Liner Notes to Fern Knight s/t (2008, VHF #110)

By Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy

Time on a cold sea stalls, snags, and slips, and so one is often left measuring the time by how stiff the salt air has made one's clothes.

By the time the drifting scrim of sea-fog allowed a glimpse of the mountainous contours of the middle island, my coat was quite rigid. As the boat advanced and the features of the land were revealed, I could see several stone ruins perched upon the sea-cliffs, like gargoyles draped in mossy shrouds. These ancient remains were tormented by dark, chaotic swarms of cormorants and crows that made no cry; one only heard the muffled groan of the slate blue surf, and the hiss of a thousand black wings.

At first, the people of this isolated place seemed aloof, reserved. However, it soon became clear that, like the island itself, their wild, brooding appearance belied a warm, lush, and even gentle interior. In fact, the island and the people blended into one another: capes of thin bark scales kept them warm and dry, boughs of cedar adorned their doorways and hearths, and carefully woven wreaths of unknown native plants rested upon their heads at evening meals.

As I was shown about the island's green labyrinth of glens, forests, meadows and bogs, I noticed that my guides would break into song as we passed from one eerie landscape into another; it was as if they were singing to announce or possibly atone for our intrusion. The songs differed from place to place, but they all had an almost tidal quality about them, beginning as a delicate murmur, but then swelling into what could be only described as an incantation. The songs swirled gently about themselves, like a leaf caught in the eddy of a stream. Their timbre was drowsy but crystalline, leaving one both sad and elated as it dissipated on the cool evening breeze.

When asked for whom these songs were intended, they would not say. They would just smile, and walk on.

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