Jonah Miller

According to Michael Gove writing in the Daily Mail last week, the First World War ‘has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles’. We watched Blackadder Goes Forth at school. Digging out my old exercise books to find out what else we did, I see that I studied the First World War for a few months in year 9, when I was 14, covering four areas: the causes (plural) of the war, trench warfare, government propaganda and ‘those who wouldn’t fight’ – all no doubt evidence to Gove of the left-wing hijacking of history.

A small army of gods stands at the edge of a river, grasping at a salmon which dips and dives, teasing them. When they finally catch it, the fish turns into a boy with bright eyes and red hair: Loki, who tricked blind Hodr into killing his brother – Baldr, the god of light – with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Later, a wolf swallows the sun and the nine worlds come to an end. The woman telling the story is dressed in black, standing with a drum on an empty stage. Her name is Emily Parrish and she does this for a living. We’re listening to her on fold-up chairs on the top floor of an old warehouse, in a bare room with plaster coming off the walls.