Anyone that reads these pages will be aware of Spell Songs, a magical project whose seed was planted in 2017 when Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris published The Lost Words, an astonishing tome of poem-spells and watercolour illustrations that set out to reclaim everyday words such as acorn, heron, conker and kingfisher – after their removal from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. Then in 2019, this evolved into a musical project, commissioned by Folk by the Oak and originally featuring Karine Polwart, Seckou Keita, Julie Fowlis, Kris Drever, Jim Molyneux, Kerry Andrew, Rachel Newton and Beth Porter.
The project couldn’t have come at a better time when people were feeling the need to reconnect with nature which we touched on in in-depth interviews both with Jackie Morris and Karine Polwart. In those interviews, we went beneath the layers to reveal that the project had its own natural magic going on as the book of spells found champions in the players quite naturally as Jackie revealed to us:
Each person has about them something of the creature. Some are harder to find as they flit between species. Robert is the snow hare at the beginning of The Lost Words. Drawing is all about looking, at the shape of a thing. These days I am watching birds, trying to catch their shape. All of the musicians became birds in my mind’s eye. There’s something of the raven in Kris Drever, even in the way he loves to play with effects and sounds. Karine has always been a wren. Julie was the hardest, and she flitted around shorebirds until she settled as a lapwing, and now this just seems so right. There’s a lightness about her, but pale skin, dark hair, a dancing grace, and colour so rich in her voice that also wavers like the flight of a peewit.
Today, we get to hear a new spell. Oak, sung by Kris Drever, is taken from their new album Spell Songs II ‘Let The Light In’.
Kris Drever on Oak:
For this song, I wanted music that had life and a sense of still, woody, wisdom, like the tree at its heart. So I used my old-fashioned sounding guitar, put on my well-worn trad music boots, closed the door on my humdrum trivia and played ‘til it felt about right.
Some things are hard work, but that tune was unbidden. It could have been ‘written’ in any number of centuries. The incantation from the Oak spell wrapped itself so easily around the melody that we had to keep it. Rob and I started the lyric by exploring the number of uses that humans have now, and have had through time, for the oak’s timber.
In the writing, it left me with a real tangible idea of symbiosis; how far would we have gotten without this tree? Without ships, tools, ink, shelter, furniture, wheels, toys, cradles, caskets and on and on and on. I think the oak at this point might just be waiting for us to come to our senses.
Oak
The hull of the ship that ploughs the sea
The ink that keeps our history
The axes haft that fells the tree
The Poplar is the whispering tree
And the Rowan is the sheltering tree
The willow is the weeping tree
And the Oak is waiting
The fire burns and it makes this home
Built around these seasoned bones
The chair pulled up beside the hearth
And the sleepers of the iron path
(Chorus and the sound of the Edinburgh School’s Climate Strike 2019)
The wheel that makes the seasons turn
The beasts that shelter in the barn
This table that we sing around
And the casket we put in the ground
The Poplar is the whispering tree
And the Rowan is the sheltering tree
The willow is the weeping tree
And the Oak is waiting
Sanji saba ea kan balu
Sanji nani ea man balu
Sanji kononto ea man balu
Iyeh iyeh
Sanji kononto ea man balu
Sanji nani ea man balu
Sanji saba ea man balu
Sanji nani ea man balu yeh
Sanji kononto ah Iyeh iyeh
Sanji kononto ea man balu
Iyeh iyeh yeh
Sanji sama ea man balu
Sanji saba iyeh iyeye
Three hundred years to grow
Three hundred more to thrive
Three hundred years to die
Nine hundred years alive
Translation from Mandinka:
Three hundred years to grow
Three hundred more to thrive
Three hundred years to die
Nine hundred years alive
Indeed, yes indeed
Spell Songs II: Let The Light In is released 10 December 2021 (via Thirty Tigers).
Digital Pre-orders receive a link to our first single Oak
CLICK HERE For UK and EU options
CLICK HERE For Rest of World options
CLICK HERE To pre-order a physical album
direct from Spell Songs & Folk by the Oak,
& for details of their limited-edition albums.
The Lost Words: Spell Songs Live Dates 2022
Jan 27th Thu – Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall – 2 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G23NY
Jan 28th Fri – Perth, Concert Hall – Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ
Jan 29th Sat – Sage, Gateshead – St Mary’s Square, Gateshead NE8 2JR
Jan 30th Sun – Birmingham Symphony Hall – 8 Centenary Square, Birmingham B1 2EA
Jan 31st Mon – Cadogan Hall, London – 5 Sloan Terrace, London SW1X 9DQ
Feb 1st Tue – Cadogan Hall, London – 5 Sloan Terrace, London SW1X 9DQ
More details and ticket links: https://www.thelostwords.org/live/
Read our in-depth features on Spell Songs, including reviews and interviews.