The Podgoblin’s Hat

For this Christmas-adjascent bonus, we're welcoming Helen Zaltzman, a podcaster and thinker about words.

Helen came to the Moomins as a young child while she was devouring the entire contents of her local library and volunteered to re-read Moominland Midwinter for us. We talk about how lovely the writing is, the art of translation, and what a relief it is when you revisit a beloved childhood story and find that it's still good. So many good quotes are pulled up and lovingly read aloud. The praises of Too-Ticky are lavishly sung.

We also asked Helen to read the Fir Tree, which was new to her. We're still delighted with how much of a stone cold classic this story is. Helen notices the particular pagan and pre-Christian notes, and we're all appalled at Moominpappa's cavalier attitude to his neighbour's trees.

Helen recommends Field Recordings by Eleanor McDowall and Twice upon a Time, with Janet Ellis. Helen's own very good podcast is The Allusionist. We particuarly recommend the Christmas episodes, if you want to think about how weird Christmas is!

Our guest for this out-of-season bonus episode is Hanna: a lifelong Moomins fan and reader of the books in Polish!

We talk about faithfulness in adaptation, the differences between the Polish and English translations, and being out on the raw shore of the Baltic sea.

Hanna has a unique perspective on the Hemulen Who Loved Silence, which we read last season. A case is made for quiet people who don't want to have to bite to be heard.

Hanna's Spirit recommendations are bang on topic! Her Spirit of the Moomins is London Drawing Group's online class Tove Jansson: drawing Moomin landscapes. Her Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat isthe BBC documentary Moominland Tales: the life of Tove Jansson.

And just like that, it's the end of the season! We're going out on a story that actually shows us what happens when someone has a problem and wonders "What would Snufkin do?"

Sniff is inconsolable over the loss of his favourite toy, a small dog called Cedric, with bejewelled eyes (?!). Even Moominmamma can't help him, so he wanders down to Snufkin's camp and gets told a story. It's a very classic story-shape about belongings not making you happy, but you know what we say? There's nothing wrong with playing the hits well!

This story is a real two-hander between Snufkin and Sniff. It really wouldn't be the same without Sniff's many, pertinent, exasperating interruptions. We have a go at filling some plot holes, like: when did Sniff get back from wherever it was he went? Who gave him the toy dog, and why did this put jewels in its eyes?

Next season we'll be reading the Moomin comics, so dig out your copies if you want to read along!

Our Spirits of the Moomins this week are The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander and Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit by Julius Lester. Dave has sneaked three (three!) Spirits of the Podgoblin's hat in this season finale to keep you going until we get back: Cane and Rinse, Girl Mode and Rainbow Road.

How many times has Moominpappa gone off with the Hattifatteners? Are they really as wicked as they're cracked up to be? What does the birch bark scroll mean? Hop along and find out none of the answers to these questions!

This is supposed to be a story about the Hattifatteners, but it might more appropriately be named: The Feelings and Projections that Moominpappa has about the Hattifatteners. Which is a bit disappointing for Hattifattener fans but it's still a pretty good story!

Dave's done some serious research into queer species in the Moomins, and Hattifatteners as cyborgs in particular. Nina's got a super bumper natural history corner about birch bark and parthenogenic mothers, with additional rustling sound effects. There's a maths corner too, which is unlikely to happen again. Have we all got our little pieces of birch bark in hand? Good, now we'll begin.

Our Spirits of the Moomins this week are Thistle & Thyme: Tales and Legends from Scotland by Sorche Nic Leodhas, and The Dark Crystal, Age of Resistance on Netflix. Our Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is Research Hole.

Our guest Ali Baker is a researcher in children's literature with a particular interest in children's voice and children's rights, so it's no surprise she chose to come on and talk to us about The Invisible Child!

Ali makes a strong case for Bjork as a Spirit of Little My and reminisces about finding the Moomins in her local library as a kid. We situate the Moomins as a type of fantasy, and Ali recommend's Dr Farah Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy.  We talk about the mixed up class elements of the Moomin family, and go on a long tangent about femme-shaming (#JusticeForTheSnorkMaiden), with reference to Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small quartet. 

Ali's article about the the sensitivity edit's to Roald Dahl's work is here. Her Spirit of the Moomin's is Bjork's album Vespertine, and her Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is her podcast Fantasy Book Swap.

This week we're reading one of Tove's most famous short stories: The Invisible Child. It's a pretty bright and funny story with very dark themes. We both like it, but it doesn't quite live up to the hype, for us.

Little My is picking poisonous mushrooms (what else is new?), Moomintroll is an ass, and Moominmamma is a confirmed witch. It's a good one for cameos of Too-Ticky, and vengeance on fathers. We've got quite the fungus-based Natural History/Translation chat. We talk about whether bashing coldly ironical types in the head is even any use. Justice for people with hair colours that aren't black or yellow! There is a deep dive into Nina's ginger experience, and the way gingers, particularly ginger girls, are represented in kids' fiction.

Our Spirits of the Moomins are The Little Prince by Saint Exupery, as read by Peter Ustinov, and Where the Wild Ladies Are, by Matsuda Aoko and translated by Polly Barton. Dave's Spirit of the Moomins is The White Pube website and podcast, particularly their video game reviews.

Our guest Lou has been a Moomin fan since childhood, and the character ey relate to is the Groke (iconic).

This chat is lots of things, and one of the things is a couple of autistics marvelling over the Hemulen Who Loved Silence, with a sideshoot through Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. It's also Brian Blessed as Edward the Booble impersonations. It's a really good time!

Lou's Spirit of the Moomins is My Neighbour Totoro. Eir Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is Saga Thing. Their most recent audio drama is Eeler's Choice.

Is this the underrated best story in this collection? We really think it might be.

What can a Hemulen tell us about work under capitalism? Will any of us ever get to be pensioned off? This is a beautiful story about introversion, access needs and the dangers of sharing your most secret desires with your relatives. IT BANGS LIKE A DRUM. And it generated a lot of conversation for us, during which we referenced Shy Radicals by Hamja Ahsan, Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, and The World Is Not Ending by Sophie From Mars.

Our Spirits of the Moomins are Moira's Pen by Megan Whalen Turner and The Rob Auton Daily Podcast. Our Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is Wilder.

This story's title promises so much in terms of dragon content! In actuality there is hardly any dragon in this story, but what there is, is very good. Nina likes this story a lot anyway, Dave's more on the fence.

How understandable to want a small pet of your own, who would be attached just to you! How impossible to guarantee this outcome in any way, especially when said small pet is actually a wild thing and an endangered species to boot! We revisit some familiar themes: love triangles, the impossibility of having a secret, and the unswerving aim of a Little My throwing a pointed jab.

Our question for What Would Snufkin do was adapted from this AITA post on reddit

Our Spirits of the Moomins are Everything Is Alive and The Mab. Our Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is The Shrieking Shack.

There's so much to say about The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters that we invited Ruby on to say some of it for us! We ponder on the exquisite combo that is cosy and creepy, lament the missed connection between Gaffsie and Fillyjonk and scribble all over our copies of Tales From Moomin Valley in pencil.

Ruby's Spirit of the Moomins is the folkloric art of John Bauer, and her Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is the Waterlands Podcast. She sings in the Ouseburn Folk Choir.

This week we're reading The Fillyjonk Who Believed in disasters, certified banger no matter who you ask! It's a melancholy, funny, poignant story that feels almost too real.

Join us as we relate a little too closely and discuss the anxiety and depression of this poor Fillyjonk. We talk about the beauty and liberation of destruction, bombed out cathedrals, and monastic lifestyles. Do we ever really learn from these experiences, or is it an endless cycle? Plus special Natural History Investigations.

Our Spirits of the Moomins are Stories by Firelight by Shirley Hughes and Campaign 2 of the actual play D&D show Critical Role. Our Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is Bookwandering with Anna James.

Carrying on with our read-through of Tales from Moomin Valley, our story this week is A Tale of Horror! But don't get too excited. The scariest thing about it is the Whomper's daddy.

This story, despite not being our favourite, gave us lots to yap about. We talked about how stories about lying affect children's truthfulness (see article here for more on Kang Lee's experiment, or read the abstract here), shifting standards in kid lit regarding discipline, in particular corporal punishment, and shared some stories about our own flexible relationships to the truth as children.

Our Spirits of the Moomins are The Sister Who Ate her Brothers by Jen Campbell, and the film Turning Red. Our Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is The Newbery Tart podcast.

To round off our spring miniseason we've got a final (for now) look at The Spring Tune, with special guest Matt Miller, a poet and theatre maker.

Matt's take on this story is fairly different from all the other takes we've heard so far! It's about smoking, doing the washing up, procrastination. We play a round of our unofficial but recurring game: which Moomin character do you feel painfully called out by? And have a think about what kind of participant Little My would be, if you put her in school and made her be in a poetry workshop.

Matt's Spirit of the Moomins is Impro by Keith Johnston. Their Spirits of the Podgoblin's Hat are Rusty Quill and Mark Can't Rap. You can find Matt on twitter @mattmiller2805 and on their website mattmillertheatre.com. 

The Podgoblin's Hat will be back later this year, when we will be continuing our read-through of the short story collection Tales from Moominvalley. The next short story will be A Tale Of Horror.

This week we've got a special guest in to talk all about the music of Tove Jansson, and the game we talked about last week (Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley) AND the short story that kicked off this miniseason (the Spring Tune). Martin is a musician, a podcaster, a player of games, so he is ideal for all this!

If you would like to listen along to the music, you'll want to start with this advert composed by Robert Farnon. Then visit this lovely Autumn Song by Tove Jansson and Erna Tauro. Henry Kathman's translation and cover of Snufkin's Spring Song can be found here. The video essay Dave was referring to is here. Finally, wrap your ears around the not unchallenging Moomin Voices album.

Martin's Spirit of the Moomins is The Wind by Fil Corbitt. His Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is Noah Caldwell-Gervais. You can find his own music at Pale Bird. His podcasts are Song by Song and Neutrino Watch. 

We're popping in with something a little different for you this week, it's a video game review! That's right, we're almost topical!

Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley is a beautiful, relaxing, not quite open world exploration of Moomin Valley through the eyes and musical instruments of Snufkin. We discuss the way it feels, the way it looks, the way it sounds. Dave has some nitpicks. We wonder how canon the good ship SnufMin is to these game developers. Did the Groke really break Nina's Switch?!

Our Spirits of the Moomins this week are games. Nina's is Untitled Goose Game and Dave's is Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna). Our Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is The End of the World Book Club.

The reddit post Dave was talking about can be found here.

The crocuses are up, the cherry trees are in bloom, and Snufkin is tramping back to Moomin Valley - it must be time for our spring miniseries!

We're kicking off with this beautiful, perfectly formed gem of a short story from the collection Tales from Moomin Valley. It's a story about creativity, inspiration, song writing, and how big you need to be to get a name.

We namecheck a lot of books in this one! A non exhaustive list: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes.

Our Spirits of the Moomins are The Girl Who Helped Thunder and Other Native American Stories by James Bruchac and Joseph Bruchac, and the songs of Regina Spektor. Our Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is Song by Song.

We're wrapping up this year on the Podgoblin's Hat with Tove's Christmas offering: The Fir Tree.

It's got everything you want from a Christmas story: the light and the dark, the fear and the wonder. There's even a little cameo from the Moomin family gun.

We chat about different translations of this story, we exchange presents and talk at length about egg nog.

Our Spirits of the Moomins this Week are The Father Christmas Letters by JRR Tolkien, the Muppets Christmas Carol, and Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson. Our Spirits of the Podgoblin's Hat is The Last Christmas, the final episode of Dave's other podcast Getting Better Acquainted. 

We're wrapping up Moominland Midwinter this week, and despite being only three chapters, it's 70% of the words in this book, so do strap in for a mammoth episode.

There's a whole raft of new characters: the lonely and the rum, a flock of small creep, a very melancholy dog and a jock Hemulen. Misunderstandings and unrequited longings abound. Moomintroll finally gets to grips with the snow. Little My invents ice skating. And we finally get to hear what Mamma thinks about it all. Perhaps the real winter was the friends we made along the way. Or maybe, as per Too Ticky, one has to discover everything for oneself, and get over it all alone.

Our spirits of the Moomins this week are Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm and Bob's Burgers, an animated sitcom. Our spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is the blog series The Percy Jackson Project by Talia Franks.

Welcome to series 3! We're back with a banger: Moominland Midwinter. Nina has had this book hyped up by everyone who knows she's doing this podcast, and despite all the hype it doesn't disappoint.

In this first half of the book, the unthinkable happens: Moomintroll awakes from his hibernation and finds himself alone in a world of winter. It is as if he has rolled out into outer space.

This is such a beautiful meditation on loneliness, and change, and uncertainty. We've got a great new character in Too-Ticky, and of course the whole show is stolen by recurring character Little My.

Our spirits of the Moomins this week are Nimona (the animated film) from Dave and two short stories from Nina: The Horse in the Snow by Jeanette Winterson and the Snow Horse by Joan Aiken.

To wrap up season two we are bringing you the last two picture books set in the Moomin universe written by Tove Jansson.

Both of these books are a bit difficult and inaccessible! They're very interesting to Moomin fans in that they show the later stages of Tove's journey with her little trolls, and how she felt about them towards the end of her life.

The Dangerous Journey is a portal fantasy that sees human girl Susanna enter the Moomin world and travel through a series of gorgeously bleak watercolor landscapes. The Moomins are barely in this, and when they do appear, it's time for Susanna to go. We talk about the many influences on the art and writing of Jansson and read the book as a kind of retrospective of her life.

Villain in the Moominhouse has no official translation into English and is kind of hard to find! You can read a fan translation by Teresa Ronayne here. This is a more typical story shape for the Moomins, except it's all set inside the Moominhouse. Little My is awakened by a horrible smell - eventually the whole house is roused to search out the pungent intruder. Again, we have characters from all different Moomin books and comics humbled together, in a very much larger than canon house. This book is a photo picture book: each illustration was staged inside a large Moomin dolls house that Tove worked on in collaboration with her friends. It's more of a sculpture than a book?

Our Spirits of the Moomins this week are The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon by David Almond (honourable mention to How to Stay Sober When You'd Rather Be Dead which you can borrow from overdrive here), Where the Wild Things Are (the movie). And Nina's Spirit of the Podgoblin's Hat is All About Agatha.