This Winter's Night Lyric Sheet

MotherTongue released the CDs “Weaving the Web of Life” and “This Winter’s Night” Older works are on tape “Fire Dance” and “All Beings of the Earth”.
For more information about EarthSpirit and MotherTongue, please contact:
earthspirit@earthspirit.com or: The EarthSpirit Community P.O. Box 723 Williamsburg, MA 01096 U.S.A. (413) 238-4240

CD This Winter’s Night Lyric Sheet © 1994 EarthSpirit

MotherTongue CD recordings are available by mail-order directly from EarthSpirit at the EarthSpirit Store.

Also on this CD Andras Corban Arthen Tells the story The First Song.

CAROL OF THE BELLS
(Traditional Ukrainian; arr. Leontovitch)

Hark how the bells, sweet silver bells
All seem to say “throw cares away”.
Yuletide is here, bringing good cheer
To one and all, meek and the bold.
Ding dong, ding dong, that is their song
With joyful ring, all caroling.
One seems to hear words of good cheer
From everywhere, filling the air.
Oh, how they pound, raising their sound
O’er hill and dale, telling their tale.
Gaily they ring, while people sing
Songs of good cheer, Yuletide is here.
Merry, merry, merry, merry Yuletide.
Ding dong, ding dong, bom!

THE FAIREST MAID
(Words: traditional English; Music: Anabel Graetz)
© Anabel Graetz

Now sing we of the fairest maid,
With gold upon her toe,
And open up the western door
To let the old year go.
For we have brought fresh holly
All from the grove so near,
To wish you and your company
A joyful, healthy year.

Now sing we of the fairest maid,
With gold upon her chin,
And open up the eastern door
To let the new year in.
For we have brought fresh ivy
All from the grove so near,
To wish you and your company
A joyful, healthy year.

LIGHT IS RETURNING
(Charlie Murphy)
© Charlie Murphy

Light is returning,
Even though this is the darkest hour:
No one can hold back the dawn.

Let’s keep it burning,
Let’s keep the light of hope alive:
Make safe our journey through the storm.

One planet is turning,
Circles on her path around the sun:
Earth Mother is calling her children home.

YULE CAROL
(Darragh Nagle & Cerridwen Firedrake)
© 1982 Star Rider Music

I chant this carol still,
Starlit upon the hill
There with the harp told
A story of ancient old.

Child deep within my womb,
Child, Northland is your home;
Born to bring light in spring
Once more, on wintry hill I sing.

Some silv’ry melody
Sings winter’s harmony
Earth is sleeping still and cold
‘Neath snowfall’s frozen wing.

One standing very nigh,
One far across the sky
Both born of dark and light
Which ends and starts this winter’s night.

(Not recorded: Turn, seasons, turn me true
As I awaited you.
Your years may turn long
On Yule as the evening song.)

AVE, COLOR VINI CLARI
Juan Ponce, c. 1590

Ave, color vini clari.
Ave, sapor sine pari.
Tu a nos inebriari,
Digneris potencia.
O, quam felix creatura,
Quam perduxit vitis pura,
Omnis mensa sit secura
In tua presencia.
O, quam placens in colore,
O, quam fragrans in odore,
O, quam sapidum in ore,
Dulce linguis vinculum!
Felix, venter quem intrabis;
Felix, gutur quod rigabis;
O felix os, quod lababis.
O, beata labia!
Ergo, vinum colaudemus,
Potatores exaltemus,
Non potantes confundemus.
In aeterna saecula, amen!

Translation

(Hail, hue of clear wine,
Hail, savor without equal,
Your power intoxicates us!
O how happy a creation
Produced by the pure vine;
Every table is secure
In your presence,
O how pleasing in color,
How fragrant in odor,
How tasty in the mouth,
The tongue’s sweet prison!
Happy the belly you enter,
happy the throat you moisten,
happy the mouth you lave,
O blessed lips!
Therefore, let us praise wine;
let us exalt drinkers
and confound abstainers
for ever and ever. Amen.)

THE WINTRY QUEEN
(Gwydion Pendderwen)
© 1972 Nemeton

Blood red skies in the morning,
Pitch-black heavens every night
Take them both as a warning
That the winter fire need be bright.

Fierce the blaze on the mountain
Sheds its light for miles around
While the stream and the fountain
Lie frozen and locked in the ground.

Chorus:

Now the Leprous White Lady
Leads her train of the lost
Leads the spirits through glade and wood
And goodly fields of frost.

Summer’s consort waxed brightly
The tall and golden-haired prince
And she came to him nightly
With pomegranate and quince.

Dead and gone is her lover
The most fair and radiant of all
Now she’ll never recover
The king cut down in the fall.

While the climbing sun tarried
As if his marches were stayed
At midsummer they married
Mortal man and immortal maid

Has a king ever reckoned
What he gives for the boreal crown?
To be god but a second
Ere the sun starts his course ever down.

Through the summer and after
In the sere and brown of the fall
Days were filled with their laughter
And nights with their echoing call

But as autumn leaves smoulder
And the smoke slowly drifts through the air
So the young king grew older
And withered and died in despair

Nine white maidens attend her
Where she treads without leaving spoor
As she seeks her defender
Who shall wear the crown once more.

By the light of the beacon
You can see her pass through the ring
She’ll not weary nor weaken
Till she finds her winter time king.

OIDHCHE MHAITH LEIBH
(Traditional Gaelic)
Chorus:

Soraidh leibh is oidhche mhaith leibh
Oidhche mhaith leibh, beannachd leibh
Guidheam slainte ghnath bhi mar ribh.
Oidhche mhath leibh, beannachd leibh.

Translation

(Farewell and good-night to you;
Good-night to you, blessings be with you.
We wish good health to all of you
Good-night to you, blessings be with you.)

Cha’n ‘eil inneal ciuil a ghleusar
DhuiSgeas smuain mo chieibh gu aoibh,
Mar ni duan o bhebil nan caileag.
Oidhche mhaith leibh, beannachd leibh.

Translation

(There is no music that is played
That brings such delight to my breast
As does the song from the mouths of the young girls;
Good-night to you, blessings be with you).

Thuit ar crann air saoghal carach
‘S coma sud, tha mhaitheas leinn;
Bidh sinn beo an dochas ra-mhath:
Oldhche mhaith leibh, beannachd leibh,

Translation

(Fortune may change in the fickle world
It matters not, for we retain what is truly of value:
We will live with good hope.
Good-might to you, blessings be with you).

Oaken logs will warm you well,
That are old and dry;
Logs of pine will sweetly smell,
But the sparks will fly.
Birch logs will bum too fast;
Chestnut, scarce at all.
Hawthorn logs are good to last,
Burn them in the fall.
Holly logs will burn like wax,
You may burn them green;
Elm logs, like to smouldering flax,
No flame to be seen.
Beech logs for the winter-time,
Yew logs as well.
Green elder logs it is a crime
For any man to sell.
Pear logs and apple logs,
They will scent your room.
Cherry logs across the dogs
Smell like flowers of broom.
Ashen logs, smooth and grey,
Burn them green or old;
Buy up all that come your way,
Worth their weight in gold.
Oaken logs will warm you well,
That are old and dry.

Gaia, carry us home.
Mother, we are one.
Remember the god,
Remember yourself,
Remember the goddess,
Remember.

On Solstice night, the winter comes
Stalking through the antlered trees,
Riding on the frozen wind.
With hoof and horn, this longest night
Brings round once more
The ancient, endless joust:
Light and Dark contest for power,
And Light, this night, shall triumph.

Old Woman is watching,
watching over you.
In the darkness of the storm
she is watching.
She is weaving, mending,
gathering the fragments.
She is watching over you.
Chorus:

So weave and mend, weave and mend.
Gather the fragments safe within the sacred circle.
Sister, weave and mend, weave and mend.
old woman, weave and mend.

Old Woman is weaving,
gathering the threads.
Her bones become the loom
she is weaving.
She is watching, weaving,
gathering the colors.
She is watching over you.

For years I’ve been watching,
waiting for Old Woman,
feeling lost and so alone,
I’ve been watching.
Now I find her, weaving,
gathering the colors.
Now I find her in myself.

We are the Earth,
We are the womb:
Come rising sun,
Lead us from the tomb.

The frozen Earth,
The pale, cold Moon:
Come, Solstice Sun.
(We are reborn)

This longest night,
This darkest hour.
Come bring the dawn.
(We wait for you)

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