What Good would a Woman’s Blood be to The Earth?
LORD:
Welcome, Fool.
You have come of your own Free Will to the appointed place.
The Game is over.
POLICEMAN :
Game? What Game?
LORD :
The Game of The Hunted leading The Hunter.
You came here to find Rowan Morrison, but it is We who have found You and brought You Here and controlled your every thought and action since You arrived.
Principally, we persuaded you to think that Rowan Morrison was being held as a sacrifice because our crops failed last year.
POLICEMAN :
I know your crops failed.
I saw the harvest photograph.
LORD :
Oh, yes. They failed, all right, disastrously so... for the first time since my grandfather came Here.
The blossom came but The Fruit withered and died on The Bough.
That must not happen again this year.
It is our most earnest belief that the best way of preventing this is to offer to our God of The Sun and to The Goddess of Our Orchards the most acceptable sacrifice that lies in our power.
Animals are fine, but their acceptability is limited.
A little child is even better, but not nearly as effective as the right kind of adult.
POLICEMAN :
What do you mean, "right kind of adult"?
LORD :
You, Sergeant, are the right kind of adult, as our painstaking researches have revealed.
You, uniquely, were The One We Needed.
A Man who would come Here of his own Free Will.
A Man who has come Here with The Power of a King by representing The Law.
A Man who would come Here as a Virgin.
A Man who has come Here as a Fool.
Get out of my way.
WENCH :
You are The Fool, Mr. Howie -
Punch, one of the great Fool-Victims of History, for you have accepted The Role of King for a day, and who but A Fool would do that?
But you will be revered and anointed as a King.
You will undergo Death and Rebirth - Resurrection, if you like.
The rebirth, sadly, will not be yours, but that of our crops.
I am a Christian, and as a Christian, I Hope for Resurrection.
And even if you kill me now, it is I who will live again, not your damned apples.
Sleep Close and fast
No matter what you do, you can't change the fact that I believe in the Life Eternal, as promised to Us by Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
I believe in The Life Eternal as promised to Us by Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
LORD :
That is good. For believing what you do, we confer upon you a rare gift these days - a Martyr's Death.
You will not only have Life Eternal, but you will sit with The Saints among The Elect.
Come. It is time to keep your appointment with The Wicker Man.