The Scottish International Storytelling Festival returns for its 37th edition this autumn, running from 21 October to 31 October 2026. Centred at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on Edinburgh’s High Street, the event spreads into venues across the capital and throughout Scotland. Appropriately for ‘Fall’, this year marks a significant transition behind the scenes, with Daniel Abercrombie taking the reins in the Festival Director’s chair for the first time.
Organised by Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland (TRACS), the 11-day gathering is built around the thematic banner of ‘Bird and Beast’. The curated bill turns its focus to the relationship between humanity, folklore, and the natural world, gathering tradition-bearers and contemporary performers from Scotland, Türkiye, Italy, Ireland, Canada, and England.
Abercrombie intends to balance preservation with fresh creative commissions from the outset.
“The Scottish International Storytelling Festival is a place where creative opportunities are nurtured and where creative risks can be taken, where the tradition is safeguarded, and the contemporary is encouraged,” said Abercrombie. “Our Bird and Beast theme this year allows us a chance to enjoy and explore stories which carry a message about the way humans can understand and respect the planet we share with animals and nature.”
The programme includes 15 newly commissioned performances. Proceedings open with Aderyn/Bird, created by Ailsa Dixon and Ffion Phillips, who interlace Welsh and Scots language material with avian lore following a sold-out run on the Edinburgh Fringe. Cross-cultural collaborations run throughout the lineup. Shonaleigh, a prominent tradition-bearer of the Drut’syla Jewish oral heritage, joins Turkish tellers Nazlı Çevik Azazi and Roza Erdem to weave Anatolian mythology with inherited family tales passed down through generations.
From Italy, Paola Balbi and Davide Bardi stage a musical telling of Leonardo Da Vinci’s early life. Bologna-based Fraternal Compagnia APS will mark the centenary of Nobel laureate Dario Fo with a physical reinterpretation of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Further afield, Nordic oral history makes an appearance: Finnish storyteller Riikka Palonen joins Satu Lankinen to share stories from the cow sheds of Finland, demonstrating kulning, the traditional Scandinavian herding call.
Festival at a Glance
- Dates: 21 October – 31 October 2026 (Family programme opens 10 October)
- Main Hub: Scottish Storytelling Centre, High Street, Edinburgh
- Key Venues: National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh Zoo
- Nationwide Events: Over 100 ‘Go Local’ performances across Scotland, from Shetland to Dumfries
- Tickets & Passes: Individual tickets available via sisf.org.uk; Festival Supporter Pass priced at £24
Beyond the capital, TRACS is expanding its decentralised footprint with its largest ‘Go Local’ campaign to date. Over 100 events will take place in pubs, community halls, libraries, and parks, taking regional storytellers to audiences from Shetland to Dumfries, alongside newly participating voices from East Lothian.
Back in Edinburgh, epic mythology forms a central pillar of the schedule. Abercrombie’s predecessor in the director’s post, Donald Smith, returns to the stage to lead two separate, three-hour marathon storytelling sessions under the title Rewilding Scotland’s Epics. Across these extended performances, Smith will collaborate with guest tellers from Scotland and Ireland to tackle the foundational legends of Saint Columba and Ossian.
Historical and political narratives feature elsewhere in the programme. David Hughes couples the ancient Celtic myth of Mad Sweeney with the 1990s Pollok Free State road-protest movement led by Colin MacLeod, examining community resistance, sanity, and ecology. Lithuanian storyteller Daiva Ivanauskaitė-Brown traces the perilous history of 19th-century book smugglers defying Imperial Russian bans, supported by Edinburgh’s Sutartinės polyphonic singers. Shetland-based Scots Scriever Claire White will share northern island lore through dialect, song, and archive film.
The 2026 calendar also serves as a milestone for Scotland’s modern cultural infrastructure. Both the Scottish Storytelling Centre and the National Theatre of Scotland mark their 20th anniversaries this autumn. On 23 October, the festival hosts a discussion titled Culture, Democracy and the Stateless Nation, bringing together former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and theatre critic Joyce McMillan. In another nod to longevity, Puppet State Theatre Company celebrates two decades of touring The Man Who Planted Trees with a retrospective gathering led by performers Richard Medrington and Rick Conte.
Family programming begins ahead of the main festival on 10 October to coincide with school holidays. It includes Andy Cannon’s historical show The Last People on Earth, a free Family Storytelling Day at the National Museum of Scotland, and sessions at Edinburgh Zoo. Accessibility provisions include several Deaf-led performances, featuring BSL storyteller Tania Allan and a group of apprentice tellers.
Delivering an 11-day bill on this scale—particularly one reaching from the capital to the country’s outer edges—takes substantial support. The run is underwritten by Creative Scotland Multi-Year Funding, alongside support from the Scottish Government’s Expanded Festivals Fund and the City of Edinburgh Council.
For these funders, the value of such action lies in the Festival’s built-in dual mandate of local access and international exchange.
“Storytelling is a vital part of Scotland’s cultural life – connecting us to our heritage while creating space for new voices, new ideas and international exchange,” said Catriona Hawksworth, Traditional Arts Officer at Creative Scotland. “This year’s festival will weave these strands together in a programme that celebrates Scotland’s rich storytelling traditions while opening them up to audiences and artists from around the world and making storytelling accessible to communities and audiences across Scotland.”
Autumn is the perfect time to indulge in this quieter, more reflective, but no less ambitious counterpart to the Fringe. With its gaze firmly fixed on the natural world, and on humanity’s place in the great cycle of things, this year’s Scottish International Storytelling Festival offers a thoughtful journey through the stories we tell about ourselves, and the creatures we share the land with.
Featured Image: L_R Storytellers David Hughes, Ruth Kirkpatrick and Festival Director Daniel Abercrombie launch SISF 2026 Bird and Beast credit Neil Hanna
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