A young woman braves the wrath of a winter goddess to learn a lost magic. Another throws the tarot for an unrequited love and finds only a mirror in the cards. Two sisters make a terrible choice to preserve one of them from harm. Shatter and Rise brings together three ballads from C.S. MacCath's repertoire of original songs to address the resilience, the heartache, and the power of magical women. Hit "play," curl your hands around a tisane, and be transported.
The May 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In it, I'm writing about folk customs with help from scholars Richard Sweterlitsch and Wayland Hand, author Naomi Novik, and friends Vigdís Andersen and Sveinn Svavarsson, among others.
Sign up for my newsletter and receive free copies of the title track in my EP Shatter and Rise and the title story in my collection The Longest Road in the Universe: A Collection of Fantastical Tales.