Lady of the Grain

She waits in the wheat fields as the days grow shorter. Some people have seen her near the time of the harvest: a figure crowned in sheaves. Golden cornsilk hair. Eyes the colour of warm honey. She is the reason the farm folk leave corn dollies near the fields. She is the reason why on so many mornings the hewn stalks are soaked with dark brown stains, so much that the ground becomes sodden with it. They bring the blood out for her… until one night when the fields are fallow, and the pigs aren’t enough to feed the village through the winter. That season there is no blood, but the Lady comes to the field, and the Lady comes to collect even if there is none to give.