Folk memory is the mystery of human-nature time, a connection to ancestral imagination forged directly in the natural world. Even the unnatural and odd root us in something evermore powerful than ourselves ~ as powerful as evolution itself. All is possible.

With mischievous ribbons, folk memory weaves, with words and mind-pictures, the ghosts of all the life that has ever existed. Folk memory is a collective and no-one is excluded, not even the cynical. Tales flow from mind to mind through space and time. Like the ancient soils, they pull us deep into our origins and lead us to the windy paths of the future. There will be more eyes and ears to absorb them along the way, transforming them through cultural eddies. They will be shape-shifted into memory.

Old to young. Old to young. And so on. They are the “dreaming”.

Folk memory is deep within us all, leaving impressions, like light trails in the darkness or shadows after light. And we tell and listen with the same mannerisms of the long dead. Feel this, try not to intellectualise.

Folk memory is to be enjoyed. It’s fun. But remember its warnings, for there are many.

The Heron, the Cat and the Bramble via the National Museum Wales. A story told by Lewis T Evans (1882-1975). I’d love you to read the English and listen to the Welsh…

Now we are the young, listening to our old. Their memories are invaluable.

Photo by me. Wye heron at dusk.

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