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The Lost Words Blessing: Spell Songs

May 28th, 2019

The beautiful book The Lost Words created by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, are a series of spell poems and illustrations that seeks to keep alive words from nature that are being lost from children’s vocabulary. Now there is a wonderful musical project based on the original spells, along with some new ones. What follows is a video of the Lost Words Blessing – I also include the lyric too. The album will be released on 12 July 2019 and can be pre-ordered here. The musicians describe the form as ‘inspired by blessings in Scottish Gaelic, particularly from a beautiful collection of charms and incantations called Carmina Gadelica.’

Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water

Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling, find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter

Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home

13 Responses to “The Lost Words Blessing: Spell Songs”

  1. Fantastic! I bought the book when it first came out and have since bought 3 more to give friends as gifts for their newborns in the hope of keeping the words spoken.

  2. Just reading the lyrics had me in tears, before I’d even listened to the song, and now I’m really weeping! Beautiful and poignant. Thank you for posting this.

  3. Such beauty, wisdom and magic! Tears of kinship glistening whilst I listen!
    Thank you for posting, Philip

  4. So beautiful .. released emotions from deep within my heart. The lyrics music and voices šŸ’–

  5. Exquisite! The lyrics and harmony work so well together to create an understated strength. I listened last night, but I’d not know until this morning, after reading the blog, the context with which the lyrics were written. I love that this is a project to deepen our ability to describe and communicate about nature.

  6. Just bought the book, larger than expected. I have 3 grandchildren being born this year but obviously will covert it all to myself! Bought the music too. beautiful.

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