It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library – and this week previews the launch of a very special event.
As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.
Sunday. October 30th, 13:30: The Halloween Tree, Conclusion
On All Hallows Eve, young Pipkin is due to meet his eight friends outside a haunted house on the edge of town. But as he runs through the gathering gloom, Something sweep him away.
Arriving at the house in expectation of meeting Pipkin, his eight friends instead encounter the mystical Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, who informs them that Pipkin has been taken on a journey that could determine if he lives or dies.
Aided by Moundshroud and using the tail of a kite, the eight friends pursue Pipkin through time and space, passing through the past civilisations – Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Celts – witnessing all that has given rise to the day they know as “Halloween”, and the role things like ghosts and the dead play in it.
Then, at length they come to the Halloween Tree itself, laden with jack-o’-lanterns, its branches representing the confluence of all these traditions, legends and tales, drawing them together into itself.
With David Abbott, Faerie Maven-Pralou and Caledonia Skytower at Haunted Hollow in Chestnut Hills.
Monday, October 31st
13:00: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
On All Hallows Eve, how better than to get in the mood than with some classic tales of horror and spookiness from literature?
Perhaps one of the most well-known (and well-loved) stories of dark hauntings is Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which is also one of the earliest examples of American literature of enduring popularity.
While setting his tale in post-revolutionary America in the year 1790, Irving in fact wrote the sorry tale of school teacher Ichabod Crane and his ill-fated encounter with the Headless Horseman in 1819 while visiting England, where his also penned Rip Van Winkle.
Both The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle first appeared in print in his serial The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, which also marked Irving’s first use of that pen name. As with Rip Van Winkle, Irving claims he first heard about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow from “Diedrich Knickerbocker”, a fictional “Dutch Historian”.
19:00: The Wolfen
Gyro Muggins reads Whitley Strieber’s 1978 debut novel.
Two New York Police Department detectives investigate a series of suspicious deaths across New York City. These are revealed to be the work of a race of intelligent beings descended from canids, called the Wolfen.
The novel is told from the point of view of the human characters as well from the Wolfen themselves. The savage killing of two New York City policemen leads two detectives, a man and a woman bound together by a strange, tough passion, to hunt down the wolfen – once called werewolves.
Tuesday, November 1st 12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym
With music, and poetry in Ceiluradh Glen.
Wednesday, November 2nd:
19:00: Seanchai Flicks – Dia de los Muertos
The Seanchai cinema space shares Halloween-themed video adventures.
21:00: All Souls
With Shandon Loring.
Thursday, November 3rd, 19:00: Cursed
Stories from the Anthology edited by Christina Henry. With Shandon Loring.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 