So, I started a band (with @steevc, @purplesinger and @anna-newkey, among others) to play elfpunk, which is a genre I made up to describe punked-up versions of 17th century dance tunes, and bardcore, which is well-documented on YouTube. We're called the Riverkicks, and we also do a whole lot of pub table-thumpers like Wild Rover, as well as the odd Waterboys cover, natch. Anyway, we had our first gig at a druid Autumn Equinox event called Druidfest, which was basically like a church fete for those of the pagan persuasion. And I thought, rather than try to explain to my bandmates what druids believe, why not share some of my favourite pagan tunes for #ThreeTuneTuesday and @ablaze instead?
First up, one of the first pagan musicians that really hit home for me was Wendy Rule. This is Deity, and it lives up to all of the dark, witchy, devotional, three-in-one goddess energy that the album cover promises. It's a bit of an anthem, and I still like it, years after I first found it:
My second comes from a recording I have at home made by Benjamin Bagby and the historical music group Sequentia based on 10th century manuscripts found in a church in Iceland, setting the poetic Edda in something similar to the music these poems might have been sung to. This track tells the story of Ragnarok, and the fact that it's all acoustic makes it so easy to imagine being by a fire on a winter's night, hearing the old songs about the gods, dozing off during the quieter bits and getting woken up when the battle kicks off (about 3'30" if you want to skip):
Völuspá, one of the most famous Old Icelandic poems, is the oracular speech of an ancient seeress conjured by the god Odin to reveal the horrible future of the gods. She first tells of the beginning of time, the creation of the world, and then (in the final section performed here) of the climactic battle [Ragnarök] between the gods and their sworn enemies
The contemporary pagan/heathen band Wardruna has their own very atmospheric version of this poem, available on YouTube, while Heilung does a great line in deer antlers and drum-beating, sacrificial enactments, but neither of these bands has given me an earworm -- yet.
My last brings us some light relief about the various ways that the Matriarch, the Mother Goddess, the Earth Mother, has been experienced by humanity over the millennia.
So I escaped to Brittany, way up in northern France
I met some Gauls with hairy balls who thought they wore the pants
Until I had them brought to me inside my pleasure dome
I am an ancient Matriarch, a long way from my home
in jest, I said 'ingest these things' and thus the Henge was Stoned...
...invading Brits disdained my tits and threw me from my throne...
She ends up in California -- of course!
Blessed Be(e)!