Compiling guile as a nonprivileged user

[ROBERT.J.APPLEYARD]

I am compiling and installing guile (with the intent of hacking it) on the 
university systems here, as a lowly user. I used the latest release from your 
website (1.8.1). It's running Debian on a 32 bit machine. There is a directory 
in my home folder called 'my', that contains a bin directory, a lib directory 
etc, which the admins have rather helpfully placed into $PATH and things like 
that.

This was the command line I used to configure guile:

./configure --prefix=$HOME/my CFLAGS=-I$HOME/my/include LDFLAGS=-L$HOME/my/lib

Compilation went smoothly, but when I tried to run it, I got this message:

Backtrace:
In unknown file:
   ?: 129* [#<procedure #f ()>]
   ?: 130* (let* ((file #)) (cond (# => #) (# => #)))
   ?: 131  [#<procedure #f #> 
"/home/users/appleyar/my/share/guile/1.8/ice-9/debug.scm"]
   ?: 132  [with-fluid* #<fluid 7> #f #<procedure #f ()>]
   ?: 133* [#<procedure #f ()>]
   ?: 134* [load-file #<primitive-procedure primitive-load> ...]
   ?: 135* [save-module-excursion #<procedure #f ()>]
   ?: 136  (let (# #) (dynamic-wind # thunk #))
   ?: 137  [dynamic-wind #<procedure #f ()> #<procedure #f ()> #<procedure #f 
()>]
   ?: 138* [#<procedure #f ()>]
   ?: 139* [primitive-load 
"/home/users/appleyar/my/share/guile/1.8/ice-9/debug.scm"]
In /home/users/appleyar/my/share/guile/1.8/ice-9/debug.scm:
  22: 140* (define-module (ice-9 debug) :export ...)
In unknown file:
   ?: 141* [copy-tree ...
   ?: 142* [apply #<procedure #f args> (# :export #)]
   ?: 143  [#<procedure #f args> (ice-9 debug) :export ...]
   ?: 144  (quasiquote (eval-case (# #) (else #)))
   ?: 145* [compile-define-module-args (# :export #)]
   ?: 146  ((letrec ((loop #)) loop) (quasiquote ((quote #))) (cdr args))
   ?: 147* (letrec ((loop (lambda # #))) loop)
   ?: 148* (lambda (compiled-args args) (cond (# #) (# #) (# #) ...))

<unnamed port>: In expression (lambda (compiled-args args) (cond # # ...)):
<unnamed port>: Stack overflow




Now how am I supposed to hack guile if I can't get it to run after a clean 
compile?

What have I done wrong here? What more information should I provide?