The Glory Tree
The Glory Tree is inspired by Shamanic rituals and practices, and uses Old English poems from the 6th-8th Centuries as its text.
I had done quite a bit of work on shamanism at University, and had always thought it would make a good subject for a dramatic song cycle – a Shaman is essentially a tribal witch doctor and a ‘master of the spirits’, whose powers protect the local people from hostile and evil presences around them, which could otherwise cause illness and other things such as a bad harvest.
If a person does fall ill, it is assumed that their body has been possessed by a hostile spirit, and the Shaman must perform rituals to exorcise it: this involves the Shaman going into a deep trance, letting his spirit escape from his body and travelling to either the heavens or the underworld to converse with the Gods and persuade them to let the sick person be freed of the intruding spirit. These trances can last from only a few minutes to as long as three days, and are characterised by an all-consuming and overwhelming ecstasy that is provoked by the ascension to the sky or by the descent to Hell. I found this very inspiring, along with the fact that in Shamanism, the Shaman is often thought to be an equal to the Gods, as his spirit is able to travel up to converse, influence and bargain with the them.
Before a person can become initiated as a shaman, their spirit must travel to the three most important destinations in the spirit world, namely up to the heavens, across the sea, and down to the underworld, and it is these three journeys that the main three movements of the piece are based on. When I was researching shamanism, I came across a book that suggested that shamanic elements could be found in some Anglo Saxon poetry, and although this is debatable it gave me the perfect excuse to use excerpts from poems such as The Dream of the Rood and Judith as my texts, as I loved the magical and otherworldly sound of the language.
The piece is in five continuous movements, with the 1st, 3rd and 5th being the journeys to heaven, across the sea, then down to Hell, and the 2nd and 4th songs use the texts of Rune poems to link the three levels of the world – in the 2nd song, Icy Hail falls from the heavens and turns into water, and in the 4th, a boat travels across the water to reach the land, whereupon the last movement, the descent to hell, begins.
I am very grateful to Dr. Richard Dance of Cambridge University’s Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic Department for generously helping me with the selection, translation and pronunciation of the text.
I
Behold! I shall tell the choicest of visions,
What I dreamt at midnight
When speech-bearers dwelt in rest!
It seemed to me that I saw a wondrous tree
Lifted up aloft with light wound round
A beacon of brightest wood.
I saw the glory tree,
Shine out gaily, sheathed in yellow
Decorous gold; and gemstones made
For the forest’s tree a bright mail coat.
II
Hail is the whitest of grains;
It whirls down from heaven’s height,
and gusts of wind toss it about;
then it is transformed to water.
III
I have often suffered on the weary seas,
Night shadows darkened, snow came from the north
Frost bound the Earth and hail fell on the ground
Coldest of grains. And yet the heart’s desires
Incite me now that I myself should go
On towering seas among the salt waves play.
And now my spirit twists
Out of my heart, across the whale’s domain
It soars widely across the surfaces of the world
And then comes back to me with greed and longing
The lone-flier screams, over the wide expanses of the sea.
IV
The sun is always a source of hope to seafarers
When they row the sea-steed over the fishes bath,
Until it brings them to land.
V
“What have you done, bloodstained one?
Why did you afflict me, foulness of earth?
You were proud of eating and sated with wine;
You boasted majestically and I craved
The body of God, the drink of the spirit.”
His spirit departed elsewhere
Beneath the deep ground, and was there prostrated
And chained in torment ever after,
Coiled about by snakes, trussed up in tortures
And cruelly prisoned in hellfire
After his going hence. Never would he have cause to hope
Engulfed in darkness, that he might ever get out of
That snake infested prison, but there he shall remain
For ever to eternity, henceforth without end in that
Murky abode, deprived the joys of hope.
“But what will you say on Doomsday to the Lord?”