The Watersons – Frost & Fire: A Calendar Of Ritual And Magical Songs (1965)

Lal & Mike Waterson are famous for their Bright Phoebus album, called “Sgt. Pepper of british folk world”. Before that, they released with their sister and a close friend (forming The Watersons) these 14 songs, idiosyncratic mixture of pagan calendrical ritual ballads (about magic, animal gods and resurrection of nature) rooted in european tales from who knows when and polyphonic acapella derivating from monasteries’ medieval plainchant. The Watersons come from Kingston-upon-Hull (East Yorkshire). Catholics, they were raised by their Irish gypsy grandmother.
This is traditionnal folk music, “the words and generally the music of which have originated among the common people, and are extensively used by them.”