Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.

Another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to the one who sat on the cloud, ‘Use your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.’ So the one who sat on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped.

— Revelation 14:14–16

In Syncopated Rhythm

Hills of tender green were scattered about in syncopated rhythm, and the late-morning sun, which bathed the land in apricot light, announced that the cold which had paralysed the province right up to the first days of April was slowly releasing its icy grip. On a distant ridge, a little village was bashfully uncovering itself, wedged into a rounded slope and pierced through by the bell tower of a church. The bright-green forests revealed that the trees within them were mostly ancient beeches interspersed with lindens – trees that in these parts and those times held special importance for the populace. The hard wood of the beech tree had economic importance, for it produced the most bountiful warmth in household hearths. But for other fires, not meant for heating homes, it was best to use faster-burning woods drenched in animal fat, which were then tossed into a pile. On some occasions, linden trees were involved. To be sure, when it blossoms the linden gives off a heady perfume and its dried flowers have the power to soothe coughs and reduce fever, but the wood of the tree, with its particular softness, is also ideal for carving gods. And carving and cavorting with lindenwood gods was sufficient reason, in the late sixteenth century, for the carvers and cavorters to roast at the stake and be burned to the bone.

The old trees kept watch over memories from an age the local populace did not remember first-hand but that still rustled in secret among them. The little villages, sprinkled with modest churches, were watched over by the tall and mighty old trees, and, not infrequently, an oak might hold the foundation and walls of a church in the tight grip of its roots. As evening approached, the little churches would ring their bells and announce to honest folk that it was time to milk whatever there was to be milked and to fill their stomachs with whatever there was to fill them, so they wouldn’t churn and growl until morning, and then to go to bed and, before falling asleep, if their bodies allowed it, make a new Christian – a Catholic one, not a Lutheran! And then the churches, too, would shut their eyes and still their bells in a well-deserved slumber. That was how things were supposed to be. That was what was demanded and expected of a God-feari