Friday 21 May 2010

Wicked Wednesday with Dale Jarvis, Storyteller

Celebrating 13 years of telling terrible tales!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
8:00pm
Newman Wine Vaults, 436 Water Street.

$13 at the door

Join storyteller Dale Jarvis as he launches the 13th season of the award winning St. John’s Haunted Hike with a special evening of his favourite ghoulish and ghastly tales by candlelight in the haunted Newman Wine Vaults.

Since 1997, the Haunted Hike has thrilled locals and tourists alike with stories of public hangings, duels, and horrific murders, forgotten cemeteries and unmarked graves, vengeful lovers, murdered soldiers, and mysterious fires. He also tells stories of the faerie folk, tales from the collections of the Brothers Grimm, local legends and traditional tales from Newfoundland, Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. He is the founder of the St. John's Storytelling Circle, and president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival, Inc.

Thursday 20 May 2010

Last chance to register for storytelling conference

The response to the July 2010 Storytellers of Canada conference in St. John's has been fantastic! We have only twenty slots left before we're completely sold out, so we have decided on extending the registration deadline! If you haven't registered yet, it isn't too late, and we will take the first 20 people who send in their registration forms and payment.


If you have already registered and haven't make your room bookings, you can get the information on accommodations at:


Don't forget the 5-Minute Story Slam, happening Wednesday July 28th, at 7:30pm. We want the slam's theme to fit the local environment, and for St. John's, that means fog, and lots of it! The foggiest place in the world is the Grand Banks off the island of Newfoundland, the meeting place of the cold Labrador Current from the north and the much warmer Gulf Stream from the south. With storytellers from all over the world congregating in St. John's this July, all that hot air is bound to see an increase in the misty stuff. We welcome stories related in any way to fog: foggy days, the mists of time, fog horns, fog banks, lost in the fog, living in a fog, condensation nuclei, various visibility hazards or drizzle, fo' shizzle! Have your foggy tale ready.

Friday 14 May 2010

Vikings take over the Ship Pub




This from the Folk Arts Society:


On Wednesday night, May 19th, join Bjorn the Beautiful, L'Anse aux Meadows' Viking Chief, (shown above) and his merry band of Vikings at the Ship Pub, where they'll be hosting the Folk Arts Society's Folk Night. Featured guests Jeff Dyer, Bill Brennan and Glen Collins will dazzle us with a mixture of Newfoundland and international folk songs, with a few blues and jazz standards mixed in, while Bjorn will regale audiences during the Open Mic portion of the evening with snippets from the Norse Sagas that relate to the Viking's journeys to L'Anse aux Meadows over 1000 years ago, and tales of the gods and goddesses they brought with them. So come raise a glass, share a story and celebrate 1000 years of the music and culture of this place.

Thursday 13 May 2010

Do you know the ghost horse of Bannerman Street, St. John's?



Help! I am trying to track down some information about a little-documented ghost story from Bannerman Street in downtown St. John's.

Here is what I know, taken from Frank Galgay and Michael McCarthy's book "Olde St. John's: Stories from a Seaport City" (Flanker Press, 2001, page 111):
"A house on Bannerman Street was said to be troubled by the spirit of a white horse that galloped up a stairway and then vanished through a second-storey window."
Dramatic stuff! But that, sadly, is all that I know of the legend. I would love to know more! Does anyone know which house was said to be haunted by this rather extraordinary ghost? Have you heard the story before, and if so, from whom?

You can reach me by email at dale@dalejarvis.ca

Other stories of ghost horses also welcome!