Myths, Magic and Legends by Tamsin Mori

The Weather Weaver has taken the world by storm and is a brilliant book full of myths and legends- ideal for our theme of Myths, Magic and Mayhem!

Of all the stories we tell, myths and legends are amongst the most magical – they offer a glimpse of the extraordinary, hiding just beneath the everyday. They colour the world with wonder. If you let them, they’ll sink into your bones, anchoring you to people, places, ideas…

The myths that made their way into my bones are all island stories – selkies, mermaids, blue men, kelpies, nyugels, trows, and giants – deep-rooted in the Shetland landscape, threading it through with magic and meaning. They’re stories to be shared around the fire on long winter nights, while the sea hurls itself against the cliffs, the wind howls its hunger, and the northern lights paint the sky.

My favourite Shetland legend is the selkies. Selkies seem like seals, but when the moon is right, and the land calls them, they shed their skin and take on human form. I used to sit on the rocks and sing to the seals. A semi-circle of curious brown heads would pop out of the water to listen – selkies, one and all. I used to wish I was one of them – free to belong to the land and the sea, transforming at will – I’ve always been at home in the water.

My heart’s home, Shetland, was overflowing with myths and legends. But when I was small, we moved far from the untamed sea and ancient stones – down south, to a small commuter town. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it was utterly mundane, but even there, there was magic to be found.

It turns out everywhere has its own stories – shared by torchlight late at night, passed around in the playground, enshrined in play. Charms, spells and wishes, are entrusted to dandelion clocks, eyelashes, ladybirds, stars. Beware the haunted house on the corner. No jumping on the cracks in the pavement. Wherever there are children breathing life into stories, there is magic.

Myths and legends are as varied and fascinating as all the people in all the world, but those that endure often conjure similar feelings: a warm fire of imagination in the darkness, spotlighting monsters and tricksters, guiding the way to safety, anchoring you to the places you love.

Every place has its own stories, so whenever I travel somewhere new, I’m all ears – hearing the stories of a place will tell you far more than your eyes ever will.

In time, I discovered that each person comes with their own secret store of stories too. You just need to be willing to listen. Humans are creatures made of stories – we are the stories we tell ourselves. So it is, that ancient myths give rise to new ones. All it takes is the seed of a story and someone willing to share it.

The Weather Weaver grew out of family stories, many of which involved the weather. My Granny grew up on Foula, a small island, a four-hour boat-ride from the mainland. When the wind was up, she’d walk to school roped together with her sisters like a team of rock-climbers, so they wouldn’t be blown off the cliffs. She told stories of lightning storms wild enough to drive her mother to hide under the kitchen table, waves tall enough to swallow an island…

Whether it’s an ancient legend, passed down through generations, or a familiar family story, retold again and again, stories have a habit of growing. Each time they’re told, they’re embroidered a little more. Each storyteller adds a layer of themselves in the telling – that’s how myths are made. Magical.

Tamsin Mori, author of The Weather Weaver