The Crane Bag Podcast brings alive the myths and stories we need both to challenge the narratives around us and to find our way through the wilderness of self and world.
Each episode is a performance of a story as well as an exploration of its hidden depths. You can become a Patreon Supporter of the podcast here and receive free access to online storytelling classes and performances, as well as additional stories such as the epic of Gilgamesh, Sufi wisdom tales, Russian fairy tales, and more. New stories are added on a regular basis.
Each episode is a performance of a story as well as an exploration of its hidden depths. You can become a Patreon Supporter of the podcast here and receive free access to online storytelling classes and performances, as well as additional stories such as the epic of Gilgamesh, Sufi wisdom tales, Russian fairy tales, and more. New stories are added on a regular basis.
Featured Episode
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A house thatched with feathers? A princess cursed to have the head of a pig? A salmon who swims between this world and the next? These are some of the wild images contained in the stories of Finn MacCool and his band of magical, poetry-speaking warriors, offering us mythic medicine for our own changing times.
https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/32489622
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Support the Art of Storytelling!
A story can be a journey, a medicine, and a map to territories of the soul. If you are able to support the crucial work of getting stories out into the world, please do so! Patreon Supporters of the podcast receive access to frequent online storytelling events and classes as well as to extra podcast episodes, interviews, and poems; donations to the podcast help to bring the wild and magical power of story into the world to nourish us all in a deep way.
Previous Episodes
Episodes are listed (somewhat) chronologically below; for more specific listings,
please click on the buttons below.
please click on the buttons below.
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It's tough being a sage who lives forever, especially when the world crashes and burns and you're left crawling through an apocalyptic wasteland; but in that darkness there are still surprises to be found. A cosmic legend of murk, hope and mangoes from the Hindu epic the Mahabharata.
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Not long ago I had the pleasure of talking with the Welsh storyteller Daniel Morden, whose visionary performances of epic stories such as the Odyssey, the Iliad and Ovid's Metamorphoses (all performed with storyteller Hugh Lupton) have long inspired me. He's been telling stories for over thirty years and is one of the finest storytellers we have.
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Episode 64: Clare Murphy on Irish Myth, Storytelling, and the Universe Story
The Irish storyteller Clare Murphy has brought her love of myth to audiences around the world as well as to veterans, health care workers and scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This episode begins with her telling of "The Curse of Macha" and goes on to explore the many ways in which the rowdy power of myth opens us to the depths and heights of this world. |
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How does the world begin? In the beautiful Hindu epic the Mahabharata it begins with a stray breeze, an idle wind that soon leads to a series of wild marriages between the eternal and the everyday. It's a story for the feisty river-goddess within us all, complete with a blind king, an elephant-headed god and (of course) a magic cow.
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Perhaps the Otherworld is not a distant place but a world that is all around us though we lack the eyes to see it. In this story from the first branch of the Welsh Mabinogion a king stumbles into relationship with larger powers, finding himself compelled to spend a year as Lord of Annwvyn ("a-new-vin").
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The story of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest myths in the world, yet gives us crucial insights into the world in which we live today. This episode focuses on the start of the story, in which all-powerful king Gilgamesh is challenged by a hair-covered beast-man sent by the gods to teach him wisdom.
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(Pembrokeshire coast, Wales)
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When a king from the Otherworld seeks to marry the sister of king Bran, what can possibly go wrong? The answer, of course, is everything—in this Welsh tale of spectacular disaster centered on the mysteries of a cauldron able to bring the dead back to life.
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We call her "Lady Luck" but to the Romans she was the goddess Fortuna-- and how powerful is she? Can she take a lowly boy and send him to the heights and depths of the world? Only a fairy tale can wrestle with a fierce question like that-- and here it is!
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Episode 71: The Mermaid and the Falcon Prince
How often do we find a "new" fairy tale? In 2012 the scholar Erika Eichenseer found thirty boxes of fairy tales in an attic in Hamburg, Germany-- all of which had been written down in the 19th century by a man named Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. Here is one of those stories, a rowdy and multi-generational tale in which the realms of water and fire must be harmonized by a wizard living inside a rock. |
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Episode 67: The Theft of Sif's Hair
Desire is the red thread that runs through the universe, and when the trickster god Loki steals the golden hair of Sif, the wife of Thor, he unleashes the rowdy desires of all the gods for power, magic, and beauty. A rumination on what we want and what we will do to get it, inspired by a Norse myth alive to all the clanky desires of the human heart and of the gods.
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Episode 67: Exploring Story with Csenge Zalka
The Hungarian storyteller Csenge Zalka has spent years exploring the landscape of story, seeking out obscure and lesser-known stories that celebrate diversity, question traditional gender roles, and engage with the magic inherent in landscape. In this episode she tells "The Maiden of the Flowers" and talks about the connections between story, magic, and the earth beneath our feet.
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Episode 65: Miguel Rivera and the Poetry of Humberto Ak'Abal
"In the churches/you can only hear the prayers/of the trees/converted into pews." In this episode we explore our relations to the earth, first through the Seneca story of "the Storytelling Stone" and then through the poetry of Humberto Ak'Abal as translated by the healer and ceremony-maker Miguel Rivera. |
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Rags and Leaves
Is true love a matter of the heart, or of dumb luck? In this Sicilian tale a rose tossed from a balcony leads to cold winds, a creaking shack in the mountains and an endless cycle of dreams that can only be escaped by welcoming the most scraggly and unloved parts of our world to the feast.
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Episode 62: The Firebird
The burning red feather of desire is there on the forest path, but the horse beneath you says look buddy trouble awaits if you pick up that burning bright glimmering thing. Trouble does await, of course, and it's the beautiful trouble of a Russian tale able to remind us of the dialogue between what we want and what we need.
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(Photo: Chris Gonzalez) |
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"The Handless Maiden" is a violent yet beautiful story found in over one hundred versions worldwide. In this episode JL and special guest Elaine Stanton explore the story together, voyaging into the wild forest of its dream-images to drink from the nourishing waters to be found there.
Please note that this story is most suitable for listeners 15 years old and up. |
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Deeper into the forest we go, exploring the second half of the story of "The Handless Maiden" with special guest Elaine Stanton.
Please note that this story is most suitable for listeners 15 years old and up. |
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Episode 51: The Birth of Athena
Where do the gods come from? If you're a goddess of wisdom and strategy, the recipe for your arrival includes a divine headache, a sparrow caught in a rainstorm and a rowdy craft project carried out inside the skull of your dad. Of course!
Note:This episode is most appropriate for audiences 15 years old and up. Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510), Pallas e Centauro (detail)
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Valemon, the White Bear King
What happens when one of the lords of the animal world snuffles towards you carrying the golden wreath of eternity on his back? Find out what wind blows through this question once a young princess marries a bear and plunges into depths even her dreams forgot to tell her about.
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Episode 50: "The Fox Woman" told by Danny Deardorff
The American storyteller Danny Deardorff (1952--2019) brought many stories flourishing up into the light of his wild voice. In this episode we explore his telling of "The Fox Woman," a Siberian tale of confinement and escape able to awaken the salt-taste of the infinite in our own animal souls.
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Episode 59: The Power of Dreams with Peter Fortunato
In this episode we explore the power of dreams, first through a story from the One Thousand and One Nights and then through an interview with the poet, author and healer Peter Fortunato. The result is a wide-ranging exploration of dreamwork, poetry, and our relations to the earth. |
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Episode 48: Odin and the Well of Wisdom Re-visited
Do we see with our eyes alone, or with the mind? In this episode we return to the story of Odin and the Well of Wisdom, exploring it as a means to understand both inner and outer vision with special guest optometrist and vision therapist Dr. Larry Wallace.
Breville mini smart oven.
Photo by Kazuend on Unsplash
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Episode 54: "The Oldest Boy" told by Walton Stanley
What do the gods and spirits of this world want from us? Climb into the sealskin boots of this question and journey away from your whalebone lodge into the depths, perhaps finding there an answer to the question of our place in the imagination of the world. A story from the far north told by Walton Stanley, followed by an interview with Jay Leeming.
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Episode 44: Odin and the Well of Wisdom
Where do we come from, and where do we go? Would any of us give up our sense of sight for a look into worlds within? In this episode we explore the Norse myth of Odin and the Well of Wisdom, both through the story itself and through an interview with Indo-European scholar Erick James Dodge.
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Photo: Valeriy Poltorak
Please click on the images below to access each individual episode.
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STORYTELLING COMMUNITYStories flourish when told in community, for
each listener brings the diversity of their own experience to the images of the tale. Members of my Patreon community receive free admission to all of my online storytelling events and classes, as well as access to additional storytelling recordings and resources. Consider joining that community to deepen your connection to the mythologies of the world. 
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