Bringing the Light

Join storytellers Dougie Mackay and Nana Tomova as they celebrate the increasing sunlight with a selection of favourite folktales and myths.

Expect tales of kinship with the almighty Sun, cantankerous marsh witches and blue-skinned Cailleachs. There will be journeys through dark forests, you’ll travel with brave and wise women, and you will face the Twelve Months in their beautiful glory. Join their journeys to seek the light.

Collaborating for the first time, both Dougie and Nana are inspired by stories as a way of connecting deeply with nature, and appreciate the 'medicine' of ancient myth.

About Nana: Nana was born by the Black Sea and carries in her bones old Bulgarian stories of dragon breath and maids made gold; quests in iron shoes and breads of tears.

Nana is an initernationally acclaimed Traditional Oral Storyteller and a Medicine Woman. She loves stories of the wild, and her favourite place to tell them is out on the land. She is the creator of the Story Apothecary Podcast, where she dispenses stories as medicine. Nana’s stories speak to belonging, grief, and the Woman’s Quest.

Nana has performed at the Brighton Fringe Festival, her story walks have been featured in the Guardian, Coast magazine and Country Homes magazine. "An Enchantress...Her mesmerising voice is transporting me to some faraway places" The Guardian

About Dougie: Dougie hails from a lineage of natural storytellers in the Scottish Highlands. He loves tales of the wild northern lands and supernatural encounter.  Described as enigmatic and humorous, he delights in the synergistic weave between landscape, culture, imagination and story. Carrying on the ancient ceilidh tradition, he blends ‘hearthside’ warmth with more contemporary dynamism when telling stories.  In 2022 he was commissioned to develop the “Animate Lands” show for the Scottish International Storytelling festival, gleaning fragments of Celtic animism through the Fianna myths. This year, he will be tracking wolves and wolf tales.

Artwork: The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, by William Blake, 1805.