Mabinogi Monday #1 with Dafydd Davies-Hughes

Storytelling with Michael Harvey

I am delighted to present a conversation I had with the storyteller and social enterprise director Dafydd Davies-Hughes who has the good fortune to live in the incomparably beautiful and myth-soaked landscape of the Llŷn Peninsula where he works as a storyteller and is the director of Menter Y Felin Uchaf.

Dafydd in action

I was particularly interested in talking to Dafydd because of his close connection to landscape in the Llŷn Peninsula in North West Wales and his commitment to community building. I first met him making traditional Welsh furniture in an Eisteddfod many years ago and was struck by the way he let the natural beauty and form of the wood speak for itself in furniture that was both functional and beautiful. More recently he has devoted himself to building much bigger structures at Menter Felin Uchaf including the amazing roundhouse which has become a lively and well attended venue for storytelling.

Inside the Roundhouse at Felin Uchaf

The conversation took place the summer before last when we were both taking part in a Beyond the Border mini-festival of storytelling inside Harlech Castle - the location for the opening of the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Llŷr.

Our conversation was wide ranging and included

• the way narrative knowing hides inside academic practice and the bridge between art and science
• story as the breath of landscape
• the need to digest c

فصول

1. Mabinogi Monday #1 with Dafydd Davies-Hughes (00:00:00)

2. The Mabinogi, Archeology and Storytelling (00:01:04)

3. The breath and blood of storytelling (00:02:45)

4. Barriers and horror in storytelling (00:05:16)

5. The Mabinogi and the Welsh language (00:07:50)

6. Storytelling and Landscape (00:11:11)