Riikka Palonen is a barefoot forest girl from Finland. After qualifying as Master of Arts in Helsinki, she returned to her home village, to live on her farm. For more than 20 years, she worked as a modern highland drover, an importer and breeder of Highland Cattle, and along the way she told old folk stories to her customers in her own small farmside restaurant. Those long years tending and herding cattle in the Finnish woods gave her a very special connection to nature; to animals both wild and domestic, and to the ancient spirits of the land. Whilst in Finland she was a regular storyteller at several folk music festivals and historical events.

In addition to this she was telling at public events, private parties and celebrations, and also made several tours to the far north – all the way to the furthest edges of Finnish Lapland, taking her stories to remote villages, schools, libraries, museums and cultural centres.

Stories have always been close to her heart; as a child she was shy and withdrawn and learned to read when she was four, delighting in the new worlds that opened up to her through books. Ever since then, stories have been her refuge and constant companion in this strange and busy world.

Her cattle moved on to pastures new some years ago, and similarly Riikka herself moved to Scotland in 2023. Stories and art are now her whole life – when not telling tales, she works with bone carving, mixed media painting, and weaving traditional Finnish wall rugs – which for Riikka are all also ways of telling her stories.

Riikka tells, and sings, traditional Finnish and northern folk tales, traditional Scottish tales and stories of her own, which very often have a deep connection to the land and the cycles of life. She enjoys historical stories, ancient northern myths and ballads, and of course stories from the great Finnish epic Kalevala, and often she weaves scientific or philosophical ponderings into her sets. She feels at home in the shadows of the twilight zone – both in her long walks and in her stories and her art – but on the other hand she can be mischievous and untamed, just as fairies tend to be.

“Riikka is such a charismatic and beguiling storyteller and singer. Totally transports a listener to another place, another time.” – Shane Ibbs, storyteller

Riikka is based in Crail, Fife but happy to travel to wherever stories are needed.