Composer and multi-instrumentalist Arnold and vocalist Therine are an experimental folk duo from the north of England, their album, borrowing its title from clerk of the court Thomas Potts’ account of proceedings, telling the story of the events leading up to and during 1612’s Pendle witch trials in the county of Lancashire. A Wonderfull Discoverie Of Witches draws on historically accurate sources of these trials and musical influences from traditional medieval folk to experimental composers like Harry Partch alongside spoken charms and prayers with zither and harmonium drones, it’s certainly in a field of its own.
They set the scene with ‘Be Merciful To Me’, an original harmonium drone folk number with a medieval feel and the vocals sounding as if emerging from the back of some cave that tells of a meeting by Alizon Devices, the granddaughter of suspected witch Elizabeth Southerns (aka Demdike), with John Law, a pedlar, on her way to Trawden Forest, who reportedly summoned the Devil to lame him when he refused to sell her some metal pins, often used for magical purposes, thereby initiating the leading up to and including the trials of herself, mother Elizabeth, brother James and others.
That leads into ‘Tinkletum Tankletum’, a waltzing and tumbling self-penned number with Arnold on acoustic guitar that describes witch practices, meetings, and curses, as well as introducing Malkin Tower; a significant site in the story and the home of Southerns (Demdike) and Device, the chorus taken from an obscure song referenced by name in a Scottish witch trial and later elaborated upon by poet Robert Duncan.
Therine conspiratorially whispering and panting over muted drum thump, ‘A Prayer To Bewitch A Drink’ is the first of two brief numbers taken from Potts’ account, the other, with slenthem (an Indonesian metallophone), drums, percussion and glockenspiel being ‘A Prayer To Cure A Bewitching’.
Another original, ‘I Shall Go’, with Arnold on spooked banjo and percussion, details a young girl’s account of being led into witchcraft by her grandmother and the meetings in which such practices would occur, combining the Pendle narrative with reference to Isobel Gowdie, a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft in 1662 and whose confessions include references to charms, rhymes and chants, the lyrics in the chorus section being directly taken from one such chant.
Arnold on 12-string, ‘Down In Yon Forest’, also known as ‘All Bells in Paradise’ and ‘Castleton Carol’, is a traditional English Christmas carol dating to the Renaissance era, derived from the Middle English poem known today as the ‘Corpus Christi Carol’, but here in the context of the Pendle trials and using a harrowing soundscape of experimental folk to return it to its mysterious origins.
‘Ritual Of Archytas’ is a brooding, sinister sounding instrumental composed using the ancient Greek enharmonic genus played on Archytas zithers, drums, cello, banjo, guiro and vibraslap, the mood lifting somewhat with ‘The Moon Shines Bright’, sung unaccompanied by Therine, a traditional religious song, originally a May carol sung at dawn on the return from the woods where the young men had been cutting green branches to decorate the cottages in honour of some god of vegetation but, as per the lyrics here, reworked as a Christian New Year carol, often sung by groups of guisers dressed in a travesty of rags and carrying brooms to sweep away evil spirits
Two short instrumentals, ‘Witchfinder’s Theme’ on harmonium and drums and the self-explanatory trudging ‘Glockenspiel March’, are then followed by a restructured reprise of ‘Tinkletum Tankletum’, lyrically journeying from a recounting of witchcrafts into a plea from the accused in the courts and then the dark droning steady march beat ‘My Mother Is A Witch’ piece based on the testament of key witness, nine-year-old Jennet Device about her mother, as well as other testaments throughout the trials, the indistinct vocals bubbling below the surface adding to the insidious ambience. That, in turn, is followed by ‘The Plea Of Elizabeth Device’, both a melodic reprise of ‘Ritual of Archytas’ and a plea by the accused mother to her family and accusers. The album proper concludes with a final spoken word piece, ‘The Verdict Of Sir Edward Bromley’ compiled from verdicts recorded by Potts and in particular those addressed to Device by Lord Edward Bromley. There is, however, a bonus track in the form of the self-penned ‘1636’, a zither and vocal led witch burning song wherein the accused witch accepts her fate at execution, taking influence from historical accounts of witchcraft, poetry and Robert Eggers’ 2015 folk horror ‘The Witch’.
Patently of somewhat niche interest, but with its musical anchoring in court medieval tradition and the still timely overarching theme of persecution of those seen as ‘other’, it definitely casts a spell.
Mike Davies
Artists’ website: www.joshuaarnoldandtherine.bandcamp.com/album/a-wonderfull-discoverie-of-witches
‘Down In Yon Forest’:
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