Long Covid is easing its grip at last and it's good to be here in the studio, with my work-in-progress spread out the desk, and an intriguing pile of new books to dip into. Rain taps on the cabin's tin roof and roars in the stream that runs behind. Outside the windows, all is in motion: the wind, the clouds, the leaves of the plum tree, the ponies crossing the valley below. Inside, music in Gaelic and English is easing me gently into the work week. Here are a few songs to share with you....

Above: "Dh'èirich Mi Moch Madainn Cheòthar" performed by the Scottish band Rura (Steven Blake, Adam Brown, David Foley, Jack Smedley) with Julie Fowlis (from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides). The song appears on Rura's new album, Our Voices Echo (2022).

Below: "Open the Door Softly" (by Archie Fisher) performed by Julie Fowlis and Irish singer/guitarist Dónal Clancy.  The video comes from the BBC Alba programme Ceòl Aig Baile (2020).

Above: "Tàladh Dhòmhnaill Ghuirm" performed by Julie Fowlis, with Irish concertina player Pádraig Rynne, Irish fiddler Aoife Ní Bhríain, and Orkney-born musician & songwriter Kris Drever.

Below: "When the Shouting is Over" by Kris Drever, with Julie Fowlis, Pádraig Rynne, and Aoife Ní Bhríain. 

Both videos were filmed at the Sugar Club in Dublin (2016).

Above: "Thrift (Dig In, Dig In)" performed by Scottish singer/songwriter Karine Polwart with Kris Drever, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, and Jim Molyneux for Spell Songs II: Let the Light In. The two Spell Songs albums were inspired by the creatures, art, and language from the books The Lost Words and The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. Both albums are utterly enchanting, so please don't miss them.

Below: "The Lost Words Blessing," from Spell Songs I. (Lyrics here.) This one goes out to my dear friend and colleague Patricia McKillip, who left us last week, too young, too soon. She created spells on the page with her stories and novels, and her powerful magic will always be with us. Please read Pat's exquisite books, if you haven't already, and then pass the magic on. 

If you're in traveling distance of Dartmoor, please join us on Ore Hill in Chagford on Thursday evening for music, song, storytelling and frolics traditional to the month of May...with the village Jack-in-the-Green and Obby Oss to lead the way. Deck yourself in green...or greenery...or else just come as you are. All are welcome, young and old.

The beautiful poster art is by Virginia Lee. The Obby Oss (above) is performed by Howard Gayton; costume created by Nomi McLeod .

Today, in honour of April Fool’s Day, the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic at the University of Glasgow is hosting a special online event. Fantasy and Puppetry: Animating the Fantastic is a celebration of puppets and of the art of puppeteers in bringing fantasy and the fantastic to life, on stage, on screen and on the page. This online programme of talks and demonstrations features five of the best puppet designers, directors and performers working today: Brian and Wendy Froud (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, etc.), William Todd-Jones (The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, etc.), Mary Robinette Kowal (Sesame Street, LazyTown, etc.; also a Hugo and Nebula Award winning author), and Howard Gayton ( The Little Angel, Norwich Puppet Theatre, The Eden Project, Hedgespoken, etc.).

In addition, there will be a panel discussion of puppetry in fantasy literature -- with Mary Robinette Kowal, Rob Maslen (co-director of the Centre for Fantasy), Marita Arvaniti (scholar of theatre in fantasy), and me. We'll be looking at depictions of puppetry in fiction by Carlo Collodi, John Masefield, Susan Cooper, Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman, Russell Hoban, Helen Oyeyemi, A.S. Byatt and others, as well as Mary Robinette's own work.

It all takes place online (via Zoom) from 11:00 am to 6 pm, British Summer Time. For the full programme, go here.

Tickets are free, but you'll need to register to access the link for Zoom: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fantasy-and-puppetry-animating-the-fantastic-tickets-293661648897.

If you miss it, don't worry, the talks will be recorded and put online at a latter date. (But if you can join us today, in real time, you'll be able to participate in the Question-and-Answer sessions at the end of each talk.)

Edited later to add the following links to the recordings of the talks:

Brian and Wendy Froud, William Todd Jones (sadly, there were tech problems with the visuals on this one, but the audio is good and well worth listening to), Howard Gayton, and the panel on puppetry in fantasy literature.

Some of you will have noticed that many of the speakers today live here in Chagford. It's Puppeteer Central in this village. I'll be up at Brian & Wendy's old farmhouse this morning (pictured above), helping out with their talk; Todd's takes place on the other side of the village; then I'm back home for my husband Howard's talk (in his studio on our hill), and my panel discussion (from my own studio next door to his). Rob and Marita join us from Glasgow, and Mary Robinette from Nashville.

We hope you'll join us too. We've been working on this for awhile now, and at last we can share it with you.

Thank you to everyone who has been sending good wishes during my absence from Myth & Moor. Yes, I'm still dealing with Long Covid. It's getting a little better all the time, and I appreciate your kind thoughts and support.

I've been trying to choose a poem about love to post today, as I've done on Valentine's Day in the past...but instead of a poem on romance or partnership or marriage, this is the one that came to mind, reflecting on love of a different kind. I stand here in "my old boots and torn coat, no longer young," and send it to you....

Messenger
by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -
equal seekers of sweetness
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to
the sleepydug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

The poem above is from Thirst by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press, 2006); all rights reserved by the Oliver estate. The photographs are by Howard Gayton, and the little sketch of me and Tilly is a detail from a preparatory drawing by David Wyatt for his lovey painting In the Word Wood. The poem in the picture captions is one of mine, called "Listen." 

Wassailing was once a mid-winter folk custom found all across the British Isles. Today it still survives as a living tradition in some rural communities (particularly here in the West County), and it is currently enjoying a contemporary revival in numerous others.

There are two distinct forms of wassailing: door-to-door or under the trees. The first takes place in the run-up to Christmas and is related to the custom of carolling: wassailers go house to house singing wassail songs, collecting coins, drink, or food in their wassail bowls. The second kind of wassail generally happens some time in January and involves the "waking" and blessing of apple trees to ensure a good harvest in the year ahead. These ceremonies can be simple or lavish, taking place by day or by night, sober and family-friendly or drunken and raucous. What they share in common are traditional wassail songs and stories, the custom of leaving toast in the trees (a gift for the robins or spirits) and blessing the roots with last year's apple juice or cider, and making noise (with drums, or guns, or pots-and-pans) to wake the trees and call back the sun. To learn more, read Jude Roger's recent article on wassailing in The Guardian, or see The Tradfolk Wassail Directory on the Tradfolk website.

Here in Chagford, our wassail in mid-January was a daylight affair under the apple trees of a community field, full of stories and songs and children blessing the trees with juice from the wassail cup. Down the road, in the village of Lustleigh, was a wilder wassail gathering by the light of the moon, with black-clad Border Morris dancers waking the trees their sticks and their cries and their pounding feet. I love both kinds of wassailing, dark and bright: celebrating the seasons, nature's bounty, and the bonds of community.

The video above looks at the history of wassailing and other winter folk rituals -- filmed by BBC Bristol in 1977, and featuring music by the Albion Band.

Below is a Cornish variant of a well-known wassail song performed by Lady Maisery (Hannah James, Rowan Rheingans, Hazel Askew), with Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith. It's from Awake Arise: A Winter Album (2019).

Above: "The Apple Tree Man" performed by John Kirkpatrick with Rosie Cross, Georgina Le Faux, Michael Gregory, Jane Threlfall, and Carl Hogsden, on their album Wassail!: A Celebration of an English Midwinter (1998).

Below: "The Gloucestershire Wassail" performed by Magpie Lane on their album Wassail!: A Country Christmas (2009).

Above: "Homeless Wassail," a contemporary wassail by the Canadian trio Finest Kind (Ian Robb, Ann Downey, and Shelley Posen). The song can be found on Robb's album Music for a Winter's Eve (2012).

Below: "Sugar Wassail" performed the great Waterson-Carthy band (Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, and their daughter Eliza Carthy, with Tim van Eyken), from Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man (2006). It's poignant to listen to their music right now after the death of Norma a week ago, at the age of 82. This legendary singer (and legendary family) shaped the field of English folk music as we know it today and her loss has broken hearts all around the world, including mine.

One more video to end with: a short clip of Beltane Border, our local Border Morris side, performing at a wassil celebration at The Old Chuch House Inn at Torbyran. We are so lucky to have this group on Dartmoor, keeping the seasons turning....

Imagery above: a drawing of the Apple-Tree-Man by Alan Lee,  two photographs from Chagford's wassail: storytelling and children blessing the trees, and morris dancing by Dartmoor's Beltane Border.