Mabinogi Monday #10 with Angharad Wynne

Storytelling with Michael Harvey

Angharad Wynne is a storyteller based in South Wales. She has a particular love for the stories of the Mabinogion and has a clear and deep connection with both the landscape of the stories and the characters in them. She has made a particular study of Rhiannon from the first and third branches.

She is an important figure in the contemporary cultural landscape of Wales and has played a major role in projects and institutions including the Wales Millennium Centre and Beyond the Border International Storytelling Centre and musicians including Catrin Finch and 9 Bach.

She organises a range of myth and walking events including landscape expeditions that explore the history, archaeology, myths and 'dreaming' of the land. She also runs retreats and workshops including Return to Centre, In the Footsteps of the Ancestors and Dreaming the Land held at Cae Mabon in the foothills of Snowdonia in May each year.
Storytelling and running workshops take her far and wide, from Wales, to Festivals in Portugal and as far afield as India this year. She combines her deep knowledge of the ancient mythology and spiritual traditions of Wales with insights drawn from wisdom and healing tales from indigenous cultures across the world.

In this far ranging conversation we talked about…

• The Mabinogion as a stratified piece of landscape
• Our shared humanity with the characters of the Mabinogion
• Archetypal nature of the characters and their godlike nature
• Mabinogion characters as types of real people and inspiration as role models
• Otherworldly space co-present with the ‘real’ world
• Annwfn and Nwyfre - Otherworld and cosmic energy.
• Land