Widdershins
Widdershins is a Celtic folk band formed in the 1990s, whose membership and management where Fianna Kinfolk.
Overview
The band/Fellowship began with twin brothers and Fianna Kinfolk Padraig and Aidan Conneely and their friends in New Orleans. Fianna Kinfolk Padraig and Aidan Conneely formed Widdershins, a Celtic folk band made up of their musically talented friends, all from Fianna stock. Playing the Irish folk songs they had heard as children, as well as original material in the folk style, they gathered enough of a following to go professional, with a contract, albums (later, CDs), and tours based mostly in the southeastern U.S. Gradually, they attracted more Kinfolk followers through word of mouth, and the idea of a fellowship that could relay messages between Kinfolk along the Gulf and East coast arose. So did the idea of Kinfolk bands.
The Conneely twins are in their forties, now, but the band keeps going even as its members age and, in some cases, move on to other things. Other Celtic folk groups have since joined the Widdershins Society: Wolves of the Highlands, specializing in Scottish folk songs and featuring bagpipes and Scottish pipe and drums, makes their way up and down the Appalachian region; Gaelsong, an acapella group of Kinfolk, regularly tour the arts and crafts fairs and anywhere else that invites them; Taliesin’s Songbird, a Welsh folk band with connections on both sides of the Atlantic; and there are others. Some of these groups are professional, while others exist as serious hobbies or compete in amateur folk competitions and music festivals. All of them hold their Kinfolk heritage as a point of pride. An occasional Fianna Galliard has joined the society, strengthening ties within an already strongly-connected tribe.
While the Widdershins Society remains a Fianna society, other tribes have followed suit, and some have formed their own Kinfolk musical societies. Pan and the Muse, a duo made up of a pair of Black Fury fraternal twins, Andromache and Andros Peloppaneus, bring ancient Greek songs into the modern age and anchor a group of Black Fury male and female Kinfolk; Gertie’s Jug Band centers around a large network of Bone Gnawer Kin, providing Cajun and Zydeco music as well as soup kitchens to feed and entertain homeless populations; Potlatch Songs consists of young Wendigo Kinfolk musicians eager to bring a strong environmental and natural living message to the world, believing that this can help strengthen Gaia for the coming battle. Each tribe has at least one musical Kinfolk group providing musical and social connections.
The idea of uniting all these groups into one Kinfolk mega-society has recently taken hold. While some Garou tribes may object to this kind of inter-tribal cooperation, proponents of the concept feel certain that such an organization is inevitable.
References
- WTA: Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes, p. 41
- WTA: Kinfolk: A Breed Apart, p. 30-31
