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Upcoming Events, Shows & Performances:

I LOVE THIS STORY. SOON I’LL TELL IT.

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

I LOVE THIS STORY. SOON I’LL TELL IT.

Which story is this?

Well, it’s a challenging one.

It’s my storyteller’s version of Beowulf, the old Viking story about a hero who kills a monster who can’t be killed. Spears and blades don’t work against the towering beast, Grendel, a beast who can sweep strong fighters away like tiny birds. And who takes them home to his cave to eat them afterwards.

Horrible, I know. Yet this ancient tale has fascinated generations. I admit, it fascinates me as well, and I’m looking forward to performing it again. Why would I spend years perfecting an old Viking story? Years developing character voices and a lush, compelling 12-string guitar score? At first glance there’s not much to it: big strong guy who’s braver than everyone else kills monster and becomes legendary hero. There are dozens of such stories. But in a careful reading long ago I found a reason beyond those outer trappings for Beowulf to journey to the Mark of the Danes–Denmark in modern parlance–to help old King Hrothgar.  A reason beyond a simple lust for glory and riches. Although Beowulf is brave and craves renown, in my version, it is gratitude that drives him. It turns out that as a boy, Beowulf sailed to Denmark with his father, who had killed a Wylfing warrior. As it often was in those ancient clan times, the Wylfings had put a blood price on his father’s head. Sounds like John Wick, I know.

Pay us, said the Wylfings, and we won’t hunt down and kill Edgtheo. Or pay others to do it. A common thane like Beowulf’s father could never pay so much gold, and so he’d sailed to ask King Hrothgar–the richest man along the Baltic–to help him. Generously the Danish king paid the blood price for his father and in so doing saved his life.

The little boy, Beowulf, never forgot it.

And so here, years later, Beowulf is willing to die for old Hrothgar by killing his Grendel beast, who for twelve years has decimated the Danes.

This heartfelt detail is in the original text, although usually not brought to the forefront. To my way of thinking, it humanizes an otherwise dark warrior tale while still honoring the original epic narrative.

I’ll be telling Beowulf: The Only One on Sunday, February 4th at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. Doors open at 5 pm. You can drink, eat Viking food, and then sit back for this feature-length evening of adult storytelling. Tickets are $35.

BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE

Sunday, Feb. 4 at 5 pm

Grendel’s Den, Cambridge MA

Tickets: $35

 

 

Thor Defeated. Is That a Real Norse Myth? Yes, It Is.

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Thor defeated. Is that a real Norse Myth? Yes, it is.

Thor the God of Thunder is known as a giant killer. Across the Norse mythos, in many tales, his hammer Mjolnir sends Frost Giants to their graves.

So what is this? You mean Thor is defeated? Well, no, but he is outwitted thoroughly, along with Loki, in the hall of the Frost Giant king.

To find out how, come join me Saturday night, Sept. 24th, at Nova Arts in Keene, NH. The show is at 8 pm. I’ll have my two 12-string guitars and Celtic harp for this 90-minute performance. Character voices. Sound effects. Narrative. Full musical scores for the tales. Plus amazing visuals, lore and plenty of humor.

Grab dinner, enjoy some wine, and sit back for some adult storytelling.

 

ODDS BODKIN

performs

ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS

SEPT. 24TH at 8 pm

Nova Arts

48 Emerald Street

Keene, NH

Tickets: $25

https://www.novaarts.org/events/oddsbodkin924

 

 

Storyteller Odds Bodkin is Back with Live School Shows!

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

Storyteller Odds Bodkin is Back with Live School Shows!

There’s nothing quite like watching hundreds of children sitting spellbound while laughing, singing and using their imaginations. Odds blends soaring acoustic music with amazing character voices to create movies for the mind for young listeners.

Learn about his live school shows specially designed for K-2 and 3-5 audiences.

A Teacher’s GOLDEN RULE Review:

“My goodness, words cannot express our ENORMOUS thanks and gratitude for your time and talents on Tuesday… The students were absolutely awe-struck (as was I and the other adults!)! I’ve waited on writing you because I wanted to gather the feedback for you and the biggest feedback I’ve gotten is “He is AWESOME!!” “He needs to come back!!” — Christina Catino, Music Teacher

Learn more at:

https://www.oddsbodkin.net/elementary-school/

 

Adult Storytelling and Feasting Tomorrow Night in Cambridge

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Adult Storytelling and Feasting Tomorrow Night in Cambridge

For a total immersion into an ancient mythic world, join Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin for a storytelling concert: ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS. A full 90 minutes of imagination entertainment.

Grab a table with friends, eat heartily, and then sit back for Thor’s Journey to Utgard and The Mead of Poetry, two Viking myths performed with character voices, sound effects and music on two different 12-string guitars. Plus a Viking lore introduction told with Celtic harp.

Children over 12 are welcome.

“Bodkin’s enchanting voice, musical prowess, and larger-than-life persona have earned him an illustrious career as a master storyteller.” — The Harvard Crimson

“a consummate storyteller”—The New York Times

“a modern-day Orpheus”—Billboard

ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS

Odds Bodkin

Sunday, April 3, 2022 at 5 pm

Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square

Tickets: $25

Power Myths of Ancient Greece: Storyteller Odds Bodkin on Zoom This Thursday

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Power Myths of Ancient Greece: Storyteller Odds Bodkin on Zoom This Thursday

Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin kicks off his 3-part series, Power Myths of Ancient Greece, with a revelatory show:

EARTH OVERTHROWN: Gaia and the Titans

Thursday, March 3rd at 7 pm EST on Zoom

With character voices, narration and a full score on 12-string guitar, the storyteller takes you back to the dawn of time, according to the ancient Greeks. It’s the tale of Gaia the Earth and her Titan children. And of their terrible war with the upstart Gods of Olympus.

Storytelling for adults.

Get your tickets today!

$30 per screen

VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD: Storyteller Odds Bodkin Debuts Original Epic Adventure

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD: Storyteller Odds Bodkin Debuts Original Adventure Sunday Feb. 27, 2022 at 5 pm, LIVE at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square.

The “consummate storyteller” (New York Times) is returning to Grendel’s Den, the renowned watering hole on Harvard Square, to perform his original feature-length work. After four seasons of live shows before adult audiences, he switched to Zoom during the pandemic, but on Sunday night he once again regales his Grendel’s audience with voices and narration, live and in-person.

Here’s a tale of murderous pirates who steal a mystery ship and soon discover it is like no other. It has a mind of its own. To double the intrigue, the beautiful young witch queen who built it arrives in the middle of the trackless sea. Impossibly, she has found them. Worse, she wants her ship back.

Humor, horror and social commentary come together in this wild piece of high fantasy storytelling. Come feast and drink like a pirate, then be the first to hear it!

Tickets are $35.

No children please.

 

Odds Bodkin

VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD

Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022 at 5 pm EST

Grendel’s Den, Cambridge MA

Tickets $35

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Origin Myths

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

Long before geology and science in general led to a revolution in our understanding of Earth’s ancient story, pre-scientific peoples asked the question, as all of us do: where did all this come from? This Earth? We humans? The life systems of rock, oceans and sky that sustain us? When and how did it all begin?

Those questions remain profound ones, questions that we’re still working to answer. Our human origin story is more finely honed with each passing archeological and genetic discovery—and there are plenty more to be unearthed—while Earth’s origin story, and that of our Solar System and the Universe, is deepened by astrophysical discoveries every day.

However, pre-scientific peoples were just as smart as we are, they just didn’t have our modern tools. Did that prevent them from using their raw senses and storytelling skills to explain where they themselves came from? Certainly not. After all, what’s an ancient father or mother to do when their child asks, “Mommy, where did the stars come from?” Better say something by way of explanation, otherwise your child will think you’re a know-nothing.

And so, around fires in caves and eventually in mud huts and stone cities, origin myths were born. Every band of humans had one, unique to their surroundings.

The ancient Greeks were especially detailed in their fantasies, and no Greek more so than the poet Hesiod, who lived around 700 B.C.

I have based EARTH OVERTHROWN: GAIA and the TITANS, on Hesiod’s Greek genesis story, The Theogony.

In this origin myth, Gaia is the Earth. Her children the Titans create the ecological systems upon her surface. They all take both human and elemental forms, switching easily back and forth, and all have human failings, just like we do.

That makes The Theogony an interesting tale indeed. Jealousy, horror, dashed expectations, war and betrayal stalked the Titans, just like they do we moderns, who fancy that we know so much more than the ancients.

There’s even some humor.

STORYTELLER ODDS BODKIN

EARTH OVERTHROWN: GAIA AND THE TITANS

MARCH 3, 2022 at 7 pm EST on Zoom

Performed with 12-string guitar

Tickets: $30

Part I of a 3-part series, POWER MYTHS OF ANCIENT GREECE in March/April

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Voyage of the Waistgold: How a Performance Poem Came to Be

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

Voyage of the Waistgold: How A Performance Poem Came to Be

Imagine a mountaintop where a bejeweled sailing ship sits perched on wooden rails. It has been built up here, even though the sea is leagues away. Soon it will slide down those rails through moonlit forests until, at breakneck speed, it will splash into the sea.

“That would make an interesting story,” I thought to myself, living in Manhattan in my twenties. I’d jotted down the idea in my journal. “So who would build such a mystery ship?” I wondered. “And why so far from the sea? That doesn’t make sense.”

Later, in a dream state, I envisioned a pirate captain on a ship’s deck, swearing to kill a dark threat, a fell beast that waited for him in distant mists. The captain’s name came to me: Phineas Krull. He was an evil man. Then his ship’s name floated into my thoughts: The Waistgold.

I instantly understood that the ship on the mountaintop was The Waistgold.

 I now had a story with more questions than answers.

 ———-

Voyage of the Waistgold is now a 90-minute spoken word entertainment. I’ll be premiering it live at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square this coming Sunday night, February 27th at 5 pm.

As outlandish yarns go, it’s pretty good. I hope to see you there!

The show is for adults only.

Here’s the introduction:

 

Storyteller Odds Bodkin

Voyage of the Waistgold: A World Premier

Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 5 pm EST.

Tickets and details here.

If You’re in Boston…

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

If you’re in Boston this February 27th, make your way to Harvard Square. There, tucked away down a set of brick stairs, you’ll find Grendel’s Den, a legendary watering hole. You’ll see a small stage beneath lights that sports a lectern and a microphone. Be sure you’re vaccinated (they won’t let you in otherwise) and find your table. You might even be given a free test kit, new from MIT.

Music will be playing over the sound system, but it won’t be long before I’ll appear onstage and the music will fade. I won’t have my usual 12-string guitars or harp; instead, I’ll open a simple manuscript.

“Voyage of the Waistgold: An Untrue Tale in Doggerel Rhyme by Odds Bodkin,” I’ll begin in my ordinary American English, the one I use to talk to people in the real world. “Chapter One: The Builderguilder’s Boat.”

Ah, but then, Captain Phineas Krull will begin to speak. He’s a terrible, murderous pirate on a fantastical sea, my narrator and the one who lives my 90-minute adventure. His voice is rough and gritty. He even sounds dangerous.

“So I hires me a crew o’ drug suckin’ thieves/To help me to steal ‘er, that fine filly ship./With one goodly mast, like Priapus himself,/Buried deep in ‘er hold ‘neath a parquetry deck/And a gem-crusted wheel fer the high dudgeon winds/ The Waistgold, we seen ‘er, my silver sea slipper/Tied placid ‘twixt other and far lesser boats.”

So begins the saga of how Krull murders the local Builderguilder and escapes with the salvaged Waistgold, only to discover that the gem-laden ship has a mind of its own. A dark magician himself, he’s baffled by his new boat’s powers. And he’s worried, because he doesn’t know how to control them. It makes more sense when he finds a dead scribe’s book, written in blood. In it, Krull reads about Queen Ood, the enchantress who built the boat, who or may not be alive.

This story reads somewhere between William Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

According to Wikipedia, Swift claimed that he wrote Gulliver’s Travels “to vex the world rather than divert it”. Voyage of the Waistgold is much the same.

For Adults Only.

Voyage of the Waistgold

A World Premier Event

Februry 27, 2022 at 5 pm EST

Grendel’s Den, Cambridge MA

Tickets: $35

 

TONIGHT! Odds Bodkin Tells The Odyssey on YouTube Live.

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Tonight, Odds Bodkin tells The Odyssey on YouTube Live at 7 pm EST, 4 pm PT. Join the crowd for a blast of storytelling excitement, and experience a master storyteller at work. Surging music, vivid characters and compelling narrative bring this classic of Greek Mythology to life.

Meet Odysseus, the weary warrior at Troy. Go inside the Trojan Horse. Meet the languid Lotus Eaters on their perfumed island. And finally, be trapped in the Cave of the cannibal Cyclops with Odysseus and his men.

“a modern-day Orpheus” — Billboard

This 70-minute live performance comes with an intermission. Claire Hennessy of Six Feet Apart Productions will MC the show.

Get your tickets now! And stay after the show to chat with Odds Bodkin.

 

The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast

Odds Bodkin, Master Talesman

Sunday, Jan. 30 at 7 pm EST on YouTube Live

Tickets $25-$30

 

TONIGHT! YouTube Live Folk and Fairy Tales with Odds, Charlotte and Simon!

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

Tonight at 8 pm EST and 5 pm PT, Odds Bodkin joins Charlotte Blake Alston and Simon Brooks for an hour of folk and fairy tales on YouTube Live. The show is produced by Six Feet Apart Productions and hosted by Claire Hennessy.

Tickets range from $5 to $25. Get details here.

Gather the family and sit back for great stories!

REAL FOLK YouTube Live Show with Three Storytellers on Nov. 18th at 5 pm

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

Odds Bodkin joins Simon Brooks and Charlotte Blake Alston for an hour of family-friendly folk and fairy tales on Nov. 18th at 5 pm EST. Grab a ticket and bring the family together for this humorous and adventurous hour of masterful storytelling on YouTube Live!  Hosted by Claire Hennessy.

Tickets $5-$25.