Bramble, from Spell Songs II: Let The Light in

‘Bramble’ from Spell Songs II: Let The Light In
Released December 2021

Featuring Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, Jim Molyneux. Inspired by the creatures, art and language in the acclaimed The Lost Words and The Lost Spells books by renowned author Robert Macfarlane and award-winning artist Jackie Morris.

The streets are choked with briar...

The Bramble spell in The Lost Words, written in 2017, presages the first COVID lockdown in an unnerving fashion, with its images of snarled cars, locked doors and closed shutters. Me and my daughter spent much of Spring 2020 excavating the thorny nether regions of our back garden, where the vast coiling bramble briars were thick as fifty pence pieces in places. We picked fruit all through that summer and into autumn too, not only brambles but raspberries, elderberries, sloes and sea buckthorn. There are such gifts in the tangle of it. In Robert’s original text, millions of moths make the air flutter. But they’re not the only winged creatures conjured here. Julie speaks in the voice of Smeòrach, the Song Thrush, a gorgeous example of Gaelic birdsong mimesis.
Karine Polwart

BRAMBLE – featuring Karine Polwart

the streets are choked with briar
the cars are coiled over

lock all the doors
and close the shutters
the air flutters

the streets are choked with briar
the houses looped in wire

lock all the doors
and close the shutters
the air flutters

the thorn arches along the hedges
the thorn marches along the parks on the city edges
the thorn arches along the hedges
the thorn marches along the parks on the city edges

the streets are cloaked in briar
where sings a feathered choir
open the doors
unfold the shutters
the air …
open the doors
unfold the shutters
the air flutters

Filmed and edited in the wilds of Exmoor by Christopher and Davina Jelley, Seven Fables.
Additional editing by Elly Lucas

To learn more about Spell Songs go to www.thelostwords.org/spell-songs

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