This blog is where I share resources for each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a catch-up Zoom video. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just say hello!
In this session we tackled Sainte marie, the last in my series of sessions on the three (or arguable FOUR) songs by Saint Godric of Finchale. The notation for this song (or two) survives in three manuscripts, but is complete in only one of them, and the substantial stylistic differences between the two sections begs the question: is it one song? And, if so, is it all created by the same person?!
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just say hello!
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.
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.
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).
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!
This blog is where I share resources for each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a catch-up Zoom video. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just say hello!
In this session we tackled Crist and Sainte Marie, one of the three songs by Saint Godric of Finchale. This one is rather special because the manuscript contains stage directions for a very small-scale dramatisation. Like Godric’s other songs, this came to him in a divine vision. His sister, Burchwen, comes to him accompanied by angels, to reassure him that she is being cared for in heaven.
In this Valentine’s Day special, we had fun with Veni dilectissime (I translate that as: ‘Come Here, Sexy!’ 😎), a song from an 11th-century songbook, copied in the Rhineland and now in Cambridge University library. This goliardic song caused so much offence in the middle ages that a do-gooder scribe actually splodged it out of the manuscript! 😱
In this close-up image (which you can view in Cambridge University’s Digital Library), you can see that a previous attempt to remove the medieval splodged ink with chemicals sadly failed to restore the words (and probably caused them to fade even more). Thankfully, modern scholarship and UV technology have brought at least some of it back, and experts on Latin poetry have proposed plausible words to fill in the blanks.
No melody survives, but the words have such a common rhythm that it’s easy enough to patch together bits of existing medieval melodies in order to sing them in a medieval-ish way.
Catch-up video
N.b., the Sequentia song I played during this session had to be cut out due to copyright restrictions. But you can find it linked in the ‘recommended listening’ section, below.
Interview with Benjamin Bagby (also in the catch-up video)
Just in case you don’t fancy the full catch-up video, here’s the best bit! The first recording of this song text (to my knowledge) was made by Sequentia Ensemble for Medieval Music for their album Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper (you’ll find this gorgeous recording embedded below). I’m really happy that Benjamin Bagby (Sequentia director, also known for his incredible performances of Beowulf) agreed to let me interview him about the song. As well as a sublimely creative musician and director, Ben is an absolute treasure trove of fascinating medieval music knowledge.
Sequentia’s (beautiful) arrangement
My (silly) arrangement
The emojis in this video may not be very historically informed, but I like to think they’re in keeping with the spirit… 😬
Further listening
Albums of music from the ‘Cambridge Songs’ manuscript:
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just to say hello!
This session explored the oldest known poem in the English language, Cædmon’s Hymn, which, according to the 8th-century historian Bede’s account, came to Cædmon in a divine dream, even though he couldn’t sing or play music. In Bede’s narrative, Cædmon sang the song to various people, including the Whitby Abbess Hild, who were moved by its quality, and the song thereafter became widely known. No musical notation has survived for this ‘song’, so I think it’s fun to reimagine possible melodies for it. The resources here give a glimpse into the process that Hanna Marti and I used to create our own version of the hymn. I am hoping that they might be of use to others too! There’s no right or wrong answer, so plenty of scope for creative interpretation.
Slides from the session
I usually embed the slideshow from every Hunt here, but this time I’m including a ‘Medieval Reimagining Toolkit’ (by myself and Hanna Marti) instead. It’s based on the slideshow used in a slightly longer version of this workshop, and includes a lot of additional information about helpful books, articles, and online resources, with links you can click if you want to go into more depth on any of the topics. I hope it’s interesting! I can’t pretend it’s comprehensive – not even close… so if you notice something important that we’ve missed, please pop it in the comments below.
I’m still editing the performance video I showed during this session (busy couple of weeks!) But you can see it in the above video, at 16:22 in draft form, and it will be on YouTube with full subtitles from 11 Feb.
Scores
Caedmon’s Hymn, S Conner 👈 This is a very rough score of the version on my album, Riddle Songs – feel free to make use of it for your own projects, if it’s helpful, but the document itself for your eyes only.
Further listening
No songs in Old English have survived with notation, but here are a couple of gorgeous albums that will enable you to immerse yourself in very rigorously reconstructed sounds of early medieval England.
Susan Rankin publication list (see especially ‘On the Treatment of Pitch in Early Music Writing’ and ‘Writing and Reading. Word and Sound in the Ninth Century’.
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just to say hello!
This session explored the Irish folksong ‘In the Month of January’ (also known as ‘The Fatal Snowstorm’ and ‘The Cruel Father’), which tells the story of a young woman who is seduced and made pregnant, then abandoned by (presumably much wealthier) young man, and is tragically cast out by her family as a result – not an uncommon theme in traditional song!
Slides from the session
I’ll embed the slideshow from every Hunt here, with some extra clickable links.
Video
Full session, for anyone who’d like to catch up:
New performance video (currently unlisted; to be released online 24 Jan):
Scores
You’re welcome to use this score for your own performances, but please just credit me if you do so (and let me know, in case I can come and listen 🙂). I am always grateful for feedback on my scores!
You might remember Stella Richardson giving some nice listening suggestions at the end of the session. She pointed out some parallels with the song ‘Henry the Poacher’, which she and Tony had heard sung by The Young Tradition. There are some melodic similarities, as well as a few lyrical formulas that pop up in both songs, but this one is a tragedy from the perspective of a young man, transported for poaching. It’s a subject close to my heart, since my mum’s amazing family tree research revealed that this was the fate of lots of my ancestors! We haven’t found that particular recording online, but here’s another nice one (sourced by Tony):
And by another ‘source’ singer, Harry Cox, whose singing has been a big influence on me (I’ve made arrangements of his songs for my choir).
Any other folky parallels spring to mind? Floating verses? Similar stories? Please do share in the comments if so…
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with an edited Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just to say hello!
In this special preview event, we dipped into a few pieces of music from different periods, to get a flavour of the kinds of things the song hunt will explore when it starts in the New Year. We looked at the earliest known Christian song, the Oxyrhynchus Hymn, skimmed over medieval chant for Saint Nicholas, and learned St Godric of Finchale’s song for Saint Nicholas, one of the three oldest songs in English for which notation has survived. We also looked at medieval techniques for making two-part harmonies.
Slides from the session
I’ll embed the slideshow from every Hunt here, with some extra clickable links. For image information, click any of the pictures to visit the online source.
Video
Full session, for anyone who’d like to catch up:
New performance video (due to go online in a couple of weeks):
Scores
You’re welcome to use this score for your own performances, but please just credit me if you do so (and let me know, in case I can come and listen 🙂).
The Saint Nicholas Centre has a comprehensive discography and resource list for medieval music devoted to Saint Nicholas, so rather than try to make my own, I’ll simply direct you to this link: medieval music and plays for Saint Nicholas.
But here’s a particularly fabulous recording of Godric’s songs, by Sequentia, using the kinds of organum techniques we discussed in the session:
From the Song Hunters…
Mille gratias to Helen Wellen for the dorkiest meme in the whole history of the internet:
Exeter Book Riddle 51 (or 49): Ic seah wrætlice wuhte feower samed siþian… / I saw four weird fellows traveling together as one…
An Old English riddle from the tenth century, set to new music.
Composed and performed by Hanna Marti.
Old English text: Ic seah wrætlice wuhte feower samed siþian swearte wæran lastas swaþu swiþe blacu swift wæs on fore fulgum framra fleotgan lyfte deaf under yþe dreag unstille winnende wiga se him wægas tæcneþ ofer fæted gold feower eallum.
Translation:
I saw four weird fellows traveling together as one.
Dark were their tracks, the path very black.
They moved quickly, faster than birds:
Flew through the air, dove under waves.
The fighting warrior who showed them the way
over plated gold – all of the four.
SOLUTION: Various solutions have been proposed. Stef and Hanna like: hand writing with a quill-pen.
Click here to read more about the riddle (and see possible solutions), on Megan Cavell’s brilliant ‘The Riddle Ages’ blog. And click here to see an alternative translation.
Exeter Book Riddle(s?) 68 and 69 (or 66) [Confused about all the numbers? CLICK HERE], I saw the creature going on its way… / Ic þa wiht geseah on weg feran…
An Old English riddle from the tenth century, set to new music by Stef Conner and Hanna Marti.
Old English text:
Ic þa wiht geseah on weg feran.
heo wæs wrætlice, wundrum gegierwed.
Wundor wearð on wege; wæter wearð to bane.
Translation:
I saw the creature going on its way.
It was splendidly, wonderfully arrayed.
The wonder was on the wave; water became bone.
SOLUTION: Most likely WATER (turning to ice).
Click here to read more about the riddle (and see possible solutions), on Megan Cavell’s ‘The Riddle Ages’ blog. And click here to see an alternative translation.
Exeter Book Riddle 83 (or 79), My lineage is ancient / frod wæs min fromcynn…
An Old English riddle from the tenth century, set to new music by Hanna Marti.
Old English text:
Frod wæs min from cynn biden in burgum siþþan bæles weardwera life bewunden fyre gefælsad nu me fāh warað eorþan broþor se me ærest wearþ gumena to gyrne Ic ful gearwe gemon hwa min fromcynn fruman agette eall of earde ic him yfle ne mot ac ic on hæft nyd hwilum ārære wide geond wongas hæbbe ic wunda fela middangeardes mægen unlytel · Ac ic miþan sceal monna gehwylcū degolfulne dōm dyran cræftes siðfæt minne saga hwæt ic hatte.
Translation:
My lineage is ancient, I lived in towns
since the fire-guardian wrought with flame
my clean beginning in the world of men.
Now earth’s brother, an enemy, guards me,
who was first for me a bringer of sorrow.
I remember who in the beginning
drove my lineage, destroyed all the world.
I may do him no harm
but I raise up captivity from time to time,
the wide world over.
I have many glories, no little strength
in all the land,
but I must conceal from every man
the secret power of precious skill
and the path I follow.
Tell what my name is!
SOLUTION: Several solutions have been proposed. Stef and Hanna like: GOLD.
Click here to read more about the riddle (and see possible solutions), on Megan Cavell’s ‘The Riddle Ages’ blog. And click here to see an alternative translation.
