The beginning of May is the flowering time of year, when life is full on in every way. In this show we’ll immerse ourselves in the human experience of life, loss, and love.
12:01: Solas – The Wind That Shakes the Barley
12:03: The Poozies – Ma Plaid / Freya Dances
12:13: Goitse – Boodlin’
12:17: Lunasa – Lady Ellen
12:20: Christine Primrose – Coinnichidh mi gleann an fhraoich (When The Evening Mist Comes Swirling Near)
12:23: Dougie MacLean – Home
12:29: Sharlene Wallace – Air
12:32: Quadriga Consort – Miss Noble (Turlough O’Carolan)
12:37: Julie Fowlis – Lon-dubh (Blackbird)
12:43: Lady Maisery – Order and Chaos
12:46: Songs of Separation – Echo Mocks the Corncrake
12:52: Beoga – Eochaid
12:57: Ed Sheeran – Galway Girl
Forest Halls Celtic is one year old! In celebration we wander a musical garden, pausing to listen to some tunes that Jane is inspired to include in her Celtic harp repertoire, hear some of her favorite discoveries from the first year of the show, and savor some music and folklore that springs from the earth. Please join us!
12:01: Lilt – The Long Journey / The Mouse in the Meadow / The Maid in the Cherry Tree
12:05: Enya – Siuil A Run
12:09: Solas – Crested Hens
12:20: The Green Fields of America – The Islander’s Lament
12:24: Athena Tergis – The Porthole of the Kelp / Terralsole
12:27: Ashley Horn and Daniel Horn – Port na bPucai
12:33: Goitse – Serendipity
12:37: Kim Robertson – Ferry Me Across The Water
12:41: Paul Machlis – In The Mist
12:46: Paul Machlis – Nightblossom
12:49: Caoimhin Vallely – The Strayaway Child
12:52: Cara Dillon – Hill of Thieves
I first met this middle English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, when I was studying the History of the English Language and Medieval Literature in college. Soon after, I studied the medieval Welsh tales, The Mabinogi, and I was struck by the similarity of themes and motifs in the first part of the First Branch, Pwyll Pendeuic Dyfyd with some that appeared in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
The lord of the Otherworld/the Green Man, the Beheading Game, the Hunt, the intelligence of nature … images and snippets of tales from these two pieces wove themselves into my soul or found resonance in it. The original version of my children’s fantasy novel, Because of the Red Fox, was closely sourced from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In working on that first version, I longed to walk the terrain of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, specific as it is in the poem, and discover for myself the Green Chapel (though I was not keen to meet up with the Green Knight and face a potential beheading!).
Decades later, poet Simon Armitage — who created a masterful poetic translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — created a documentary about seeking the landscape of the poem. As I watch the last section, in which he enters the Green Chapel, I’m stunned to discover how the landscape closely resembles what I’d imagined for my original tale.
About the documentary:
“Poet Simon Armitage goes on the trail of one of the jewels in the crown of British poetry, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written about 600 years ago by an unknown author. The poem has got just about everything – it is an action-packed adventure, a ghost story, a steamy romance, a morality tale and the world’s first eco-poem. Armitage follows in the footsteps of the poem’s hero, Gawain, through some of Britain’s most beautiful and mystical landscapes and reveals why an absurd tale of a knight beheading a green giant is as relevant and compelling today as when it was written.”
