27th March 2024:
In this session we tackled the Old English ritual known as Æcerbot (‘Field Remedy’), which was supposed to heal fields that were barren, perhaps as a result of witchcraft! We looked at one of the Old English metrical charms contained in the ritual, and experimented with different ways of whispering, reciting, and chanting it. The session includes an interview with Debby Banham on this fabulous text.
Video
Full session, for anyone who’d like to catch up:
Further listening and reading
- Translations of the Æcerbot ritual and other OE metrical charms at The Old English Poetry Project.
- Translations, commentaries, and manuscript facsimiles: Old English Poetry in Facsimile Editions (look for ‘Charms’ in the dropdown menu on the left). The British Library Manuscripts page has been down for some time because of a cyber attack, so for now this is the only place to view the manuscript online.
- Fun blog, with an incredible amount of historical detail, on putting this ritual into practice, by Karen Louise Jolly.
- Article by Caroline R. Batten on the special metrical features of Old English charms.
- On patterns of recitation in Anglo-Saxon music, you can find more info in Sam Barrett’s Restoring Lost Songs project (especially his book, The Melodic Tradition of Boethius “De consolatione philosophiae” in the Middle Ages, Monumenta Monodica Subsidia Series VII, 2 vols., Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2013). See also: Hanna Marti’s video introduction to Orpheus: the Ovid Project. In a similar vein, Sequentia’s Monks Singing Pagans programme focused on classical texts in medieval song, and you can watch a video about the project (which sadly doesn’t exist as an album).
- If you’d like to listen to some highly entertaining sung versions of Old English and Old German charms, check out Sequentia’s Words of Power programme on YouTube.
From the Song Hunters…
Teresa made a link between the recitation of incantations and the amazing Sami ‘yoik’/’joik’ singing tradition, sharing this album: Folk Voices – Finnish Folk Song Through the Ages (Ondine, 1999). On the content, she notes:
- at 2:15 (track 1) call & response chant
- 3:40 (track 2) I think this is a yoik about stalking elk
- 11:32 (track 5) herding calls for cows
- 14:08 (track 6) Tulen synty -loitsu (a spell for starting/birthing a fire) parts are sotto voce, and others could probably be heard across the whole landscape!
And here’s a link to the pertinent Wikipedia article.
Thanks Teresa!
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