Harvest Home

Next appeared a lovely figure, all in white, a long shimmering dress trailing to the floor, her head covered by a white veil embroidered with flowers. She stood for a moment in the doorway like a bird poised for flight, then moved down the aisle, almost floating rather than walking, her features hidden, her hands clasped before her.

“The Corn Maiden,” I heard people near me whispering, and I knew this was Sophie Hooke. When she got to the stage her maidens came and led her to her place.

Next came six young village bloods carrying aloft what looked like a giant ear of corn, its contents hidden by a wrapping of husks, and this ear was deposited on the stage.

There was a delay, a stage wait that seemed almost connived, and the audience strained and fidgeted, as if the suspense were unbearable. “Bring him on!” shouted one man. “Show us him,” called another. “Come and make the corn,” a third urged. “Aye, make the corn-make the corn!” It became a clamor echoing to the rafters, with the women joining in, and I tried to recall where I had heard the phrase used before. A line in Gracie Everdeen’s letter to Roger Penrose? Then, suddenly appearing, there stepped into the light the majestic figure of the Harvest Lord himself, a pleated mantle of bright scarlet swirling behind him. He went down the aisle with a long stride, and when he reached the stage he stood center in a spotlight, arms outstretched in generous acknowledgment, the women in the audience visibly charmed, the men now satisfied, all rejoicing at his presence.

Craning my neck as, with a quick flourish of red, he tossed the end of his cloak over his arm, I tried to discover if the costume beneath was the same the figure in the cornfield had worn. What I saw appeared to be sewn of handwoven fabric, embroidered, a duplicate of the figure in the quilt. Nor was he wearing the odd little corn cap I had seen on the night of the “experience.”

The other players had taken up various positions around the stage: the Corn Maiden sat to one side surrounded by a ring of her ladies, the Harvest Lord beside her, all watching as Robert Dodd entered from the wings and began the story of the growing of the corn.

“And the plow entered the earth,” Robert said, “to make the corn. The furrow was turned, and the seed was planted and the earth was fulfilled. Willingly the earth received the seed and the seed sprouted and put forth its leaf. Rain and sun in their changing but never to be broken cycles nourished the crop and it was good, this peaceful time of waiting till the harvest.”

While the narration proceeded, the actors pantomimed the action. First the Harvest Lord and the Corn Maiden came center stage, facing each other. There was a general sigh of anticipation and an audible whisper of “making the corn” rippled through the audience as the Corn Maiden’s ladies lifted away her veil, revealing the radiant Sophie Hooke. Her long blond hair was entwined with flowers and strings of corn kernels, and her blue eyes were huge and innocent as she looked up at Justin, who embraced her. Then they proceeded to “make the corn.” They walked to opposite ends of the stage while two boys wearing great curving horns came drawing a plow. Justin seized the handles and guided the plowshare across the floor of the stage, and at the opposite end of the furrow Sophie held herself ready, ducking nimbly between the horns as they came at her, then skipping over the plowshare and running to the other end of the stage. The horns turned-the plow, and Justin, too-as he now recrossed the stage and the action was repeated. Sophie was waiting to meet him, and again she passed between the horns and over the plowshare.

“Plow the furrow!” someone called; the woman next to me clasped her hands before her, and her husband struck his thigh with enthusiasm. When the field had been plowed, the horned boys and the plow were taken away, while the women used hoes to till the soil all around Sophie and Justin, who again faced each other, in the middle of the stage, waiting for the rain to nourish the ground. The maidens dipped their hands in copper ewers brimming with water, letting the drops fall from their fingers to the earth. Next the seeds were planted, four kernels laid on the stage boards, the young men working with bags slung over their shoulders, just as we had seen them on the day we first came to the village.

All this took place on Planting Day, which was during the Moon of Sowing, and after more rain, the audience became very still, for now it was Spring Festival time and behind the players rose the waxing moon, a cardboard cutout pulled along on a string. Enthroned, the Harvest Lord was now invested: a magnificent crown of intricately woven corn ears and husks was planted atop Justin’s corn-colored hair. Now Sophie, as his consort, was likewise crowned with ceremony and applause. Afterward, their outer robes were taken from them and the Harvest Lord and the Corn Maiden danced together, she demure and shy, a little frightened at his advances, yet encouraging them, too, he stomping heavily on the stage and moving around her in prescribed ritualistic steps.

The courting dance ended. Now-during the period called the Moon of the Good Gathering-the Harvest Lord strode to the footlights and addressed the audience.

“I am the Harvest Lord. The sower of the seed. The King of the Corn. You have made me all-powerful, and in return I offer you the bounty of the earth. I am he. I am he.” As he spoke, he made gestures of giving, while the spectators half rose in their seats, their hands reaching as though to receive his largess.

“Give’t! Give’t!” the men shouted, fingers outstretched in a catching gesture.

“And do ye not,” called another, “be ye curst.”

“Aye, be ye curst.”

“And damned.”

“Aye, then do ye be damned.”

Justin nodded to them, still holding out his hands in his great gesture of giving. “Shall I be cursed then?”

“No!” they cried. “No!”

“Do I drought?”

“No!”

“Do I blight?”

“No!”

“Then tell me your bidding.”

“Make thee the corn!”

“What, with the Mother?”

“Make thee the corn!”

“Yes-with another.”

This response concluded, he smiled, showing his white teeth, then bowed and turned, striding about the stage and lingering briefly with each of the maidens as if he could have his way with any, and they eager to oblige him, but he had eye for no other than the Corn Maiden, the rapturous Sophie, who sat by watching.

Then Fred Minerva pranced about in his corn tatters and, as Harvest Fool, nipped up the skirt of Justin’s tunic, making asides to the audience: “Hey, girls, now there’s a plow to make the corn with! You’ll be harrowed for sure.” Nobody seemed to mind the ribald talk, everyone laughing good-naturedly; one man crowed to Justin, “Hey, old cock-a-doodle-doo!” and another cupped his hands and shouted, “There’s a cock’ll do!” When the fun was over Robert resumed the story:

“And in the way of the seasons and of time, the earth was quickened and proved fruitful and the ears swelled in the husk: the sun lent his glory, decreeing the Harvest Lord should be powerfully endowed; the moon gave him the magic that only she may give; in her turn, she decreed that while the Harvest Lord sat upon his throne and was young and vital all the crops would grow, the people would prosper, that man would have to eat. And the earth burgeoned forth and readied her gift for the taking.”

The Moon of Good Gathering waned and became the Moon of No Repentance, and during this time Justin danced with all the maidens. Though I watched carefully, thinking at some time to see the figure-or a similar one- from the cornfield, I watched in vain. Other than the Corn Maiden herself, no one appeared who might have given me a clue to my riddle.

Next, the children I had seen from the porch came onstage, dressed in corn costumes. They were the growing plants, and they formed the rows between which Justin and the girls danced. Then, as Justin appeared to grow tired and his movements became languorous, he knelt beside Sophie and put his head in her lap. Robert continued the narration:

“And there was wind and cold, but neither sun nor moon nor anything good, for the earth slept. But under her cold white pillow lay a secret, which only men who have tilled the soil may know, and while the earth received unto her the Old Lord, and held him in slumbering embrace, her womb at the same time prepared itself for new birth, and this was the secret that every husbandman knew. And when she threw aside her blanket once again, when Planting Day returned, the Lord who had been the Young Lord, but was now in his turn the Harvest Lord,