Michelle Franklin's Blog, page 5

The Frewyn Music Project and the Great #Montreal #Songbook

While we're preparing for the debut of the Frewyn Music Project, there is another collaboration with
the talented Noah Tolhurst (Stillbuster, 2018) on the horizon: the Great Montreal Songbook, an opus cataloguing the history of Montreal through song. So you won't cry about having to wait too long, here is one of the songs from the album about the famous stone that was erected to commemorate the thousands of Irish immigrants who died from typhus:


The Walk of the Stone - An Charraig Dubh
by Miche...

Frewyn Fables: The Diamond Child

  Labourers are rarely ever repaid their daily trials, and a miner’s sufferance is never one to want to emulate, but once, in the small mining town of Galae, situated in an old river valley, nestled between the fields and furrows, where ploughs of plenty had carved out the landscape, lived a miner and his wife, a young couple of meager means and little fortune, whose affection had held up the foundations of their house, and whose high spirits and easy manners recommended them to everythi...

Martje's Royal Cookery Book: Frewyn Shortbread Burls

Frewyn is known for its bakery goods. It is a kingdom built on butter, so writes Baronous Hodge, an immigrant to Frewyn who came from Marridon and eventually ended up living there, largely due to the peace in their agrarian society, but in some small part to the food: "It is the fault of their cookery that I dread going back to Marridon." From Martje's Royal Cookery Book, here is an extract and one of Baronous' favourite recipes: 

Baronous Hodge, on how Frewyns manage their kitchens:&nbs...

Story for the Day: Family Feuds

A lesson in pettiness, from one scandalmonger to another:
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Story for the Day: Of Cooks and Kuggen

Martje always knows best. Always. Because she said so.
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Story for the Day: To Crack an Abbot

It is not every day a man of God meets his match. The abbot at Myndil's abbey has certainly met his:
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Brave King Breian's March

The Frewyn music project is on its way!

These are the lyrics for Brave King Breian's march. The legend of this song is that Tirlough wrote it while they were marching from Diras to the western border, saying goodbye to the land, not knowing if they were going to win the First Galleisian War.
The last part was written after they won:

Mho bheannacht to the nascent spring
Mho bheannacht to the anvil’s ring
Mho bheannacht to the incumbent king
Onne bennath aconna

Diathaneas an thu, to the Ty...

The Frewyn Music Project

In the last few months, I've had my hands in many literary pies: The compilation of Myndil the Missionary stories was published from Pendelhaven Press, another Myndil book is currently being written, Martje's cookery book is coming along, and I've been writing several songs for the Frewyn Music Project, a collaboration with songwriter and musician Noah Tolhurst (Stillbuster). I have been considering an album of Frewyn songs for a while, but it was Noah's darling wife who had the genius idea o...

Story for the Day: The Morbs and Marrow

For all those who suffer from malaise this time of the year, I hear you. And so does Bilar:

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Story for the Day: Leaving the Nest

You're twenty-one, Myndil. Get the hell out of my house.
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