`It is said that the faerie queen took pity on Liselle and let her live on as a butterfly, but nobody knows for sure.` said the old poplar, `But what we do know is that before this the birch had pure white bark, and now all birches are covered in little markings, the language of the birch. These markings say, `Liselle, my princess, I miss you, Liselle my love come back.` ~Taken from Liselle and the Birch Prince, a children’s story by Bryan P. Hunt.

This song was inspired by a children`s story my husband wrote called `Liselle and the Birch Prince`. The fairytale-esque story which tells the tale of how the Birch came to be marked, is centered around a cheerful and bright washer girl named Liselle, an evil prince who sets his intent to make her life as miserable as possible and the trees of the grove that come alive at night at dance. In particular, the Birch tree, who falls in love with Liselle and ultimately is saved by her sacrifice. As soon as I read the story, I knew that it was something very special indeed and would make a wonderful song. It took me over a year to write the music though, as the story is quite long and involved and I could not figure out how to condense it all into a song that wasn`t 20 minutes long! I had the chorus written for literally months and months before I was inspired to write the rest of the lyrics. Then one day I realized that I didn`t need to tell the story with all the intricacies of each character, from an objective point of view, that instead I wanted to give the Birch a voice, and tell *HIS* story. At that point, it all fell together in a matter of hours. The story can still make me cry. The last lines of the song are taken directly from the story, the rest is my interpretation.

As a central theme to this song is the dance that occurs between the Birch and Liselle, not just physically, but the emotional dance that happens in love. To put a string quartet on this song was immensely satisfying, and fits well with the qualtzing quality of the time within this song