Uploaded September 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Yewâ Mammyâ (Grain Mother): A layered chant for the harvest. This is a song I created in the Proto-Celtic language- a partially reconstructed language believed to have been spoken in the Bronze Age. Playing with combining Proto-Celtic words gets to be a playful exercise in expression, poetry and alliteration.
This chant translates roughly to mean: “Grain Mother, Grain Mother, Lay down, Lay Down” and “Making, Making, the Garden, the Garden.”
This chant is inspired by the many stories from European and world mythology about the coming of grains and fruits through the sacrifice of a deity’s body. In reconstructed Indo-European creation stories, the deity Manu k*lls his brother Yemo (who would become Ymir in Norse mythology). From Yemo’s body the world and sky are constructed. In Japanese mythology, the goddess Ukemochi is killed by Susano-o, and from her body grains and beans emerge for the world. In Irish cosmology, the deity Tailtiu dies after exhausting herself by clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture.
This song is a thank you to all the Grain Parents who gave their bodies for us to eat. It narrates their fall but is also meant as an invitation for them to rest in the act of their sacrifice.
Yewâ Mammyâ (Grain Mother): A layered chant for the harvest. This is a song I created in the Proto-Celtic language- a partially reconstructed language believed to have been spoken in the Bronze Age. Playing with combining Proto-Celtic words gets to be a playful exercise in expression, poetry and alliteration.
This chant translates roughly to mean: “Grain Mother, Grain Mother, Lay down, Lay Down” and “Making, Making, the Garden, the Garden.”
This chant is inspired by the many stories from European and world mythology about the coming of grains and fruits through the sacrifice of a deity’s body. In reconstructed Indo-European creation stories, the deity Manu k*lls his brother Yemo (who would become Ymir in Norse mythology). From Yemo’s body the world and sky are constructed. In Japanese mythology, the goddess Ukemochi is killed by Susano-o, and from her body grains and beans emerge for the world. In Irish cosmology, the deity Tailtiu dies after exhausting herself by clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture.
This song is a thank you to all the Grain Parents who gave their bodies for us to eat. It narrates their fall but is also meant as an invitation for them to rest in the act of their sacrifice.
