#07 / The Dark Horseman and The Fairy Wind

Episode 7. This podcast is made up of two recordings, the Dark horseman and the Fairy wind.  The Dark horseman covers two stories from Lady Wilde's book 'Ancient legends of Ireland'. These stories feature the common themes of the 'Dark horseman' trickster that leads the protagonist awry and is quite unnecessarily cruel and spiteful on travellers he meets along the road. The stories include the visit to the fairy palace and all its beauty and joy and then things take a darker turn and the human visitor gets an unpleasant supernatural brush with death.  The stories propose that the reason for this unnecessary cruelty is a grudge the fairy folk have against humanity, much like the Djinn. I then breifly discuss the startlingly similar origin myths of the Fairies and Djinn. The Fairy wind refers to a method of travel employed by the fairies and how if one is stuck by the wind, you are not long for this world. The interesting point here is the Jinn are famously associated with wind, being born of the scoring wind of the desert and travelling via it across great distances. Another remarkable similarity between  jinn and fairies. The interviews with Marco Visconti are coming soon to the podcast but are already available on my YouTube channel: Marco's first appearance https://youtu.be/zL5m1txHAAI Marco's second appearance  https://youtu.be/aRUWszmh_GM  Music by Obliqka - https://soundcloud.com/obliqka