Last fall, I shared two poems/songs/prayers I called “Song for the Way Opening” and “Song for the Winter Rade” after getting a message from some of my allies that I should be celebrating the movements of the Pleiades more intentionally. Last month, I shared one more, the “Song for the Darkening”. And now, like the others, I’ve reworked Morgan Daimler’s prayer for the Returning of the Queens into a song to the tune of the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer.
The first two stanzas of the song are the same, and the last two stanzas are as well, except for the two seasonal words in the last line, and the end of the third line changed to rhyme properly.
Song for the Returning
I call to all you goodly wights,
My kin and friends whoe’er shall be.
All you who’d be my allies true,
And come and walk this path with me.
I call to all the Queens and Kings,
Monarchs and Sov’reigns, all gentry near —
If you would celebrate with me
’Tis time to come and join me here.
Today the Queens have their return,
Their constellation back in the sky,
As their stars move from day to night,
We look above us with raptured eye
The Seven Queens they rise up first,
And then behind them the Hunter’s light —
For he is their great Guardian,
And he’ll defend them with his might.
The bright blue fire of Seven Queens,
A blazing beacon ere morning dawn,
It shows us they are with us still,
And thus the cycle goes on and on.
As they ride past, may we be blessed,
With token or with smile or nod,
And may they take our offerings,
As their refreshment while they’re abroad.
A good word to the Fairy Rade,
And may you never do us harm!
Ride out along the fairy roads,
Bringing with you Summer’s warmth.
I’ve also pulled another omen to share: one rune and one ogham fid, to symbolize the two groups of fairy folk with whom I work most closely. I pulled Jera, and Quert. Jera is a rune of time and cycles, and sometimes a year completed. A fitting omen, I think, for the last song in the cycle; a reminder that the cycle goes on and ever on. Quert is an ogham fid traditionally associated with the apple tree, and my kenning for it is “Queer Wit”. This is the fid I most associate with the phrase “dead, mad, or a poet” — a calling to go deeper with our own practices in this next cycle, or perhaps a prediction that we will end up in deeper, whether we will it or no.