Running The Goat: Local Letterpress in Stock at Our Humble Abode

Just a few of the fantastic items by Running the Goat letterpress that are available at 

Our Humble Abode!

Jack and the Manger retells the story of Jesus’s birth as if it were a Newfoundland folktale. It’s all seen through the eyes of Jack, the hero of many a story, who befriends a young couple on their walk to Bethlehem. There’s a bit of ‘angel talk’, some gravel pit camping, an edge-of-your-seat birth drama, and the low-down on how Caesar Augustus’s ‘count-and-tax plan’ brought them all together. It’s a down-to-earth version of a heavenly tale.

Gentle, playful and very funny, Jack and the Manger is the second in an on-going series of Jack tales, combining the talents of Andy Jones, one of Newfoundland's finest storytellers and actors, and Darka Erdelji, one of its most distinctive artists. It was a Christmas sensation in St. John’s when it was first published, and is sure to please even the most Grinch-like of readers.

Erdelji, whose illustrations for The Queen of Paradise's Garden were widely praised, captures the sly wit, intelligence and great heartedness of Jones's tale in her pictures once again. Jack and the Manger is a fine Christmas tale for young and old alike.




Dog's Breakfast

A quirky and delectable collection of 23 letterpress-printed recipe cards featuring the recipes of Newfoundland-based printers, artists, writers, musicians and foodies.

The collection, a collaborative project from the Book Arts Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, comes in a letterpress-printed envelope designed and printed by John Haney and Duncan Major. The work was done at walking bird press, Running the Goat Press and Daubers Press.

Contributors include: Sandy Morris, Bernice & Jennifer Morgan, Mack Furlong, Marlene McCallum, Janet Kelly, Kevin Major, Rachel Dragland, Shirley Greer, Anita Singh, Tara Bryan & Marnie Parsons, Monica Kidd, Jack Botsford, Erin McArthur, David Morrish, Steve Watson & Karl Wells, Ed Riche, Angela Antle & Mark Quinn, Mary Dalton, Robin McGrath, Ramona Dearing, Duncan Major, Sandy Newton & Caroline Clarke, and John Haney.

Contributors offered recipes and helped with some aspect of the printing of the cards.
Many thanks to all those who played along.

The Christmas Turr 
by Dave Paddon

Well, it wasn’t too long before word got around
And the heavy artillery started to pound.
Our poor little turr felt a strong déjà vu:
“My cripes, it’s the crowd out from Harbour Lecou!”
Of all of the planes he could jump on you see,
He’d jumped on the one to Fort McMurray.

– from The Christmas Turr

In 2008, just before Christmas, CBC radio carried the story of a bird that somehow had found its way onto a plane from Newfoundland that was headed to Fort McMurray, Alberta. Dave Paddon's hilarious recitation offers a take on what kind of welcome that bird may have met when the plane landed.

The Christmas Turr has fast become a local favourite; Paddon regularly performs it at storytelling and ballad sessions in St. John’s, and was invited to present it as part of the 2009 St. John’s Storytelling Festival.

The original linocut illustrations for the poem are by Duncan Major.