There is a moment after every performance that few people ever see. The audience rises, coats rustle, chairs scrape across wooden floors, and laughter trails off down hallways and stairwells. Someone lingers to shake your hand. Someone else says, “That was brilliant.” Another asks where they can hear more. Then the door closes. And suddenly the room is quiet. The candles burn lower. The stage is just a patch of floorboards again. The air that moments ago held dragons and ghos

There is something quietly magical that happens when people walk together while listening to a story. It is not flashy. It is not immediately obvious. Most people who join a walking tour believe they are simply signing up to learn something, pass time, or be entertained. But beneath that simple expectation lies a powerful psychological phenomenon, one that explains why walking tours create such deep, lasting emotional impact compared to almost any other form of storytelling.

There are nights in Canada when the air turns sharp enough to remind me of home. Not the postcard home, not the shortbread tin version tourists carry in their cameras, but the real one. The one that breathes. The one that sweats stories through its cobblestones. On those nights, when the wind slips between buildings with a whistle that almost sounds like a Highland lament, I close my eyes and I am walking again. Not walking for exercise. Not walking to get somewhere. Walking

I used to think death was a story best left untold. Not avoided entirely, no Storyteller can truly avoid death, but handled the way one handles a sleeping bear in the corner of the room: acknowledged quietly, circled carefully, never touched, not to be hugged (I add this last one to let my wife know I do listen). I’ve told tales for years where death was a symbol, a plot device, a shadow passing over the hill before the hero’s return. It was never the hearth fire at the centr

Getting older is a strange thing. No one really tells you how quietly it happens. No bell rings to announce you have crossed some invisible threshold from young to seasoned, from eager to experienced, from apprentice to elder. One day, you notice that you have begun to say things like, “I remember when…,” or you hear a younger voice ask you for advice, and you realise with a small shock that you have become someone who is expected to have answers. Most people resist aging. We

When the Storm Becomes the Voice Storytelling is in my bones. That is not a metaphor I use lightly. It is something I have felt in my marrow, in the rhythm of my breath, in the way silence gathers around me before a tale begins. For over fourteen years, I have travelled the world telling stories, old stories, living stories, stories borrowed and stories earned. I have stood in castles and community halls, in theatres and taverns, under open skies and low ceilings, watching fa

If you’ve ever sat on the cold, concrete-filled seats of an airport terminal, clutching a lukewarm coffee or a bottle of tepid water and watching the word "Delayed" or worse, “Cancelled” flash across the screen like a personal insult, you’ve felt a fraction of the power of The Lykan Curse. For most of us, travel is a series of logistics. Yet for me — a man whose voice carries the weight of a thousand Scottish legends and whose beard is slowly developing its own postal code—tr

This was a hard one to write. And I know some people will say, “It’s just a cat”. We all know that is never the case.  It is with the heaviest of hearts and a lot of stray ginger fur on our clothing, bedding and pretty much every piece of furniture, that we share some sad news: our beloved ginger beastie, Monty, has passed away. For those who visited our home or tuned in to our streams, Monty wasn’t just a pet; he was a founding member of the team, one of the OG’s. He was the

When people ask what I do for a living, and I tell them I’m an oral storyteller, I usually get one of two looks: a nostalgic smile or a look of pure panicked confusion. "So... you read books to kids?" Not exactly. Being a professional storyteller isn't about reading off a page; it’s about the electricity between a speaker and a listener. It’s an ancient craft, but making a modern living out of it? That’s where the "self-employed" part gets interesting. If you’ve ever wondered

If you’ve ever stepped through the gates of a Renaissance or Medieval Faire, you know the sensory overload: the smell of roasted nuts, the clashing of wooden swords, and the rhythmic jingle of bells on a jester’s cap. But amidst the chaos, a quieter, more ancient magic is happening—often under a canvas tent or beneath the shade of an oak tree (or, in some cases, the grand stage also known as the grass by the side of the thoroughfare). There you will find the Storyteller. The