Courting the Wild Twin

Master mythologist Martin Shaw uses timeless story-wisdom to examine our broken relationship with the world

There is an old legend that says we each have a wild, curious twin that was thrown out the window the night we were born, taking much of our vitality with them. If there was something we were meant to do with our few, brief years on Earth, we can be sure that the wild twin is holding the key.

In Courting the Wild Twin, Dr. Martin Shaw invites us to seek out our wild twin––a metaphor for the part of ourselves that we generally shun or ignore to conform to societal norms––to invite them back into our consciousness, for they have something important to tell us. He challenges us to examine our broken relationship with the world, to think boldly, wildly, and in new ways about ourselves—as individuals and as a collective.

Through the use of scholarship, storytelling, and personal reflection, Shaw unpacks two ancient European fairy tales that concern the mysterious wild twin. By reading these tales and becoming storytellers ourselves, he suggests we can restore our agency and confront modern challenges with purpose, courage, and creativity.

Courting the Wild Twin is a declaration of literary activism and an antidote to the shallow thinking that typifies our age. Shaw asks us to recognize mythology as a secret weapon—a radical, beautiful, heart-shuddering agent of deep, lasting change.