Traveller's Joy

The pace of autumn is gathering and a chill is creeping into the air tonight, but the stove is warm. In tonight’s episode we go off to encounter Traveller’s Joy, and explore the potency and importance of names.  

Journal entry:

“19th November, Friday

The ash tree held its breath as the moon grazed the darkness,
 Between cirrus sandbanks, in a halo of light.

A handful of stars, misplaced and constellation-less,
 Breadcrumbs, no longer able to lead me home.

And now the dawn rises ochre and mauve.
 The larches stand tall on the horizon. 

Thank God for sunrise
 And November buds. “

Episode Information

In this episode I refer to the following authors:

W. Keble Martin (1965) The Concise British Flora in Colour published by Ebury Press.  

Roy Vickery (2019) Vickery’s Folk-Flora: An A-Z of the folklore and uses of British and Irish plants published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.  

Niall Mac Coitir (2015) Ireland's Wild Plants: Myths, legends and folklore published by Collins Press. 

Richard Folkard (1884) Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyric: Embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions and folk-lore of the plant kingdom published by Sampson Low (multiple re-publishers). 

For more general information and photographs of Traveller’s Joy/Old Man’s Beard, some good sites are:

Woodlands.co.uk: Traveller’s Joy
Wildflower Finder: Traveller’s Joy

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River Weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano and keyboard interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
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