Storytelling with Michael Harvey

A story from Reverb. A father-son collaboration between Michael Harvey, storyteller and author, and bass player Fred Harvey-Love.

This was a commission from the Festival at the Edge, a storytelling festival based in Shropshire in 2010 and includes stories from an international repertoire based around the theme Boys and Men.

This story is from the Middle East and inspired by the telling of Laura Simms.

A story from Reverb. A father-son collaboration between Michael Harvey, storyteller and author, and bass player Fred Harvey-Love.

This was a commission from the Festival at the Edge, a storytelling festival based in Shropshire in 2010 and includes stories from an international repertoire based around the theme Boys and Men.

This story was adapted from a story in Michael Meade's collection 'Men and the Water of Life'

The Introduction to Reverb. A father-son collaboration between Michael Harvey, storyteller and author, and bass player Fred Harvey-Love.

This was a commission from the Festival at the Edge, a storytelling festival based in Shropshire in 2010 and includes stories from an international repertoire based around the theme Boys and Men.

This introductory section features a story adapted from Duncan Williamson's 'The Thorn in the King's Foot'

The seven survivors return to Wales. While they have been away another king has come and seized the throne. The survivors drift into a dreamworld where time stands still. The spell is broken, they return to reality and tell the story.

The Hall of Peace is opened and the Irish and Welsh assemble for a feast. Efnisien starts a fight that turns into an all out battle in which nearly everyone is killed. Bendigeidfran and the survivors return home to Wales.

Bendigeidfran leads his army over the sea to Ireland to save his sister, Branwen. A truce is declared and a huge feasting hall built that even Bendigeidfran, the giant king, can enter.

Efnisien's actions catch up with Branwen. She goes from queen to mistreated servant. She enlists the help of a starling and calls her brother, the giant Bendigeidfran, to her aid.

The giant king Bendigeidfran sees ships coming from Ireland. It's Matholwch, the king of Ireland who has an interesting proposal to unite the two families and countries. A feast on Anglesey is arranged but Efnsien, Bendigeidfran's half-brother, is not invited and he takes a bloody and cruel revenge for this insult. This causes problems between the two kings which are solved by Bendigeidfran (the king of the Island of Britain) giving Matholwch (the king of Ireland) a magical cauldron from the Otherworld, the Cauldron of Rebirth.

Matholwch recognises the cauldron and tells the story of how he first came across it and his encounter with two giants and their terrifying children.

Once the cauldron is given there is peace between the two kings and their countries and Branwen sets sail with her new husband, becomes High Queen of Ireland and has a baby boy, who she calls Gwern, after the alder tree.

The landscape of Wales and the parts of the country where the story takes place and an introduction to the main characters of the story.

Angharad Wynne is a storyteller based in South Wales. She has a particular love for the stories of the Mabinogion and has a clear and deep connection with both the landscape of the stories and the characters in them. She has made a particular study of Rhiannon from the first and third branches.

She is an important figure in the contemporary cultural landscape of Wales and has played a major role in projects and institutions including the Wales Millennium Centre and Beyond the Border International Storytelling Centre and musicians including Catrin Finch and 9 Bach.

She organises a range of myth and walking events including landscape expeditions that  explore the history, archaeology, myths and 'dreaming' of the land. She also runs  retreats and workshops including Return to Centre, In the Footsteps of the Ancestors and Dreaming the Land held at Cae Mabon in the  foothills of Snowdonia in May each year.   
 
Storytelling and running workshops take her far and wide, from Wales,  to Festivals in Portugal and as far afield as India this year. She  combines her deep knowledge of the ancient mythology and spiritual  traditions of Wales with insights drawn from wisdom and healing tales  from indigenous cultures across the world.

In this far ranging conversation we talked about…

• The Mabinogion as a stratified piece of landscape   
• Our shared humanity with the characters of the Mabinogion
• Archetypal nature of the characters and their godlike nature
• Mabinogion characters as types of real people and inspiration as role models
• Otherworldly space co-present with the ‘real’ world
• Annwfn and Nwyfre - Otherworld and cosmic energy. 
• Land