From Austria to the Czech Republic

By Damh the Bard on June 19, 2026

There is nothing quite like sitting beside a Pagan campfire, under the stars and held within the peace of the trees, listening to the sounds of community, the voices singing Wiccan chants, and enjoying the mead, wine, and pretty much anything else that is being passed around the circle. Being beside that campfire with some friends you haven’t seen for 8 years turns up that feeling of coming home, that feeling of joy and love. Cerri and I had travelled from Vienna to the Czech Republic with our friend Siggy to the BMWC, and the event I was last at in 2018. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so back to Vienna.

Vienna is one of my favourite cities in the world. I fell in love with it on my first visit in 2009, and that love has only grown with every subsequent trip. There were about 5 or 6 years when I came here (and to Prague) every year in a row, but then an event came up that put travel on hold for a while. We all know what that was, and no need to revisit that… Vienna is filled with the most remarkable architecture, but I think that it’s its musical history that really charms me. Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, Schubert, Brahms, all of whom lived and created music here. As you walk around the city, and into the quieter streets, it’s normal to just hear someone practising their instrument from one of the buildings. Music is everywhere. As are the coffee houses, and pastries… It’s probably a good thing I don’t live there – so many cakes, so little time…

Before my concert, we took some time to visit one of the many museums in Vienna. A contingent of OBOD members from Germany had travelled to the concert, so we met up with them, and our host and dear friend Siggy (whose job is a Vienna tour guide, which is very helpful!) took us on a tour of the museum. Vienna has an amazingly rich history, having been a meeting place for so many cultures over the centuries. But I had two destinations in mind, so I could see two objects I hadn’t seen for many years. The Vienna museum held the Spear of Destiny (which you can see to the left of the photo below) and the amazing and ancient Venus of Willendorf. There is definitely an energy within the spear – whether or not it is the spear that pierced the side of Christ doesn’t affect it. It is a symbol of power that has been sought by so many power-hungry people, including Hitler. It was said that whoever held the spear would be the ruler. I don’t like the energy of the spear, but it is a fascinating thing to see in the flesh. But the Venus… She is something else. As you stand before her, she is so perfect that you can almost sense the hands that formed her 35,000 years ago. A visceral human link. She has existed as so many empires have fallen, so many ego-driven, power-crazed men have come and gone, and she is still here. Art, poetry, and music can be taken for granted, but in the end, they have more power than any empire or individual human. They remind us that our lives are so short, in the scheme of our planet’s life, maybe even our species’.

My gig was in the downstairs room at The Golden Harp Irish Pub, a venue I’ve played at three times, so I knew the layout and acoustics. The concert was sold out. I’ve been doing this for 28 years, and I’m still amazed that I can travel to another country and find people there who love my music. That will never, ever, get old. I met people I hadn’t seen for 8 years, and the truth is, it felt like we just picked up halfway through a sentence, as if those 8 years never happened. People arrived, there were smiles, hugs, drinking, and conversation. I still never drink before a gig – I can forget my lyrics at the best of times, so I don’t need any alcohol making that more likely. After an hour or so, the room was full, and I took the stage, seeing joyous faces, strumming the opening chords of Under the Trees, then singing the opening verse and instantly hearing voices from the audience singing along with me. It was going to be a great night!

And it was! When I explained about the bananas that had started showing up at my live shows being waved during the ‘Nananana” bits of The Winter King, lots of people had simultaneously been searching for banana pics on their phones, and when the refrain began, all of these banana pics were held up! I played for about 2 hours, and by the end of the show, the room was dancing and singing, with the words “These are the things I believe!” sung into the air, bringing us all even closer together. The gig ended, there were more hugs, and people hung around to chat, and I took a long sip of an ice-cold Guinness. It won’t be another 8 years before I return to this wonderful city, but I think the coffee houses might need some time to restock…

Every month on the night of the full moon, the OBOD Grove Siggy belongs to holds a Peace Ceremony, and we were fortunate to be around when this happened. Invited to an area of ‘gardens’ – imagine allotments that you were allowed to build a home on – and so, under the full moon, we turned to the four directions, asked for, and invoked peace and love. Sung the Awen to offer sound on which that peace could ride out into the world, then held our candles high, each of us offering words of peace. No. It’s not woo-woo. It’s intent, it’s powerful, it’s Druid Magic at work. Work the world needs right now. May there be peace throughout the whole world.

We took a train from Vienna to the Czech Republic. As an island-dweller, I’m always amazed to hear that Prague is a four-hour train journey from Vienna, that Budapest is 2 hours away, yet Vienna is bordered by 8 countries! We are bordered by maybe 4 seas. We were picked up from the train station and driven to the venue of this year’s BMWC. It was the 30th BMWC, so a big milestone in the event’s history. The venue was lovely – in the Czech countryside, like a well-maintained and picturesque Youth Hostel, but with cabins, and a well-stocked bar selling Czech Pilsner (I mean, this is the Czech Republic, so I wouldn’t expect anything else). Lots of people had already arrived and were sitting in the sun, drinking. The welcoming hugs and smiles were wonderful, and as in Vienna, there were friends we hadn’t seen for 8 years. There were also two friends from Scotland there, John and Kitty MacKintyre, that I’d known for many years, and we had last stayed with them in November before the Scottish Pagan Federation conference. It was obvious it would be a good week!

Travelling can be hazardous to your health, and it looked like Siggy had come down with a head cold. We were sharing a cabin, so I just hoped I would avoid it, having my gig on the Friday night, a few days away. But all was well. No cold developed, and Siggy was over it quickly. The theme of this year’s BMWC was The Crossroads, and the Deities we were inviting to guide us through that journey were Hecate and Pan. This theme felt like exactly what both Cerri and I needed to work with, having gone through some major life changes and now feeling that the time was right to decide which road to take. The opening ceremony was beautiful, deep, inspiring, powerful, and perfect. This is a magical camp, and I learned many years ago that magic works best when directed, then left alone to do its work, so I won’t go into details about the camp here – the magic was done, so may it be.

But let’s talk about the gig.

I first played in the Czech Republic in 2009. We were collected from the airport, and I told the person who had collected us that I knew that I’d only sold one CD, Herne’s Apprentice, to the Czech Republic. She nodded her head and said, “Yes! That was Jacub. He copied it for all of us!” Isn’t that amazing. Some people used to get annoyed about piracy, and on a huge scale, I can understand that, but here was a good result of that copying. If Jacub hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be playing my first concert in Prague! I also discovered that my song Lughnasadh had become somewhat of a Pagan anthem for the Czech Pagan community! That first gig was wonderful, and very full!

The next year, I played in a Heavy Metal venue. It got to the song Lughnasadh, and someone climbed on the stage beside me. “He’s going to dance on stage”, I thought. No. The crowd surged forward, and he dived and crowd surfed. At a folk concert. The next year, a group of young Czech women approached Cerri and said they wanted to play a ‘trick’ on me. They had all brought bras and wanted to throw them at me. Cerri laughed and told them to go for it! So one moment I’m playing a song on stage, and the next moment there is a lovely, delicate red velvet bra hanging from the machine heads of my guitar! The next year, I’m playing outside when the crowd suddenly goes nuts, cheering. “They are really enjoying this”, thinks I. And they are! A Czech friend, Viktor, had climbed on stage and was standing behind me with two antler-shaped tree branches. My silhouette is cast against the trees as a giant guitar-playing Cernunnos!

What I’m saying is that something unexpected always happens at my concerts in the Czech Republic.

This year was no exception. I mean, so many bras were thrown, all at once, and this time it was a rather lovely black corset that was hanging from my guitar. The song Lughnasadh was intense, with the audience surging forward, throwing metal horns into the air and singing with me. It was a raucous, then deep and intense, then even more raucous night. My encore was Land, Sky and Sea – I played it thinking it might calm the energy, but not a chance. The crowd didn’t stop singing the Na, na, na bits. I said, “Go to the bar and have some beer!” And the Nanananas turned to “Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer!” I walked into the crowd and was just enveloped by them all in a massive hug. I felt so much love, it was overwhelming.

That night, we sat by the campfire until about 3 am, with the trees and stars above. And that brings me back to the opening paragraph of this rather long blog post!

I feel so blessed in this life to be able to share such wonderful Journeys. I’ve been home for a couple of weeks, and the festival season here in the UK is now well underway with gigs almost every weekend until mid-September. So hopefully I’ll meet you in a field somewhere, and don’t forget to bring your bananas!