The Creel & the Crock & the Cauldron

Song Weavings and Spell Bindings

This wonderfully diverse and unique blend of songs ranges from energetic drum chants to sacred soul ballads to comic ditties to ancestral Proto-Celtic prayers. These have been gathered into the cauldron of this album over recent years from her workshop journeys, travels in the far north and song adventures with groups of wild women. However, they mostly have been shaped by Carolyn’s personal steps along the hag road, that knotty, gnarly, nebulous route towards being old, older and very old. Crones, it seems, have a lot to sing about!

Sisters of the Braid emerged from our sanctuary land on Dartmoor, a prayer song that evolved during night vigils at the deer camp, near to the early summer birthing ground of red deer. Antlered Woman was found in the far northwest Scottish mountains, where we make many return journeys to solitary autumnal wilderness. The Hagetty Drum and Old Woman Tree were created for Carolyn’s first Book of Hag (Bark) but have not been recorded before. We Drum our Path Through the Heron’s Marsh is central to the story that unfurls in her second Book of Hag (Peat). Song of the Braided River is a beautiful compilation of watery songs, a cord of fluid vocal harmonies. A tribe of enthusiastic singers joined Carolyn in the studio to record the chorus lines of Thank You Women and the entirety of the Hag’s Marching Song – complete with robust cymbals and a suffragette disposition! Far Side of the Fire evolved during a single night as a small group of women held vigil for a departing sister – it is already being absorbed into the collection of songs that we lean into during farewells and transitional moments. And Björnmor Trumma was written in the Arctic, a honouring of the drum maker, the ancient ice and the bear mother who prowls through our primordial dreamscapes.

Cover photography and other images included in the album booklet were created by Slovakian photographer Gabriela Teplická (www.teplicka.com)

The creel and the crock and the cauldron three
we will dance o sisters with the moon’s magnificence
the wise and the wild and the witchery
we will spin o sisters while the moon unravels us
moon unshackles us, moon she sets us free

Slowly we dance the heavens 
and the world turns gently round
softly we touch the heavens
and the world moves magically
world lives lovingly, world turns tenderly round…

THE CREEL & THE CROCK & THE CAULDRON
BJÖRNMOR TRUMMA (bear mother drum)
SISTERS OF THE BRAID (evening prayer & morning song)
ANTLERED WOMAN (bennâ-benâ)
THE HAGETTY DRUM
WE DRUM OUR PATH THROUGH THE HERON’S MARSH
HYMN OF THE BRAIDED RIVER
WHERE WE ARE BORN
ANCHORING POWER (wala nîs an wîrjânjâ)
OLD WOMAN TREE
HAG MEDLEY (featuring Crone’s Foot Song & March Of The Hags)
THANK YOU WOMEN
FAR SIDE OF THE FIRE

nîs kruttâ sentu korksâ wêttâ
yîkkâ mantalo yîkkâ mantalo
an draugo blaidâ korksâ wêttâ
yîkkâ mantalo yîkkâ mantalo

We drum our path through the heron’s marsh
our dream caressed by the heron’s wings
our spirits dance through the heron’s marsh
where the silver mothers of water sing
and the stones stand true and our hearts are held
in the powerful embrace of the heron’s wings
and the wind is fierce and the river is wild
where the silver mothers of water sing