Pagan English folk music with Dan Capp of Wolcensmen

 

Dan Capp's Wolcensmen creates heathen hymns from the mists of England. He was originally known as a member of the Anglo-Saxon themed metal band Winterfylleth but his acoustic side project Wolcensmen is now the focus of his work. Dan’s music evokes the persistent paganism in the folk ways of the peasants of England, and breathes life into a natural expression of the English folk soul. In this interview we discuss a few of his songs and the meaning of the pagan themes in his lyrics. 

This podcast is also available on Apple podcasts, Spotify and the rest!

Wolcensmen website

Interview with Ian Read of Fire + Ice

 

Germanic pagan Ian Read is best known for his neofolk project 'Fire + Ice' which “takes the purity and philosophy of early music and melds it into a message redolent with powerful seeds of honour, truth, loyalty and the bond of true friendship.” Ian is also Drihten (lord) and Rune-Master in the Rune-Gild, an initiatory school devoted to the esoteric and exoteric study of the Germanic runes.

Learn more on his blog: https://runa-eormensyl.com/

Podcast on a very pagan folk song: "Two Magicians"

BEOWULF: Hurdy-Gurdy

May Day and Hal an Tow

Today is May Day! a very important day in the English calendar. It was three years ago that I wrote an article about the threat posed to May Day by squabbling political groups. Well May day hasn't been lost yet! Whatever Cameron and the Communists might be doing, sensible folk should be joyfully celebrating the coming of Spring.

As well as the famous Maypole, based on pagan fertility cults, there are many other folk traditions in England which welcome in the May. One such tradition is found in the ancient Cornish song "Hal an Tow" It has been sung on May Day as a part of the May celebration in Helston, Cornwall for centuries. The Watersons sang Hal-an-Tow in 1965 on a BBC TV documentary called Travelling for a Living. See the video below.




 The video below shows how the song is integrated into the May Day celebrations in Helston.



The lyrics vary and are sung differently by various groups. Here are the lyrics to the Waterson's version sung in the video.

 Since man was first created
 His works have been debated
 We have celebrated
The coming of the Spring  

Chorus

Hal-an-tow, jolly rumbalow
We were up long before the day-O
To welcome in the summer,
 To welcome in the May-O
The summer is a-coming in And winter's gone away-O

What happened to the Spaniards
That made so great a boast-O?
 Why they shall eat the feathered goose
And we shall eat the roast-O

Take no scorn to wear the horn
It was the crest when you was born
 Your father's father wore it
And your father wore it too

 Robin Hood and Little John
 Have both gone to the fair-O
And we will to the merry green wood
To hunt the buck and hare-O

God bless Aunt Mary Moyses
 And all her power and might-O
And send us peace to England
Send peace by day and night-O

Documentary: The Shoals of Herring

The Shoals of Herring. A documentary film based on a 1950s Radio Ballad called `Singing the Fishing' by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger and Charles Parker, about the rise and decline of the herring industry on the east coast of Scotland and East Anglia. Contemporary footage of the fishermen at work is intercut with interviews and archive photos, clips from John Greirson's DRIFTERS, Harry Watts' NORTH SEA, and Campbell Harper's CALLING HERRING. Traditional folk songs are used throughout.

Frey and the Boar's Head Feast

What will you eat on Christmas day? Turkey? Goose? How about Boar's head? That was the traditional dish in England. Its roots go back to Anglo-Saxon paganism.There is a carol about this tradition called "the boar's head carol" and the most popular version is based on a version published in 1521 in Wynkyn de Worde's Christmasse Carolles. Folklore holds that the custom comes from a pagan ceremony invoking the god of fertility, Frey.

"initiated in all probability on the Isle of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, although our knowledge of it comes substantially from medieval times....[In ancient Norse tradition] sacrifice carried the intent of imploring Freyr to show favor to the new year. The boar's head with apple in mouth was carried into the banquet hall on a gold or silver dish to the sounds of trumpets and the songs of minstrels." Spears, James E. Folklore, Vol. 85, No. 3. (Autumn, 1974.)

Frey was associated with boars because he actually rode on a golden boar called Gullinbursti.

"to Freyr he gave the boar, saying that it could run through air and water better than any horse, and it could never become so dark with night or gloom of the Murky Regions that there should not be sufficient light where he went, such was the glow from its mane and bristles." - Icelandic pagan text Skáldskaparmál from the Prose Edda.

These days there are loads of universities and colleges in England and the USA that still hold the Boar's Head Feast. The most notable of these is The Queen's College, Oxford, where they have their own local myth to explain the origins of the custom.

"Where an amusing tradition formerly current in Oxford concerning the boar's head custom, which represented that usage as a commemoration of an act of valour performed by a student of the college, who, while walking in the neighbouring forest of Shotover and reading Aristotle, was suddenly attacked by a wild boar. The furious beast came open-mouthed upon the youth, who, however, very courageously, and with a happy presence of mind, thrust the volume he was reading down the boar's throat, crying, "Græcum est," and fairly choked the savage with the sage" Husk, William Henry. Songs of the Nativity Being Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern. London: John Camden Hotten, 1868.

You can listen to a rendition of the boar's head carol below. Good Yule!

Aelfric - Guthe Inweita (Invocation of the Gods)

That Thar Some Fancy Pickin'

What is it about the sound of fast picking bluegrass banjo that evokes a riotous chaotic impulse? Though comical to some by its association with a rural culture that is depicted as antiquated by the media, it still holds a power over people and they can't help but smile when they hear it.

Incredible Venezuelan Folk

EL CARRAO DE PALMARITO - FURIA

Joropo is a type of folk music played in Los LLanos, the swamplands of Venezuela. It is characterized by the rhythmical strumming of the South American steel harp. EL CARRAO DE PALMARITO is in my opinion the best joropo musician ever!

Fun in the Faroes