Lyrics

To view the lyrics and liner notes, just click on a track title below:

1 Wild Northeaster

We found the words for this song in one of Rowan's favourite childhood anthologies, The Dragon Book of Verse. Originally a poem by Charles Kingsley called Ode To The North-East Wind, we've set it to a traditional Irish slip-jig aptly named The Blast of Wind.

Welcome, wild North-easter.
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-easter!
O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.

Tired we are of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter
Turns us out to play!

Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
Lonely curlew pipe.

Through the black fir-forest
Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
Off the curdled sky.
Hark! The brave North-easter!
Breast-high lies the scent,
On by holt and headland,
Over heath and bent.

Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Through the sleet and snow.
Who can over-ride you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast;
You shall see a fox die
Ere an hour be past.

Go! and rest to-morrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O'er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious South-wind
Breathe in lovers' sighs,
While the lazy gallants
Bask in ladies' eyes.

What does he but soften
Heart alike and pen?
'Tis the hard gray weather
Breeds hard English men.
What's the soft South-wester?
'Tis the ladies' breeze,
Bringing home their true-loves
Out of all the seas:

But the black North-easter,
Through the snowstorm hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak
Seaward round the world.
Come, as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.

2 Old Brock

We first heard Tim Brooks sing this lovely song of his at Watford Folk Club. We’re very grateful that he allowed us to arrange it in three parts and record it on this album. Read more about his inspiration here: www.oldtimetim.com/downinthedark.htm

When the fox slinks silent from his lair,
The robin sings a final air,
And the moonlight wakes the sleeping hare,
Its then we take our part..

Down in the dark where no-one can see us,
Down in the dark through the sand and the loam,
Down in the dark where no-one can hear us,
Old Brock he's a digging, digging, digging.
Old Brock he's a digging, digging his home.

We spend the daytime in the deep
Then walk abroad, while others sleep.
We to ourselves our counsel keep,
For that's our ancient way.....

Down in the dark where no-one can see us,
Down in the dark through the sand and the loam,
Down in the dark where no-one can hear us,
Old Brock he's a digging, digging, digging.
Old Brock he's a digging, digging his home.

One by one we venture out,
For any danger cast about.
Then turn again if there's any doubt,
For time is on our side......

Down in the dark where no-one can see us,
Down in the dark through the sand and the loam,
Down in the dark where no-one can hear us,
Old Brock he's a digging, digging, digging.
Old Brock he's a digging, digging his home.

There's no top table in our hall,
We favour none but care for all.
If you can't climb then you can't fall,
And so we keep our law......

Down in the dark where no-one can see us,
Down in the dark through the sand and the loam,
Down in the dark where no-one can hear us,
Old Brock he's a digging, digging, digging.
Old Brock he's a digging, digging his home.

3 Charlie Fox

A hunting song from the point of view of the hunted, this is written by our good friend & musical hero, Dave Webber. It perfectly captures everything the fox has to lose in the chase that some consider a sport. We’ve paired it with a traditional jig we know as Johnny O’Leary’s.

When the owl is on the wing the fox is on the paw,
It's down into the farmyard to pay his friends a call,
He'll grab the old drake by the back or maybe a fat old hen,
Or even take a new-born lamb from its mother in the pen.

Most times he hunts through hunger but sometimes its just for fun,
But he is never hunting when the farmer's got his gun,
He'll sit there in the leafy copse and mingle red with green,
His nerves are of the toughest steel and all his wits are keen.

He's woken by a distant sound all on an Autumn morn,
His ears are cocked aloof as he hears yon huntsman's horn,
He's thinking of his vixen and the cubs as she must mind,
He'll have to draw yon pack away afore they make a find.

So its up to break his cover and toward the fields so green,
And out into the open where he knows he can be seen,
He hears twelve couple speaking and the huntsman sound a view,
And the weary feeling in his bones tells him his reign is through.

Now when Charlie hunted rabbits and his partridge and his hares,
He went out all on his own, he never went in pairs,
He didn't need no horses nor no pack of wild hounds too,
'Cause of hunting, Mr. Huntsman, he knows twice as much as you.

Now Charlie he was six year old afore he fell to hounds,
And hundreds were the times he'd killed while on his farmyard rounds,
But though his mask and brush have gone, in a trophy room to lay,
Don't ever forget the fifty times that Charlie got away.

4 What Holds The World Together

Rosie wrote this song after reading a story of a village in India that suffered high rates of infanticide. Stuck in a dowry system, parents couldn’t afford to marry off their daughters so they would take them out and lay them in the woods the day they were born. The area was also subject to heavy deforestation, causing flooding and erosion. So one couple decided to plant trees as an investment for their newborn daughter, a choice that had a massive positive impact on the environment and community after the idea caught on. The song is followed by an uplifting tune called Sevens written by Philippe.

I cannot sleep for wonder
Though I have laboured hard all this livelong night
And in the wildwood yonder
I hear the forest wake and whisper with delight
For born to me a daughter
And born to them a friend
And born with you what once would be comes to an end

I’ll give you thorn, that through raging storm clings fast and steady
And willow knows to break and grow when time is ready
And oak, that you may see how the meek grow mighty
And this will be your dowry
And this will be your dowry...

What holds the world together
But roots grown deep beneath the changing whims of man?
But what is now was never
And natures grip it slips as soil shifts into sand
And what richness there she tethered,
It falls from fields and farms
With the bones of all those daughters held there in her arms

Now I need not have fear
I did not carry you warm just to lay you in the cold
A life ahead appears,
With fingers laced like strong roots braced, our place to hold
We’ve bound your life to bounty
It’s growing as you grow
So not to gods or men but to them your life you owe

5 The Carol Of The Flood

A new song which relates a positive story of mankind’s relationship with the natural world! For a long time, man carved up the Sheffield Lakeland with waterways and reservoirs, unwittingly creating lots of unique habitats for different species to flourish… The floodwaters are now carefully managed to conserve these habitats. Rowan was commissioned to write this song by Soundpost for a Landscape Partnership project.

From heathered ridge
To packhorse bridge
The river springs her source
Through brook and tarn
Past old cruck barn
She runs her crooked course
As streamlets surge
In chorus, merge
The wilds of stone and mud
Each beck and burn
In whirlpools churn
The carol of the flood

The river flows from moor and peak
In trickle, torrent, rill and creek
Though man her route has wrought upon
The fish and fowl her waters don

Down sleeping hill
Through forge and mill
Her waters drive the wheel
Of nature’s sloth
And mankind’s growth
A city made of steel
This city’s tale
Has left its trail
In weir and dam’s release
Each pass and dale
Each oaky vale
Holds reservoirs of peace

When nightjars churr
And barn owls stir
Her water foams and froths
Their screech to drown
As they swoop down
Where light plays Lutestring moths
This rush of life
With wildness rife
Fed from the Fairthorn flow
And rivelin trout
Swim riffles out
Into the pools below

Where herons wheel
And fill their creel
O’er maze of clawing briar
They read the scrawl
Of drystone wall
Cross meadow, moor and mire
As creatures tread
The paths we’ve shed
And swim the routes we shun
The managed flood
Their riverblood
Unwittingly has won

6 The Banks of the Bann

Like so many, we learned this version of this beautiful song from the Voice Squad, so we’d like to dedicate this recording to the memory of Phil Callery who passed away on 31st May 2022 as this album went to press.

When first to this country as a stranger I came
I placed my affection on a maid of fine name
She being warm and tender, her waist small and slender
Kind Nature had formed her for my overthrow

On the banks of Bann, where I first beheld her
She appeared like fair Juno or a Grecian queen
Her eyes shone like diamonds, her hair softly twining
Her cheeks were like roses, or like blood drops in snow

It was her cruel parents that first caused our variance
All because I was poor and of a low degree
But I'll do my endeavour to earn my love's favour
Although she is come of a rich family

My name is Delaney, its a name that won't shame me
And if I had saved money I'd have plenty in store
But drinking and courting, night rambling and sporting
Were the cause of my ruin and absence from home

Had I all the money that's in the West Indies
Or had I the gold of the African shore
I would spend it on pearls, and on you my fair girl
For there's no other love in this world I adore

And since I have gained her I'm contented for life
I'll put rings on her fingers and make her my wife
We'll live on the banks of the lovely Bann river
And in all sorts of splendour I will style her my dear.

7 Of All The Gods

A classic ‘gift from a poor musician’, Rosie wrote this as a Valentines present for Rowan.

Of all the gods that man has conjured
In his wonder and his fear
And for their love torn asunder
All the world for ten thousand years
They cannot move me, for all their might
Like my lover's arms that reach to find me in the night.

Of all the treasures man has plundered
In his arrogance and greed
That from her depths the world surrendered,
However unwillingly
They cannot move me, for all their worth
But one look from you and I move heaven and earth.

With all the magic man imagines
Fills the voids and lights the dark
They cast themselves their false horizons
Ruled by cards and joined up stars
There's no spell upon me, no fated path
I give myself knowingly and freely to your heart.

I've jumped, not fallen
Eyes wide open...

All the words that man has wielded
To his credit or his shame
The words that both attacked and shielded
Signed up or signed away
They cannot move me or make a mark
Like my lover breathing, keeping vigil through the dark.

Of all the vices man falls prey to,
It's pride that feeds wars constant rein
Glory the name that vain men gave to
What should make them weep with shame
I won't let it rule me, pride I disown
For you are as warm a lover as vanity is cold.

8 The Last Shanachie

The voice heard at the beginning of the track, is that of Rowan's great great grandfather, Pádraig Ó Gríofa. He was a storyteller who passed down hundreds of stories word for word in old Irish. We have a book of these stories that was transcribed from a wax cylinder recording. Unfortunately at the time, it was usual to scrape off the wax and re-use the cylinder. However, this tiny fragment of him speaking was retrieved by Richie Piggott from the archive at University College Dublin. Rowan wrote the song with him in mind and wove in some of the shanachie tradition. It is paired with The Snowboot Mazurka (also by Rowan)

Once there was, yet once there was not
In a beehive hut, on a mountain green
A teller of tales both tall and short
Who told of what is, and of what had been.

The last shanachie in the land of memory
Sang a song the mountains sing for you and me...

When candle waxed high and fire waned low
With crackled words of grit & glory
Wearied by age and tied by time
He held all history as his story.

A stitch in time of the wild mountain sort
The fabric of our lives he darns
As he sits and sows the seeds of a thought
Spinning wheels of words into fine old yarns.

With bones bred from the mountain marrow
A seam of stories mined of yore
Rise once again from tomb and barrow
Spoken, heard and smelted o'er.

9 Midnight Accountant / The Optimist

Philippe wrote the first tune about the traditional time all self employed people do their taxes, midnight on the 31st January! The next tune is a traditional Kerry polka we know as Pete Bradley's, and is followed by a lydian polka that Rowan wrote for an old man who went to get some new glasses!

10 T Stands For Thomas

From the same family as P Stands For Paddy, Rosie first heard this tune from Jane Conquer of her Morris side, Knockhundred Shuttles. She then sifted through several versions to collate her favourite verses. In no version does anyone get closer to spelling “William”! It’s paired with No Matter The Wreckage, a tune by Rowan.

As I walked out one bright morning
So early in the Spring
I leaned my back on an old garden gate
Just to hear two lovers sing
To hear two lovers sing my boys
And hear what they might say
In case I'd learn just a little of love
Before I go away

T stands for Thomas I suppose
J O N stands for John
W E and M stands for my sweet William
Because he is a clever young man.

He said, "My love, come sit by me
Where the grass is growing green
For it's been three quarters of a long year
Since together you and I have been seen"
"Oh I'll not come and sit by you
Or be a lover of thine
For I hear you've been courting some other fair girl
And your heart's no longer mine"

"Oh I'll not believe what the old man says
For his days be nigh well done
And I'll not believe what the young man says
For he's sweet on many's the one
I'll not believe any man anymore
Be his hair yellow, white or brown
Unless he's high on the old gallows tree
And he's swearing that he'd like to come down"

Oh slowly passed the winter's night
And slowly dawns the day
It's many's the time I've wished you hear
Now I wish you were away.

11 The Nightingale's Lullaby

Rowan wrote this tune as Waltz For Wilf shortly after becoming a father, and later wrote some words so that we could sing him to sleep - if only it worked!

Hush thee my baby, dry you your eyes
For the nightingale soon will take wing
And he’ll lilt you a garland of sweet lullabies
To the tune of an evening in Spring
The dry notes of Summer will fade into brown
As the air of the Autumn wind blows
With the low strains of Winter he’ll whistle on down
As the turning year shields your repose

Hush now my dear one, shed not one tea
r For the nightingale’s vespertine song,
For he trumpets a fanfare so full of cheer
That he’ll ease your mind all the night long.
With trebles and turns, he steers through the skies
While we of the daytime lie still
And hither he flies singing sweet lullabies
With a cut and a roll and a trill.

So hush thee my darling, as dusk turns to dawn,
And the nightingale’s cadence then wanes
As light brushes treetops and curtains are drawn
He hushes his joyous refrains.
A quiet encore for it’s daybreak once more
Brings a peace that your voice will soon know
So hush thee my baby, and rest here afore
For the worries will grow as you grow.

12 Emigrantvisa

A traditional Swedish song which Rowan wrote a poetic translation for.

Tonight I must journey to a far-off land,
One from whence I may never return.
Farewell you fine fellows, may you understand
That my heart will for you ever yearn.
As the ship leaves the shore I will weep the more
For the friends and the lovers I've left before,
But it's you who are here who'll I'll hold most dear
When I'm standing alone at the stern.

When out 'cross the water rings a clear ahoy
And a coastline appears at the prow,
I'll think on this night and be filled with joy
For the songs that I sing with you now.
It'll always bring cheer these tunes to hear,
It'll lighten my heart and will turn my ear
When I hear them sung in a foreign tongue
And I'm standing alone at the bow.

To view the lyrics and liner notes, just click on a track title below:

1 The Beauties Of Autumn

A seasonal song that Rosie wrote at Halsway Manor Artists’ Retreat last year, inspired by the name of an Irish march by John Brady.

Stags and bucks join the rut, to try their luck in sporting
And all the day through vale and glade you’ll hear the victors roaring
The murmurs moving through the flocks say, “Time we were away
For winter’s dark steals summer's light, night bringing down the day."

The sun sinks south, winter bound, she’s calling her birds to the wing
And the swallows of summer slip away as the beauties of autumn roll in…

The silken webs that thread the dew between the gorse and heather
They shiver with the changing course and temper of the weather
The squirrel stores her hips and haws to keep the cold at bay
As winter’s dark steals summer’s light, night bringing down the day.

On wooded down sits nature’s crown, the beech and maple flaming
Whilst the apple and the sloe stoop low with branches heavy laden
The blackbird in the bramble whistles merry as she may
But winter’s dark steals summer's light, night bringing down the day.

And what of those that brave the cold in den and dray and burrow
They hunker down as frost abounds the fields now ploughed and furrowed
Heed not the call that draws the swallow half the world away
But let winter’s dark steal summer's light, night bringing down the day.

2 A Bruton Farmer

A beautifully formed murder balled in 5/4 that we first heard from James Patterson and couldn’t stop singing... take warning all cruel brothers - hell hath no fury!

Now a famous farmer, as you shall hear,
He had two sons and one daughter dear.
Her servantman she much admired,
None in the world she loved so dear.

Said one brother to the other:
“See how our sister means to wed.
Let all such a courtship soon be ended:
We'll hoist him unto some silent grave.”

They called for him to go a-hunting.
He went out without any fear or strife.
And these two jewels they proved so cruel:
They took away that young man's life.

It was near the creek where there was no water,
Nothing but bushes and briars grew.
All for to hide their cruel slaughter
Into the bushes his body threw.

When they returned from the field of hunting,
She began to enquire for her servantman:
“Come, brothers, tell me, because you whisper:
Come, brothers, tell me if you can.”

“Sister, we are so much amazed,
To see you look so much at we.
We met him where we'd been a-hunting
No more of him then did we see.”

And she lay musing all on her pillow.
She dreamed she saw her true love stand.
By her bedside he stood lamenting,
All covered with some bloody wounds.

“Nancy, dear, don't you weep for me,
Pray Nancy, dear, don't weep nor pine
In that creek where there is no water
Go and there you shall my body find.”

So she rose early the very next morning
With many a sigh and bitter groan.
In that place where her true love told her
It's there she found his body thrown.

The blood all on his lips was drying,
His tears were salter than any brine.
And she's kissed him, loudly crying:
“Here lies a bosom friend of mine.”

Three days and nights she stayed lamenting
Till her poor heart was filled with woe.
Until sharp hunger came creeping on her:
And homeward she was forced to go.

Sister, we are so much amazed
To see you look so pale and wan.”
“Brothers, I know you know the reason,
And for the same you shall be hung!”

These two brothers both were taken,
And bound all down in some prison strong.
They both were tried, found out as guilty,
And for the same they both were hung.

3 In A Fair Country

Rosie wrote this song while exploring the vast wealth of folklore surrounding our less renowned native trees. Once so familiar to the people of this country, their uses and stories have all but disappeared with our detachment from the natural world. The chorus is a traditional floating verse appearing in many songs in different guises – here adapted for a time when Britain is still being stripped of its woodlands.

The yew in the churchyard she sighs and she groans
Under the weight of old sins and old bones
She’ll find no relief for she cannot die
Only suck a life from the dead that in their graves lie

The oak and the ash and the apple tree
Would blossom and bloom in a fair country...

We sigh for the summer as we summon the May
Seeking the favour of fortune and fey
But less now she blushes in hedges and groves
Curse he that harms hawthorn as she blossoms and grows

The willows that flank the river bank side
Watch lives wax and wane with the pull of the tide
From cradle to coffin they’ll weave and they’ll spin
And the willows weep low for lost love and lost kin

Alder, oh alder her feet in the water
Flame in the forge and stone in the stream
Though the blacksmith the dyer and the cobbler court her
She shields in her shady carrs, her Robin the Green

And over the land man strips barren and bare
Where the spirits that linger are death and despair
Sweeps the Lady of Birch with her silvren skin
And all that was tainted will be pure again

4 Queen & Country

This is our arrangement of a song that Rowan originally wrote for his Songhive project to highlight the current crises facing our native bee population.

I'm a worker by nature I freely admit
And I spend all my days in the fields
At a tiring old trade which may well be unpaid,
But it brings all the farmers their yields.

When the sun has dropped down I will take to my bed
In the cell that my own toil has made
To arise again early and tend to the gardens
Of folks who are in their beds laid...

Oh for Queen and Country,
Though the latter is no thought of mine,
I work for all and sundry,
I'm a labourer come rain or shine.

Gone are the days when on jelly I dined
A bumbling old fool I've become,
And I hum as I go the old chants that I know
From our glory days spent in the sun.

Well the people are swarming for honey & milk
And that land that was promised of old,
But they don't understand that the crops are unmanned
And the colonies now all stand cold.

Where there once was a gate to palace of gold
Flanked by guards in their striped livery
You'll find corpses piled high 'cause the honey's run dry
To pay those from the mortuary...

5 Chalice Well / The Welcombe Hills

While staying at the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, at a meditation retreat where no electronics were allowed, Philippe finally had to put his phone away and write a new tune. Hopefully you can hear the sense of calm in the melody!

Rowan wrote the second tune for his friend Felix, who has the good fortune to come from the Welcombe Hills near Stratford-upon-Avon.

6 Woman Of The Woods

A song about a woman compelled to help others despite her own hardship and in spite of being ostracised by the very people who come calling for her aid.

Many a time I've been woken to find
A frantic man upon my door knocking,
He begs me to hurry and tend to his wife,
For the child won't be too long in coming.

Weary I follow him up to the farm,
And there I find his young wife is labouring,
I pray to the Lord for one easy birth –
For the child in it's mothers arms laying...

There's many who'd shun a woman like me,
Though many I have had hand in helping,
When times are hardest or hope nearly lost,
It's into the the woods they come calling.

Many a time I've returned home to find,
A young girl on my doorstep crying,
Her face it is drawn and her belly is tight,
For a child won't be too long in coming.

Some girls I've had they've been barely fifteen,
Their bodies still too slight to carry,
The lads take their pleasure and next day move on,
Take with them their promise to marry....

There's many who'd shun a woman like me,
Though many I have had hand in helping,
When times are hardest or hope nearly lost,
It's into the the woods they come calling.

These days I'm often called into the town,
To tend to the needs of the dying,
When they cross over it's me lays them out,
And pray I have eased their passing...

There's many who'd shun a woman like me,
Though many I have had hand in helping,
When times are hardest or hope nearly lost,
It's into the the woods you come calling.

7 Song Of The Whale

We paired this beautiful anti-whaling song by the great Eric Bogle, with an old Irish air. Two hundred years ago, fishermen on the Blasket Islands heard a lamenting that they decided was Port na bPúcaí – The Music of the Fairies. We now know that they were hearing the song of the humpback whales reverberating through the hulls of their wooden & canvas boats. There were two families on Inisvicillane at the time who had the melody; the Guiheens and the Ó Dálaighs. Rowan's family in Dingle is entwined with the last Guiheens to leave the island in 1953... and so we have the story on good authority!

The saddest sound I've ever heard
Is the song of the hump-backed whale
His moans and sighs and his eerie cries
Sing a sad familiar tale 
For he sighs and blows as if he knows
His race is nearly run
And soon with all of his kind he'll fall
Beneath the whaler's gun 

For every living thing on earth
Nature found a space
Each a living strand of a fragile plan
That can never be replaced 
And not from need, but from wanton greed
Man has torn down nature's web
With greed possessed he will not rest
Till the last of the whales is dead 

In my mind's eye I can see them die
As the whaler finds his mark
Hear the muffled boom of the cruel harpoon
As it blasts their lives apart
I see the flood of their rich dark blood
As it stains the ocean red
And that bloody green will not wash clean
Till the last of the whales is dead

8 Hjältedyrkan

A polska written by Rowan as a birthday present for Ben Paley, who inspired his love of Scandi music when he taught him his first Swedish tune all those years ago!

9 The Thrush's Anvil

Our ode to the Thrush – a bird with so much folklore and very few folksongs! Rowan wrote this for his grandma who worked for the RSPB her whole life and loved thrushes.

Our master has a-courting gone
Our mistress up above
And she has asked him for a gift
As a token of his love.
He’s ventured forth across the land,
Spreading seeds of his own demise,
Through wind and rain his voice will strain,
As he seeks a worthy prize. 

Singing high, low,
The tune that we know
To the hammer of shell on stone,
Come, come
The search has begun
The Thrush’s anvil rings alone.

He’s found a church up on the Downs
Of Sussex diamond built,
He’s asked the father for a sign
But he’s given naught but guilt.
By that church was an old yew tree,
With rubies it was blessed,
He’s taken one for his own true love,
To treasure in her nest.
 
He’s flown through seven countries 
And to their monarchs sung 
To beg exotic presents  
He’s studied every tongue, 
But nothing for our mistress 
Save a berry black as coal 
He’s taken from the elders 
As an incidental toll. 

He’s met her at the trysting tree 
Among the woodland glades
He’s found his miss a mistletoe kiss 
Just as the daylight fades, 
This trinity of gems he’s brought 
Of black and white and red 
Lie gleaming in the moonlight  
All upon Miss Thrush’s bed.

The stormcock’s call beckons one and all
To the shelter of safer boughs
For the tempest’s nigh, the water's high,
And dark are the evening clouds...

10 Of Men Who'll Never Know

We took this melody from a haunting Swedish love song, Ack högaste himmel, and Rowan supplied some equally haunting lyrics about the end days...

The sharp prongs of winter
Bleed blunt hours of light
As short summer days
Give way to long nights
And creatures of bush and briar
Leave feetings in fresh snow
On highways and byways
Of men who'll never know...

We worked and we wept
For the pains of our kind
As grief grew unchecked
In our hearts and our minds
Now gone are the gods
And all their creatures great and small
They stand hand in hand
At the ruin of all...

The last of us waiting
A question on her breath
Knows well that an answer
Will always bring a death
With sap in her veins
Her tongue collecting rust
Sing "Ashes to ashes"
Sing "Dust to dust..."

11 Pete's Jig / Poor Hildegard / Joan Brodie's

Philippe wrote the first tune for Sussex based fiddler Pete Lyons - the man responsible for indoctrinating him fully in folk music. Rowan took the air of the second tune from the notes of O frondens virga by Hildegard von Bingen and shoe-horned it into jig form. Joan Brodie's was written by Philippe for his Scottish, accordion playing granny.

12 The Wilderness Yet

This started out life as a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called Inversnaid. Rowan set it to music and added three stanzas to build on the message of that iconic last verse which we sing here as a chorus.

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Chorus: What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

Where hares hold council and dread-drakes sport
The cope-carlied trout to the turf resort
And boglarks flout their fine fanfare
Corkscrewing song through the high sky air.

Hear the bleating heather-blades
And bitterns as the daylight fades
A symphony of sound and then
The silence from the world of men.

When all is seared and smeared with toil
Man’s smudge and smell ploughed through the soil
He’ll plod his shod unfeeling feet
Onwards ‘cross the cold concrete.