Myths and Legends

Myths and legends are the stories that every other story is made of. At the core of each of the great and enduring stories of the past is a vibrant, timeless and human story. They are our oldest stories, dealing with our deepest concerns. But how can we make use of these ancient stories in our own fiction?

This course will show students how the epic struggles of heroes like Odysseus, the complicated plights of monsters like Grendel, and the ingenious scheming of tricksters like Loki have an important place in, and can deepen and enrich, the stories we tell today. It will help us look past the didactic intent and the rigid-seeming and ‘foreign’ structures of the original tales, with a view to inspiring participants to create full-blooded, timeless modern fiction of their own.  

This six-week course will be a mix of reading and writing, of in-class workshops and open discussions. We’ll look at the old stories themselves in their original form – from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey to Ireland’s The Táin and The Mabinogion of Wales – and at modern fiction that echoes, reinterprets or subverts the old tales, including work by Steven Sherrill, Desmond Barry, Ali Smith, Niall Griffiths, and others. No previous expertise in mythology of any kind is necessary to get involved – the utility of mythic storytelling is itself universal, and all are welcome. But equally, any participants with a special interest or expertise are encouraged to introduce others to the myths of their own culture, or to those they simply hold dear.

Most importantly, we will tell stories of our own. To help us along the way, we’ll look at, for example, how the infamous creature described as ‘part man, part bull’ by the Roman poet Ovid, who killed and ate the young men and women of Crete, is treated in Steven Sherrill’s 2004 novel, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break. In Sherril’s story, the minotaur (still alive and now known simply as ‘M’) is ‘working as a line chef at Grub’s Rib in North Carolina, keeping to himself, keeping his horns down, trying in vain to put his past behind him’. It’s a fascinating tale. But in your own story, you might reimagine the gorgons of ancient Greece as three sisters in working-class Liverpool, jealous of their celebrity sister Medusa, or recast the Morrígan – Irish goddess of war and fate – as a scammer making manipulative predictions on TikTok. Or anything else that strikes your fancy. Sometimes, it will be as subtle as finding a useful echo between some put-upon character in your story (a young man just out of jail working overtime at Burger King) and Atlas, the giant who held up the earth itself…

This course is suitable for writers of any experience level, from beginners to veterans. All that’s required is an interest in the stories that lie beneath, the stories that make our own stories possible.

By the end of this six-week course, you’ll have a better understanding of the old tales, and will have completed your own short story – your own muscular, vivid and compelling modern myth.

Trevor’s debut novel, Ghosts & Lightning, was published to international critical acclaim, and was selected as a Book of the Year in the Guardian and the Irish Times. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, journals and magazines, including Silver Threads of Hope and the Dublin Review (‘Mad For the Rain’, which was also shortlisted for the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Prize). His story ‘Go Down Sunday’ was shortlisted for the Davy Byrnes Short Story Award.

He studied History and Classical Civilisations at Trinity College, Dublin, and English at the University of South Wales. He has led CW workshops and taught for Arvon, Faber Academy and the Irish Writers’ Centre, and was a Writer in Residence at the University of Manchester.