Tristan & Isolde, launching February 2022
Cista Mystica is delighted to announce the release of a new series of books, starting February 2022 with Martin Shaw’s version of Tristan and Isolde. This is the first volume from a major body of work Shaw has been working on over the past few years. From the primordial caves of antiquity and up through the pagan imagination and Christian mysticism, Shaw wanders centuries, stories and ideas that reconsecrate our relationship to a living earth. Based within the Celtic fringe of Britain, Tristan and Isolde is a standalone
The Hidden Country
New Year message from Dr Martin Shaw: Joe Strummer once told me not to lose a sense of the heroic. Not in some overbearing, strutting, macho manner, but in a quieter, more vocational register. That certain beautiful things needed defending, and that itself was an organising principle in the scattergun chaos of these times. That you figured out what you stood for. You set free a little morality but held back on the judgement. I’m not someone that peddles in despair or stirs up disorder and claims it
Smoke Hole Sessions – Martin Shaw podcasts
Author and master storyteller Martin Shaw brings us the Smoke Hole Sessions – a series of vital conversations with inspirational people, in the hope that in the crackle of the thinking, the fire of the language, the visioning and the wildness of the exchanges, we may find breadcrumbs that lead us out of the forest again, and into a deeper life. Inspired by his new book Smoke Hole, Martin speaks to some of today’s most admired writers, musicians, comedians, activists and more about their own work and
BARDSKULL: A second glimpse, plus new Wolf Milk merchandise just in
Bardskull: a second glimpse Dr Martin Shaw has released a tantalising second glimpse of his latest book Bardskull, sharing a reading of an 11-minute section of the book as it unfolds. The wild words just recorded are a taster of this powerful fusion of memoir and myth, scheduled for publication in 2022 by Unbound Books, which has launched a funding project to get it completed and to press. Bardskull is the record of three journeys made in the year before Martin turned fifty - for each, he walks
BARDSKULL: Audio sneak preview
Bardskull: a sneak preview As the funding of Dr Martin Shaw's brand new book Bardskull hits 61 per cent from 181 supporters, he has released a recording to give a little glimpse of what awaits. The recording is the story of Gawain and the Green Knight, told by a Hare hidden in Gawain's saddlebag. Bardskull, a powerful fusion of memoir and myth, is the record of three journeys made in the year before Martin turned fifty. For each, he walks alone into a forest in the heart of
Beautiful Learning: New Martin Shaw live audio
Beautiful Learning: New Martin Shaw live audio Recorded live over two days this summer, Beautiful Learning: Oral Thought & Culture-Making is a deep dive into Celtic stories and philosophy. The event, which took place on Dartmoor in Devon (UK) in July, included tellings of Cinderbiter (from the Hebrides) and Irish story The Birth of Ossian, along with a very rare rendition of the Invasion Tales of Erin and the Arrival of the Tuatha De Danann (Irish). The live recording (available as MP3 downloadable files) covers the gathering as