KnotWork Myth & Storytelling

It's the middle of the night. A wealthy woman sits alone by the fire, carding wool, when the first knock comes at the door.Open! Open! I am the Witch of One Horn!This is the opening of The Twelve Horned Women,” from Lady Jane Wilde's folklore collection Ancient Legends of Ireland. It’s one of several stories that Marisa weaves together in our latest full-length Turas episode, The Village Beyond the Dunes, available exclusively to paid members of Myth Workers' Hearth over on Substack.The Twelve Horned Women come down from Sliabh na mBan, the Mountain of Women in Co. Tipperary. They take over the woman’s house and make impossible demands. These witches from the Otherworld nearly get away with murder.But here's the question that haunts this story: were they invaders, or were they reclaiming what was always theirs?In the full Turas episode, Marisa explores how stories like this one teach us about community: its magic, its failures, its longing, and its wounds. From Tír na mBan to Avalon to a deserted village on Achill Island, The Village Beyond the Dunes walks the terrain of everything we've lost, everything we've dreamed, and everything that might still be possible.Join Myth Workers' Hearth to access the full episode and the complete Turas series.www.mythworkers.comKnotWork Myth & Storytelling is hosted by Marisa Goudy. New public episodes are released each week. WORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comPLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOWLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings.

This episode is a medieval Irish permission slip for every creative who has ever felt too raw, too unformed, or too messy to call themselves a writer. It’s for anyone whose inner critic has tried to kill the emerging work before it could grow.OUR STORYFrom the Book of Leinster (c. 1160): a strange, silent boy who hasn't spoken in fourteen years. A blacksmith father who knows how to protect what isn't ready yet. And the chief poet of Ireland, who recognizes genius before anyone else does — and has to decide what to do about it.OUR GUESTKate Chadbourne is a storyteller, singer, harper, and poet, professor of Irish language and folklore, and founder of The Celtic Wisdom School. Her debut novel, The Poet on the Train, was published in 2025. Find her at https://www.katechadbourne.com/. She tells stories each week over on YouTube @katechadbournebardIN THIS EPISODE: The Irish proverb (or seanfhocail) Bíonn gach tosú lag. Every beginning is weak. You contain both poets. Amergin, the instinctual, unschooled self and Athairne, the credentialed institutional self are both necessary. The danger is when one swings an ax at the other.Feel for the bruise. Pick up your poem like an apple and find where the energy has gone soft — then ask every part to rise to the aliveness of the best part.Put a flower on your house. Blátham — I bloom, I flourish. Making beauty for its own sake, even a sticker in a journal no one will ever see, is the practice.Completing something changes you. Kate shares the moment midway through writing her novel when the inner Athairne told her to stop. She kept going. Finishing, by your own standards, for yourself, is its own transformation.Write with Amergin, revise with Athairne. Kate and Marisa's upgrade on Hemingway's "write drunk, edit sober."Father Dineen's Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla The Poet on the Train by Kate ChadbourneWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comPLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOWLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings.Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicSamhain: the Celtic festival when the veil between the worlds is thin. It's the last harvest of the old year, the start of the new, and a time of turning inward both to reckon with the shadow and to engage in deep, restorative rest.We're marking the start of Samhain season with a conversation with Robert Mulhall as part of our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series. May this episode offer you an invitation to have your own conversation with the Otherworld and engage with mythology, the land, and the power of ritual and ceremony. OUR GUESTRobert Mulhall has spent the last two decades in such diverse industries as public health, leadership development, education, finance, organizational consulting, and executive coaching. He is now the CEO of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in the Berkshires. Originally from County Wicklow, Robert holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce, accounting, and business management from the University College of Dublin. He is a certified public accountant in Ireland, and certified in mediation, executive coaching, the Enneagram, Reiki, and Celtic Irish Shamanism.  IN THIS EPISODE:Living mythology in modern times through relationship with the land and daily spiritual practiceThe power of uncertainty and mystery in Irish spiritual traditionsThe importance of humility in walking with spirit and indigenous wisdomFinding wholeness through reconnecting with ancestral roots and practicesNavigating cultural identity and spiritual authenticity with an awareness of colonization and what it has stolen from both indigenous and white-identifying peoplesThe symbol and power of the triple spiral, the triskele“Don’t rush your winter.” How can you allow your own wintering, quietude, and need for rest and renewal - even if that instinct doesn’t match the current weather or your long to do list.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOUR STORYKing Bran leaves the feasting hall and is wrapped in the haunting song of a magical silver branch. This is the beginning of his immram, an oversea journey to the Otherworld. Along the way, he meets Manannán Mac Lir, the god of the sea, and they eventually reach Tir na mBan, the Island of Women.IN THIS EPISODEThis story of Bran throws the typical hero’s journey on its head as he cannot return home with the elixir because time works so differently in the otherworldSilver Branch Perception, a way of seeing the world described by the Irish mystic-philosopher-scholar John Moriarty (author of Dreamtime and Invoking Ireland)My experiences with the Bard Mythologies Summer School, which carries Moriarty’s work forward todayReflections on traveling to the ancestral homeland of Ireland, including the art of arriving there fully, the pain of leaving, and the unique challenges of returning home againWhat it means to be “fully in yourself” as you travel and as you move through your everyday life How my own life is changing on the other side of my own homecoming: homeschooling my younger daughter

Write with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOur StoryThe sea has its own way of speaking - not in words, but tides, dreams, and memory. Not all who feel lost are meant to be found; some of us are simply remembering where we came from. Erica O'Reilly's The Call of the Sea and a Lost Sealskin emerged when she returned to Ottawa, after two weeks at an artists' residency on the coast of Kerry. In this piece, she explores the layered, cascading grief of returning to a land that doesn’t feel of “home.” This piece was first as part of her Substack series The Creative Process of De thír mo Mháithreacha: Of the Land of My Mothers. Be sure to subscribe to her amazing newsletter, Weavings of the Wise & Embodied.Our GuestAs KnotWork’s 2025 resident storyteller, Erica’s heart-centered work is devoted to facilitating experiences where souls feel seen, held, and heard. Through her Into the Circle Theatre project, Erica weaves together Irish culture, history, folklore, and mythology.As an Irish-Canadian, Erica is profoundly grateful to the traditional spirits and keepers of the land—past, present, and future—of the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation where she was born and currently resides. In this episode:Diasporic grief and what it is to feel at home in two worldsThe selkie myth, that classic tale from Irish mythology of the seal woman who is torn between land and seaCreative residencies: making plans vs. letting go of expectationsStorytelling is medicine and sharing stories out loud mattersWhat it means to live between worlds and living the question: do you have to choose? Planting seeds in the water, hoping for future adventures and new stories togetherMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.