Bellingen's Butcher Bird Curse

A small town legend can be a joke, a warning, or the truest thing people refuse to say out loud. We pour a cup of tea, get cosy, and share a poem reimagines Bellingen through a single unsettling idea: the butcher bird’s song doesn’t just fill the air, it changes what people do with their love. 

We talk about Rachel’s return to Voice Within, her continued workshopping and craft growth, and the spark behind this piece, including the phrase “adulterous clime” and the way a local story can feel like a lived pattern. Then we let the poem carry you from a mythic opening into the pulse of market day where handmade goods, bright weather, and live music blur into temptation. The mood turns as the butcher bird arrives, gossip thickens, the sky shifts, and suspicion starts shaping the town’s behaviour as much as any curse ever could. 

If you love narrated poetry, spoken word storytelling, Australian fiction podcasts, and modern folklore that doubles as relationship truth, this one stays with you. Listen through to the final lines, share it with someone who loves a good myth, and please subscribe and leave a review so more listeners can find Voice Within.

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Transcript

Introducing Rachel Faith And Her Work

Explaining The Butcher Bird Curse

Poem Begins And The Myth Unfolds

Market Day And A Song’s Pull

Omen Weather And Rising Suspicion

The Affair And The Final Warning

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Voice Within, a collection of short stories, letters and poems narrated to you. Get cozy, warm cup of tea in hand. Take your ears and imagination to places where a number of authors aspire to take with their tales. And today we have poetry. Poetry written by Rachel Faith. Now, Rachel has written for uh Voice Within Before, edition one. We had two of her tales, one short story and one poem. A new birth was exceptionally breathtaking as it brought together multi-generational trauma of her own family and experience. And so this story here is no less impactful, meaning that Rachel Flace has been doing a lot of workshopping and improving her craft and being involved with writers' groups. And this particular uh poem comes out of a word called climb, which has another meaning to be adulterous, and she took on Bellingen, where the place she lives, she took it on in that vision of potentially Bellingen can make and break uh certain people's relationships. I don't know if that's true or not, uh, in regards to the collective, uh, but she knows that to be true in her experiences of being there for many, many years now. I do just want to correct that climb does not mean adulterous, another word for, but she's put adulterous climb together to describe the Bellingian curse of this butcher bird. So I just needed to explain that. So this story is called The Bellingon's Butcher Bird Curse, and I can assure you I don't think I've looked at a butcher bird the same way after this poem and always wished it good fortune along its way. But yes, so I'm here to narrate with you Bellingen's Butcher Bird Curse by Rachel Fay. First one it could be a myth or simply a lie that the butcher bird curse is alive, tempting the sweet bellow wives to fly south from their seemingly happy beehives. It's happened before, too many to count, where women have strayed from their home, as if mesmerized by a pied piper tune which leads them to wander and roam. The legend is told of a couple who marked their day to be happily wed, on the eve of the altar skipped out of town with a pretty young lass, it is said. The scorn jilted bride went west for the hills, beyond plateau to an aching cold shack, in dread locks and hemp clothes she dithered her life, alone, save for a butcher pack. Now the butcher birds blame for this curse on our town, singing high in a firewheel tree, its pretty sing song like a gosma's spell, leading women to frolic, then flee. Some women have left town to never return, mournful, hapless, bereft, a butcher, a baker, a leather belt maker said farewell down tools, then left Verse two Last market day morn our riparian town burst forth with feverish life. Youngsters abuzz beneath right golden sun, a busker controlled with his fife. The park swelled with the crowd, in droves they descended to barter, chit chat and buy goods, handmade and homegrown, fresh bake and spray free, or garlic brightens the mood. The market stores flanked with produce and treats, kneath pines and flaming red trees. A jolly man laughed behind veggies and herbs, his wife pondered a delicate breeze. She breathed in the scents, a mingling cuisine of rusty honey and chai. She watched as a flock of fine feathered birds flew, blew in on the luminous sky. The band swung into life, a bearded man sang of four seasons to grace this one day. Love as they rose for a dance on the grass, tempting sunshine and good will to stay. The man sang up a storm, a subliminal cla code caught the ear of our jolly man's wife. His tawny coat flared as he twittled a tail delivered on the wing of some strife. Verse three But another song struck the chords of the air from a scarlet tree down by the hill, where a black and white bird with its prey hooking beak launched into familiar trill. An elder she pointed to the feathery lark An omen she cried to the crowd, but the bird carried on as if it lost in a dream, yet gloating as if it were proud. The broody sky rolled into condents of cloud with a sorrowful shade of dismay. Gossip hung low in the air above town, our jolly man shadowed in grey. The locals they know the weather will show its moody, menopausal on heat, if it fancies a fling with a stormier fare, it sizzles a bolt at your feet. Shawls of wool garments wrapped thespian girls with cluths press down on this day. Men with suspicion lead wives to their homes, skipping girls quiet in their play. Men batten down hatches, locked ladies indoors distress distrusting the old doch climb, when the weather shape shifts, this birds lacking song leads queen bees and drones in their crime Verse four Jolly's wife Dash departs to the scene as thunder growled low by her side. She sought out the ripe parts of beard song man on tinder they planned where they'd hide. Mr Jolly, he prayed that the Budgabog song would spare him his tenderly bride. He slaved over Sir Sto, served up lashes of tongue, their bedroom, his glory, his pride. Oh jolly man yeah with his fist to the sky You betrayed me, you ungrateful tart He fell to his knees, the rain pelted his face. I loved you, you've broken my heart So bachelors, fiance and man married two You can ignore, dismiss or pray that the butcher bird song is a pie in the sky, but no Jolly Man's wife got away.