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Can ancient myths and folktales from the lost goddesses of Britain help us solve the climate crisis? Kim Willis thinks so. From stories of powerful female forces of nature, to legends of wild river creation, Climate Curious is reconnecting with waterways, rivers, and nature through the stories of Britain’s lost goddesses. Narrative strategist and author Kim Willis takes us deep into Britain’s mythological roots; sharing how these ancient stories and ideas can give us a fresh vision of the modern world today, and our place within it.
Check out Kim’s upcoming book, ‘No Fair Maidens’, https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/308998/kim-willis
Tickets for Climate Curious LIVE, 11th February 2025, ‘Climate OGs: The history & future of climate progress: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/climate-curious-live-tickets-1978623502158
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Introduction
00:54 Kim Willis: narrative strategist and author
02:11 The quest for lost goddesses
03:26 The story of the River Severn
06:23 The power of myth and folklore
08:07 Reconnecting with nature through stories
11:42 Reviving forgotten myths
13:47 Conclusion
[00:00:00] Introduction to Climate
[00:00:00] Ben Hurst: Welcome to Climate Quickies, bite-sized nuggets of Climate Goodness.
[00:00:05] Ben Hurst: From our TEDx London experts in under 10 minutes in this week’s climate, curious, we are exploring the deep and forgotten power of Britain’s folklore and mythology. We are asking the question. Can getting in touch with ancient stories from our past help us reconnect with the natural world around us?
[00:00:25] Ben Hurst: In search of the lost Goddesses of the British Isles, we hear from [00:00:30] narrative strategist and author Kim Willis. She reveals how these long forgotten female forces of nature inspire a much needed respect for the land and specifically our rivers. On Reenergizing our relationship with the natural [00:00:45] world through the stories of the Lost Goddesses of Britain.
[00:00:48] Ben Hurst: Here’s Kim Willis. Stay curious.
[00:00:54] Kim Willis: narrative strategist and author
[00:00:54] Kim Willis: Hello, my name is Kim Willis, and I’m a narrative strategist and [00:01:00] storyteller. I’ve recently written a book called Nofa Maidens, which is a quest in search of the lost goddesses of Britain. And I’m here to share with you how the oldest myths and folk tales of these islands can transform our sense of [00:01:15] connection with the natural world.
[00:01:17] Kim Willis: And give us a vision of Britain that is more abundant, more sustainable, more circular, and solve some of the challenges that we’re currently facing in our current crisis. One of the things I’ve been fascinated in [00:01:30] my career is the role that stories play. Influencing our sense of reality and our sense of what’s possible in the world, and the ways in which we can either accept the stories we are raised on, or we can look for new [00:01:45] stories or disrupt the kind of standard narratives of those stories that opens up.
[00:01:49] Kim Willis: A whole new world of possibilities, and I’ve done that a lot in my career in lots of different ways. I ran a women’s storytelling community for a long time. I’ve written articles for [00:02:00] places like The Guardian on disrupting kind of standard narratives that we have about particular places, and I’m fascinated with place and the stories we tell about people and place and the connection between them.
[00:02:11] The quest for lost goddesses
[00:02:11] Kim Willis: For the last four years, I’ve been on a quest around the British [00:02:15] Isles. To unearth the threads of a mostly forgotten mythology, to see if there are stories in our folklore and our legends that more deeply connect us as humans to the natural world and the natural environment. [00:02:30] And I have been from Somerset to sky, from Northumberland to ary, particularly on the island’s edges, where it seems a lot of our more ancient folklore still lives and is really deeply seeded.
[00:02:42] Kim Willis: And what I discovered on [00:02:45] that journey was that first of all, the British Isles are islands that are just absolutely stacked full of folklore and mythology. Our folklore and our myths play a few central roles in our life. First of all, they tell [00:03:00] stories about the power of nature and our connection with nature, but secondly, that these are stories in which women in particular are.
[00:03:07] Kim Willis: Are particularly strong forces of nature. They are often the enchantresses, the sorcerer, the [00:03:15] healers, the people who can prophesize the future. They are warrior ses and they are often broker power, and they are very, very intimately related with water.
[00:03:26] The story of the River Severn
[00:03:26] Kim Willis: One of my favorite stories that really. Kicked off some of the beginning of my quest was the story of the birth of the River seven.
[00:03:34] Kim Willis: So this is a really old folk tale. Um, we know it was first, we think at least it was first written down in around the late 18 hundreds, but that writing really isn’t the [00:03:45] start point of the story. Stories usually start in an oral tradition, and so the fact that this story was so prolific that it got written down probably means it was being passed down through generations.
[00:03:55] Kim Willis: For a very, very long time. The story of the Birth of the River seven really [00:04:00] tells this tale where a river goddess arrives on our islands in a raindrop, and Sheri arrives on the top of this mountain in the Cambrian Mountains in mid Wales, and she is really lost because at that time she is [00:04:15] looking out at this landscape and it is completely.
[00:04:18] Kim Willis: Barron, it’s a desert. There are no trees, no flowers, no riverways, and she as a Raindrop knows that she’s supposed to be doing something. She’s [00:04:30] supposed to be going somewhere, but she can’t see a route in the landscape. There are no water courses for her to follow. She kind of is lost in this, in this barren land.
[00:04:40] Kim Willis: On the top of this mountain, she meets with her sisters and together they’re trying to work out a way. [00:04:45] And at some point it’s been raining so much that they’re so full that they have no choice but to move. They have to choose a direction. Each of these three sisters chooses a different way. Um, you have the yes.
[00:04:57] Kim Willis: That becomes the river eth, which [00:05:00] really is, she’s a very direct to the point character. She just wants to get out to the ocean as fast as possible. And so she cuts this line through the landscape and comes out at the waters at Cardigan Bay and then you have the River Y and she is like super [00:05:15] dreamy and just really wants to follow beauty.
[00:05:18] Kim Willis: And she sort of meanders. Through the hills and sort of gets a bit stuck in the area. We now know, I guess as Monmouth Cher, and the Y Valley. And while she’s there, she makes it so beautiful and she drenches the [00:05:30] island and it’s kind of fertility. But the River seven has this completely different instinct.
[00:05:34] Kim Willis: She knows she wants to get to the sea, but she decides to go. Her own way. She really follows her own intuition. She goes north and east, which is wild for a river to do that. By the way, there’s no [00:05:45] sea that way. If you’ve seen the horse of the river seven, she cuts this huge reverse sea shape through the landscape up towards, uh, iri, um, and then round through to the Shashi Hills.
[00:05:55] Kim Willis: She then. Moves in a kind of almost a 90 degree [00:06:00] angle. She slices whales from England and then eventually bursts her banks. Um, at the Bristol Channel. She kind of gathers the y and a whole load of other rivers. And in doing that, she becomes this colossus. She’s huge and ungovernable, and she is the [00:06:15] most tidal and wild water.
[00:06:17] Kim Willis: In the world actually, and she’s at peace ’cause she’s refound the sea and she’s refinding her sisters.
[00:06:23] The power of myth and folklore
[00:06:23] Kim Willis: What I love about that story is that it, for a start, it kind of personifies a river. It really. Tells us something about the colossal power and potential of a river and how they start so small. Anyone who has seen the beginning of the river will know it’s like a trickle often through a spring.
[00:06:42] Kim Willis: And then they become these absolutely [00:06:45] giant forces that completely shape the land with the forces of their will. And I think when we start to tell stories about the river, and so many stories are told about rivers here in the British Isles. We can start to see them as something more than just kind of water [00:07:00] passing us as we are walking along a bank on a way to work perhaps, and actually start to see it as something that has a kind of almost living intelligence that has power, that has a certain level of choice, and it changes the way we relate to rivers.
[00:07:13] Kim Willis: When I found that [00:07:15] story, I was really feeling lost and really disconnected from these islands we call Britain, and really saw them as a place that were very kind of. Just industrious and portions up full of monoculture. And one [00:07:30] story of this river transformed how I saw the landscape. Because now when I see a river, I don’t just see a body of water.
[00:07:38] Kim Willis: I see. I guess a goddess in a way, which might sound kind of crazy, but I start to see it as something that deserves [00:07:45] our awe and a sense of wonder, A sense of this kind of eternal, colossal potential that these rivers have been here far longer than we have and will be far longer than we will. And I think when we start to see rivers in that way, it means that we can connect with the landscape with a kind of [00:08:00] reverence and see it as sacred and see it as something that is often more powerful than us, and that deserves our respect.
[00:08:07] Reconnecting with nature through stories
[00:08:07] Kim Willis: I’ve come to believe that these old stories and mythologies and folklore are essential [00:08:15] to our sense of belonging on these islands that we call Britain. When I found these stories, I was living in a top floor, flats in London, fields in Hackney, and when I opened my window, which I [00:08:30] could barely do, actually, it’s kind of cracked it open.
[00:08:32] Kim Willis: All I could see was rooftops and concrete. The sound of cars and a kind of urban environment. Absolutely. Kind of taking over the natural landscape. [00:08:45] I didn’t have a sense of strong connection with the island, the soil, the waters that define this geographical environment that we call home here in, in the British Isles.
[00:08:58] Kim Willis: In fact, I probably really [00:09:00] struggled with even saying that I was from Britain or that this was an island that I felt I could. Feel a sense of belonging to so many of us live in urban centers now that we have created [00:09:15] as a society, a kind of deep dislocation from the environment that we are really growing in essentially, and that we could.
[00:09:23] Kim Willis: Feel a sense of kinship and connection with, and it’s no surprise that most of the stories I [00:09:30] tell in my book, in fact, most mythical stories that we tell about the British Isles are mostly lost to most of us that live here because we lose the stories when we. Moved away from the places those stories are told.
[00:09:44] Kim Willis: I think that a [00:09:45] lot of us struggle with that now. A lot of us talk about really wanting to feel grounded, deeply grounded, and I think we have perhaps forgotten that that grounding starts with our relationship to the land and the water that [00:10:00] surrounds us and what these stories do. In fact, what all stories do is they.
[00:10:05] Kim Willis: They create that connective tissue. The brilliant thing about stories is as humans, we are wired for story and so. It’s actually very easy for [00:10:15] us to find the stories and to reembody the stories of the landscape. I would really encourage anyone who is feeling that sense of dislocation from the landscape and who is curious about the mythical stories of these islands.
[00:10:29] Kim Willis: [00:10:30] To choose a place that matters to you. Perhaps it might be linked to your ancestry. Perhaps it PLA is a place that just calls to you and visit there. Spend some time in that natural environment. There are storytellers all over these islands. There are many books about folk [00:10:45] tales. You know, mine is only one of a huge cannon that has threaded through the centuries.
[00:10:50] Kim Willis: And to just choose one story that connects with that landscape. Read it, learn it, see how it affects you. See how it [00:11:00] changes your own sense of connection with that place. I think that the stories we tell about the landscape in our folklore and mythology. Uh, how the island speaks to us, that these stories are the way that the land [00:11:15] talks back to us and gives us a way of creating a two-way relationship with the natural world.
[00:11:21] Kim Willis: Not seeing it as something inanimate and separate, but rather something that we are constantly in a dialogue with. And when we learn these stories, when we [00:11:30] start to tap into some of these older folk tales, when we tell them, ’cause we can all tell them it really will. Create a transformative effect in your relationship with Waterland, uh, and the air.
[00:11:42] Reviving forgotten myths
[00:11:42] Kim Willis: One of the most common questions that I get asked [00:11:45] is, how is it that we don’t know the stories of these islands? How is it that these myths and legends have kind of gone to the ground? And the answer to that is quite complicated. It, it weaves in patriarchy. It weaves in religion. It kind of [00:12:00] weaves in just the ways that we prioritize some very narrow stories, usually about men, but.
[00:12:06] Kim Willis: One of the big factors is simply how focused we have become on the southeast of the island. Most of the richest myths and [00:12:15] legends and folk tales about these islands exist at our islands edges. They are in Cornwall, they’re in Northern South Wales, they’re on the islands off the west coast of Scotland and up in the the northern parts of Scotland.
[00:12:27] Kim Willis: And part of the reason these stories have. [00:12:30] Remains safe in those environments is because they haven’t been, I guess, indoctrinated with this very sort of productive, slightly catalyst mindset that tends to root through the islands, through the southeast, [00:12:45] through our focus on London. And that has been the case throughout the ages and sometimes in a very violent way, the kind of internal power struggles and.
[00:12:53] Kim Willis: Sometimes even colonization of Britain has meant that a lot of these stories have kind of gone to the [00:13:00] ground and have been lost in languages that we just don’t even know anymore. And so it’s really important, I think, if we are going to have a strong sense of our folklore to really start to get to know some of the ancestral traditions of these islands [00:13:15] to get interested in our stone circles and our uh, neolithic monuments.
[00:13:21] Kim Willis: In the poetry of Old Welsh and in some of the wild folk tales of winter goddesses and hags from the north of the [00:13:30] island up in the tops of Scotland, that these are the stories that kind of weave in on the breeze and start to turn Britain from an island of kind of productivity to an is of wonder. And we can start to unstitch some of those power dynamics that have got us into this [00:13:45] problem in the first place.
[00:13:47] Conclusion
[00:13:47] Ben Hurst: Thanks for listening to this quickie.
[00:13:49] Maryam Pasha: This episode was created by our superstar podcast team at TEDx London. Until next time,
[00:13:54] Ben Hurst: stay curious.
[00:13:58] I.
