Why Celtic Mythologies?

Reading and plotting...

I love stories in all shapes and forms.

I love reading books and fairy tales, comic books and graphic novels. I love watching television shows and movies. I love hearing stories from my friends. I simply love stories.

And, in a way, Echoes Unheard is a very selfish project.

Because what I want, more than anything, is more stories to read.

I want stories about Púcas and Kelpies, Pixies and all the strange, wonderful, frightening and fascinating creatures that have inhabited Celtic folklore for centuries. I want to see what today's writers and artists might do with them.

And I couldn't find nearly enough of those stories.

Looking for Old Stories Told in New Ways

For some time, I had been reading modern retellings of mythology. Like so many readers, I discovered how exciting it can be to encounter an ancient story through a modern writer's eyes.

I had read retellings of Greek mythology, as well as books inspired by Indian and Norse mythology. Being Greek myself, I love seeing Greek mythology receive so much attention. Some of the modern retellings I've read have become books I absolutely adore.

But at some point I began wondering: what about everyone else?

There are so many mythologies, legends and folklore traditions around the world filled with extraordinary characters and stories. Surely they deserve to be rediscovered too.

I became particularly curious about Celtic mythology and folklore.

I could find collections of traditional myths, legends and folktales, but when I went looking for contemporary retellings, especially stories exploring the creatures themselves, there seemed to be far less available.

And I thought that was a little sad.

Apparently, I had been looking for them for longer than I remembered.

While working on this article, I rediscovered an old discussion I had started on LibraryThing in October 2023. I had recently read The Song of Achilles and Circe, and I was asking other readers for recommendations for mythology retellings.

What surprised me when I found the post again was how familiar my own words sounded. I was already talking about wanting to explore mythologies from different parts of the world, and I specifically mentioned that I had started reading Celtic myths.

A couple of months later, I returned to the same discussion to recommend books that weren't necessarily retellings, but new stories inspired by different mythologies.

At the time, it was simply a reader looking for her next book.

Looking at it now, knowing where that curiosity eventually led, it feels a little like finding an early footprint of Echoes Unheard.

A Trip to Edinburgh... Almost

Last year, one of my book clubs decided to take a long weekend trip to Edinburgh.

We had come up with an idea that I absolutely loved: once a year, we would choose a city to visit, read a book set there, and then try to visit some of the places mentioned in the book.

Once we had settled on Edinburgh, we needed to choose what to read.

I had the idea of asking the people who probably knew Edinburgh's books better than anyone: its booksellers.

I found an article listing local bookshops and emailed them asking for recommendations. To my delight, almost everyone replied, and they gave us some wonderful suggestions.

But since I had already started the conversation, I decided to ask another question.

By then, this was a question I had already been asking for some time.

Could they recommend contemporary retellings of Celtic or Scottish mythology?

The answers surprised me.

The replies that made me realise I wasn't imagining it.

The replies were generous, thoughtful and full of fascinating recommendations. But I began to notice something. Again and again, I was pointed towards collections of traditional myths and folklore, historical works, or novels drawing on Scottish history. Contemporary fictional retellings of Celtic mythology, the kind of books I had found so easily for Greek mythology, were much harder to come by.

One reply from Golden Hare Books put into words exactly what I had begun to notice:

“Scottish or celtic myths haven't had the same retelling attention as other mythologies (yet!).”

That little “yet!” stayed with me.

The Edinburgh Bookshop similarly told me that they didn't know of any current novels using Celtic myth and that recent books tended to draw more heavily on Classical mythology.

McNaughtan's Books pointed out that Celtic myths in general are less well known than Greek or Norse mythology, while Armchair Books introduced me to the wonderful work of Otta F. Swire and her collections of Scottish folklore.

Instead of satisfying my curiosity, those conversations made it stronger.

There was, however, one rather unfortunate twist to this story: I never actually made it to Edinburgh.

I was so used to travelling around Europe with my Greek ID that it hadn't occurred to me that I would need a passport to enter the UK. By the time I realised, I discovered that my passport had expired and there wasn't enough time to renew it before the trip.

So, while the rest of my book club went to Edinburgh, I stayed behind.

It was disappointing, of course, but there is something rather funny about it in hindsight. I never made it to Scotland, yet planning that trip and corresponding with Edinburgh's booksellers ended up playing a small but important part in the creation of Echoes Unheard.

Why Retellings?

I don't want the old stories to disappear. Quite the opposite.

I think there is enormous value in reading traditional folklore and mythology and understanding the cultures and times from which those stories came.

But I also want new stories.

Stories have always changed as people have told and retold them. And some elements of older fairy tales inevitably reflect the societies in which they were created. The beautiful princess must marry the perfect prince. Certain characters are rewarded for fitting expectations that we might question today. Ideas about women, relationships, morality and society can belong very clearly to another time.

That doesn't make the old stories worthless. They are part of our cultural inheritance.

But it makes me curious about what happens when we tell them now.

What would a Púca encounter look like to a writer living today? What would an artist see in a Kelpie? Could an old creature become frightening in an entirely new way? Funny? Romantic? Tragic? Could someone take a tiny detail buried in a nineteenth-century folklore collection and build an entire world around it?

Those are the stories I want to read.

Why Echoes Unheard?

For a long time, my original thought was somehow to create books.

There was just one rather significant problem.

I am not a writer. I am not a mythologist or a folklorist. I have no connection to the publishing world, no publishing experience, no useful network of contacts and certainly no enormous budget waiting to fund this idea.

What I had was an appreciation for stories, a lot of curiosity, and the willingness to put in my own time and effort.

For a long time, I kept turning the idea over in my head. How could I possibly create something from that?

How could I create something from almost nothing? How could I help encourage new stories inspired by these traditions without being a writer or a publisher myself? How could I turn an idea into something real with no budget, no connections, just curiosity, enthusiasm and a great deal of hope?

Looking back, I can see that I had been circling around the same idea for years without realising it.

I kept looking for these stories. First as a reader asking other readers, then as a reader asking booksellers.

Eventually, I stopped wondering only where I could find them and started wondering whether I could help create a place where they might begin.

And eventually, the answer became Echoes Unheard.

Instead of trying to create all those stories myself, why not build a place where other people could create them?

A place where someone can discover a creature they have never heard of, learn about its folklore, and then think:

I could do something with this.

A writer might see the beginning of a short story. An artist might imagine a completely new interpretation. A reader might discover a mythology they had never explored before.

That is what I want Echoes Unheard to become.

And Perhaps, One Day, a Book

There is another hope behind all of this.

It is a long-term dream, and Echoes Unheard has a great deal of growing to do before it could ever happen, but I would love one day to publish a collection of short stories born from this community.

I would love to hold a book in my hands filled with stories that began here, written by people who discovered a creature, found inspiration and decided to give it a new story.

A collection containing different voices, different styles and different interpretations of these old creatures. Stories inspired by traditions from Éire, Alba, Cymru, Kernow, Breizh and Mannin, brought together in one book.

And if that dream ever becomes a reality, I want the people who created those stories to benefit from it. Most of the profits from such a book would go to the contributing creators. Echoes Unheard may provide the place that brings those stories together, but the stories themselves would exist because of the imagination, time and work of the people who created them. I think it is only right that they should receive the greatest share of what their work creates.

For now, though, I am starting much smaller.

I am researching creatures. Building pages. Looking for old sources. Learning things I didn't know yesterday. And hoping that somewhere out there are writers, artists and readers who are just as hungry for these stories as I am.

Maybe the booksellers were right.

Celtic mythology hasn't received the same retelling attention as some other mythologies.

Yet.

Stefuto