Singer and mandolin player Sophie Bostock, born in Liverpool, brought Sally in the Woods to life in the spring of 2022, after spending lockdown on a narrowboat on the canals and rivers of South West England. The year before, Sophie lived in Dublin, where she studied traditional Irish music and further refined her singing. Returning to the water proved to be the ideal environment in which to immerse herself in archives full of traditional music.
Sally in the Woods takes its name and ideological inspiration from Sally Gibson, a herbalist who squatted in a hut in a forest near Bath in the late 18th century. Because of her healing knowledge and independent spirit, this remarkable woman was labelled a witch. She lived alone in the hut until she was almost a hundred years old.
The songs are a radical retelling of stories from English, Scottish, Irish and American folk traditions, with a focus on the powerful women who brought us to where we are today.
