Thomas Tryon - Harvest Home

“ O Mag-thyr… Da-mag-thyr… Da-myyg____________________ar … Ah, ldhu, Mag-thyr …”

A tongue spoken before any of those preceding, and the women, hand-locked in circle within the grove, had the tongue, for the old woman gave it to them, but though they did not know the meaning of the words they comprehended their import, for this was part of the mystery they shared in; and as they chanted, the flutes fell silent and only the drums and tambourines continued, their repeated monotony bringing the celebrants closer and closer to the magic that lay behind this night of nights.

“Mag-thyr… Da-mag-thyr…”

A steady tempo measuring out the cadence and rhythm. And the tongue became tongueless, became sounds only, iterated again and again as the old woman turned the circle, her fisted hand giving the meter to the drums and tambourines, giving the women the chant, and the words she knew, the syllables, the sounds of the tongue that was no tongue at all: “ Ah, ldhu… ldhu… yah… halg… ogrl… na… ”

Neither English nor German nor Latin nor Celtic nor Sumerian nor any other language, for it was the tongue men had spoken at the dawn of time, when they first learned to communicate.

And at length, as the old woman circled, giving to them the sounds, some of the women’s heads began to sway and their bodies followed where their heads led them and their joined hands parted while, their throats giving utterance to the sounds, they fell to the ground and tore up the grass and dug at the earth like animals, swine rooting, groveling, rolling upon one another, writhing in hysteria, with heaving breast and flailing limb, and the old woman stood above them, driving them, her fist metronomic against the moon, rising, lowering, giving them the tempo and the words. Nothing could stay them now, nothing still them. Wildly they flung themselves where they might, heedless of injury, unaware of reality, swept into hypnotic oblivion, their stomachs expanding, contracting, drinking air that they should rise and chant again, and again fall in frenzy.

And there were some who fell at the feet of the watching Harvest Lord, who had laid his cup aside and sat unmoving and upright, observing the secret rites as they swooned before him, permitting them to extend their quivering hands to touch him: piteous, tender hands, despairing hands; surely they must touch their last. Beloved Lord, O lively, warm male flesh, O magnificent Lord, we thank thee, the Mother thanks thee-

“ O Mother… Magthyr… ldhu, ah, ldhu …”

Louder grew the cry, louder the chant, more serpentine their writhings as they yearned toward him, rushing from him to tear their hair, heads flung back, open-mouthed to shout unintelligible obscenities at the heaven that was to deprive them of their beloved.

Now it would be his death, the end of Justin Hooke. But no; still it was not yet. There was more for the living Justin, one thing more for him to do. They swooped upon him and brought him from where he stood beside the Corn Maiden to a spot near the center of the clearing where the earth had been hoed, and from my hiding place I could see the blank glitter of his eyes, the half-lidded look of pleasure as they strewed themselves about his feet, rubbing their cheeks along his legs, upward to his thighs, their eager hands reaching under his tunic to fondle and caress him. His head dropped back and a deep-throated moan of pleasure issued from his mouth as he became aroused, and through the parted strips of corn leaves appeared the living malehood of the Harvest Lord.

“Ya-ldhu!” they screamed, rushing to touch it, feel the erect object of their adoration, the great rooster that had occasioned the ribald comments at their kitchen doors. “Ya — ldhu! Ahm-lot! AHM-lot!” Cries of torment, their frenzy now insupportable. The sight and touch of the Priapean object induced a wild pantomime of devotion, an obscene reverence to the maleness of the Harvest Lord.

They were working at his back, binding his hands behind with braided thongs, rendering them useless. Then the Corn Maiden was brought to him and I realized what must follow. Together, in front of the others, they were to make the corn!

The veiled figure stood before him, leaf strips from neck to thigh, white legs gleaming, and arms, as she brought them up in a worshipful gesture, violently trembling.

Hands reached to draw away the veil, and as it fluttered, then slid away entirely, I stared, only half hearing the twig crack behind the tree as the waiting presence took a step forward. I paid scant attention to my danger as in that single terrible moment I realized the mistake I had made, and to what extent I had underrated the Widow Fortune’s powers of persuasion. If Tamar Penrose had been a candidate, and Sally and Margie, they had all lost. The Widow had wanted new blood for the Corn Maiden; she had got it.

It was Beth.

Like one entranced, she stood as if she had stepped from a sleeping dream into a waking one. Hands reached to support her as she faced Justin; the Harvest Lord and the Corn Maiden: the man and the woman: my friend and my wife. She had eyes for nothing but him. In a blinding flash, I thought back to the night of the “experience”: Beth in the chair, her hand raised. She had not been pulling down the shade; she had seen him, was acknowledging him. Already the Widow had begun her corruption.

Her body swayed as if drawn to him by a magnet. She tried to lift her arms, they dropped to her sides; she went slack, crumpled under the power of the keg liquor. Hands bore her down, where her fingers dug at the tilled earth. Dirtied, they became claws and began rending the thin fabric of the leaves that covered her, exposing her breasts and belly; then, looking up at the figure towering over her, she moaned and her hand reached upward. She wanted him. She wanted to take him, to take him inside her, to couple with him.

I cried out, and began tearing at the covering of vines across the tree hollow, hearing the step at my side, twigs cracking, then being confronted in my struggle by the red-lipped face of Tamar Penrose, her red-nailed fingers ripping at the screen of leaves to expose me, calling loudly, “ He has seen! ” heads turning while I sought to free myself, enraged that the vines which had sequestered me now became my fetters and held me fast, while with angry cries they came at me, a wave of vengeful harpies. I cursed them, trying to free my hands and feet, feeling the sharpness of their nails as they tore at the vines, and “Denier!” they shouted, astonished and furious, “he has denied us,” while I yanked and pulled, saw Tamar’s glittering eyes, in my mind saw Missy’s deader ones, heard her say “You will be sorrier!” the blank yet knowing look; “Kill him!” they cried. Justin and Beth turned with uncomprehending stares, not knowing what had happened. “Kill him!” the women cried again.

“No!” someone commanded-the Widow’s voice, but not the Widow at all: some bedeviled creature, unearthly in her fury, her cap fallen off, hair wildly hanging about her shoulders, her black dress smutted. The Widow in the madness of her own dream, into which I rashly had intruded.

“No! He shall not be killed yet. He has come to see. He has come to witness. Let him see. Let him witness. Let him see the Harvest Lord at work. Let him see the furrow plowed! Let him see the making of the corn.” While many hands imprisoned me in the hollow of the tree, she turned back and at her signal the drugged Justin was brought again to stand spread-legged over the supine body of Beth, his arms pinned behind, while they spread her legs apart and he stepped between them and knelt, and eagerly they guided him into the darkness between her legs.

I went mad. Waves of nausea and horror swept me. A stoppage in my ears as if all sound were suddenly cut off, a switch thrown, a plug pulled, leaving only dull interior explosions, painful sparks behind my straining eyeballs, the blood surging through the taut veins in my neck, my teeth clamping onto my lower lip to stop the soundless words I screamed, trying to turn away, to shut my eyes, feeling the sting of Tamar’s nails as they bit into my arm until I was made to watch again.