Dark Fairy Tales

Image courtesy: © Luciana Nedelea / Prestel, 2025

Join master storyteller Viktor Wynd and his merry band, The Blackshore Collective, as he tells spooky and eerie fairy tales set to original live music. Be warned these are not the Disney versions and may not be suitable for the most tender ears.

This evening Mr. Wynd will tell some of his favourite tales collected on expeditions around the world, from nasty Germans chopping up people and eating them, to disgusting, macabre and delightful tales from Borneo. Learn of the birth of the leeches, the reason mosquitos are always buzzing around human ears, why it is best not to suckle caterpillars – or indeed strange babies - and something about bedbugs that might give you nightmares.

Image courtesy: © Luciana Nedelea / Prestel, 2025

Giant octopuses, man-eating pigs and a buried moon from Papua New Guinea, or possibly shapeshifting magical creatures from Wales, the Good People of Ireland, the Sea Merrow, a Scottish Selkie, Scandinavian trolls and an illicit love affair with an Ice Bear.

The tales will be accompanied by live music from local legends The Blackshore Collective.

Viktor Wynd is proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History, and Chancellor of the pataphysical Last Tuesday Society. He has spent the last 25 years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales, his repertoire includes tales from the Brothers Grimm, Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Ireland, Africa, Papua New Guinea and North America – so far.

Mr. Wynd will be reciting from Dark Fairy Tales, his new book from Prestel/Random House. He is also the author of The Cabinet of Wonders (Prestel 2014) and The UnNatural History Museum (Prestel 2020), and his next book Dark Fairy Tales will be published by in 2025.