Immerse yourself in tales of sparrow mumbling, wife selling, lost traditions and folklore, with Luke Daniels and John Dipper's Sun Stations.

The folk musicians will be bringing their multi-media show to South Hill Park on Sunday, before moving on to South Street Arts Centre in Reading the following Friday, September 30.

With plenty of tales, a humourous script by Poets Cafe curator A F Harold, animation by Huw Lupton and projections by Kathy Hinde, the pair with a passion for the past will take audiences on a journey through an old ritual England of forgotten, and often rather extraordinary customs.

"The show goes across the traditional festival years, across Valentines Day, Easter, May Day, Halloween, Christmas and back round to the beginning again," explained guitarist, singer and melodeon player, Luke, who hails from Sonning Common.

"You have music, moderately hilarious jokes and animation and projections at the front and back of the stage - it's a visual-audio feast!"

And there will be plenty of intriguing treats in store for those with a nose for history, or just a well-told tale, with the pair having untaken some serious research at Cecil Sharp House and the national folk archives in London.

"Some of the stuff we have uncovered is just unbelievable," Luke told The Guide. "For instance, wife selling, where a woman would be paraded round in a horse halter and sold! Often it was at the woman's instigation - it was almost an early form of divorce.

"For instance if a sailor returned home and found that his wife had shacked up with a landlubber, then he might arrange with his wife that she would be sold so she could live respectfully with her new man and the husband could get something out of it.

"So there was an element of humiliation, with the woman being led about in a horse halter, but the woman knew who she was getting sold to..."

Fascinating stuff. And that's just the start of it, with the English penchant for pelting crowds with baked goods, the annual weighing of the mayor, and more to be revealed when you join Luke and John on a journey through more than half a millenium of recorded folk history.

Sun Stations is at South Hill Park, Bracknell, on

Sunday, and at Reading's South Street Arts Centre on Friday, September 30. The South Hill Park show begins at 3pm with tickets priced at £8. Call 01344 484123 or visit www.southhillpark.org. In Reading, the journey through England's folkloric past begins at 8pm, with tickets priced at £10, with concessions. Call 0118 960 6060 or visit www.readingarts.com