Tom Muir of the Orcadian Story Trust welcomes you in one of Orkney’s most historic buildings, to explore how long a story can continue, passed from one generation to the next, and what clues it might it give us to the past.

Shonaleigh Cumbers is one of the last of the Drut’syla, who have passed on stories in the Jewish tradition, and particularly the Menassah cycle, a series of 4,000 mythological stories that were gathered together in the Netherlands around the year 1600 and not written down anywhere. She describes the tradition and the challenge of remembering so much, and tells some of the stories.

Her husband, Dr Simon Heywood, speaks on the Arthurian legend and references in it to Orkney. He is a lecturer in creative and professional writing at the University of Derby, researching into the practical applications of traditional knowledge to creative thinking and problem-solving today. His original songs and music have been covered by folk and traditional bands and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

The venue, the old St Mary’s Church at Burwick, contains the Ladykirk Stone, a possible coronation stone from the Iron Age, with footmarks where a new king would stand to be recognised and endorsed.

For making a longer visit to the area, the re-opened Tomb of the Eagles is not far away, and there is a coastal walk from Burwick to Barth Head.

By kind permission of the St Mary’s Preservation Trust