Amanda Edmiston

Amanda Edmiston is a storyteller and artist with a background in herbal medicine, based in Scotland but working wherever people want stories. She creates multidimensional work designed to connect folk with stories, lore, food, plants and memories of community traditions.

Diary 2020

It’s said salmon-tailed merfolk once wintered on the silt-strewn banks of Glasgow’s River Clyde. They could take on legged form, wandering the Earth, but often found human folk aggressive and loud. As the focus of man’s attentions became money and manufacture they began to drift to deeper water ‘til only one Merrow woman remained in the Clyde’s tidal flow. Watching as her treasured green place turned to dirt and greed, ‘til folks could no longer hear her sing. Industry gained momentum, tenements, back to back, dark and damp, covered the meadows.

Shipyards called for the river to be dredged. Banks were clawed, forests burnt. People living foreshortened lives.

Nowhere could be found the iron-rich greens which brought riches to the body. Now only iron-filled yards brought riches to the few. The mermaid sensed a world in which she was no longer welcome, leaving this heat- arced world she muttered ‘if they ate Nettles in March and Mugworts in May not so many good maidens would have gone to the clay.’ Her words floating downriver, tide washing in, drifting out, moon pulling water away. As we gather Nettles in our dock-covered hands inhaling Mugwort’s bitter aroma as Spring arrives, we hope she swims well- nourished amidst Kelp beds, waiting for a time to return as the meadows start moving back into the abandoned ship-yards.