Genesis of a Church BBC Upload

As read at a quiet and contemplative Compline service Holy Monday 2025, a performance subsequently broadcast on BBC regional radio in August 2025. The church has currently celebrating 700 years "on this higher ground" in its idyllic setting.

Genesis of A Church, Fring, 1330 AD

On this higher ground

Let us house an altar

Where the Word may resound

Through time, prayer and psalter.

On this heavenly spur

Let us grow a tower

Where the great stir of Easter

May bud, leaf and flower.

He cam also stille

Ther his moder was

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the gras. 

Defeats, factions, debts,

A weak tyrant king’s

Gone the way of all flesh

Burns for higher things .

In these emerald trees

Lifting monks’ eyes above

Earthy labour, dis-ease,

Let us sing divine love.

He cam also stille

To his modres bowr

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the flowr.

In these sandcastle days,

A boy on the throne , 

Let us hold fast and raise

Firm foundations of stone.

Let here be Light

To summer the heart

Through spring, heyday, fall, blight,

Candling the dark.

He cam also stille

Ther his moder lay

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the spray.

Let here be stillness

On strips, hill, vale, farm,

Green pastures and waters

That flow like a Psalm.

Frea’s  folk, we are grass, bone,

We come to pass;

But soul-fashioned stone,

We build to last.

The Peacock's Tale

Several members of the Beatles have asked us how we came up with our name “Peacock’s Tale” ‘Did a man appear appear in a flaming pie and declare, ‘And thy name shall be Peacock’? asks one. ‘We understand why you were once called Phezant’s Tail (being the mere backing vocalists, lyricist and drummer emerging phoenix-like from the end of the Penland Phezants folk storytelling quartet) but why PEACOCK'S Tale? asks another. So we wrote this song to explain. No parrots or peacocks were harmed and no leylandii hedge was chainsaw massacred in the making of the field recordings. Krishna always wears a peacock feather around his neck given him by the king of the peacocks in gratitude for making all his flock dance with joy. 'Neti neti' (Sanskrit, 'not this, not this') is a meditation technique for rejecting the non-divine. Various celebrity couples are referenced: Krishna and Radha; Zeus and Hera (the Greek goddess of marriage); Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Argus had eyes all over his body so could see everything - hence his frequent use as a newspaper name - but he really ought to have covered them when he saw The Goddess of Marriage bathing naked. She consigned his eyes to the peacock's tail. Agamemnon the King of Argos sacrificed his and Clytemnestra's daughter to the gods for a fair wind to Troy and, though he eventually won the war and returned home in gory, he rather lost his wife. Welcome home, dear... lyrics Haunted Middle English suburban castle leylandii battlements TIPSY half cut LAWNS concealing parrots concealing peacocks.... Not this luscent fan Of massed sunrise With its strutting mail Of blinkless eyes. Not this Argos fake news That our daughters must die For a West to burn down An Eastern sky Not this parrotry perched In Love's poetry A deaf world applauds Nor this fame miscalled Immortality Immortality. This unheard dance Of the peacock’s heart Is our joyous love And our secret art. Not this heaven train lost Up a Khuber pass Not this gold and blue vision Lost up its ass. Not this marriage vow caught In the All Together Nor this false ‘I’ blind To the blaze around Krishna. Not this parrotry perched In Love’s poetry A deaf world applauds Nor this fame miscalled Immortality Immortality. This unheard dance Of the peacock’s heart Is our joyous love And our secret art.