About the album:


For release on 12th June 2025, this is an original collection of original songs and instrumentals inspired by, and for, the trees of the Ogham (Druidic poetic language from ancient Ireland and Scotland).
The album will be officially released in 2025.

In Welsh, there is a word 'hiraeth' that can be translated to mean 'a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past'. These songs are reaching back into our collective memory, the green folklore and spiritual dependency on trees - using our living minds to contact the old ones, and to hear the whispers from the bones.

This album came about when storyteller Xanthe Gresham-Knight asked me to sing a folk song about a tree every month, at The Guesthouse Storyteller nights in Newhaven. Her idea was to loosely base the monthly get-togethers around the Ogham (Druidic) trees.

At first, I learnt pre-existing folk songs for each tree, but as I began to research the folklore around these incredible beings, it seemed that most traditional tree songs were about human dramas with trees as frames, as mute bystanders. It seemed to me that there needed to be songs written to honour and portray some of the innate powers, characters and stories of the trees, so they could be central characters themselves. I researched folklore, herbalism, biological characteristics and made friends with trees themselves, asking them ‘Would you like to help me write about you?’ Some weren't interested, some just wanted to hear the finished song, and some gave me a leaf, a twig or a blossom as ritual objects to help me receive the melodies and words - tuning forks to catch the particular spirit of what wanted to come through. 
The songs were so different to each other, just as the tree species differ, and the individual trees have their own spirit. 
Nick Pynn was a spectacular midwife - devising arrangements with me, playing his exquisite wood-and-string instruments, and recording with care and fine artistry the fruits of this strange, numinous project. He contributed two beautiful pieces for the Elder and Holly for the album. 
We hope you enjoy the buds, shoots, leaves and fruits of this collaboration with The Green... 

If you'd like to learn more about the stories and poems that influenced these songs, click here



Credits:

All songs and lyrics by Kate Daisy Grant, except ‘The Yew Tree On The Downs’ words by D.H. Lawrence, and The Rowan Tree words by Carolina Oliphant, (Lady Nairne), and a mangled quote from Thomas Traherne ‘On Leaping Over the Moon’ in Apple Song

Elder and Holly written and performed by Nick Pynn. 


Produced and Engineered by Nick Pynn
Arrangements by Nick and Kate
Mastering by Ed Woods
All instruments played by Nick and Kate except
Jim Mortimore: Double Bass
Martyn Barker: Drums
Philippe Barnes: Flute



With thanks and love:

Thank you to the trees foremostly, near and far, who inspired this album, and the storyteller lineages that kept the myths alive all this time, and the order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. 

With many thanks for the heartfelt encouragement and frolicsome collaboration from Xanthe Gresham-Knight, and all at The Old Market (huge love to Helen and Steve McNick for making so much impossible possible). Thanks for images help to Steve and Dan @Tom, Anna Weatherston, Peter Eyres. 
Big thanks for the generous support and lovely ears of Lisa Fairfield, Diets Verschuren, and the good folk of the Guesthouse Storytellers, Newhaven. Thanks for golden heart and soul from beloved Lou Eyres and excellent magic from Rosi Lalor, and all our friends human, other-than and more-than human. 

Many heartfelt thanks to all who contributed to our Kickstarter campaign, and very special thanks to :
Becca and Jon, Rachel B, Debs Bogard and The Conroys, Jane Bom-Bane, Lia Burge, Pete Strong and Joanie, Sandra Coleman, Jamie Crawford, Paul Davis, Nick Dawes, Stella Keen and Rory Cameron, Sian Farley and Brody, Lucienne Emberglow, Hazel, Cheri Ives, Michael and Sooty Kemp, Emma Kilbey, Jim Lee, Katie Morris, Mark & Dymphna, Kirsty Newton, Barry Nuthall, Michael Parker, Suzanne Penny, Peter, Mandy Pynn and Stephen Jones, Ellen Rawson, Ben Rogerson and Suzanne Ferron, Tim Rollinson, Brendon Slavin, Kevin Sloane, Nat Smith & Andy Sewell Cassis B Staudt, Mervyn and Moira Stutter, Christine Phipps, Ian Tanner, 
Eurydice Verschuren, Paul Vitty, Liam and Kate Walters, Saskia Wesnigk and Roy Wood/Weird, 



A proportion of profits from sales of this album will got to EarthJustice, which fights for the rights of nature, and indigenous communities (because the Earth needs a good lawyer)