Bardskull

By: Martin Shaw

Narrated by: Martin Shaw

Bardskull is the record of three journeys made by Martin Shaw, the celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth, in the year before he turned 50. It is unlike anything he has written before. This is not a book about myth or narrative: Rather, it is a sequence of incantations, a series of battles. Each of the three journeys sees Shaw walk alone into a Dartmoor forest and wait. What arrive are stories–fragments of myth that he has carried within him for decades: the deep history of Dartmoor itself; the lives of distant family members; Arthurian legend; and tales from India, Persia, Lapland, the Caucasus and Siberia. But these stories and their tellers don’t arrive as the bearers of solace or easy wisdom. As with all quests, Shaw is entering a domain of traps and tests.

Bardskull can be listened to as a fable, as memoir, as auto-fiction, or as an attempt to undomesticate myth. It is a magnificent, unclassifiable work of the imagination.

©2023 Unbound (P)2023 Unbound

Shaw is fantastic

Bardskull is a great read, but an even better listen. The oral tradition, my dears!

Amazing Narration

Nice to learn from fiction. Martin Shaw is a special guy and look forward to reading more of his masterpieces

Bardskull

I have a hard copy of Bardskull. I thoroughly enjoyed it with my eyes. I've listened to Bardskull here twice. I'm budding hare ears now. I'm starting my third listen now.

Spell breaking beauty

This work is one that weaves between this world and many others. A journey into the heart of a myth, the wild and God. It’s challenging to find words to speak to the power and the beauty of this telling. My heart broke and was reborn 100 times in the listening and I am changed for it.
The way that Martin Shaw weaves words is utterly magnificent. He winds words together into a basket to hold the listener and ferry them over to the other side of the river. It is artful, fantastic and brutal.

A WILD ride into myth, faith, and personal story

I love Martin Shaw. For years he has been my go-to guide into the world of myth and story. I own the physical book, but there is something about Martin narrating his own material that adds a smoky, earthy quality to the whole experience. Reading it allows us a certain comfort: we're tucked in our bed or curled up on a favorite reading chair with tea or coffee or other body-warming libations. Hearing Martin speak, though, conjures up visions of an ancient past where the Storyteller weaves narratives familiar and unknown into something wholly new.

This is a non-linear book. There are sections, and there is something of a beginning-middle-end, but you're largely unaware of where you are in time-space as he sucks you into a heady blend of history and myth and fairy tales and personal story. "Autobiography" and "memoir" are too sterile to describe this book.

Martin enters the forest his old self, but he exits a changed man. Reborn might be more apt. Without giving anything away, he experiences something truly wondrous towards the end of his time there.

It is not the easiest book to read or listen to because it is not intended to flow with the structure of a conventional narrative. He states that outright. This book was born out of a genuine change in Martin during his time in the forest, and he succeeds in bringing us into that tumultuous time with minimal editing for the sake of order. This is raw stuff.

If you are interested in myth and fairy tales, in miraculous happenings, and in exceptional storytelling, this is a worthwhile use of a credit. Again, I am biased as a fan of Martin. But this book exceeded my expectations.