It's our very first birthday! Come gather round the fire with us once more in this special birthday short story. Take a look at what the future holds for Stories from the Hearth, and learn how you can be a part of it. Wrap yourself in some fiction and hunker down by the hearth, it's getting cold out there.

Avery is about to turn 28, which means that soon she'll have lived longer than her father, the legendary rock-star Kash Bauer, ever did. She's been dealing with that fact all year, and this morning she can't seem to escape it. By the boughs of a larch in autumn, Avery Bauer seeks the answers to her questions. Dealing with depression, mania, and suicide, this is a story about mental health, family, and the healing power of closure. This episode is dedicated to the memory of my friend, M.S.

An extra special episode of The Wandering Bard, in which Cal holds a conversation on storytelling with Joe Fisher, creator of the popular sci-fi audio drama Midnight Burger. Cal and Joe chat about Prince, Shakespeare, and the Devil; the terrors of the Metaverse, the safety of the multiverse, and the future of storytelling.

In a loch in the lee of a mountain in the Scottish Highlands there lives an ancient king. Banished by his people millennia ago, these days he survives on trickery, deceit... and the flesh of human men. This Halloween, a group of friends meet a stranger on the mountain trail. Together, they take shelter in a ramshackle bothy on the edges of the loch. But, are the legends really true? And will these four friends last the night? This bone-chilling tale is based on Scottish folklore, and is a Stories from the Hearth Halloween special.

In the Stories from the Hearth minisode series - normally exclusive to Patreon - Calum reads a classic story from the public domain; be it fable, fairy-tale, or moral; European, or International. Sometimes they perform them as they were first told, sometimes they rewrite them in their own style, and sometimes they perform bits and pieces from their own body of work. In minisode seven, they read their very own, original version of 'The Merwife of Shetland', an ancient folktale regarding the seal-people (or selkies) of the seas surrounding Scotland.

Ludoslaw Dragon is a lonely drunk. Ludoslaw Dragon has a hole in his heart. Ludoslaw Dragon has disappeared... In the aftermath of World War Two, a once-picturesque Polish town hides a dark secret beneath its air-raid rubble. A photograph of a young pianist is found among Ludoslaw's clothes. A heart-breaking love affair comes to the surface.

By flickering candlelight, Chinese storytellers have been telling tales with exquisite, colourful shadow puppets for over two-thousand years. Surviving war, famine, regime changes and revolutions, this is one of the world's oldest and most intricate storytelling traditions. I look at the music, singing, and puppetry of the artform, the training its mastery requires, why it has a decentralized, anarchist structure, how it survived its tumultuous history, and what a future version of Chinese shadow puppetry might look like. This is Part Three in season two of bonus historical and interview series: The Wandering Bard on Stories from the Hearth.

Reaching the elven town of Eldritch, it soon became clear to Lucky the troll that their kind was unwanted. Now, Lucky is set to face an even greater threat: a sect of zealous mages whose singular purpose is to bring about the extinction of the trollish race. Where has Lucky's sister-in-law Diaphony Le Viol disappeared to? How will trollish pacifism stand up to elven aggression? Find out how this family-friendly, queer fantasy epic concludes in Caveworm: Part Two. (This episode is part 2 of 2)

In West Africa, speech goes deeper than just communication - the spoken word is imbued with the natural power to create and to give life. For centuries, West African storytellers the griots have been advisors to kings and emperors, village elders and tribal chiefs. They have served as walking libraries, fonts of all knowledge, "the memory of humankind". And whilst the brutal slave trade of the 16th-19th centuries did its best to destroy West African culture, the legacy of the griots lives on in hip-hop, poetry and activism to this very day. This is Part Two in season two of bonus historical and interview series: The Wandering Bard on Stories from the Hearth.

Lucky is the unluckiest troll in the Hole: a massive cave system which has provided sanctuary for trolls like Lucky since his great-great-great-grandpappy Grimblade's time. But now there's a newcomer - Lucky's sister has married an elven woman - and with the elf's arrival, the peace between trolls and the outside world threatens to come crashing down. (This episode is part 1 of 2)