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In some places, there`s a tradition (a pagan thing, has tae be said) o` telling stories for the harvest times. I ken it`s a peedie bit early, but just in case I cannae get online at the time, here`s one o` them. ;)



The old man wept as the crofthouse burned. All his possessions still laid within it, such as they were....the most precious of them, perhaps...memories....
Into the night his neighbours battled with pails of well water, futilely throwing it over the thatch of the roof, ablaze and bright with scarlet and orange and gold, such bonny colours for such a destructive force.
And eventually, breathless and weary beyond belief, the old man sat on the milking stool beside the well and stayed the hands of the neighbours, and bade them go home...."For there`s nothing to save, see you...I thank you all, but it`s over now, go home, it`s all lost..."
And seeing the hurt in his eyes, they averted their own and turned away, muttering softly among themselves, wondering how the fire started, what he would do now, where he would go now....

As he sat and watched the crofthouse burn down to embers, the glow of it held his gaze and enthralled his mind and heart...in the coals of his home he watched the past unfold.....
and saw the time he carried his fair young bride over the threshold of it, her laughing blue eyes caught in his, her kisses sweet and soft, and oh but the joy found within that cot beside the peat fire, the sweet scent of it perfuming her hair as he buried his face in the thick river of it.....
and saw the time of the sowing of the rigs, the seed sprayed carefully into drills that promised future meal, future fodder, enough to fatten both himself and his wife, and the newborn laddie, and the kye grazing the hill nearby as well....
and saw the harvests, years upon years of them, sometimes fat, a triumph of work and nature combined, the blessings of the Quiet Folks who kissed the rigs with plenty, other times lean, when the gods of the skies warred above the land and blasted crop and beast alike with chilling cold and too much water, where the thin crops were carefully stored and protected against rat and beetle and greedy brownies......
and saw the memory of each years sheaf, no matter how fat or lean the harvest, tied up with ribbon, his bonny wifes job that had been, for hadn`t it always been a woman`s thing, the sheaf, the doll, the goddess?
And brought into the crofthouse she was carefully placed among the rafters, tied up near the fire to collect the rich smoke from the peat so that when she was buried at the Spring sowing, she would enrich the thin, acid soil and add the magic of the Auld Folks to the barley and oats...
and unseen, the old mans eyes wept a river of tears as in his mind he watched again, his son leave to fight the Sassain, and watched him return home again, a corpse washed and laid out by the crone across the glen, and watched the years unfold and saw again his wife lose heart and fade before his eyes, the thick river of hair thin and greying, the bright blue of her eyes losing the lustre which had so easily drawn his gaze in that first glimpse of them, laughing, shining eyes they had been...
but she had died in that cot bed by the peat fire, and he himself had buried her and given her soul to the Folks of the hills to carry away and keep for him until he could join her....

And all that night, he sat alone, and watched his home burn and become a black, diminished, smoking heap of rubble, watched his memories dance in the heat haze until the sun rose and painted the land around him with gold and rose, the softness of a highland dawn heavy with dew and magic....

It was the tiny flash of colour among the burned embers that drew him there, to where the peat fire had its hearth, now dark, now cold.
Using his bare hands, unheeding of the heat still trapped within the charcoal of the wood, he sifted the ashes to bring out the colour, and drew forth the ribbon, one of his wife`s it had been, bonny bonny blue to match her young eyes....
and within the circle of the ribbon the perfectly made sheaf doll fell into his trembling hands. Straw hair moved a little in the morning breeze, bright and gold, seeds fell in a glittering arc from the full skirts, bright and gold, and the whole Little Goddess might have been made this very morning....and yet she had come through the fire unscathed.
He took the sheaf to the milking stool by the well and sat down to look, his mind numb, uncomprehending still the nights events, only feeling the loss of his life, and still, after so many years, of his wife.....

As the sun rose the neighbours returned to find the old man still sitting, his back leaning against the stone well, cradling the remains of what had been a wheat sheaf goddess in his hands. It was burned, and almost unrecognisable but for the faded blue ribbon about the waist of it. They shook their heads, for he must have gone into the hot embers to reach for it, because his hands had blistered and bled.
Sending for the village crone, they stood in silent respect for their neighbour, a kindly man who had led a rich life and always respected the land that fed them all.
No breath fell from his lips, no life from his eyes, and when they bore his body away to be washed and laid out, only a collie dog noticed in the still smoking embers of the crofthouse, the shades of the man and his wife, young now, smiling now, arms entwined, holding the bright gold and blue beribboned wheat sheaf Goddess.