
And then there's a pause, and in that split second, you think they might never breathe out again. And they breathe out and then they breathe in. "There's the moment I remember so clearly when you have a very young child by your side, and the most fragile and beautiful thing you've ever seen. He wrote the words for Swallow while watching his young child sleeping. Macfarlane's poems connect the magic of the natural world to deeply personal and highly human observations. Robert Macfarlane, The Lost Spells author "I hope The Lost Spells will be something people can carry with them in these difficult times, as a place for the mind to rest," Morris told the Guardian. "I hope it will help children to re-enchant their parents with the wild wonder and beauty of the world around them." As a species, we will not save what we do not love, and we rarely love what we cannot name. The idea, says Macfarlane, is for people to take it outdoors with them and read it as they connect with the natural world - an experience many are turning to during the pandemic. But they're the nature we live with," Macfarlane said.Īlso unlike The Lost Words - which was a massive, glossy hardcover - The Lost Spells is a little more compact.


There are wistful ballads about the swallow and the goldfinch, respectively inspired by Macfarlane's sleeping child and dying grandmother. There's a propulsive and almost rap-like tongue twister about the western jackdaw, a European crow, which British schoolchildren have been memorizing and performing. Morris and Macfarlane created The Lost Spells, a picture book to conjure the magic of everyday plants and animals.
