House of the West Wind Christmas Lecture with Tom Muir - Out of the Silence: Reviving Orkney's Folk Tales

Out of the Silence: Reviving Orkney's Folk Tales

This year's House of the West Wind College of Storytelling Christmas Lecture is with Tom Muir.

The Orkney poet George Mackay Brown wrote, "carve the runes, then be content with silence". Orkney's folk tales had fallen into the silence, ignored, shunned, even despised by older people who saw them as old-fashioned and best left in the past. 

Unearthing these stories has been a lifetime's work for Tom, although he had no idea how much work it would be or where it would take him. 

Join him to hear about Orkney's stories and how they link back to Norway and the Vikings.

Tom Muir MBE is Orkney's only native Orcadian traditional storyteller, an author and historian who has spent over thirty years bringing the islands' folk tales back from the brink, and told stories from Nunavut to Hong Kong.

For 37 years he worked at the Orkney Museum, and in 2000 he co-founded the Orkney Storytelling Festival. His books include The Mermaid Bride, Orkney Folk Tales, and Scottish Tales of Coast and Sea. He has made television appearances on Time Team, The One Show, and Coast.

In 2025 he was awarded an MBE for services to Orkney folk tales. He now runs Orkneyology with his wife Rhonda.