Storytelling Festival

Today sees the start of the Orkney Storytelling Festival 2013 with a full programme of events over the next four days. As in previous years the events take place in a number of venues throughout Orkney including the following events in Stromness:

Thursday 24th 

7-8.30pm  - The Canadian connection  with Bob Pegg, Tom Muir,  and Dale Jarvis in The Royal Hotel

Meet the Storytellers/Open Mic session - 9-10pm in The Royal Hotel

Friday 25th 

9.30-10.30 am - Roots and Flutes Workshop - with Bob Pegg in the Stromness Community 
Centre

Saturday 26th 

2-4pm - Trans-Atlantic Tales - with Dale Jarvis, Lawrence Tulloch, Tom Muir, Amber Connolly and Rachael Torrance in the Stromness Town Hall

Then on Sunday 27th there will be a very special afternoon of Folk Tales from Near and Far with Tom Muir and Lawrence Tulloch in Betty's Reading Room  from 2-4pm. This is a free event but ticketed due to the limited space so you will need to book ahead to avoid disappointment. 

See the Orkney Storytelling Festival website for full details of all events, ticket prices and booking information. 

Cold

After a spell of unseasonably mild weather there is a definite chill in the air to accompany the rapidly shortening days. But today dear readers we offer you not one, but two remedies for beating the cold this weekend.

First an event in Stromness this evening when West Side Cinema, supported by Orkney Library and Archive and The George Mackay Brown Fellowship, presents a screening of the film 'Lore' followed by a question and answer session with  Rachel Seiffert,  author of the novel The Dark Room on which the film is based. The screening is in the Stromness Town Hall at 7.30pm and entry is £5 (£3 for under 16s - 'Lore' has a 15 certificate rating). 

We've heard from the organisers that the boiler in the Town Hall is playing up, so if you want to be sure of escaping the cold please wrap up warm. West Side Cinema invites its audiences to bring their own refreshments to screenings and so tonight something warming might be appropriate.

Our second offering is for those who have already succumbed to the various seasonal ailments which are doing the rounds and may be looking for alternative remedies with which to tackle their ills.

Whatever your symptoms we recommend a visit to the Orkney Archive Blog where our lovely colleagues have been researching some traditional Orkney remedies. If you don't fancy giving the limpet juice or roasted mice a try then we can at least guarantee that the description of the wart cure will provide you with the therapeutic effects of a good laugh! 

Advent - 19th December

There may not be monstrous Yule Cats on the prowl in Orkney but  Yule preparations in the islands were also concerned with warding off the unwelcome attention of malevolent spirits - in this case the trows. You can read more about the traditions surrounding Yule in the Northern Isles on the excellent Orkneyjar website.

Ernest Marwick tells of a specifically Stromness Yule custom in The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland: 

A Yearly tug-of-war, with the ultimate possession of a Yule tree as its object, took place in Stromness each Christmas Eve until 1936. A tree of some kind - for trees are scarce in the islands - was taken from a garden without the owner's knowledge and carried to the middle of the town. Chains or ropes were attached to it and a trial of strength began... there was a point of delimitation between Northenders and Southenders, and their ancient rivalry found expression in an attempt to drag the tree to a traditional goal well within the territory of the faction which proved most powerful. The contest was a robust, often turbulent one. As the route was skirted by the sea, the tree invariably ended its journey in the water, followed now and then by an over-zealous player.

You can read more about the Stromness Yule Tree on the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership's website.

We would love to hear from anyone who may remember this custom, or  has heard stories about it - please share them in the comments below.

In the meantime we're going to stick to a chocolate Yule Log - though there may still be fighting over that!

Recipe for Yule log at http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3049/yule-chocolate-log