Tribute to Escalder The Green Lady, fairytale enchantress of The Elderbrook Chronicles:
This piece is an amalgam of two songs, with additions / revisions:
Part One revisits ‘Escalder’s Spellbinding’, composed 1980’s & recorded 2001 in France for Love Sessions (Vol I) with Francesco Banchini (Gor) on clarinet & percussion, engineered & mastered by Frederic Chaplain (Lys). To this I recently added mandolin, shanti chimes, second vocal, dragon-scale curtain (wind-blown on a guava tree); and dudek & viol (courtesy of Crista Galli, from ‘Racines’ on their CD Matrice d’eau). We added a recital in Farsi by Zeinabosadat Yazdanfar, from Shahnameh; as well as an English translation with my new melody, 2013.
Part Two revisits ‘Escalder’s Tree Ride’, composed 1980’s, recorded circa 2002 for Apple Pentacle (2005 Prikosnovenie), engineered by Harry Williamson, who played 12-string guitar & dulcimer. Here we spliced segments and introduced newly recorded motifs alluding to Part One.
lyrics
Part One: Escalder’s Spellbinding
Farsi (Persian) lines:
که او زود پیچد ز جوینده روی
تو راز جهان تا توانی مجوی
English translation of the above:
Don’t ask the world her secrets, she will hide
Hide them from your gaze and turn her face aside...
* * * * *
Welcome: Escalder - the Green Lady!
I am the Faerie no-one sees, I am the Witch for cursing,
I am the Story nobody reads, for nobody knows the words!
See her dancing in the Fountain-song, see the Lady in Green -
She will lead you to a distant land and shadow you in your dreams:
Oh willow on the water
Could not be greener than me!
I shall be Queen of Alderbee
And powerful as the sea.
She’ll love you for eternity... Escalder.
I’ve a Harpist in my head, colder than the moonlight -
He will hold me to Eternity and follow me through the sunlight!
Oh willow on the water…
Well I’ve a tale on a cursing loom causing lovers to fall:
There a unicorn will break his heart for love at Sir Malder’s Castle….
Who’ll dare to stop me or am I beyond your reach?
Don’t stand before a Lady, you shall walk beside me!
Part Two: Escalder’s Tree Ride
You want me down darling, let me be!
For I am in love with the Lord of a Tree
and I’m riding to the good Sir Malder….
Don’t ask the world her secrets, she will hide
Hide them from your gaze and turn her face aside...*
Saraway told me he was lithe as the wings of bees
but he got his blood from the Mountain -
Told me I’d find him in the body of Tree
where his blood flows back to the Mountain -
So I stole through his spirit like a beetle in the shivering seas,
I was lost in here for centuries – for the love of Tree!
Of the seven seas inside you, Time is only one:
I stirred them all as I floated through an’ then my fingers touched the ground.
You want me down darling, let me be!
For I am in love with the Lord of a Tree
and I’m riding to the good Sir Malder.
And love you for eternity...
credits
released October 19, 2014
lyrics, melodies: Louisa John-Krol, except a quotation* of Shahnameh, Persian Book of Kings, by Abolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis (Penguin Books, Sekandar’s conquest, p.471), recited in Farsi by Zeinabosadat Yazdanfar زینب السادات یزدانفر recorded in Mad Cat Sound, Australia, while visiting from Iran).
Bendir, flute, guitar, cymbal (middle segment, adapting ‘Escalder’s Spellbinding’ from Love Sessions Vol 1): Francesco Banchini (Gor) - Italy; sampler, ‘Escalder’ (ibid): Frederic Chaplain, who engineered this recording in France, 2001.
Dulcimer & 12-string guitar (tail segment, adapted excerpt of ‘Escalder’s Tree Ride’) from the album Apple Pentacle: played & produced by Harry Williamson, Spring Studio, Australia, released in France 2005: www.prikosnovenie.com
Jack Setton at Mad Cat Sound studios, Melbourne 2012 - 2013 compiled & mixed this tribute to the enchantress, Escalder The Green Lady.
Louisa is an Australian singer, composer, writer & faery storyteller who has released many albums of ethereal music on indie labels, primarily in France. She's completing a fantasy series, The Elderbrook Chronicles, with a soundtrack.
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