10: Barley Rape
A
s
the folk worked their way across the slope in a long line, grasping the full ears of corn in one hand and slashing with the flint sickle in the other, the drums began to beat from behind the long House of Sleep. Its silence was broken now, the only time in the year unless a great Chief should go into its last darkness.
‘Drm-Drm-Drm,’ said the deep drums, the flat dark palms thudding down on the shiny sheepskin that was stretched so tight with its thong round the neck of the booming jar of clay.
‘Drm-Drm-Drm!’ said the drums again.
The folk went on working, hacking the long bodies of the Barley Women, as though they had suddenly become enemies, reaping them, raping them, the antler shafts of sickles already sliding with sweat in their hands. Now backs were beginnin
