A re-release of the second ever episode of Unreal, while I recover from illness. A new episode will come soon once my voice is back at full strength!

Giants sculpted our landscape. They are strong, and fierce, and can be terrifying if you’re unprepared. But anyone can defeat a giant – if you are clever enough to trick them…

The Story of Fionn and the Giant

• The Giant’s Causeway, Dublin Penny Journal
• A Legend of Knockmany, by William Carleton (and the original article)
• Joe Moore’s Story of Finn Macooilly and the Buggane, Manx Fairytales by Sophia Morrison
• Versions from the School’s Folklore Collection at Duchas.ie: 1, 2, 3, 4

The very rude Scottish poem featuring the giant-sized descendants of Fionn

Other Tales Mentioned

• The fall of the Viking chieftain Turgesius
• Maoil a Chliobain
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• Jack the Giant-killer
• Stingy Jack

All by Slainte from The Free Music Archive

• Theme Song – “The Butterfly”
• The Lark in the Morning / The Atholl Highlanders
• The Banshee / The Gravel Walks / The Old Copperplate

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Banshee is one of Ireland’s most famous folkloric figures. A supernatural woman with a cry that foretells of death and devastation to those who hear it, stories about banshees have been terrifying listeners for hundreds of years. But has she always been this way?

Read the Podcast Script

Sources and Further Reading

• A Folklore Survey of County Clare by Thomas Johnson Westropp
• The Triumphs of Turlough translated by Standish Hayes O'Grady
• The Hostel of Da Choca translated by Whitley Stokes
• Annals of Loch Cé
• The Memoirs of Lady Ann Fanshawe
• Personal Sketches of His Own Times by Sir Jonah Barrington
• Keening Tradition
• "The Irish Funeral Cry" in The Dublin Penny Journal
• O'Brien's Irish-English Dictionary

Music

• The Butterfly – Sláinte
• Return Home - Moorland Songs
• The White Birch - Moorland Songs
• Mountain Solitude - Moorland Songs

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when a king goes mad? When he leaves his home, his wife and lands, and goes wandering in the woods and the wild? Such a strange frenzy came on Sweeney, an Irish king long ago. The life he came to live was a harsh and a wild one – but, as the story shows, still one where breathtaking beauty could be found . . .

• Buile Suibhne. (The frenzy of Suibhne) by O'Keeffe, J. G
• The King's Mirror
• Myrddin Wylt
• Wild Man

• The Butterfly – Sláinte
• The Elfin Knight - Traditional
• I'm Missing Ennis - Philip Ayers
• Everything We Built - Christian Andersen
• It All Went Away So Quickly - Christian Andersen

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There once was born a cursed girl. She was beautiful, and strong-willed, and would do anything for the man she loved. But in her name, evil came to Ireland, bringing war and fighting that left hundreds dead in its wake. Her name was Deirdre, and stories told about her live on, as one of Ireland’s most sorrowful legends.

Read the Podcast Script

• Sonder Magazine
• Let's Talk About the Arts episode (my story is at about 28:30)

Sources and further Reading

Story Sources

• The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu by Vernam Hull
• Deirdre, or, The Exile of the Sons of Usnech
• Deirdre, in The Three Sorrows of Storytelling by Douglas Hyde
• The Trí Truaighe na Scéalaigheachta by Eugene O'Curry

Background reading

• Kingship Made Real? Power and the Public World in Longes Mac nUislenn by Elva Johnston
• Satire in Medieval Ireland
• Leabharcham
• Milesians
• How Ronan Slew His Son
• Cano meic Gartnáin
• Diarmuid & Gráinne

Music

• The Butterfly by Sláinte
• Our Green Lands by Bonn Fields
• Calling on the Hill by Moorland Songs
• Red as a Rose by Rune Dale
• Turnpikes by Rune Dale
• Farewell to Ennerdale Water by Moorland Songs

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For every death, a price must be paid. Life is precious, and blood is costly, and when you take the life of a man, you do not know how high the penalty will be. This is a story about three brothers, and a life they took, the price they paid, and the devastation that followed them to their deaths.

Story Sources

• The Fate of the Children of Tuireann from The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language
• "The Quest of the Sons of Turenn" by T. W. Rolleston
• "The Fate of the Children of Tuireann" from The Three Sorrows of Storytelling by Douglas Hyde

Background reading

• "The Grail and the English Sir Perceval" (V) by Arthur C. L. Brown
• "Fines under Brehon Law" by Laurence Ginnell
• Éraic / eric

• The Butterfly - Sláinte
• Lúnassa - Aislinn
• The Road to Lisdoonvarna & Scollay's - Pinnipied
• The Burning of the Piper's Hut - Pinnipied
• Shady Grove - Shake That Little Foot

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As strange as it is imagine, there are infinite worlds out there in the universe, far beyond our sight. But, if the stories are to be believed, a group of early Irish people came closer than most to contact with the world above our world, and the strange people who inhabited it.

Read the Podcast Script

Sources and Further Reading

• “Aerial Ships and Underwater Monasteries: The Evolution of a Monastic Marvel” - John Carey
• “Voyagers in the Vault of Heaven: The Phenomenon of Ships in the Sky in Medieval Ireland and Beyond” - Michael McCaughan
• “Lightnings VIII” – Seamus Heaney
• Curiosities of Indo-European tradition and folk-lore – Walter Keating Kelly
• On Hail and Thunder - Agobard of Lyons
• “From flying boats to secret Soviet weapons to alien visitors – a brief cultural history of UFOs” – theconversation.com
• “Sometimes a flying boat is just a flying boat: Not everything has to be a UFO” – esoterx.com
• Tailtenn Games
• “On the Identification of the Ancient Cemetery at Loughcrew, Co. Meath” - Eugene Alfred Conwell
• The Aonac Tailteann and the Tailteann Games – T. H. Nally

Music

• The Butterfly - Sláinte
• Periwinkle Waters – Christian Andersen
• Free Form – Amaranth Cove
• Sea of Space – Yi Nantiro

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.