Hare Spell

[ Roud - ; trad. / Fay Hield]

Maddy Prior sang I Sall Goe Until a Hare as part of her song cycle The Fabled Hare on her 1993 album Year.

Fay Hield sang the Hare Spell in 2020 on her Topic album Wrackline. She noted:

Taken from Isobel Gowdie’s witch trial confessions of 1622 where she shares this spell to become a hare. Following the pattern of finding magic within, the melody comes out of the words, using the corresponding note name letters to build the frame of the tune.

Lyrics

Maddy Prior sings I Sall Goe Until a Hare

I sall goe until a hare
Wi sorrow and sick mickle care
I sall goe in the devil’s name
An while I come home again

Fay Hield sings the Hare Spell

I shall go into, go into a hare
With sorrow sigh and with mickle care
I shall go into, go into a hare
With sorrow sigh and with mickle care

Chorus (after each verse):
I go to the Devil in the Devil’s name
And stay till I come home again
I go to the Devil in the Devil’s name
And stay till I come home again

I shall go into, go into a crow
With sorrow sigh and a jet black throw
I shall go into, go into a crow
With sorrow sigh and a jet black throw

I shall go into, go into a cat
With sorrow sigh and a jet black shot
I shall go into, go into a cat
With sorrow sigh and a jet black shot