Nicole Schmidt, Creator of Mythos
“So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labour created our world”
Background
In a distant land, far surpassing the nine kingdoms of imagination, there was a girl named Nicole Schmidt whose grandfather took her on his knee and instilled in her a hunger for storytelling. In honour of Charles Henderson, I’ve been working on this labour-of-narrative-love for well over a year. My intent is to bring to life that same immediacy, the same earnest involvement in the story I had all those years ago when my grandfather whipped up spontaneous tales. I also want to connect you with the stories of generations past, with the stories produced by those lost to history - and as Angela Carter so eloquently put it - with the vivid, raw narratives of ‘the anonymous poor’ ‘whose labour formed our world.'
Armed with the oh-so-lucrative MA in English Literature and a love for storytelling, I decided to undertake this project - an important one, as it engages with and, hopefully, puts new and poetic flesh to centuries-old narrative.
And I cannot tell a lie. I love monsters. I love creatures. And in my heart of hearts I have to believe they are real and not, as I'm obliged to believe as an educated modern woman, that they are psychological constructs that represent and help negotiate human fears of death and danger. In fact, when I tell stories, I hope you have the sense that not only are these beings too vivid not to be entirely physically real but that if you visit their domains, you will undoubtedly see one.
