Breton Tales After dark

Things used to go bump in the night all the time in nineteenth century Brittany.  If you were really unlucky, you might even meet up with who – or what – was doing the bumping …

 

Drawn from his stage show of the same name, and illustrated with photographs of the author’s own travels in Brittany, writer, storyteller and performer John Edgar’s anthology is a collection of dark, eccentric and often bleakly funny stories of Breton life, and death, after sunset, in a land where daytime is for the living but night is the exclusive province of the dead.  It’s a time when trees walk, dead skulls regain the power of speech and the locals venture abroad with their heads down, hoping that they won’t encounter the Ankou with his fatal scythe (even though we all will, one day), the Lavandières, the washerwomen of the night, washing sheets to make the shrouds that will be needed at dawn, or the strange and charming horseman eager to invite you to supper in his mansion house below ground, where, whatever the weather outside, it’s always warm.

 

All these characters and more are vividly drawn in this faithful adaptation of some of the darkest tales ever to cross the channel.

 

John Edgar is a writer and storyteller working in schools and the wider community.  As well as performing in a range of venues across the UK and beyond,he has also written extensively for the theatre and has had two scripts produced on BBC Radio 4.