Shine on harvest moon
Sept 25, 2017 10:48:29 GMT -5
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Stace Matthews and The Anarchist like this
Post by Grimm on Sept 25, 2017 10:48:29 GMT -5
There comes a time for warm days and cooler nights. When fog banks crawl up off the river to settle in the lower valley and the deeper hollows (like, say, All Souls Hollow). The Dimming has settled on Hangtown. The smell of mowing and the last of the summer garden fills the air. A smoldering rind pulls you along.
To mark this change in seasons, to welcome in the shorter days and longer nights and encroaching killing frost, the Harvest Fest is in full vigor. And what do we have here?
This is the kind of place where Whitey Ford would indulge in too much cider and wander out in front of an ox cart. Where he’d either insult or attempt liberties with the hideous crone offering her myriad methods of fortune telling. She’ll trace your love lines and read your palm. She’ll pour molten lead in a cauldron of water and read the resulting runes. She’ll spill out chicken entrails in the dirt and tell you how you’ll die. Whitey would pick fights with children playing games. He would rave about how wonderful he was. In general, acting as an obnoxious annoyance (you know, claaaaaasic Whitey) until the blacksmith caved in his skull with a hammer still glowing from the forge.
Autumnal accoutrements, those foddershocks, squash, and pumpkins, line the ways. Jack o’ Lanterns leer in the form of pumpkins and turnips. Shrunken heads, twisted visages, lighting the way for the dead. Or keeping the dead away, depending on your relationship with them. Regardless of your stance on haints and spirits, don’t look too deep into their eyes. Don’t leave them out until the shells collapse in upon themselves. Until the rot turns to all-out stink and they dissolve. Do not disrespect them like that.
Over there on the edge of the festival, there’s the corn maze. The scythe-men have mowed the trails into esoteric symbols that make those lost in its midst uncomfortable, yet can’t explain why. Claustrophobic, with difficulty breathing. Lost, with no hope of an exit. Let’s hope you don’t trace the wrong paths in the wrong direction lest you unleash something unpleasant.
There in the corn maze stands a ragged scarecrow, all shreds and tatters. Twisting in the wind to follow your every move. Even so, an enormous crow all feathers and darkness sits on its shoulders, croaking invectives at anyone within earshot. That’s everyone.
Also, there in the corn maze, stalks Grimm in his Harvest Fest mask. Carved out of an ash tree before the blight hit, carved by some Dillinger years past. Even in the mask’s seemingly empty eyes lies a smoldering dark hate, a glacial dissonance that warps the light. It greets you with a jagged grin suggesting it was carved against its will. The Fiend in the Furrows knows the way in and out.
This is the kind of festival where the longest lines form for Snap Apple. The lucky soul in charge spears an apple on one end of a sharpened stick and fixes a lit bayberry candle on the other. He or she spins the stick around while the wee ones attempt to take a bite of the apple without also getting a face full of hot wax. It’s fun for kids!
Mumblety-peg comes in a close second. Here, I’ll show you. All you do is toss your pocket knife in the ground as close to your foot as possible. Don’t worry, if you impale your foot you win by default. Some folks take the game a little too seriously. They’re the ones limping the rest of the festival. Either way, the loser pulls out the knife with their teeth.
Now you try.
Here comes John Barleycorn making his rounds, dishing out stout and strong cider. Despite the mirth and merriment in the moment, there remains the undercurrent of knowing that in a matter of days you’ll be at the mercy of your preparations throughout the year. Will the harvest be enough? Will you spend your last days huddled in a famine house? Piled high on a wagon (the same one offering hay rides over there at the moment) with the rest of your unfortunate neighbors? Time will tell.
The final sheaf cut holds the hopes for a prosperous new year. So of course the Lord and Lady of the Harvest takes it to church to be blessed in a marriage ceremony of the sacred and the profane. Together they fashion a corn dolly to rest on their mantle. There it stands until spring arrives, at which point they will take it to the fields, tear it asunder, and scatter the bits to assure a good crop.
Death. Burial. Resurrection.
Be mindful of death.
This is the kind of place where Gabriel would set up his pulpit on a stump and rant in condemnation. A sermon explaining just how they’re all heathens and pagans, and that they would do well to repent and follow his lord and savior (Seromine who?). All manner of false doctrine, really. Until these heathens and pagans got tired of his shtick and forcefully carried him off to the Wicker Man. You speak of sacrifice and redemption? Here go you go, Gabriel. Enjoy the grand conflagration.
At night, fires burn in multitudes over the fields, flickering over the hay. Pumpkin moonshine glints along the borders.
It’s the kind of place Kyle Shane would…well, Kyle Shane wouldn’t come to a place like this. Too analog. Not enough distractions. Like he’ll lose his grip on whatever passes for his reality and he finds himself in a place he dares not walk.
But, wonder of wonders, there he is. Or, at least, there’s a facsimile of the Game Changer trying his best to get out of the corn maze. Trying to ignore that horrible crow. Trying to avoid Grimm. As if that was possible.
You know you shouldn’t be here.
To mark this change in seasons, to welcome in the shorter days and longer nights and encroaching killing frost, the Harvest Fest is in full vigor. And what do we have here?
This is the kind of place where Whitey Ford would indulge in too much cider and wander out in front of an ox cart. Where he’d either insult or attempt liberties with the hideous crone offering her myriad methods of fortune telling. She’ll trace your love lines and read your palm. She’ll pour molten lead in a cauldron of water and read the resulting runes. She’ll spill out chicken entrails in the dirt and tell you how you’ll die. Whitey would pick fights with children playing games. He would rave about how wonderful he was. In general, acting as an obnoxious annoyance (you know, claaaaaasic Whitey) until the blacksmith caved in his skull with a hammer still glowing from the forge.
Autumnal accoutrements, those foddershocks, squash, and pumpkins, line the ways. Jack o’ Lanterns leer in the form of pumpkins and turnips. Shrunken heads, twisted visages, lighting the way for the dead. Or keeping the dead away, depending on your relationship with them. Regardless of your stance on haints and spirits, don’t look too deep into their eyes. Don’t leave them out until the shells collapse in upon themselves. Until the rot turns to all-out stink and they dissolve. Do not disrespect them like that.
Over there on the edge of the festival, there’s the corn maze. The scythe-men have mowed the trails into esoteric symbols that make those lost in its midst uncomfortable, yet can’t explain why. Claustrophobic, with difficulty breathing. Lost, with no hope of an exit. Let’s hope you don’t trace the wrong paths in the wrong direction lest you unleash something unpleasant.
There in the corn maze stands a ragged scarecrow, all shreds and tatters. Twisting in the wind to follow your every move. Even so, an enormous crow all feathers and darkness sits on its shoulders, croaking invectives at anyone within earshot. That’s everyone.
Also, there in the corn maze, stalks Grimm in his Harvest Fest mask. Carved out of an ash tree before the blight hit, carved by some Dillinger years past. Even in the mask’s seemingly empty eyes lies a smoldering dark hate, a glacial dissonance that warps the light. It greets you with a jagged grin suggesting it was carved against its will. The Fiend in the Furrows knows the way in and out.
This is the kind of festival where the longest lines form for Snap Apple. The lucky soul in charge spears an apple on one end of a sharpened stick and fixes a lit bayberry candle on the other. He or she spins the stick around while the wee ones attempt to take a bite of the apple without also getting a face full of hot wax. It’s fun for kids!
Mumblety-peg comes in a close second. Here, I’ll show you. All you do is toss your pocket knife in the ground as close to your foot as possible. Don’t worry, if you impale your foot you win by default. Some folks take the game a little too seriously. They’re the ones limping the rest of the festival. Either way, the loser pulls out the knife with their teeth.
Now you try.
Here comes John Barleycorn making his rounds, dishing out stout and strong cider. Despite the mirth and merriment in the moment, there remains the undercurrent of knowing that in a matter of days you’ll be at the mercy of your preparations throughout the year. Will the harvest be enough? Will you spend your last days huddled in a famine house? Piled high on a wagon (the same one offering hay rides over there at the moment) with the rest of your unfortunate neighbors? Time will tell.
The final sheaf cut holds the hopes for a prosperous new year. So of course the Lord and Lady of the Harvest takes it to church to be blessed in a marriage ceremony of the sacred and the profane. Together they fashion a corn dolly to rest on their mantle. There it stands until spring arrives, at which point they will take it to the fields, tear it asunder, and scatter the bits to assure a good crop.
Death. Burial. Resurrection.
Be mindful of death.
This is the kind of place where Gabriel would set up his pulpit on a stump and rant in condemnation. A sermon explaining just how they’re all heathens and pagans, and that they would do well to repent and follow his lord and savior (Seromine who?). All manner of false doctrine, really. Until these heathens and pagans got tired of his shtick and forcefully carried him off to the Wicker Man. You speak of sacrifice and redemption? Here go you go, Gabriel. Enjoy the grand conflagration.
At night, fires burn in multitudes over the fields, flickering over the hay. Pumpkin moonshine glints along the borders.
It’s the kind of place Kyle Shane would…well, Kyle Shane wouldn’t come to a place like this. Too analog. Not enough distractions. Like he’ll lose his grip on whatever passes for his reality and he finds himself in a place he dares not walk.
But, wonder of wonders, there he is. Or, at least, there’s a facsimile of the Game Changer trying his best to get out of the corn maze. Trying to ignore that horrible crow. Trying to avoid Grimm. As if that was possible.
You know you shouldn’t be here.
