I first experienced the Crow Women in concert at a Dragonfest in Colorado around 2005 or thereabouts. I must have been coming from a workshop, because I arrived near the end, just in time to catch the encore. If you’ve been to a Crow Women concert, you recognize the spectacle. An array of lovely ladies, bedecked in purple, laughed as they sang and waved their brooms defiantly. It was my first introduction to “Away Ye Merry Lasses.”
Unlike the songs from the most recent Crow albums, “Away Ye Merry Lasses” was not written by a Crow Woman. The song was written by Georje Holper in 1989, so it was still fairly new in the pagan world when the Crow Women took it up and started singing it in the 90’s. The title is actually “Away Ye Merry Lassies,” but through an accident of mishearing, it lives ever in the Crow canon as “Away Ye Merry Lasses.”
The exact journey from the brain of Ms. Holper to Crow concerts has been somewhat lost to history. “I may have learned it from the album “Flying Time” by Linda Waterfall,” says lead composer and album producer Alane Crowomyn. “Or, I may have learned it from At the Turning of the Year by Herdman, Hills and Mangsen.” Wherever she first heard it, the joie de vivre and spirit of sisterhood embodied in the song was a perfect fit for the (slightly irreverent) Crow Women.
However it got there, “Away Ye Merry Lasses” is now the core of any Crow Women lineup. A perennial favorite, no concert can be complete without it. By the time I started singing with the Crow Women around 2010, it was already recorded on their first CD and thus cemented in their group psyche.
Like the song, the Crow Women captures the essence of sisterhood. Crowwwybumun has been an all-women coven since its first inception in 1992. Though the coven initially identified itself as a Dianic, it has since developed as its own tradition of, well, Crowness.
“My favorite thing about performing this song is how playful we are with it. We always have a great time singing it and that makes it fun for the audience. When we give a concert, this is the most frequently requested song. It has become our signature piece, and we usually make it the end of a set, or our encore. I love looking out at the audience and seeing people’s eyes light up when they hear we’re starting Away Ye Merry Lasses, and the way they smile and laugh as we perform it. Interacting with the audience as we goof around with the song is one of the things that keeps me excited about giving concerts.”
Alane Crowomyn
To be a Crow is to be a merry lassie. Every month—often several times a month—Crows grab their brooms and ride off into the night to gather with the girls. Like the Sister in the narrative, Crows are bold and free, creating our own path of feminist and female spirituality. Like the Mother, Crows are frequently humming a tune (and then scoring and recording it). Like the narrator, we prefer the girls tonight.
Yet the essence of Crowness I believe is most captured in “Away Ye Merry Lasses” is the sense of sacred play. Crows have never taken ourselves too seriously, and there is a depth of spirituality there. Tapping into the child self is an important part of our pagan practice. It is when we are silly, when we are childlike, when we let go of our inhibitions that we are most truly ourselves. We are most truly that which the goddess made us.
We grab our brooms and ride out into the night with our sisters not as an act of rebellion or a merely social endeavor. Gathering as a women’s coven, laughing and singing, is an authentically spiritual act.
“Sing, feast, dance, make music and love, all in My Presence, for Mine is the ecstasy of the spirit and Mine also is joy on earth… Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.”
Charge of the Goddess written by Doreen Valiant and adapted by Starhawk.
We sing “Away Ye Merry Lasses” at almost every concert for several reasons. Of course it’s a crowd favorite and everyone loves to sing along. It’s also a perfect excuse to bring out the brooms for a good ride. But sometimes I think we really perform “Away Ye Merry Lasses” to honor our sisterhood. No matter where Crow sisters fly, we all know that song. Crows both new and old can come together in merriment when we sing of our Girl’s Night Out.
To be Crow is to be joyful when joy is in the air and to be solemn when sadness reigns. To be Crow is to sing, to celebrate sisterhood and togetherness. To be Crow is to be Goddess.
Oh! The moon is wax tonight.❤️🎼