It was 2013. Tim wasn't playing out with us anymore and none of us were getting together to session very often either. I was worried that Bardic Circle was over (turns out it wasn't!) and I just wanted to get a bunch of the songs I'd been working on out to folks. I decided that I would no longer burn CDs and hand them out at events, but instead I'd upload the files somewhere and send a link to them to download them. I wasn't really happy with the recordings, and most of the tunes had been recorded quickly and without a lot of attention to detail. Still, it served the purpose which I've been aiming for all this time - to fix that period of time in my memory with a collection of the tunes I was working on then.

There were a lot of more serious Irish folk tunes in this collection. One that Cate really liked was The Sheep are 'neath the Snow, a traditional tune which had been translated from Manx Gaelic into English. It can be found on page 145 of my Book of Song Vol II, 2nd ed.

Track 1 - The Sheep Are 'neath The Snow

The Ballad of Lady Jane is my version of a song on Tommy Makem's Lonesome Waters album. My version of this great tune features me on 'cello for the first time in a long while and I liked how it came out. This one can be found on page 26 of Book of Song Vol 1 (2009).

Track 2 - Lady Jane

Around this time I was starting to practice the tin whistle, something I've not done much lately. I only had a few tunes down on it and this was one of them. My playing isn't stellar, but its really just a marker in time for me and a reminder that I need to get back to the whistle.

Track 4 - Lord Inchiquin

The Host of Faery is an original based on an ancient Irish poem for which I posted a video in 2017. Neither this version, nor the one released on Thus Sang the Bard at Beltaine have Cate and Sport accompanying me, and frankly thats something that eventually will be remedied because the song is just so much better with them.

Track 9 - The Host of Faery

01-The Sheep Are 'neath The Snow
02-Lady Jane
03-Auld Lang Syne
04-Lord Inchiquin
05-The Old Man Said To His Daughter
06-Ca the Yowes to the Knowes
07-Boys of Bluehill
08-Raggle Taggle Gypsy
09-The Host of Faery
10-Arthur McBride
11-Wearin' the Britches
12-As I Roved Out
13-Cnoc An Ar