Dark Brittanica II / :We Bring You A King With A Head Of Gold:

The follow-up to the Folk compilation "John Barleycorn Reborn" from 2007.
34 tracks and 146 minutes of music from the best of current British Folk artists.
The raw green of spring is burnished through midsummer into the baked golden crust of August, the headlong vigour of new growth slowing, ripening into a sagging, fecund fullness.
Crows wheel low over a cornfield, inkblots spilt on the wide blue sky, their ragged cries cracking the drowsy haze of high summer.
Cornstalks rustle and whisper secretively, heads nodding sagely in the light breeze, spread resplendent over the land like the bushy sun-bleached beard of Barleycorn himself, basking in the afternoon heat.
The image fades, dispersing into the ripples of Mimir’s black mirror, and now the harvest appears as the radiant blonde braids of gentle Sif, Norse goddess of the corn, ever-faithful wife of Thor, patroness of fidelity, of promises kept.
Again the mirror ripples, and now the corn forms the mane of a magnificent horse, surging over the earth, alive with energy, bearing the memory of innumerable harvests past and the promise of harvests yet to come, past and future radiating out in all directions from this perfect, poised moment of completion.
It’s time to reap.
(Simon Collins)

Track Listing:
§ Disc 1
1. Barron Brady - 'Earthen Key'
2. Laienda - 'Little Drummer Boy / Anvil'
3. The Rowen Amber Mill - 'Blood And Bones (Ciderdelica Mix)'
4. Tony Wakeford - 'The Devil'
5. Kate Harrison - 'England'
6. Drohne - 'The Hooden Horse / An-Dro'
7. Corncrow - 'The Cutty Wren'
8. Sproatly Smith - 'I Shall Leave You There'
9. Tinkerscuss - 'Black Sarah'
10. Cerunnos Rising - 'Hear It With My Heart'
11. Mama - 'The Fool Of Spring'
12. Magicfolk - 'Green Man'
13. Wyrdstone - 'Lost At Ty Canol'
14. Emil Brynge - 'Devon Dream'
15. Kim Thompsett - 'Lords And Ladies'
16. Dragon Spirit - 'Always Be Ours'
17. Philip Butler And Natasha Tranter - 'Jack The Mommet'
18. Touch The Earth - 'Ancient Landscapes'

§ Disc 2
1. Relig Oran - 'Ye Mariners All'
2. Autumn Grieve - 'Within Hollows'
3. Ian McKone - 'Searching For Lambs'
4. John Parker - 'Manningham Blues'
5. Rattlebag - 'The Tyburn Sisters'
6. The Fates - 'The Song Of The Fates'
7. The Hare And The Moon - 'The Three Ravens'
8. The Kittiwakes - 'Lynx'
9. Venereum Arvum - 'Robin Sick And Weary'
10. Telling The Bees - 'Fithfath'
11. Richard Masters - 'The Wind Knows'
12. Demdyke - 'Mother Carey's Chicks'
13. Beneath The Oak - 'Oh Earthly Man'
14. Sedayne : Sundog - 'A Wee Brown Cow'
15. Ruby Throat - 'Swan And The Minotaur (Troubled Man)'
16. Jennifer Crook - 'Ribbons Of Green / The Dream Waltz (Live)'

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