Mythology is very much up there in the UK news cycle at the moment, with all the endless commentary on Christopher Nolan’s film based on the Odyssey. (And there seems as a consequence also to be a sudden rash of people enthusiastically labelling themselves mythologists, whether they have an actual academic qualification in mythology or not :-) ) I’m a bit weary with all things Odysseus, now – though some of the funniest commentary has been about all the people who have been furious about too many spoilers in the press and social media coverage, when the actual story is getting on for 3000 years old.

So there’s been something of a myth fever spreading around and about the place, and in that context I’ve seen a lot of grumbling about how England doesn’t have a mythology, whereas not only the Greeks but also those irritating Celts have far more than their fair share. This latter idea is often expressed by people who don’t seem to have been taught that back in the day, the land that we now (rather randomly) designate as England was a ‘Celtic’ country too. (Yes, summer does make me very grumpy indeed, which inevitably leads to an excess of emphatic italics.) The whole of this island was ‘Celtic’, according to the definition used today, i.e. speaking a Celtic language. England, along with Wales, and most of Scotland until the Gaels took over, spoke variants of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages. The stories would have been similar (which is why a bunch of poems and stories belonging to ‘Welsh’ mythology are actually about happenings in the north of England) and the culture would have been similar. Where do all those people who insist we don’t have a mythology think the Arthurian tradition comes from? There’s a bit of a clue in the fact that it’s known by the name of ‘The Matter of Britain’, and a large portion of the events recorded in that enormous body of Arthurian texts take place in the country that is now called England. I think this inability to see these old stories as part of our native mythology is a consequence of the fact that, over the centuries, they’ve become known as mere romances or, even worse, as just a set of weird old adventure stories for children. It’s certainly the case that only the Greeks and the Romans were allowed to have Proper Mythology when I was at school.

In Myth Summer School here at The Art of Enchantment we’ve been celebrating Arthurian women this year, but in an effort to stamp out this mistaken dismissal of our own rich native traditions, for the rest of the year I’m going to be focusing, during our monthly Myth & Fairy Tales Salons and beyond, on the Grail myths. This large body of story has been described as the foundational mythology of the West, and it very clearly originates in these islands. So if you’re not already a paid subscriber, and you’d like to delve deeply into this beautiful and complex old body of tales, do sign up now. We’ll be looking at what the stories tell us about the archetypal feminine (with the gloriously feisty Grail messengers, Grail bearers and beyond) and the archetypal masculine (the Grail Hero and the Grail King/ Fisher King). We’ll also be exploring the nature of the Grail quest, and talking about what the Grail might symbolise for us today. We’ll be doing this from a proper scholarly perspective, because I do actually have an academic qualification in this subject, but I promise you it’ll be far from dry. We’ll be bringing the old texts to life in the context of my long work with the mythic imagination, and even if you’re already familiar with the better-known Grail story – that of Perceval – I can promise you a few surprises along the way.

In this rapidly changing world in which so many feel unanchored and uprooted, it’s more important than ever that we explore stories from our own native traditions. Myths deserve respect. They offer us a way home – and they’re right there waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to weave us back into our own long and rich ancestral lineage. Waiting for us to re-member ourselves.

But, mythology aside, as ever I’m very glad indeed to see the back of grump-inducing July, my least-favourite month of the year. It’s been a very strange 2026 here in the northern wilds of England: a long and early heatwave during the spring produced a noticeable surge in butterfly levels (and, rather less endearingly, in the levels of flies of all kinds, including my nemeses, houseflies) – and also a surge in the hare population, which is healthy at the best of times here in the North Pennines. And you know what? – that really gives me hope. It reminds me that, no matter how harrowing our experience of ecological grief (and writes poignantly about that grief here) and our entirely appropriate fear over the extreme consequences of climate change (those wildfires!) the natural world is nevertheless so very gloriously resilient. As you can see in the image below, even the wild cherry tree that blew down on our land last year after an especially intensive and gusty windstorm is determined not to give up. Somewhere, one of its roots is clinging by a slender thread – and that’s all that’s required for it to grasp the opportunity to thrive and push up new growth again.

For over a year now I’ve been working on this and that with the wonderful people at Broughton Sanctuary in North Yorkshire: a place that is immersed in one of the UK’s most ambitious and holistic rewilding projects. Since 2021, they’ve been transforming their 2500 acres of landscape – once intensively managed farmland which, to quote environmental author and activist George Monbiot, was decidedly ‘sheepwrecked’ – into a thriving mosaic of woodlands, meadows and wetlands. They’ve planted hundreds of thousands of native trees and reintroduced beavers and other land-transforming beasts of one kind or another. But what’s more exciting to me is what has happened there that they themselves didn’t orchestrate: the return of wildlife of its own accord. The new flourishing of insects and small mammals. The presence of all our native species of owl, and the return of both common and rare raptors. Vast numbers of passerine birds and wading birds. Some very serious herons. Self-seeded saplings and carpets of wildflower everywhere. The before-and-after images are remarkable and stunning – and all of this in just five years. (If you’d like to visit Broughton and experience this remarkable work for yourself, there’s still a small number of places on my five-night retreat there, in November. This one isn’t a women’s retreat, as is my usual practice: it’s open to all. Find out more about it here.)

So yes, as Mel says, we should absolutely grieve for ‘the living creatures who are suffering and will continue to suffer under man-made global heating, and whose decline and eventual loss from this once-teeming planet was far from inevitable.’ But there’s an intelligence in the land which is beyond our ability to understand, and it doesn’t always take much to help it thrive. Hope is a complicated word, but seeing what has happened at Broughton has definitely given me hope. I’ve certainly experienced ‘distress at seeing the dear, familiar world we grew up in vanishing in front of our eyes’; as I wrote in If Women Rose Rooted, it completely broke my life open when I turned 48. But I’ve also seen that dear, familiar world rise from the seemingly dead, because – to coin a rather clichéd phrase from a rather clichéd old movie – if we build it, they will come. If we invite them in, and cherish them when they arrive.

(If you want a very healthy dose of such hope, I can wholeheartedly recommend Cal Flyn’s beautiful book Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape, which is about what happens when the natural world reclaims its place in landscapes and locations that humans have ruined. All is not lost. Little is ever all lost.)

Nevertheless, the other-than-humans that we share this beautiful, animate Earth with still have to navigate the dangers of climate change, just as we do, and there’s no quick or easy universal solution to all that. No easy solution to the ever-intensifying heatwaves, or to those unprecedented wildfires raging throughout Europe. And it’s inevitable that, as a mythologist and psychologist, I see that particular phenomenon through an archetypal lens too. Humans have been so focused on the solar, through all the last couple of millennia and maybe more. We’ve been so very fiery, so focused on the bright light, chasing all the big solar themes of ambition, mastery, ego, drive. The Hero’s Journey, and similar chest-beating frenzies of glitter and glory. But now those big solar themes have turned tail and they’re chasing us. The solar energy we so relentlessly pursued has turned into the relentless wave of fire we can’t now escape, and if we had any sense we’d be entering into a phase of retreat and thoughtful reflection.

We don’t have any sense. But do read Mel’s article: it recognises the grief, but it’s also filled with practical ideas about how we can care for, and contribute to the flourishing of, the wildlife in our local area.

Happily, though, we’re on the threshold of August, a month which foreshadows that season of mist and mellow fruitfulness I’m longing for; and even when it commits its usual atrocities of excess heat, I find it bearable because it’s almost the beginning of the end. The summer daylight is already softening and fading into autumn, the evenings and early mornings are darkening, and I’m starting to believe in breathing again. And I’ll need a bit of a breather, because it’s going to be a full-on autumn of book events around the country – everything from that most venerable of literary festivals, Cheltenham, to an evening with the brilliant Marina Warner, talking together about fairy tales, in Bristol. The full and final list can be found below, and I’m hoping to meet a good few members of this Substack community somewhere along the way.

Wishing for you, as always, the blessings and beauties of whichever season you happen to be immersed in right now,

I was delighted to be the subject of a three-page profile in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago; you can read the whole thing at the link below – including the assertion, I’m sure you’ll all be glad to hear, that there’s nothing ‘wafty’ about me.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/18/hagitude-author-sharon-blackie-at-60-i-wasnt-ready-to-give-up-i-was-just-starting

Here’s one of the opening paragraphs (bold type mine):

I also very much enjoyed this conversation on The Sacred podcast with Elizabeth Oldfield, which led us down many windy paths in the enchanted forest, and to the discussion of many topics, both personal and folkloric.

September 2, 6.45pm. Seed Talk, Manchester, Friends Meeting House. Tickets here.

September 26, 12 noon. Brontë Women’s Writing Festival, Brontë Parsonage, Haworth. Details coming soon.

September 28, 7pm. Topping & Co, Edinburgh. Tickets here.

September 29, Topping & Co, St Andrews. Tickets here.

October 10, 1.15pm. Ilkley Book Festival. Details coming soon.

October 13, evening. Cheltenham Literature Festival. Details coming soon.

October 19, 6.45pm. With Marina Warner at the Redgrave Theatre, Clifton, Bristol. Tickets here.

November 15 – 20. ‘Nostos’ retreat at Broughton Sanctuary, North Yorkshire. Information and bookings here.