weddings
• The tragic story of Henry Graham and his love
• Orkney death customs, traditions and beliefs
• Omens of death: rainbows, ravens and angels' music
• Wailing vardens and ganfers in Orkney
• The story of the Bokie Hound of the Balfours
• Forebodings of death in dreams
• The leekwak, touching the corpse and of ladies losing their senses
• The danger of grieving too much
• Supernatural Orkney death customs: good luck and bad, and getting the biggest blessing
• What did you do with a drowned sailor?
• The posh end of the cemetery
• Unbaptized infant stories
• ... and many more interesting Orkney traditions.

Encourage us in our heritage preservation work on Ko-fi

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On this full moon night, Tom speaks with one of our authors, Ian Scott - otherwise known as Ian o' Antabreck - lifelong resident of Orkney's most northerly island, North Ronaldsay. Ian has recently gathered together for publication his first decade of A Letter from North Ronaldsay, which he's written for The Orcadian newspaper for over thirty years. Tom and Rhonda have very proudly produced this first volume of Ian's Letters through our Orkneyology Press, which is now available for purchase through our website.

We hope you enjoy this blether among friends.

Join us to find out ...

• About North Ronaldsay toonships ... and what's a toonship anyway?
• Hogmanay traditions; North Ron as compared to Sanday (and other Orkney) traditions, where half of Tom's folk come from; where was the whisky, and what finally stopped the auld Hogmanay traditions?
• On home brew
• Old milling and brewing practices, which Ian observed in his miller-father's life and work
• The old and new North Ronaldsay standing stone Hogmanay traditions, and what's it all got to do with the full moon?
• The reluctant uptake of the Gregorian calendar in Orkney
• Cold evenings in warm places: visiting and playing games with folk in the mill ... and other warm places
• Orkney schooldays in earlier times: What was it like boarding in the hostel for school in Kirkwall Grammar School (and a year in Holm) as a bairn the old days, when they only returned home on rare occasions? Powdered milk, snowball fights, freezing "digs" and unmarried teachers.
• And what about those hair-raising postboat rides before the ferries and planes were available?
• Crops and old-style thrashing
• What it was like studying at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen
• Orkney's thriving arts community
• Ian's paintings and sculptures, including his favorite sculpture: the Longhope Lifeboat Memorial
• Ian's lobster fishing days
• The North Ronaldsay praam, how it came about and why it's such a good boat design for Orkney sea conditions
• Ian's artistic study trips in Shetland, Iceland and Faroes
• About sculpting and Ian's most well-known public works, including the Longhope Lifeboat Memorial, the statue of Arctic explorer John Rae in Stromness, the George Mackay Brown busts and the Stanley Cursitor portrait, all of which can be seen in Orkney.
• Sylvia Wishart, Ola Gorie and other Orkney artists
• The story of North Ronaldsay's Old Memorial Hall

Mentioned:

A Letter from North Ronaldsay - buy it direct from the publishers, Orkneyology Press (if you'd like to purchase the book in the way that best rewards the author and publishers) :https://rebrand.ly/2e9qpuf

Ian Scott's author page on Orkneyology: https://www.orkneyology.com/ian-scott-orkneyology-press.html

Don't Tell Bab! - Annie Harcus (Annie Rousay)

The Longhope Lifeboat Memorial - https://hoyorkney.com/attractions/hoy-history/lifeboat

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