When researching for this three part series, I was looking at Illuminated manuscript imagery mostly from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (though they were made for centuries before and after). Illuminated manuscripts were used as visual aids to the stories and lessons they accompanied. I decided to translate lyrics from beloved songs by Gillian Welch & David Rawlings into vibrant pictorial stories, leaning heavily on inspiration from images found in various versions of “The Book of Hours.” I’ve been dumbfounded to discover that as I comb through these ancient images and pair them up with the stories that GW&DR tell lyrically, the lessons start to fall in step with each other. Struggling with the concept of death, fear and poverty transcends every era of humanity and it’s been interesting to see the parallels when I plug their lyrics into the style and setting of a medieval manuscript.

“Six White Horses” describes death coming in the form of six white horses named Sunshine, Sorrow, Yesterday, Tomorrow, Bedlam & Barlow Billy. Picking this particular song to create an illuminated manuscript for may have been the most fitting, although I couldn’t really make a sellable poster with the way they would’ve probably portrayed the dying mother in the 1300’s. Death was a common theme in all the different versions of the Book of Hours. Often there would be an image of a dying person in bed (or a wrapped corpse in a grave) closely encircled by a nursemaid or physician, a priest of some sort and presumably loving family followed by the presence of beings from the supernatural world - angels, Mary, the disciples, God but also death - portrayed often by a half rotten skeleton with a lance, coming to escort your mortal body into the eternal afterlife. Sometimes the skeleton would be riding a horse, sometimes the skeleton would be portrayed inflicting the blow - one image I saw had death tripping a man with his lance, causing him to stumble into the water and drown. There were also the inclusion of the beasts, sometimes hiding under the bed — which I thought were demons; and in some cases they might’ve been a reminder to live a devout, honorable life etc etc — but more often, the creatures were meant to ward off evil, like otherworldly guard dogs scary enough to spook the devil and protect your soul. For my interpretation, rather than make the poster have a bedridden corpse, I opted to portray the dying mother in a positive light - riding atop her kind but deathly escorts, with her beastly protectors running alongside and the angels heralding her departure with a fiddle tune.

(*Based on my interpretation of “Six White Horses” written by Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and featured on the album “The Harrow & The Harvest” released in 2011).

12 ¾ in x 18 ¾ in

Limited edition original poster, hand carved and printed on a Vandercook proofing press in Nashville, TN

Linocut reduction, 3 blocks, 4 colors. Copyright Camp Nevernice 2025.