In 2023, House of Legends, Candlelit Tales and Fair Folk Media came together to craft our first retreat.
For three days a group of mythic adventurers dreamed within the womb of a highland woodland, soaking ourselves in the stories of Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia.
In 2024 we return with an expanded team, a breathtaking new site and five full days of immersion into animism and living myth.
Join us in 2024 for the Song of Oak & Ash.
Scotland is synonymous with romanticism, mystery and magic. She is also a land whose spiritual traditions are largely forgotten, her ancient chain of mythic heritage severed.
Yet her stories speak of a wolf-riding crone who shaped mountains and islands with her hammer. Of a dream-steeped trickster who reshaped the seas with the tongue of a snake.
A short sail to the west lies Ireland, where monks recorded myths even as they warped them, and where the names of the gods still ride the tongues of storytellers. And to the north-east lies Scandinavia, whose longships brought piracy, then settlement, then a mixing of mythologies to these lands.
On this retreat we will gather round fires, at the loch’s edge and in the shadow of mountains to immerse ourselves in the lore of Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia. These stories are our sacred heritage, our gateway to the gods of our ancestors.
Beneath waterfalls, on hilltops and at the rising of the sun, we will make ceremony together, answering that bone-deep urge to reach out and entwine with a living, breathing, ensouled world.
The team have no intention of doing all this for you. We invite you and will support you to claim your own unique way of relating, being, knowing.
To create your own spontaneous ceremonies. To write your own prayers and sing them to the mountain. To tell the stories that claim you, whether your listeners are humans or trees or frogs.
To utterly open to what Fionn Mac Cumhaill calls ‘the music of what is happening now’.
Then to go out and fight like a Fianna warrior for everything you love.
We go to the mountains armed not with spears but with questions:
How can ancient story, folk song, tribe-making and newly-spun ceremony facilitate encounters with the old gods, legendary beings and mythic energies of these lands?
How can these meetings set us on the road of our individual mythic journeys?
How can these meetings give us the strength we need to navigate the wolf-time we live in?
Here’s what that looks like.
We will spend seven nights in a stunning glen at the heart of Highland Scotland, where ancient peoples once lived in crannogs surrounded by soaring mountains.
We will hear ancient Celtic and Nordic tales told by master storytellers.
We will spend solo time by the loch and in old-growth forest, deepening into the landscape, the stories and whatever responses arise in us. On one day we will each take an extended solo pilgrimage into nature, with the high hills awaiting those who hear their call.
We will take part in movement practices, awakening our bodies to receive the imprint of the tales.
We will connect the stories to the work of our hands through traditional crafting practices.
We will pay attention to our night dreams, our day dreams and the subtle speakings of stone, sunlight and crow feathers.
We will make ceremony together, drawing on the past, our own creativity and some freely-shared traditions of other cultures.
We will share ceilidh time in which everyone is encouraged to tell, sing, play. This was a highlights of last year’s retreat; we saw some wonderful new storytellers awakening!
We will meet and partake of local medicinal herbs, particularly those which open our dreaming abilities.
At the heart of it all, we will hear powerful, ancient stories in a setting which allows us to receive them deeply.
The Venue
Our venue this year is The Big Shed on Tombreck Farm, Loch Tay. Tombreck is a regenerative, organic, community-run farm situated on the north shore of Loch Tay. Above the site stands Ben Lawers, one of Scotland’s highest mountains, while between the farm and the loch lies a breathtaking woodland where we can freely roam. Full of waterfalls, pools and ancient trees, home to dragonflies, badgers and roe deer, all leading to a secluded beach… it could not be more perfect.
Your Hosts
Daniel Allison is the director of The Song of Oak and Ash. He is an oral storyteller, USA Today bestselling author and creativity coach from Scotland. He hosts the House of Legends podcast and is the author of the newly-released Irish Mythology: The Children of Danu, Scottish Myths & Legends, Finn & The Fianna, The Orkney Cycle and the forthcoming Scottish Myths & Legends Vol. II. Daniel’s Myth Singers Celtic Storytelling Apprenticeship provides a unique course of learning for beginning storytellers throughout the world.
Daniel is currently based in Thailand where he devotes himself to writing, coaching and martial arts. His chief interest is dreaming into the gaps in Celtic mythology; exploring the tattered edges of our surviving mythologies and discovering what creativity and ceremonial practice can bring to those spaces.
Sorcha Hegarty is a Cork-born storyteller and the co-founder of the wildly popular Candlelit Tales. Along with her brother Aron, she has enjoyed a decade of collaborative, eclectic and diverse storytelling shows rooted in Irish Mythology.
Driven by their shared passion for Irish mythology and expression, Aron and Sorcha started retelling ancient stories to a near-empty room upstairs in a Dublin pub one rainy evening in November 2014. By the fourth week, the room was full, and so was the hall outside.
Sorcha has a uniquely expressive, naturalistic and modern style of telling, never hiding away from the challenging aspects of myth yet fully embracing them in all their dark and strange beauty. Her vast knowledge, keen insight and brilliant humour make her a superb contributor, and we can’t wait to share stories with her in the woods.
Kirsten Milliken is a storyteller, historical interpreter and textile artist. Born in the Shetland Islands and now living in the South of Scotland, Kirsten specialises in telling stories from Celtic and Norse traditions, especially where the two meet.
Her repertoire includes myths, legends, sagas and folk tales, from epic tales of warring gods to smaller, more intimate tales. She loves exploring what these stories show us about the human psyche, about how we relate to the world and to one another.
Kirsten's passion is to creatively connect people with the land, their ancestors and themselves. She firmly believes these to be radical acts that can shake individuals out of the mundane and reconnect them to the beating heart of the world, to their souls' song.
Kirsten will be your point of contact before and during the retreat, ensuring (reasonably) good order in all things!
Sam Gillespie is a whistle and wooden flute player, guitarist, singer and songwriter from Northumberland. As one half of the duo The Brothers Gillespie, Sam tours widely, sharing songs that describe relationships with wild places and the experience of finding oneself in a world alive with soul. The brothers have opened for Lankum and Sam Lee and recently headlined Knockengorroch’s longhouse, and Sam regularly leads traditional music sessions in Edinburgh and beyond.
Says Sam, ‘Our music is inspired by the still wild soul of the land in which we live, a land alive with presences, not owned by anyone. It is about seeing with the eye of the heart and recovering our imaginations. It is about finding home, belonging and each other in a world which is singing to us as we sing to it’.
A massive hit at our last retreat, Sam will soundscape the stories with improvised music on a variety of instruments, as well as playing in ceremony, solo and perhaps alongside your story in a ceilidh session…
Danica Boyce is a paganism and folklore educator. Hailing from Western Canada, Danica is the host of the hugely popular Fair Folk podcast.
Danica’s courses focus on contemporary paganism, historical paganism and on the medieval European world. Popular offerings have included Abundance Paganism and Gathering the Gods. Her latest project is a newly-released course on ritual song. She is the leader of the Pagan Monastery project, a movement to establish a new pagan monastery in Europe.
Danica’s combination of rigorous scholarship with bold, contemporary ideas and a living pagan practice make her a unique and greatly exciting teacher.
Aron Hegarty is a Cork-born and Dublin-based actor, writer, voice-over artist, storyteller and podcaster. Along with his sister Sorcha, he is co-host and co-founder of Candlelit Tales.
Aron’s style of storytelling and facilitation is full of both passion and playfulness, and he is sure to bring much energy and joy to the retreat. In the meantime, you can catch him on the recent SKY TV show Then You Run; other noteworthy film and TV credits include Game of Thrones, Ripper St and Vikings.
Aron's background was in hurling and sports as a youth. Injuries turned his path towards yoga, meditation and workshop facilitation. Having recently completed his yoga teacher training in India, Aron will be our yoga teacher on the retreat, both for cosy indoor sessions in the hall and beach yoga by the loch.
Practicalities & Pricing
The retreat runs from the evening of Saturday 31st August to the morning of Friday 6th September 2024.
You will be camping on the lawn just outside the Big Shed, where there will always be tea, coffee and hot showers available, as well as a cosy, heated hall space for meals and indoor sessions. You will need to bring your own tent, mat and sleeping bag, as well as outdoor clothing suitable for the Scottish Highlands.
For those who would find camping difficult, there are plenty of hotel/BnB/glamping options nearby. We would rather have you on-site if that’s within your capabilities, though, and we would ask that you ensure you are always on-site ready and prepared for group sessions. Some sessions will start pre-dawn, others will finish late.
Our resident chef Isa will provide high-quality, mostly-local vegetarian food from a light supper on Saturday evening to breakfast on Friday morning. Let us know of any dietary requirements.
There is a decent amount of parking space, though we do encourage lift-sharing (details to follow). We will arrange pickups for those coming on public transport.
Cost
The cost of the retreat is £739, all-inclusive, payable using the button below.
We recognise that times are tough for many people, and that previously we offered bursary places and a deposit scheme. We’ve decided not to do so this year. The retreat is run by a collective of self-employed artists, all of whom work extremely hard to create high-quality offerings within a field where few make a living at all. None of us have income security. As such, we don’t feel we are placed to take on the cost of subsidising individual retreat places.
We have advertised the retreat in plenty of time so that everyone keen to come has time to put money aside. There are an increased number of spaces this year (but not by much, we want to keep things cosy), so we’re confident that there should be a place waiting for you once you’re ready to book.
Please review the terms and conditions before going ahead.
You Will Experience:
ancient stories told by master storytellers in stunning locations
traditional and original music and song from renowned musicians
ceremonies with teacher plants including mugwort and cacao
ceremonies on the mountainside, in the forest and in Loch Tay herself (don’t forget to bring a towel)
nature connection exercises
a choice of morning practices including yoga with Aron, Muay Thai with Daniel and dream work with Sorcha
an extended period of solo time engaged in dialogue with the natural world, with facilitated integration afterwards.
traditional crafts
an introduction to runes and ogham
storytelling, folk song and songwriting workshops
a special night-time ceremonial story immersion
ceremonial music played by our superb resident piper, John Anderson
nourishing and lovingly-prepared food
guidance on deepening your own pagan/animistic/spiritual practise
optional 1-2-1 integration work
ceilidh sessions where everyone can take a turn to tell, sing or play
That’s what we’re offering. We hope you’ll join us.
