Wyrd Folk

Wyrd folk is a strand of folk music, rooted in the British acid folk and psychedelic folk of the late 1960s and in a later 'New Weird Britain' sensibility, that draws on pagan belief, folk horror, rural folklore and the eerie in the landscape. Acoustic instrumentation — guitar, fiddle, dulcimer, recorder, harmonium and drone — supports songs about ritual, seasonal cycles, hauntings and old gods, delivered in a deliberately archaic, unsettling register. The term adapts the Old English 'wyrd', meaning fate, and connects predecessors such as *Comus* and *The Incredible String Band* to contemporary acts including *Espers*, *Current 93* and *Hexvessel*, sustained by small labels, folk-horror film culture and zine networks.