Straw handicrafts
Jenny: Are you really interested? I can show you how to make your own figures, if you like! There was still some straw left in the hallway. In the sacks with food left by the Puppeteer.
Task: Find a straw horse in the hallway. You will not find the item immediately.
Jenny: Usually the Puppeteer brings boxes with groats and canned food, but today there are sacks with fresh fruits, vegetables and bread. Could it be that he’s visited a fair?
Jenny: I got distracted again, sorry. Lughnasadh lasts for more than just one day. Because you can’t finish the reaping in just a few hours. That’s why the first and the last sheafs of straw are equally important.
Jenny: The reapers went to the field and cut ripe ears of wheat. They were well-dressed, and the ceremony was very festive. But we don’t have to cut anything. Do you see those ears that have fallen out of sacks?
Janny takes a bunch of straw along with several ears and shows how to make figures. You and Isami watch artful movements of the girl’s hands carefully and repeat after her.
Jenny: The celebration starts with lots of fun, but the ending of harvesting comes with many superstitions. People believed that the last sheaf held the spirit of plants, grains and fields. The one who cuts down the last sheaf harms that spirit. But that was during the time when all the villagers were working on the same common field.
Jenny has already finished her handicraft, a bunch of straw in Isami’s hands is starting to look like a horse, but you’re getting nowhere yet.
Jenny: When everyone got their own plots, it was no longer important how fast you gather the crops. Someone from the family had to cut the last sheaf anyway. That’s when they started decorating it with old clothes and ribbons.
Jenny: If the sheaf was collected by the sunset, it was given different names of the same meaning: the old woman, witch, crone. And if it was cut early in the morning, it was named maiden.
Tan: This is amazing, Jenny. How do you know so much?
Jenny turns red.
You completed the task and received some points of freedom and some tokens.
Jenny: Thank you, Isami, but it’s really not that much. I’ve read a thing or two about Imbolc in the winter, and Lughnasadh is on the opposite side of the Celtic calendar. Reading about one I’ve also remembered the other. I’m sure I’ve mixed something up though.
