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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Fishe or Fowle is Kate and Corwen's new double CD.

    Stylistically straddling Traditional Folk, Dark Folk and Psych Folk, Fishe or Fowle features a stripped down instrumentation of ancient and historical instruments including lyre, bowed lyre, gusli, kantele, pedal harmonium and sundry pipes, horns and percussion.

    Disc One has 15 tracks on the theme of shape-shifting and transformation. Four of the songs are newly composed (including our hit: Song for Suibhne aka "The Horns Song") and eleven are interpretations of traditional material including several songs never before recorded.

    Disc Two is the first recording for 30 years of The Play o' de Lathie Odivere, an ancient and hauntingly beautiful Orcadian ballad, sung in five parts.

    This is the dramatic story of a woman torn between two lovers, one of whom is a shapeshifting Selkie (seal-man). This ballad seems to be the origin of the well known song the Great Silkie of Sule Skerry, which closely resembles one of its sections.

    Fishe or Fowle is beautifully packaged in a double fold cardboard pack, with 8 page booklet, all illustrated with Corwen's photography.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Fishe or Fowle via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
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      £12 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 3 Kate Fletcher & Corwen Broch releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Singles, Fishe or Fowle, and Fruit. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      £9.74 GBP or more (35% OFF)

     

about

One of many ballads from across Europe in which a man is doomed to death by his Other-Worldly lover.
We have used the words of Child 42 version B and the only existing melody for them from Mrs Brown (Anna Gordon) of Falkland. The transcribed melody has given rise to endless debate about how the words should fit to the refrain line of the music. We have chosen to sidestep the argument and sing the verses as given omitting the problematic line of melody.

lyrics

Clerk Colvill

CLERK COLVILL and his lusty dame
Were walking in yon garden green;
The belt around her stately waist
Cost Clerk Colvill crowns fifteen.

‘O promise me now, Clerk Colvill,
Or it will cost you muckle strife,
Ride never by the wells of Slane,
If you would live and brook your life.’

Oh speak no more my lusty dame,
Oh speak no more of that to me;
Did I ever see a fair woman,
That I would sin with my body?’

And He’s taken leave of his lusty dame,
Not minding what his lady said,
And he’s ridden by the wells of Slane,
Where washing was a bonny maid.

‘Wash on, wash on, my bonny maid,
That wash so clean your sark of silk;’
It's all for you, my gentle knight,
My skin is whiter than the milk.’

And he’s taken her by the milk-white hand,
And likewise by the grass green sleeve
And he's laid her down upon the green
Nor of his lady asked he leave

Then loud, loud cries Clerk Colvill,
‘O my head, my head, it pains me sore;’
‘Then take, then take,’ the maiden said,
‘And from my sark you’ll cut a gore.’

And she’s given him a little bane-knife,
And from her sark he's cut a share;
She’s tied it round his whey-white head,
But ay his head it ached more

And louder cry’d the Clerk Colvill,
O sorer, sorer aches my head;’
And sorer, sorer ever will,’
The maiden cries, 'Till you be dead.’

So out he drew his shining blade,
Thinking to stick her where she stood,
But she is vanished to a fish,
And away she swam, a fair mermaid.

‘O mother, mother, braid my hair;
Come lusty lady, make my bed;
O brother, take my sword and spear,
For I have seen the false mermaid.’
Fisherman's song for Attracting Seals

credits

from Fishe or Fowle, released January 5, 2017
Words & Music: Trad, arr K Fletcher & C Broch

license

all rights reserved

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about

Kate Fletcher & Corwen Broch image

Kate Fletcher & Corwen Broch Scotland, UK

Kate was raised on porridge and song in a family of eccentric musicians in Reading. Wrote my first song at 19. Bought a Narrowboat to live on. Everyone said it was a phase. I still have the boat.

Corwen grew up in Dorset with his grandparents who were The Last Of The Victorians. He was instilled with a love of spartan living, open fires and outside toilets.

They make beautiful music together! ... more

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