CASTING THE RUNES

“I was interested in magic and witchcraft and things like that from an early age,” says Dave Arthur. “Twelve or so. Dennis Wheatley’s novels… I read those. The Devil Rides Out, To the Devil a Daughter, The Ka of Gifford Hillary. Occult novels fascinated me when I was a kid. And then I discovered the Atlantis Bookshop, just by the British Museum, which was the occult bookshop in London at the time. All the magicians and occultists of the time used to hang out there, and I was part of that scene. It was one of those old-fashioned bookshops, with piles of books all over the floor, all dusty and dark.”

We’re discussing the background to Hearken to the Witches Rune, an album of starkly beautiful folk music recorded by Dave and his then-wife Toni in 1970. Fifty years on, it’s an LP that maintains a devoted cult following among enthusiasts of folklore, occultism and esoteric music alike. Its eight tracks are riddled with tales of fairies, shapeshifting, spells and Elfin Queens, all recorded on a Revox A77 reel-to-reel tape recorder in a first-floor Camden Town flat. Its subsequent scarcity has only compounded the record’s mystique: it has been resolutely unavailable since the 1970s. There is no pristine digital remaster, no CD box set or deluxe 21st century vinyl, and abandon hope all ye seeking iTunes downloads or Spotify streams. The vintage crackles of increasingly elusive eBay copies and DIY Youtube rips have themselves become part of the album’s own extraordinary story.

“I had totally forgotten his absolute predilection for Dennis Wheatley!” exclaims Toni. I speak with them both, one after the other on the same afternoon, via crackling Skype connections at the height of Covid-19 lockdown. Both are fast-talking, funny and fascinating conversationalists. I’m keen to discover where this mutual interest in the supernatural arose, and what part – if any – the genuinely uncanny played in their respective upbringings.

ITS SUBSEQUENT SCARCITY HAS ONLY COMPOUNDED THE RECORD’S MYSTIQUE

“I’ve had a lot of strange experiences,” continues Toni. “A lot of stuff that could be construed as magic. When Dave and I got together, I’d had a very ordinary background, but I’d had some very extraordinary things happen. I’ll give you one instance: I had my first piano lesson when I was nine. Mum took me round to see Miss Adams… she was my schoolteacher, but she also taught music. I went there, and had my first lesson.

“And I got to school the next day, and in those days every classroom had a piano in it. Miss Adams said ‘Now, Antoinette had her first lesson yesterday. And what did you learn? Come to the piano, and you can play it.’ And it was a tiny, five-note little thing. I said ‘That’s what we did… and I’m going to do another thing later, and another thing later, and at the end I’m going to play this…’

“And then I played the last piece in the book, reading from the music.”

MAGICAL BALLADS

Dave Arthur was born in Cheshire and Antoinette Wilson (“We’ll gloss over that,” she laughs) in