www.voiceandstory.com
Originally published in Facts & Fiction, August 2024
2022 was designated Scotland’s Year of Stories and Storytelling, and this injection of funding naturally created a bonanza year for storytelling projects in Scotland.
One of the projects I was invited to work with was Whispers From the Woods & Wilds, a multiple-agency Badger project. Over four months, the team, headed by Elaine Rainey from Scottish Badgers and Lyndsay Mark from the Scottish Wildlife Trust, met at the Falls of Clyde Nature Reserve in the Clyde Valley. We gathered in the Field Studies room to learn about badgers, from biology and lifestyle to their history and folklore. We were amongst some of the first people in the UK to learn about badgers’ summer nests. This is an important new discovery by ecologists and is currently under study. We were lucky enough to see an overground, circular nest of hay, flowers and le
aves made by badger/s on the reserve. In addition to introducing Badger folklore, I was invited to tell stories at each session. A cosy gazebo and luxury picnic, fondly named ‘What Would A Badger Eat?’ was provided as part of our story-sharing (see picture). However, would badgers put clotted cream and strawberry jam on their scones like we did?!
Craig Thomson of Operation Play Outdoors, an outdoor Forest School & community play initiative, brought refugees and asylum seekers from Glasgow to join us at the Reserve. Despite a few
language barriers, the hands-on experience of fieldwork put everyone on an equal footing. We learned conservation and tracking techniques, which included the delight of sniffing badger poo, as well as placing a trail cam up in a tree near a badger set. The following week, we watched the camera footage, and it gave us such a good laugh as we saw a badger family playing, scuffling, cleaning out their home and having a good scratch. This helped the participants understand what the Nature Reserve and our project were all about. It was amazing to see how quickly friendships formed, and everyone began to relax and enjoy each other’s company.
This is where my facilitating came into focus. Uniting diverse and sometimes highly traumatised people through storyology * is one of the most rewarding aspects of being a storyteller. I’ve been developing multi-cultural and multi-generational storytelling projects in Central Scotland since 1992, and this was one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve experienced to date. The participants relaxed and engaged enthusiastically through the rangers’ carefully planned activities and the combination of learning, meeting and listening to stories in a wild and natural environment. People joined in when possible, asked questions, made comparisons with their own cultural experiences, and laughed until they cried at the badger tales and banter. By the final session, Ukrainian, African and Syrian members of the group were up on their feet, singing and dancing around the campfire – we all traded stories, tunes and dance moves on a frosty Scottish hillside. Hopefully, the badgers, sleeping nearby in their underground homes, had pleasant dreams with smiles on their brock faces.
Next, we visited local Primary schools. Lyndsay took in a stuffed badger and various skulls to demonstrate the magnificence of a badger’s jaw when eating worms. Once the science was firmly demonstrated, the children listened to my badger folktales and began to write their own stories. Finally, I led two online creative writing workshops for badger enthusiasts all over the UK. I could never have been prepared for the incredible writing that people produced over the following fortnight. The participants’ knowledge and heart-felt passion for wildlife and badgers was astounding. In fact, the work was so good that Scottish Badgers gathered the stories and are planning to produce a book. I’ll let you know when it’s out.
I enjoyed researching badger stories and folklore and wrote an article about finding the tales on Scottish Badger’s blog. If you are interested in where to find stories and further reading about badgers in literature and folklore, then have a look at the blog: https://www.scottishbadgers.org.uk/blogs/yearofstories/
Also, look out for new badger books in print. And why not join your local Badger Group? In Scotland it’s Scottish Badgers – www.scottishbadgers.org.uk and England & Wales: Badger Trust – www.badgertrust.org.uk
Finally, the icing on the cake for Whispers From the Woods and Wilds was winning Best Project in the Health and Well-Being category at the Nature of 
Scotland Awards in Edinburgh in 2023. Team Badger totally deserved this award for such an innovative and well-produced project. For the storytelling community, it further demonstrates that well-facilitated storytelling can play a vital part in bringing cohesion and harmony to humanity and nature alike. (See picture of team Badger with me holding the winner’s certificate)
* Storyology is a term I love and use liberally! It was coined by John Francis Campbell of Islay in the 19th Century and refers to recording the authentic details of a story and its teller.
