A Sea Full of Selkies by Steve Gladwin and Co

 

Part One - The Woman From The Sea

 

Selkies and the tales of them have been important to me ever since 1995, when, following a magical druid retreat to the island of Iona, I was given the gift of story. That particular story has resonated with me ever since and entered into my life and relationships, in love and even in death.

 

The book that started all the trouble!

 

And yet the odd thing is that I know very little about selkies other than this one tale. This is not so unusual for me because as a storyteller and a writer I have tended to latch on to one particular story, or aspect, rather than attempt further explorations. Sometimes perhaps, I have been disappointed with what I've found, and equally there are times when something has just been one glorious one-off.

Over the next couple of months a number of writers, storytellers and filmmakers will be giving their own opinions about selkies, as well as describing their own encounters and inspirations. In an odd kind of way all of them are connected either to me, or to the story I first read in 1995, but before we get to them, here is a story about a story.

Sometimes a story follows you around. As a wannabee storyteller on a workshop with Ben Haggarty at Bridgwater Arts Centre in Somerset in 1994, I was given my first story. This was 'The Juniper Tree', one of the darkest of all of the tales of the Brothers Grimm, and yet one which passes quite clearly from unrelieved darkness into light so bright it almost, but not quite, wipes out the memory of the darkness. 

I've told the story many times since and found it one of those stories which most drive me forward as a storyteller, one of those I am most fully engaged with and become almost part of as I'm telling it.

I have also told that selkie tale of 'The Woman From the Sea' many times, but in the process of telling it, it seems to have become a bit of a rescue tale, where, quite often the person being rescued is me. And yet I also have a deep problem with this tale, one that although I have tried to resolve, I still have problems with.

For those who don't know the basic plot of 'The Woman From the Sea', it's essentially about a fisherman who steals the young woman's skin as she and her folk dance naked on the sand, and doesn't allow her to retreive it. Instead, as her people go back into the sea, the sea woman cannot find her skin because the besotted fisherman has hidden it. She eventually has no choice but to go ashore with him. There he takes the traumatised young woman to the kirk where he awakens the astonished minister and has him perform the marriage cermony there and then. 

A convenient blanket is - as so often occurs in traditional tales - covered over the awkward section of the weddding night and the first few years that follow, and the next time we meet the couple they seem both happy and settled with three children, two boys and a girl, who they clearly love very dearly.

One other piece of information is given to us, which may have actually occured more times than the once that is mentioned. On a regular walk along the cliff-top path, the couple see a great bull-sea rise from the sea and bellow its loss. The woman, (who is rarely given a name, but we'll call her Ailsa today), tries to pull away from the man, but he restrains her and of course without her skin- which he hid away somewhere safe on the first day - she is helpless. Here's the next part of the story.

 

 

"Seven years after the marriage Ailsa is in the kitchen, humming  a tune to herself, keeping an eye on the bread in the oven, which is giving off the most wonderful smell, with flour on her arms and that stray lock of hair, so loved by her husband, which keeps falling into her eyes. The bees are buzzing in the hives and the children are playing in the barn as the swallows of late summer swoop in and out of it. Ailsa smiles as she hears them, loving them just a little bit more because of it.

And then their voices change, the sense of good-natured play being replaced by something altogether different in their tone. And their mothe, where normally she might not have taken much notice, feels drawn to listen.

"What is is?'

'I don't know. Poke it down!'

Why should I. Uurgh.'

'Because you're the oldest.'

'It's slimey. No, not slimey. But it is cold and damp.'

'Like a skin!"

There is no easy way to describe how fast the rest of it happens, or the speed of the woman as she throws off her scuffed shoes and apron and runs from her kitchen towards the barn. And the children barely have the time and words to tell her before she is grabbing the skin from out of their astonished hands and running, running, up towards the cliff. When she throws off her dress and everything else and, now naked, keeps on running, the children giggle at her funny antics, but her husband has come from the fields in a hurry, some premonition having suddenly come upon him, enough for him to down tools and head upwards - to meet his sea wife running from their bothy from the other direction towards the sea.

As she grabs hold of the skin more firmly and that same bellow roars out of the sea, the fisherman knows, the moment before she leaves him, that in that moment he has lost her. She looks at him one last time with the grey green restless eyes of her kin.

'Farewell Donald Campbell', she smiles. 'For you are a good man and despite the manner of my taking, you have been a good and kind husband to me and father to our children. But I have my skin now and I must return. I will never forget you, nor my shore family.'

With a silvery twist Ailsa, the woman from the sea has gone, and the fisherman is left to explain to their distressed children how this is not just a game, but the reality they must now all bear."

 
I can't remember when and how it came about, but there came a time when I couldn't bear the idea of the poor selkie being so homesick, having been wrenched away from her life in the sea and her family and basically forced into a marriage with all that that involves. The idea of people suffering and being unable to help themselves from crying has always bothered me, and that's why I can't stand torture scenes or distressed children and old people. The thought of what was going on behind the story, particularly in those missing years wouldn't let me go.

And here is what folksinger Julie Fowlis said in her interview here in February when I asked her about the figure of the selkie and the selkie tales she heard during her own years on North Uist and later on the mainland.

 

Thanks to celticweddingrings.com

 

I remember the stories of the seals from my childhood, yes, but I’m afraid they were not by the fireside as you might imagine, like in a children’s book. These stories are often quite dark and much of the history and folklore I learned when I was a little older. 

The seals represent that liminal space for me, they exist in both the worlds of the sea and of land but truly belong to neither. Or is it both? They exist in a way that we cannot and that makes them fascinating. Also when you look into their eyes they definitely hold much expression and emotion, and when you hear their call they can often sound just like a human cry.

Fascinated, as I was by Julie's talk of the tales told in childhood being so much darker, I tried to get her to explain more, but she - probably very sensibly - would not be drawn further.

But as far as my own 'storyteller's' version of 'The Woman From the Sea' is concerned, at some point I appeased my conscience and at least found a way to stop Ailsa from feeling so homesick.

First I created a scene which follows the forced marriage at the local kirk, where Donald the fisherman brings Ailsa, the lost young sea woman home and tries to show her the things he is proud of, including a rug woven by his grandmother, the turves of peat waiting to go on the fire and - the fire itself. Ailsa cannot understand any of his words, but she understands the gentle way in which they are delivered and she understands not just the fire, but the pictures she will see in it.

'And see the turves of peat there? Well, we need them to be laid on the fire here to keep us warm. Maybe, lass, you'd care to warm your hands.'

And for the first time since she left the sea and was forced on to this cold shore with this big stranger with his blunt ways, Ailsa is glad to do something. She's glad to let him help her to kneel by the fire and then to pick up one of the huge turfs with his help and place it on the fire. Only when the flames are taking it and she has poked and broken it down with the thing of iron can she look properly at what has caught her attention and risen in her throat like a bird of hope. The fire.

This fire has none of the colours of her undersea home. There is nothing of the silver greys, or the blues of all hues, nor of the emerald green of the vast sea cave where her father rules, treasured by coral, wary grey of eye and lord of all his surveying. There is nothing or no-one familiar in it's orange-red heart, but somehow, by some curious miracle it is all there in another form. In a different colour scheme, yes, but all there.

And that was how the homesick and shocked young girl came to grow and cope with all of this new and terrifying strangeness. By finding the heart of the thing she needed within something else, something with a warmth so unlike the sea's, but a warmth and comfort nevertherless. And from that day Donald would find her there regularly, staring into the patterns of the flames and as content as he had seen her."

 

 

So there you have it, a storyteller's solution to a storytelling problem which has so often been hidden among all manner of dark and shifting snakes to do with the disempowerment and abuse of women. It's not the answer and I suspect that some of the versions of the tales tales told around firesides in the bothies and forever after are shadowing a darker secret like so many other tales, like for example 'Red Riding Hood' and 'Bluebeard' are. But, for what it's worth, I've done my bit as a storyteller with this one story to try to redress the balance.

But it's odd that this early tale of mine is preceded by a memory of being gifted my first ever tale, 'The Juniper Tree', which of all tales, portrays in a far more graphhic way those themes of disempowerment and abuse, which despite the golden glow of it's ending, can never quite wipe out the memory of the blood pudding and the terrifying cellar. But that's another story entirely, and definitely one for another occsasion.

The version of 'The Woman From the Sea' that I first found and told in 1995 was by Kevin Crossley-Holland, and I will leave it to him to relate in the next part of this series on selkies  just how that telling came about. To my knowledge that story and the rest of the collection in 'English Folk Tales' have been published twice more and - as of my recent birthday and courtesy of my partner Rose - I now have the latest edition.

To finish here's the story that 'The Woman from the Sea' inspired me to write. Whereas the first part, the story,'Greys, Blues and Emerald Green' is told from the point of view of the oldest son as an old man recalling through a scatter of memories. The poem which follows it was both inspired by the imagined thoughts of the seal wife herself, and by a stone I painted in those three colours and left in the sea at Criccieth while on a course with Kevin and Catherine Fisher at Ty Newydd. In the odd way of such things I'd picked up a similar stone to replace it and - having left it supposedly safe outside the main room, Kevin came along, and thinking it didn't belong to anyone, picked it up and wrote a poem on it about the sea at Criccieth. Luckily, I found another stone and eventually a certain stone with the poem on it plonked through our letterbox.

NB The last line of the story 'parcels of fish at night' is as clear an indication as you may get about the seal wife's feelings about her husband and children, where on some summer nights she will leave them a parcel of fish on a certain rock.

 

Greys, Blues And Emerald Green

 

Mum’s always been different. I notice it and so does Tom. In her own way even little Marie notices it. Dad doesn’t seem to notice. Maybe that’s because he loves her most of all.

 

There are lots of weird things about mum, that make her mum and make me love her. No matter how hard she tries, mum never seems able to get warm. Why else would she keep a fire in the house all year round? Dad says she likes the pictures in the dancing flames, but I don’t understand what he means.

 

She doesn’t wrap up warm like Gran says we should. Mum’s happy with her bare feet and old dresses of greys, blues, and emerald green. She’s happy to run about foot slapping on the sand playing chase and tag. She’s happy to stand on the windswept cliff top and laugh as the wind fills her dress like a sail and almost - but not quite, takes her up with it.

 

How can you live somewhere like this? Mum won’t go near the sea, but dad says it’s not because she’s afraid of itBut instead of going in, she’ll stand well back holding our towels for us when we shiny slip like wet seals from the water. She’ll rub our hair and shriek as we shake ourselves like dogs. Sometimes I’ve known her run her hands over our hair and shoulders, catching and tasting our salt, but she’ll never go in the sea.

 

I know people drown at sea. I know a ship will go out and catch the edge of a ridge or storm and drag men down to terrible death. I know the king of the seal people has all the human drowned as slaves, lighting lamps in his great underground cavern of greys, blues and emerald green.

 

Mum’s a wonderful storyteller. At night, after we’ve wolfed down the day’s catch - the tang of mackerel, the rubber of squid, the softness of sea trout -, she’ll tell her tales. While dad dozes after his days’s work, our mum tells her marvelous tales of kings and palaces, quests and dragons, clever animals and haunted forests. You’d think she’d know a tale or two of the sea like most people round here but if she knows any, she’s never let on.

 

The other day a big bull seal rose up bellowing out of the wild, grey sea. Dad looked scared and Marie - who’s only little - hid her face in mum’s apron. But mum! Mum went home and cried quietly for hours. Dad says I’m almost the man of the family now, so maybe he’ll tell me why.

 

We found something strange up in the barn, caught between the rafters where no-one could see it. We found it by accident but then we were called in to tea and we just forgot completely. Chores and bedtime got in the way, but this afternoon we’re going to go back and poke it down and capture it’s greys, blues and emerald green. Dad will be at work and mum at play in the kitchen. We’ll have our game, Tom, Marie and me. We’ll hold up the skin and run it’s shivery slime through our fingers. We’ll throw it up in the air and kick it about. We’ll put it round her shoulders and I’ll pretend I’m king of the seals.What is born from the sea must return to it.

 

That afternoon we all realised why our mother was not like other people’s. We realised why the orange fire was emerald green to her and why she tasted the salt on our skin. Now we understood why mum could never be warm enough. I can see my father now, heartbroken on the cliff top, explaining to us all why our mother had gone and where she had truly come from. 

 

Time passes. I’m older now with my own sprats, and it would have been so good for her to have seen her grandchildren and thrown them giggling on her knee. But by the time I was old enough to be the man it was too late. All we had left of her was an apron covered in flour - a kicked off hasty pair of shoes. And parcels of fish at night.

 

Thanks to weingartdesign.com

 

 

 

 In the blues I can still see you.

 In the emerald green of the sea.

 On the steel grey of the rock’s back.

 

 I am honey tang in your dreams.

While your powerful arms lie restless.

 With my tail still; neglected in dust.

 

 A blaze of turf amidst writhing flames.

 Pares down raw my sobbing heart.

 For my children grown and gone now

 

A solitary feast lies scattered on a rock.

while pebbles gleam memory on the shore.

Of greys, blues and emerald green. 

 

Greys, Blues and Emerald Green. Story and Poem Stephen J.W. Gladwin for The Raven’s Call Slippery Jacks Press March 21st 2016 

Rush out and buy this most recent edition!

Thanks to Kevin, who we will be hearing from at the end of the month, but before that who better to turn to for a proper introduction to the strange, haunting and often tragic world of the selkies than writer, folklorist and Spare Oom expert Kath Langrish. We'll see you on the 16th!

 

 

 

 

A Musician In Her Landscape- My interview with Julie Fowlis by Steve Gladwin

 

Julie Fowlis is a multi-award winning folk-singer who performs in her native Gaelic. She won the BBC Folk Singer of the Year Award in 2008, has been nominated for and won several other awards and now co-presents the Folk Awards with Mark Ratcliffe. She also presented the first BBC Folk Prom in 2018 with fellow folk-singer Sam Lee, in a line-up which also included The Unthanks, Jarleth Henderson, Welsh folk group Alaw, and the BBC Concert Orchestra which was when I first became aware of her and her unique voice which has been described as 'chrystalline' and 'intoxicating' Her career has spanned five studio albums and she has been involved in a number of high profile collborations in the last few years, the most recent and well-known of which is probably her involvement in The Lost Words CD with fellow folk musicians, presided over by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane. I am delighted to be talking to Julie about that project, her life and music, and the importance of preserving her native language which she first learnt on the Hebridean island of North Uist, where she was born, and which still has such a significant influence on her music. 

 

https://www.juliefowlis.com/julie/

 

 

Julie, thanks for agreeing to talk to an awfully big blog adventure.

It's a pleasure.

The main theme of these blogs is 'Landscape',so perhaps you could start by telling us about the landscape in which you were born? I usually ask people to describe it as if they are seeing it from their front door, or observing it in a walk'

I spent my formative years on the island of North Uist, before moving to the mainland in my teenage years. That landscape had a profound effect on me - those enormous skies, the countless shades of green and blue sea and endless white beaches. And the wind! The prevailing westerly which almost never stops - even on the nicest of days you are aware of the wind coming off the warm Atlantic, scouring the low-lying islands before heading towards the mainland of Scotland. The space, the wild, those colours and most importantly the Gaelic community which surrounded me were what shaped me and my music.

 

My first experience of hearing your voice was on the quite wonderful BBC Folk Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018, which almost single-handedly turned me back on to folk and its whole variety. For those not fortunate enough to see it, you were co-hosting it with Sam Lee and it included performances from both of you, as well as The Unthanks and Alaw. It was a primal enough experience hearing the Unthanks in that space, but, but when you sang it was as if your voice in Gaelic added that extra timeless element. It felt almost as if you were singing your homeland. Could you tell us about the first song you sung that night, and about the reactions to the prom as a whole? 

Funnily enough the first song I sung in the Royal Albert Hall that night was a traditional song from Galicia, Spain, which a great friend of mine, (who is a wonderful singer) translated for me into Scottish Gaelic. I sang this song bilingually in Galician and in Gaelic. I love how songs can travel and be shared within different musical communities. Us human beings inevitably sing about similar things, the same things move us to music, no matter which language we express them in. One of my favourite things is collaboration and to share, and this song came out of just such a project, celebrating the shared connection between two minority communities with a rich and ancient cultural heritage. The performance of that song actually ended up going viral in Galicia - people were really kind about it.

Could you tell us a little more about your language, the preserving of it, its particular nature, which so seems to lend itself to that spare, unaccompanied style of singing. Is it possible, perhaps, to describe the way it makes you feel, to sing in it?

 

Gaelic has been spoken in Scotland for 1500 years and more, and is part of a family of languages which include Irish, Welsh, Manx, Cornish and Breton. Only a little over 1% of the Scottish population now speak Gaelic. I feel very strongly about protecting the language and using it wherever possible and have made sure that it is my daughters' first language. It is the language that we use at home. 

The unaccompanied style of singing is the traditional style of singing - many of our traditional songs are work songs for example, songs may have been sung whilst rowing a boat or churning butter or milking the cow. There are also songs of love and loss, of clan and conflict, war and politics. Old history is documented through the songs - many, many centuries of life in our community are within the texts of the songs. It's incredible when you think about it. Many of the songs I sing go back 500 years or more.

That's' fascinating. What a heritage.

So, Julie, you're a young girl and you open your mouth to sing for the first time. I recently interviewed Jackie Morris, and she told me the moment she saw - as she put it, her father, 'make a bird land on the paper', she knew that that was what she wanted to be able to do. Was there a similar moment with you?

Not so much. I have always been a keen singer and I remember singing a lot as a youngster in school. However I was always a nervous performer and although I always had a deep love of music, I didn't always want to perform in front of people. I have battled with nerves all my life and sometimes performing can be very tough - but ultimately I love to express myself through the music, and that is what fuels me.

 

 

How important is the landscape where you lived, or have lived. Do you think it makes a difference to the way you sing, as presumably what you sing about. Where is home?

Ah, now this is where I 'am' comfortable. I love to be in wild landscapes and spend a lot of my time outdoors and exploring either by foot or on a bike. It's the landscapes where I grew up and where I live now that are my biggest inspirations really. It definitely makes a difference to the way I sing and also indeed to what I sing about. I spend a lot of time researching local history and inevitably place names, local stories and suchlike come out through the learning of their songs and indeed the writing of music.

Fairly recently you were involved in the creation of The Lost Words CD with Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris and a whole host of other musiccal names. How did you become involved and how important was the initial cause for you?

I have long admired Robert's work and had been in contact with him before the Spell Songs project had started. We had talked of collaborating in some way - and the opportunity through Spell Songs happily appeared early on in our conversations. Its been such a privilege to work with both Robert and Jackie and to connect with them through their work.

I understand you had been due to get back together, but were unable to for obvious reasons. Did you have a new goal in mind? It must have involved a great deal of skills sharing with the various collaborations.

 

 

We had hoped to get together to record a new album, a follow-up to Spell Songs and to accompany the little sister book to The Lost Words, The Lost Spells. We were sad not to be able to get together but have started to inch the project forwards working separately from out homes.

Are there any special words in the Gaelic language which you are fond of, or feel are paricularly expressive.

My goodness, there are so many. I don't know where to start. I quite often reference the simple phrase Co as a tha thu. Which means where are you from? But literal translation means 'who are you from?' Which is lovely. There is a real sense of belonging and history loaded into that single phrase.

Now one of the songs on your last album concerns a selkie woman  - who, for those of you reading who haven't come across them - are the seals - either man or woman - who can turn human once they come out of the sea. It is the song from your album Altera that spoke to me the most deeply when I first heard it. In Celtic Myth the song of the seal represents the idea of soul loss and a detachment from the person or home. Hiraeth is the similar phrase in Wales which can't really be defined, but what comes closest is a sense of unresolved longing. What does the selkie mean to you as a figure and how was this reflected in the song.

I think the song of the seal is meaningful on lots of levels for me. Jackie talked in her blog about liminal spaces and these places mean much to me also. The idea of the Otherworld in Gaelic is very strong. But it doesn't necessarily mean another world far away - other world can exist within the world we see from our back door. Also the idea of the line 'between worlds' - I'm very aware of those places - and time - where those lines are thin. Perhaps this is to do with being brought up on an island where you are surrounded by coastlines but also by the world of the sea. Or perhaps it's from speaking a minority language where you speak and exist in one language but have to continually shift to another cultural space.

Was there an early connection with the seal, or in your own childhood? Did you sit by the fire as someone told you these stories, and what kind of stories were they?

 

 

I remember the stories of the seals from my childhood, yes, but I'm afraid they were not by the fireside as you might imagine, like in a children's book. These stories are often quite dark, as was much of the folklore I learned when I was a little older.

What do the seals mean to you - or other animals for that matter? Do you have such a thing as a totem - or an animal that you feel led to, or particularly inspired by?

The seals occupy that liminal space to me, they exist in both ther worlds of sea and land and truly belong to neither. Or is it both. They exist in a way we cannot and that makes them fascinating. Also, when you look into their eyes they definitely hold much expression and emotion, and when you hear their call they can often sound just like a human cry.

Now the folk-music circuit has clearly been as hit by Covid as anything else. Apart from online concerts, has the last year given you the chance to engage in other projects, or has it just been difficult, as it has been for so many.

I have actually found this last year both difficult and extremely rewarding both at the same time, there has been space and time to think about music that I haven't had for many years, and I'm grateful for the time I've had with my family. I've spent a lot of time out and about exploring around us which has proved hugely inspiring and which is directly informing the work I do now.

 

 

Obviously projects like The Lost Words involve a great deal of collaboration, and it's clear seeing the film of the Lost Words Blessing just how much you all enjoyed each other's company. Is collaborating with people important to you, and can you tell us about a few of the people you've worked with, and on what?

Yes, indeed, a project like the Lost Words is right up my street. Collaborating is what I love most and especially with a bunch of such talented and inspiring individuals one couldn't ask for better! Other projects which I have loved over the years include the Transatlantic Sessions and Hebridean Women. Currently though, myself and my husband Eamon Doorley are busy working on a follow up album to 'Allt' with friends Zoe Conway and John McIntyre, which is focussed on creating new works in the Gaelic and Irish languages, inspired by traditional and contemporary poetry in both languages.

Finally, Julie, what are your hopes and aspirations for your own language, and what do you feel you are able to do to preserve it?   

To not just survive, but to thrive. I hope for the Gaelic language to have wider recognition for its cultural importance, and not just in Scotland, but throughout the wider world.

Thanks, Julie. It's been fascinating talking to you.

My pleasure

 

All images her were taken in North Uist or near Julie's home and are her sole property. You can find the link to Julie's own site, including a longer biography and much more, at the top of the article.

 

In the next few months I will be interviewing a number of people about the group called The Inklings, the group of Oxford based friends, among whom were J.R.R. Tolkien, CS Lewis, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield, particularly about landscape, but with a selection of other things. These will include.

 

Katherine Langrish on C.S. Lewis and Narnia on 'From Spare Oom to War Drobe' her new book of essays on the seven Narnia books.

Brian Sibley on Tolkien and Lewis, the 1980 adaptation of Lord of the Rings and his biography of Peter Jackson.

John Garth, author of 'Tolkien in the Great War' and 'The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien' on Tolkien's landscape and where it came from.

Grevel Lindop, biographer of Charles Williams, and co-editor of the most recent collected poems with John Matthews.

 

 

Artists in their Landscape - My interview with Jackie Morris by Steve Gladwin

In the summer of 2007, I was completing a pilgrimage memorial walk by doing 49 miles of the coast path, following a route from areas new to me, beginning in Sandy Haven, and then walking to Marloes, Broadhaven, Solva, and ending up at St Justinian's. A short bus - of which there are conveniently many on the coast path, took me back to St David's and the part of Pembrokeshire we had known very well.

On my last day there, I went in search of something hare-connected, because Celia and I have a big connection with hares. I looked and looked - including in the cathedral shop - and found nothing suitable. After a sit-down and a snack, instinct took me back to the cathedral shop in case I'd missed anything. I don't know whether it had been hiding, but almost the first thing I saw was a book of poems for children illustrated by Jackie. The connection was welcome because we'd once or twice corresponded with Jackie and she'd sent us several things, including her story about the white raven of Ramsey island and pictures of king raven and a white egret. 

All that there was left for me to do was to open the book.

First of all, Jackie, thanks for agreeing to talk to readers of An Awfully Big Blog Adventure.

I'm happy to do so.

We've decided to spread this interview over two months, which gives us plenty of facets of your work to explore. However, while we're going to go back to your early career in the second part, I'd like, if I may, to concentrate here on both the theme of landscape and how important it is to you, but also on your recent collaborations with Robert Macfarlane.

But let's start with landscape and the one in which you live. If you open your front or back door, whereabouts are you standing and what can you see?

A garden path snakes away through a disheveled space to an old ash tree, past an old rose that in summer scents the air. There's a fire basket hanging on a tripod. The tree is often peopled with birds, and always, somewhere, is a wren.

To one side the land stretches out towards the sea. To the other the fields lead up to  a rocky outcrop where I go for shelter from storms, (in the head) and also to sit and think.

At night the Milky Way stretches high overhead and birds migrate and bats fly. The light from Stumble Head lighthouse sweeps the sky and the quiet feels like a texture.

Thank you. That's a lovely comment about 'texture', I'd imagine this is an idyllic place to live and give birth to so much in. How important would you say that is - for an artist to have some kind of landscape on their doorstep? There is clearly such a thing as a landscape in which you feel settled; and hopefully one that's conducive to work.

There's always landscape. It might be city scape, town scape, or wild. I feel happier in wild. And even in cities it's what I seek.

So, let's return to your childhood. Can you describe where you were born and the places in which you walked. How important was this environment for your life as an artist?

I was born in Birmingham, grew up in Evesham, was drawn to the riverbank and bank voles and swans. As I was a child it was the only thing I knew and I made the best of it.

For the remainder of this part of our interview, Jackie, I want to concentrate on your on-going creative collaboration with Robert Macfarlane. There must presumably have been a point where you both became aware that familiar and beloved words were in danger of disappearing from the dictionary, and therefore from children's knowledge - a truly worrying state of affairs, which I could hardly believe when I first heard it. You decided to work together to do something about this. How did it come about?

The story of how The Lost Words came into being is a long one. It began with the realisation that a decision had been made by a children's dictionary to replace some very common natural words with new and more technological, possibly transient words, (at least this is how they justified their decision). What this highlighted was a lack of awareness of the wild world. A study in Cambridge showed that children knew the names of Pokemon characters, but not common wildlife. (It is a lesser known fact that Macfarlane knows more names of Pokemon characters than I!)

To address this I thought it might be an idea to take the 'refused' words and make a dictionary that honoured them. I wrote to Doctor Macfarlane with a request that were this to happen he might write an introduction. Our book grew and changed from this small seed. And over time we have become good friends. Our collaboration on the books is such that we email each other constantly, back and forth, constantly with ideas. Rob sends me words, I send him sketches. If I have concerns I will take photos, ask. If things are going well I photograph work in progress. And now and again we meet.

From your side of things, Jackie, how do you approach such a big project - although clearly from what you've said it's the growth and the back and forth between the two of you which matters in your collaboration with Robert Macfarlane. But presumably from your side there must be similarities and differences to other work and projects?

I approach all the work I do with the fiercest open- heartedness I can. At the moment my head is father-filled. What's hard is, being so immersed in a new book and having to go back and talk about a previous work that is maybe a year old. The Lost Spells is different. This time last year I was half way through. It was an astonishing amount of work to produce in a short and difficult time.

Now clearly The Lost Words was well-received, and it's clear to see why. For me it's just the sort of book I'd love to have found rummaging through the shelves at primary school. Tell us about the reaction of teachers and everyone else.

I can't really talk about this, other than to say the word 'overwhelming' seems inadequate. Children have produced the most amazing work inspired by the book. Teachers have given us astonishing feedback. And now children are learning the spells by heart.

I love seeing their drawings they do inspired by mine. And love to see and hear them finding their voices and learning about the wild with enthusiasm.

What about the decision to produce a CD next? How did that all come together? Did you have individual singers and musicians in mind, or a specific mix, and how easy was it to persuade them?

That's not how it happened. At the Winter Weekend in Hay, Caroline Slough of Folk by the Oak was in our audience. We began the event with a setting of the wren spell by Kerry Andrew. She is an amazing writer and musician. This seeded the idea with Caroline with a project with her, and Adam, her husband, approached our agents for the licence to work with our book. They curated this astonishing super group of folk musicians who wove together music that takes the message of The Lost Words deeper into the soul. I think some of the musicians, Karine Polwart and Julie Fowlis, had already approached  Rob about musical settings for the words. Kris Dreyer drew on the images to find music.

We've other music also, from Jamie Burton and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Wonderful choral pieces for young voices, (google Jamie and the Tanglewood festival).

There are beautiful audio books, downloads and CD versions with the spells being read by diverse voices and illustrated by the wonderful sound landscapes of Chris Watson.

And so, to your latest collaboration. the new book, The Lost Spells. The moment I opened it I immediately thought that what you had done was to create something a bit more manageable in size, but that you'd also played with the form - especially the poetry, with the wonderful added bonus at the back of the book.How did you go about re-inventing and re-visiting a success like The Lost Words? Was there a conscious feeling of wanting to do something both different and similar?

The same but different..... this one grew organically. Rob had been writing new spells and I had the idea of working them in to an exhibition with Rob writing on my paintings. Red Fox was commissioned for The Lost Words Prom at the Albert Hall.... that's when the spells transformed into the idea of a small, talismanic spell book that was easily portable. The size requires the spells to move through pages in a different way and the puzzle of the glossary came towards the end as I realised that I was treading through so many species and people might not know the names of them. So it became a curious poetic field guide.

Finally, Jackie, we've been avoiding any talk of all the changes we've had to cope with for most of this year. Has any of your recent work been informed or affected by Covid 19, or indeed by anything else? Do you have any new goals.

I have been asked this question several times but never given a true answer. This is because it is very difficult. In some senses Covid's restrictions have not affected me. I like to work alone, at home, in solitude, in peace. But in other ways it has.

My father died just before lock down. Days after he died I had to paint the cover if The Lost Spells. How to push past the grief barrier and paint? That is one of the hardest things I have done, but how the echoes of what was happening formed into the wings of an owl, and how owls in mythology are caught up with the space between this life and after, well, there's poetry as well as grief in that.

I've talked about this in public before. What I haven't talked about about was living through the suicide, in the same week, of a close family member, the grief and the turmoil that arose from that. It's something I want to talk about, when I can, as suicide and the chaos that ensues around it, the heartbreak, heart ache and inhumane bureaucracy, all need to be dragged into the light.

And later a good friend who I'd not been able to see because of  lockdown etc, died. Judy Dyble and I often talked, and our communications inspired each other's work and we tested out on each other. None of these deaths were covid related, but it impacted on how the rituals of mourning took place.

So, burying three close people during covid, that is hard. I hadn't really realised how life continues around death and now have a deeper understanding of the 'stop all the clocks' poem. There were times during those months when it was hard to breathe, let alone paint. But creativity is both my work and my sanctuary. All my work is always informed by my life. The two are tangled and entwined.

My main goal remains the same. To live as well as I can, to speak out against injustice, and to do no harm.

Thank you so much, Jackie. It occurs to me that this blog began with the subject of loss and ends with it. My experience was all about how I should celebrate and commemorate my wife Celia. Now people will be able to see and hear you describe below and eventually find their way to the other project which has come out of these difficult experiences. So, with grateful thanks to Unbound and you - I'm going to allow your own words to describe the ideas behind The Space Between.

The Space Between is a quiet creature of a book that grew from the silence of lockdown from a desire to play, to see what happens if you type with a typewriter onto gold transfer leaf.

Small, to fit in the hand with ease, or be carried in a bag or a pocket, it is a natural successor to The Unwinding. Here, words revert to their natural form, becoming images, ink on gold, in their islands of leaf. Each sheet is a breathing space. The image on the cover is the Japanese symbol – 間- Ma - roughly translated as ‘gap’, ‘breath’, ‘pause’, and essential to all forms of art - negative space made positive.

The book may settle into sections – Birds, Hares, Hiraeth, Land, Sea, Sky, Dreams – but some sheets will stand alone. Again, as in The Unwinding, these can be catalysts for dreaming, a focus of vision, a small prayer to the wild. Some connect like a trail of pebbles through a forest. Some might be short stories told in gold pages. Through others, I explore my grief for my father who died last year and left me his vintage typewriter. The act of using a typewriter also hones my writing. Each word earns its space (which is what all writing should be).

And here is the link to Unbound, where you can also see Jackie's beautiful and personal film about this unique book, and - should you wish - pledge in order to help the fledgling take flight in the wider sky.

https://unbound.com/books/the-space-between/

If you wish to buy any of Jackie's books, her site, has information  about how to do so, as well as a fascinating biography page, information about future projects, and of course lots of her art work.

https://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/

Finally, if you are one of the few people who haven't discovered the film about the making of The Lost Words CD, look no further. I'll guarantee you'll be singing this as you catch up with household chores.

This version is one of many, but the covers of this song alone are growing, and you can find most of the other spell songs too on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg1xFYpXuWA

Next month I will be continuing my chat with Jackie, where we will be discussing a\ great deal more of her career, inspirations and enthusiasms, especially those of the animals.

And in February I'm pleased to announce that I will be interviewing one of the participants in The Lost Words CD, the Gaelic folk singer Julie Fowlis.

Until then, and with thanks for sharing a quite wonderful year of interviews with me, my thanks also to Jackie Marchant, Sue Purkiss, Kit Berry, Scott Telek, Elen Caldecott, John Dickinson, Hugh Lupton, Kevin Crossley-Holland and Jackie Morris, and anyone I've forgotten. Thanks all, and have a magical solstice, a merry Christmas and I look forward to seeing you in the new year.

Coming up next year.

Folk Singer Julie Fowlis on The Lost Words project, the landscape of home and singing in her native language.

Storyteller Nick Hennessey on the landscape of Finland and the Kalevala

Writer and folk-lore expert Katherine Langrish on the road that began with Narnia and led all the way to her new book.

Celtic expert and writer John Matthews discusses the Celtic landscape and its perils with me.

And at Beltane, a special between-the-worlds discussion on the figure of the magical Selkie and its many and varied inspirations, where I will be joined by writers, musicians, artists and storytellers who have a special connection with it.

And that's just the first four months! 

Steve Gladwin - Stories of Feeling and Being

Writer, Drama Practitioner, Storyteller and Blogger.

Creation and Story Enhancement/Screen writing.

Author of 'The Seven', 'Fragon Tales' and 'The Raven's Call'

01938 500728/01485007189/imagepoet7@gmail.com/mrwilliamsromance@gmail.com

https://www.storiesoffeelingandbeing.com/