Harvest Sacrifice

Harvest Sacrifice was a yearly autumn-time ritual practiced by villages who resettled the northern hills of Nīwulā Valley after the dawn of the Second Age. Having escaped the destruction happening in the north, they found the lands of Nīwulā Valley still held their fair share of difficulties.

The traditional Harvest Festival included the burning of a man made of straw. During the ancient times, when the civilization of Nīwulā Valley was still young, this man was made in the image of kaehme, "the Harvestman" or "the Grainman", who was an aspect of Sō worshipped in all matters related to agriculture.

"They gathered us a week before the ritual, just to make sure there was enough for the pyres. Nine. Nine they took this year, bound and gagged and left in the dark cellar. It had been eight the year before, but the harvest had begun dwindling again."

"Tomorrow they'll drag us out when the day is at its end and tie us to wooden stakes waiting in a ring around a great figure of a man built from straw. The harvestman it's called, aspect of the ancient Sun God. Used to be it was enough to burn him and leave the rest of us alone."

"Decades ago there was a time the grains did not fill the land with gold come end of summer. What weather and animals could not pluck from the ground, disease and death took before the fields were full-grown."

"You have to understand, we were starving. Children cried, if they had not gone silent altogether. The priests were helpless. They sacrificed animals, a custom left behind long ago on account of its barbaric nature. That worked—thank the gods—and for a while the crying seized. Laughter remained a rare sound, but we could live. The was hope, if nothing else."

"The weather grew colder again. The good years could no longer hold on with the blood of animals alone. That summer the priest decided that another had to be sacrificed alongside the harvestman. He chose himself. Come dusk, we tied him to a stake next to the straws and lit a fire beneath him. I can still hear his screams, though the words were those of faith, not fear or pain."

"That year the harvest proved unlike any before. Golden fields as far as the eye could see, taller than any of us had ever witnessed. Fish leaped into our boats, rabbits to our traps. The weather remained calm and warm, a soft embrace with not a storm in sight until winter rains came. We were saved."

"That lasted, I think two or three years. The harvests kept dwindling, but that was nothing compared to before. We had enough for ourselves and more to trade with our neighbours. We lived like kings, for a while. But then came the time when the grain was once again barely enough to sustain us, and little could be gathered from the woods or stream. That year the priests took two."

"Year after year the same cycle continued. When the land began to die around us and food grew scarce, another was taken with the rest. Three, four, five, six. We could not keep up. We began with those who would not be missed—criminals, outsiders, the unknown and unwanted. But when those were not enough...that was the first time we had to give of our own flock."

"The priests decided it was the eldest of us who had to sacrifice themselves for the young. They themselves were excused on account of their position, and their ability to fulfill the ritual's requirements. The rest of us had no such luck, but the memories of starvation and small graves lingered in each of our minds."

"This year it will be nine of us, for the first time. Fear grips me as I wait in silent terror for the sun to set. Around me in the damp cellar I hear quiet crying and water dripping from the ceiling. The stench of mold and rotten wheat fill the air. I was never a woman of the gods, and I know prayer is useless now. Is it not for them that we have sacrificed so much? But around me, I hear silent prayers, mumbled words whispered through gagged mouths. I cannot tell if it is mercy of life, or that of a quick death that they pray for."

"No, it is not to the gods above, the Sun and Moon, that I direct my prayers. Had I known it would end up like this, I never would have started with them in the first place. I pray to all the rest, below or in the wilds. The gods of beasts and beings that dwell in the dark of the earth, named and unnamed."

"The night is setting. I see a sliver of the moon through the narrow slits in the walls and the straw roof. Never have I been so terrified of its light. Its pale, deathly light, a veil of white and cold in the dimming night. I see its shape, so familiar, and know the time is near."

"With the last of my wits I call out to any who would hear me, any who would accept and fulfill the curse I bestow upon this village, so they would not reach another year. Another number. Another infernal sacrifice to gods who would take me. Whose priests would leave me to scream and burn until ashes remained. Curse them all. Curse them, and leave them strangling with blood and pain, begging to die. Only to be denied, until they themselves are strapped to stakes and lit aflame. Let them suffer as I have, and twice as much as I will, before death cuts them all away. That is my only wish, for whomever might hear me."