1. |
Forest of Veils
06:02
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A murder of saturnine crows gathers in ascent;
Feathers dripping with ichor: sweet tears of deathly lament.
A tangle of tresses and debris,
I hare from the howls and into the trees.
Veils of frost amidst the dreamy night’s sleeping
Hung like forebears upon the witching hour’s weeping.
Hidden: slaves to solitude in this weary woodland dell:
A home for all lost spirits; where the coal-eyed children fell.
Dwindling dreams upon austere branches,
Whereupon the mourning moonlight dances.
Shrouds of mist wreathed with the western wind’s gaoling;
A cloak of false hope for the lore master’s wailing.
The ash and the oak will sing for thee:
Their roots aground stand tall to honour thee.
Limbs and limp smiles sway, delicately sleeping:
Hung, my forebears upon the witching hour’s weeping.
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2. |
Penumbra
07:01
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At sunset there lay a village, sleeping:
Ere sunrise, nothing but a mother’s weeping.
All hail the rise of a faceless deity,
And distant tales of a vagrant fealty.
Draped in virginal woes, a red moon rose.
Cries; cawing as though crows overhead,
Mourning; cursing, we cradled the dead.
Until the eve your bastard Son rises,
The Norns will plague your birth and demise.
The scent of death upon the air
Creeping in, she laid limp and bare.
Swathed in the blood of my hollow home,
Sleep mocked her in a wave of groans.
And in the cadence of her last breath, she sighed
“Take your tears and bury them at the lakeside:
Run! Hide!”
The last quarter of the moon in waning
Cast shadows across her forsaken beauty draining.
Her spirit caught adrift aloft her funeral pyre,
Chasing the stars aboard a chariot of fire.
When all leaves have fallen and all sorrows akin,
The last hope of joy sets sail upon the sighing wind.
Shrouded in ceaseless tears, the mourning sun veers.
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3. |
Altar of Grief
07:15
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From yonder the Queen-Moon woefully shone;
To evoke slumbering dreams of stars bygone,
And the ever-enchanting Corvus chorus
Bestowed silvery tears from the eye of Horus.
The withered willow weeping seeks to allude;
A feathered shroud upon a path of solitude,
And motions of tomorrow fall deftly on the wind:
I fall on frail bones cleft with sinew and skin.
The mother tongue of the soil heeds to usher
To bring forth senescence; bleeding lacklustre.
A thwarting sickness; the surge of rose water
Writhes within and quells with slaughter.
The forest quivers in her wake,
Through the storm of her heartache.
An endless night the dawn can’t break;
She turns from daylight in her haste.
Hallowed be the stench of the sallow skin I wear:
Feast on the debris at the foot of the pall I bear,
For the sweet tears of Alfheim cannot sow what they reap;
This pallid bust of Frigg is just an altar of grief.
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4. |
Of Wand and Moon
07:16
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The antlered one; a ladder to the stars,
The guise of truth; a crux for the scars.
Tainted with the kiss of winter
Were the wisp-like words she spoke:
Tales edged with the cold moon’s calling,
A bitter frost she had awoke.
“Pray, cast the runes deep into the ebon well
Where wounds of the earth will revoke from their spell.”
And so, a hex borne of wood and soil
Would pierce the heart of this mortal coil.
“Ætíe mé þá þé ic séce!
Geondlihte gesweorc min!
Leohtbora!”
And so, a hex borne of wood and soil
Would cause false gods to turn and recoil.
As the roots twist and turn
To strangle the moon-forsaken of this Earth,
And the winds are left howling
In the wake of the hedge-sorcerer’s mirth.
The pain of salvation;
Another bereft wail across the darkened moor.
Sanctity in solitude,
Where ghost words sail profoundly to the floor.
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5. |
Oaken
06:05
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Bewildered and earthbound;
Veiled under an oaken crown,
Eyes of phantom flame look beyond:
Mirrored, glass-like orbs upon the pond.
A witch at one with woe, world and wand;
Knowing; not seeing and allured beyond.
Born from a witch’s wilful piety,
The oaken spirit beckons quietly:
“The storm within cannot die.
You and I: An eye for an eye.”
A witch at one with all souls, soil and sky;
She awakens to the Earth’s anguished cries.
Thy fleeing time; of mists divine,
Spectral seas in a troubled mind.
Oaken leaves and transient art
Cling as though lovers torn apart.
For within this sacred grove,
Twain souls will betroth:
Of elfin kind and earthen child,
To harvest the hunger of the wild.
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6. |
The Wild Hunt
07:21
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I awake from my slumber;
The martyr’s kiss mocking me.
This nightmare far outnumbers
The hopes I conjure in my dreams.
Far within the trees:
A league of hooded devils
With hound and steed
Hunting for nightly revels.
A witch they hunt through the dead of night
Through the forest they’ll set alight.
A dart shot in the ancient tundra
Aimed in the dark; pulls her asunder.
Torrid fingers cling and strain in distress:
The wrath of God searing my ghostly flesh,
A greed for power; the need to suppress.
No sound is heard above their hymns,
But the thrashing of her naked limbs.
Through the screams comes a painful sigh:
Violently they spread her thighs.
Prey on the run from the hellion’s prowling,
Through the realm of bark; the wolf-wind howling.
Nocturnal, solitary silence
Breached by unholy violence.
Towards the aeon light I speak: “Grant these cloven-hooves Godspeed!”
Adiuro te per patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum
Non amplius crescas sed arescas;
Super aspidem et basilliscum ambulabis
Et conculcabis leonem et draconem.
“Bind her wrists and bar her mouth:
Before day’s end, her tongue’ll be out.
Wretched child, I curseth you –
May the devil strangle you!”
From Odin’s ride she solemn fell
Into the depths of Urd’s wretched well.
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7. |
A Wistful Reverie
06:29
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A gateway to the other realm,
Patterns of ivy bar the way.
A wistful dream, I’m at the helm
My loss! No words can portray!
The violet cold: it pulls me asunder.
Arms outstretched towards the portal,
Yearning for a past that never came to be.
Your face haunts: the veil falls at night,
Your hair, bewitched by wind it flies:
A cloak of death in the dim twilight
The all-father’s birds silence their cries.
Within a sky full of stars, I only see you!
Arms outstretched towards the portal,
To where your glacial light is severed from me.
All artless dreams of suffering mortals
Will turn to ash in their mouths in the wake from sleep.
And all memories will drift in an ocean of tears…
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8. |
Womb of Winter
02:44
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Cocooned in the fathoms of the Earth;
Chambers echo with screams of first birth.
A child uprooted from the nest of the mother;
Flung in the mire and mauled by the hunter.
How sweet the sorrow; to grieve what we’ve lost?
An eloquent poem of tears turned to frost:
No paths to the skies where a pale moon will glinter,
A stillborn child in the womb of midwinter.
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9. |
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To death we speak.
The fearless will fall like a bird in mid-flight,
On it’s helpless descent to a grave in the dirt.
No hands to grasp amidst a solemn plight,
Only a faceless shroud enters the Earth:
Our womb; our grave.
I hear their groans; their whispers in the night,
I smell their hunger to chase away the light.
‘Oh Father! The fortress we built has crumbled to the sea…”
When ash starts to fall upon the world of man,
The heavens will burn as the gods withdraw.
Written in the stars before the Earth began:
All worlds are born to the seas where they fall:
Our womb, our grave.
A feast for the skies will dismay and beguile:
The sun, moon and stars will blacken all the while.
I step unto the gallows; the wreckage of my flesh,
Bound and blind; waiting to drown!
Senses restricted; all care cast aside,
Dragged and beaten like an unclean bride.
The keening of a lamb led to the slaughter;
Behold! Bare witness – the devil’s daughter!
The thunderous waves are calling me home.
When one who mocks and one who hates
Chase shining priests to the forest of fate,
There lies death; she solely awaits.
Forcefully led up the rotten stair,
Dragged by a nest of spindled hair.
“Who will save me now?”
Eyes glare with a pungent malice;
Thoughts are cruel, fell and callous.
My breathing is choked as I ascend.
Dancing between life and death;
The terror of a tremulous chest.
No one will save me now.
Cold, lifeless eyes stare from the hollow,
Awaiting the ground beneath to swallow.
The rope tightens as I gasp for air!
Thrashing limbs and guttural groans as I go…
All worlds are born to the seas where they fall,
The Earth screams for her life in a bereft caterwaul!
A darkened cloud enfolds;
Withering and cold.
Wight wolves upon the hour
Sun and moon: devoured.
No light to set afire autumn leaves,
No hope for those who’ll forever grieve:
All remains silent, but the falling of tears.
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Edenfall England, UK
Musings on Witchcraft and Woe...
Folk Horror Metal from the Cotswolds ⚔️
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