From the oral tradition that has handed down to us pagan mythologies and heroic legends of the past to epic written tomes that have become bibles of national and imperial identity, stories have been at the heart of human civilisation since the very beginning and will continue to linger.

More than any tool or natural resource, stories have enabled the human species to work together building something greater than the sum of their parts. Homosapiens were able to collaborate not because they were faster, craftier or more powerful than any other species, but because they were able to communicate an interpretation of the past as well as a shared vision of the future.

Persistent narratives led to stronger, more efficient communication which generated belief systems, codification symbolism and iconography. With shared beliefs we forged tribes, city states, nations and then empires.

As the divine rule of kings made way for the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution - the age of the individual began and with that stories evolved.

Imbued with new meaning, mythologies, fables and the writings of the past found new audience. The hero's journey became the central theme in the western literary canon and today, when we think of the narrative arc of our own lives we cannot help but recall the books, cinema and theatre we have consumed over the course of our own lives to see how these ideals compare with our own lived experience.

We are comforted by the familiarity of stories, just as we are by places, songs or smells of our lives because they reassure us and ground us as we grapple with catastrophes in an unpredictable world.

Stories can not only uplift us when confronted by these challenges but edify us too by helping us to forge the best version of ourselves that we can be. Other stories can have the opposite effect. If told with enough conviction and repetition, the imagined realities contained within a story can alter our perception of reality by creating an illusion.

Becoming more attuned to the power of stories and the effects that they can have on our own lives is the first step in the transformational process of self-discovery.

Our aim with this podcast is to bring on guests whose background in different spheres will help you to see the modern world through the stories of the past. History is unquestioningly moving towards unity as our collective memory expands and regional, localised folklores become intertwined, adding to the tapestry of cultural traditions that we refer to, in order to find our shared commonalities as well as our unique reasons for being.

As this podcast unfolds in the coming episodes we hope to share with you some of the more iconic legends of mankind that have persisted across the millennia as well as lesser known tales of folklore, and some all-but-forgotten stories of the distant past that merit our revisiting them today in 2024 and beyond.