Category: on telling stories

creativity /

The Court of Love – a retreat for storytellers – final call!

“now I feel myself betrayed
because I did not tell my love”  

Beatritz de Dia (1140-1175)

Legend says that Eleanor of Aquitaine encountered the Sufis in Jerusalem on the First Crusade. Inspired by their love poetry, filled with images of the beloved searching for the divine, she returned home and created a ‘Court of Love’ at Poitiers. Here troubadours gathered to pitch their skills of storytelling and song, composition and improvisation, poetry and music on the theme of love – human love, love for the Queen, and divine love for the Virgin Mary. Being a troubadour demanded you had a wide set of skills and repertoire, that included: all the courtly love epics and romances; inventing rhyme schemes; tenso – debates between two troubadours; pastorelle – narratives where knights fall in love with shepherdesses; planhz -complaints and laments; sirventes – political satire; alba – morning songs; seren – evening songs.

Beatritz de Dia (1140-1175) was a Torbairitz – a female troubadour and her sung poems are rare because they exist alongside the music that went with them.

“I’ve been in great distress of mind
about a knight whom I possessed,
how I’ve loved him to excess
I want known throughout all time
now I feel myself betrayed
because I did not tell my love
in great torment so I prove
In bed or in my clothes arrayed.”

Beatritz de Dia (1140-1175)

Storytellers Hugh Lupton and Eric Maddern have been running retreats for storytellers for thirty years exploring myth and landscape. I joined their team in 2025 for the retreat on ‘Creation Myth’, and this year we are exploring love! We will look at fairytales and myths, from human love to the wild passion of gods and goddesses, from the love of creatures and spirits to the mystical search for the divine. We will uncover images of bed tricks, burning hearts, unrequited love, green jealousy, true love, and a hazelnut that contains love for the whole World. We will play knights and Cupid and learn the skills of the bow and practise archery! We will explore the tools of the Troubadour and compose our own poems and stories. We will learn about Eleanor of Aquitaine and her influence on stories and storytelling. We will visit a medieval castle, church and sacred well. This is not a ‘how to tell stories’ course but a mutual exploration, a time out of time, where we come together to breathe, move, talk, imagine, share, walk, eat, think – stories – and fall in love with them and be renewed! Come and be guided by your hosts Hugh Lupton, Eric Maddern and Sally Pomme Clayton. Majnun says in the Arabic love story of ‘Layla and Majnun’
‘Make my love a hundred times greater than it is today! Let me love for love’s sake!’ Welcome to our ‘Court of Love’!

Tuesday September 1 from 3pm to Sunday September 6 midday. The cost of the retreat is: £640 which includes all tuition and events, shared accommodation and three vegetarian meals a day. Plus all the perks of being at Cae Mabon such as forest, river, thatched roundhouse and hot tub! Find out more about Cae Mabon.

To reserve the last remaining places email Eric on connect@caemabon.co.uk

creativity /

The Flower of Story

Why do we tell stories? Why do we need Stories? Why are stories important to our lives?

Can you remember a story you loved as child? Can you recall an image from that story that has stayed in your imagination? What can you see? How does the image make you feel? And what does remembering the story remind you of?

Close your eyes for a moment. And see what images and feelings emerge.

These are treasures from the deep. If we are lucky, the seeds of stories get planted in us from a young age. Stories sow seeds inside us that never go away. These seeds become food for our imaginations that we can draw upon throughout our lives. These seeds of story might portray courage, offer hope, suggest ingenuity. They also offer a symbolic way of seeing the world, where the impossible can happen, and you can be everything in the story. They might show you how to outwit the monster, trick a witch, escape from the tower that has no doors, ride on a fox’s tail, sip the water of life.

I have dedicated my life to stories and have been telling and writing stories for more than 35 years. My particular love is traditional folktales, fairytales and myths – these stories belong to us all, link us together and connect us with our ancestors. Recently I have been distilling my knowledge and experience of stories and storytelling into distinct forms and shapes that can clearly communicate my understanding.

The Flower of Story is my way of describing the living process of storytelling. How do stories get planted? How can you grow a story? How does a story bloom inside the listener? And what happens when stories are scattered? The Flower of Story – plant, grow, bloom, scatter – is a process that keeps stories alive and relevant to each audience, and is how similar stories appear in different parts of the World.

I am running a short workshop for beginners about The Flower of Story. It is on 22 November, 2-5pm, at the October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester St, London WC1. We will explore what makes a story. I will help you connect with your own heritage of stories – even if you think you don’t have one! We will look at what makes a story memorable and tellable, and I will help you develop some storytelling skills. It will be creative and playful. Come and find out why we need stories now. And how you can bring stories and storytelling into your life and for those around you. Find out more and get a ticket!