Witches, snow and wonderful creatures!

Waiting for the Snow and Baba Yaga: tales of an old witch
New Books from Gordon MacLellan

Where would you hide a witch?

Where would you hide THIS witch?

Because when the witch in question is magnificent, ancient and flies through the old woods of the world in a mortar, rowing herself along the winds with pestle, and when her house is likely to wander off on its own and play with the capercaille in the shadows...hiding isn't really the idea....

 

Anyway, I've got two new books out now. One ( small spellbook of a booklet) is about Baba Yaga, that wonderful old witch who challenges, tricks, confronts and transforms just about anyone who survives the encounter (and if you don't, never mind, your long bones and skull will feature in the Yaga's garden fence!). The other book is gentler (perhaps). Waiting for the Snow is a new collection of recent poems of mine

 

From the cold stillness of a woodland in winter, to the wonder of bluebells, the perils of still water and the richness of orchards, Waiting for the Snow invites a different connection to the world around us.

Look outward, walk on the riverbank with open eyes and a willing heart. Turn inward and step carefully around the cracks in the pavement. There are mysteries here as well, watchful shadows lurking. Threatening, they still hold their own promise and the possibility of change.

Step out. Step away from the familiar and let Waiting draw you into a world of enchantments.

 

In Waiting you will find charms from birch trees and the wild frolics of the Birken Hoss. There are quiet reflections among bluebells and a dark, cold brooding menace that sits behind the Arctic nights. One of my personal favourites is Vigil that grew out of regular visits to the windswept, story-shrouded hilltop of Fin Cop here in the Peak District

 

BUYING COPIES (yes, please do!)

LINKS TO SALES ON EBAY:

Baba Yaga: tales of an old witch

 12 pages, 80cm x 150cm

Waiting for the Snow, 40 pages, A5 sized

If you would like a full set of recent books: Baba Yaga, Waiting... and Sacred Animals, message me directly and I'll send payment details and post the set to you directly

There is also a set of colourful postcards for sale if you want that extra touch of something tree-ish to send a friend or convince a foe that you're really a very nice (if rather leafy) Person....  

Hide a witch,

Inside a house,

Inside a wood,

Inside a beck,

Inside a bog,

Inside a crag,

Inside a world,

Inside a doll.

 

 

Cathedral Reflections

Cathedral reflections

St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall

Malmesbury abbey

I have been asking myself why I find myself attracted to old churches and cathedrals, especially cathedrals. When visiting a new city, or returning to one I know well, sooner or later, I’ll need to check out a cathedral or two.

Is this an unguessed hidden desire for conversion? Don’t think so.

Or perhaps a challenge, an infiltration….again,no. I don’t (often) find myself cackling in old hag triumph.

 

Is it because both large cathedrals and smaller churches feel like very planned temple-caves…Ah, now there is a thought: entering great vaulted chambers of stone. The Mines of Moria, perhaps, or the Chambers of Erebor? The Hall of the Mountain King. Walking through stone forests. Castles also have that sense of a stone space and they exercise their own fascination for me but they hold a degree of intentional violence that can be off-putting. Of course, cathedral histories are rarely sedate themselves, but their initial intentions were perhaps less combative.

Partly, it is the atmosphere. The silence and the ability of a cathedral to swallow the noise of a group of excited tourists, say, without that distracting from the overall experience. And these places hold stories, personal stories: of campaigners, heroes, villains. Of the noble couple with their dogs asleep at their carved feet. Of the martyred saint. Of the lost explorer. Here their stories wait among their named stones: no judgement, just stories to read. To hear. There are bigger stories, too, bound into the stones with holes from musket shot in walls, with the legacy of competitive chapel building, with penances bought, prayers sold. Windows tell their own stories: biblical subjects and in their construction, there are tales of rivalries and changing technologies, replacements rallying communities, the glory of colour spilling into the heart of the cave.

St Magnus Cathedral,
Kirkwall

I come back again to silence and reflection. These are places where people gave thought to issues wider and deeper than themselves and the everyday issues of survival. Here they communed, commune, with their connection to the infinite. I may not agree with a lot of the conclusions they reached in such consideration: I have spent a lot of my life as someone who would not be approved of, generously forgiven perhaps, if I came creeping back, but the proud awareness of who, and what, and how, I am would not have been welcomed. Still wouldn’t be for some of these people around me as I wander. I know others wouldn’t care but I have a long memory and carry a legacy of accumulated damnations with me.

 

St Magnus Cathedral,
Kirkwall

But here I can sit and settle into that contemplative silence, can feel old stone shaped with love and skill. I can hear footsteps whispering on stone floors worn smooth by centuries. Here I can appreciate someone else’s wonder and find a connection to my own.

 

As I was writing this, I also spent some time at the Stones of Stenness on Mainland, Orkney. There birdsong falls like rain. There, there is a different connection. There, there is still silence, lying behind the showers of song. Here, being with the Stones is like meeting old friends and the greatest feeling is joy.

 

Stones of Stenness, Orkney

 

CATHEDRAL

 

St Olaf, St Magnus Cathedral,
Kirkwall

They built a ship,

A tall ship of stone,

To sail our souls in,

With a crew of carved and painted saints

To set it on its way.

 

If I had a soul,

That ship could have brought me to pray,

With its power and grace,

But we are the soul-less, my kind and I,

The doors of Paradise closed to us,

You tell us.

Unwanted, unrepentant, disturbing,

The Fallen, the Doomed, the Damned.

 

The wind that fills your ship is song,

And those songs rise,

Bright birds flying,

Soaring,

To be trapped

Against the rafters and the slates,

 

But we are spirit,                                                              

And sing as spirit, not soul,

And the west calls us

To islands in the wide seas,

And a sunset beyond the edge of the world.

We leave these sinking ships

Behind.

 

This poem was inspired by St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. Originally, it also grew out of a conversation in the hollow hills of Orkney’s chambered tombs but while the second voice began in faerie it could just as easily be me talking as the human that I am

Spring stories 2024

 

Spring stories, 2024

Stories in school and just about anywhere 

celebrating the richness of the changing year, here are stories, shadow puppets, book building, story-making, pop-up landscapes and boxes of treasures. Outdoors or indoors, the natural world will give us stories and offer inspiration for child-led creativity!

 

With stories spinning from the first signs of spring through mountain giants and excited rabbits to pirates and mermaids, here are stories and activities to enchant and inspire.

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – is one of Britain’s leading environmental art and education workers. Take a look at the Toadblog: Creeping Toad

 

Drawing on 30 years of professional experience, Gordon’s work blends environmental experience with creativity. “Much of my work uses storytelling and story making but I also make small masks, giant masks, flags, lanterns, pop-up landscapes and create wild and wonderful occasions. We might work outdoors and take ideas form the world around us and our discoveries there. Indoors, there may be shadow puppets and boxes of treasures to inspire children and encourage some fabulous stories”

 

A day’s visit to your school might include:

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time 

stories out of anything! outdoors or in, we'll use leaves and pine cones, twigs and stones and shells to inspire words, create poems and shape a set of stories never told before (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

finger puppets: we can make quick finger puppet animals or adventurers and create instant stories

shadow puppets: playing with light, translucence and animation to create stories and instant performance ….see here for more information

From across lands and times: I can select stories to suit times and places: so we have had days of Native American stories, or Egyptian or Greek or Roman, there have been Chinese tales and African animal stories….lots of exciting resources to draw on here, to make new writing vibrant and lively. Castles are popular, too, with boxes of treasures to inspire a new adventure and release a bold princess or courageous dragon

story and book workshops: taking a bit longer (allow 90 minutes for a class) as well as discovering those stories no-one has ever heard before, now we will build those into the books that no-one has ever read before and leave the classroom with a library no-one has ever visited before!

pop-up storyscapes: allow an hour for a class: gathering ideas, images and words we’ll make quick 3-d landscapes holding the essence of a story in a setting, key characters and the words that set the adventure running

tales of old Scotland: a collection of stories of Highland folklore and Scottish histories, of heroes and sorrows, bravery and the magics of sea, mountain and moor. These can be steered in various directions and we might listen to stories from Viking days or medieval and Stuart stories and even add some Scottish explorers and their adventures and disasters…

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? In recent projects, we have also made talking stone puppets, a giant eagle to hang from a classroom ceiling, prehistoric rockpools, a swarm of shadow dragons, pop-up castles

 

Charges: on request 

Fee includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you. 

 

Activities can be adapted to suit groups from P1/Yr 1 through to Secondary

 

 

For further information or to book:

contact Gordon directly at

            creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Shadows and stories

shadow puppet workshops with Creeping Toad

From classroom stories

To library adventures,

Museum mysteries

To enchanted gardens,

Join Creeping Toad to create some shadow puppet stories

Shadow puppet sessions with Creeping Toad offer a chance to play with light and shade, experiment with design and animation, colour and translucence…a workshop might lead to the beauty of forests playing across a classroom ceiling, a parade of historical characters or the delightful chaos of a flight of dragons

We can 

• Cut silhouettes adding coloured sections and textures
• Create lumpy monsters or delicate birds
• Fashion small characters with moving arms or legs or wings
• Think about buildings and windows, staircases and dungeons
• Make whole landscapes that fit onto rotating platforms and throw shapes across a wall or ceiling

In a school or public events, workshops need 90 mins – 2 hours (1 class at a time in schools) – ideal for 2 sessions in a day and a final performance

To find out more, contact Gordon (Creeping Toad) :

creepingtoad@btinternet.com

 

there was a very small mouse somewhere.....

 Beasts, keys and sketching

World Book Day with Creeping Toad

World Book Day 2024  (Thursday 8th March)in the Creeping Toad ponds stretched into 3 days of lively stories, conversations about books, creating stories and unfolding adventures

In Russett School in Northwich, we picked up that wonderful book, The Lonely Beast by Chris Judge and retold the story with found objects, puppets and wild stories. We unrolled stories by class on long sheets of paper, drew on these, wrote on these, built journeys and homes, dens and parties on top of these and parties with multiple beasts!

In Springfield Primary School, Burnley, there were stories told, books discussed, but more than anything there were ideas poured onto paper. I unpacked boxes of “treasures” and we held them, talked about them, drew them and unravelled wonderful histories From Reception to Year 6, everyone was involved and we held an afterschool storytelling session for families. Running through several sessions were a big bunch of keys (thank you English Heritage!) and, for me, the poems that grew with the keys is a lovely reflection of these days

These are the keys

the wizard made,

the witch lost,

the King wants,

the pirates stole,

the child found,

that I’m holding.

 

These are the keys

that lock the door,

that open the chest,

that close the shackles, 

that clear the way,

that set us free.