The Wicker Man Page #4

I trust the sight of the young

people refreshes you.

No, sir,

it does not refresh me.

Oh, I'm sorry.

One should always be open

to the regenerative influences.

- I understand you're looking for a missing girl.

- I've found her.

- Splendid.

- In her grave.

Your lordship is

a justice of the peace.

I need your permission to exhume

her body, have it transported

to the mainland

for a pathologist's report.

You suspect... foul play?

I suspect murder

and conspiracy to murder.

In that case,

you must go ahead.

Your lordship seems

strangely unconcerned.

I'm confident your suspicions

are wrong, Sergeant.

We don't commit murder up here.

We're a deeply religious people.

Religious!

With ruined churches,

no ministers, no priests...

and children dancing naked.

They do love

their divinity lessons.

But they-they

are-are naked.

Naturally. It's much too dangerous

to jump through the fire

with your clothes on.

What-what religion can-can-can

they possibly be learning...

j- jumping over bonfires?

Parthenogenesis.

What?

Literally, as Miss Rose would doubtless

say in her assiduous way,

reproduction

without sexual union.

Oh, what is all this?

I mean, you-you-you've got

fake-fake-fake biology, fake religion.

Sir, have these children

never heard of Jesus?

Himself the son of a virgin, impregnated,

I believe, by a ghost.

Do sit down, Sergeant.

Shocks are so much better

absorbed with the knees bent.

Please.

Now, those children

out there,

they're jumping

through the flames

in the hope that the god of fire

will make them fruitful.

Really, you can hardly

blame them.

After all, what girl would not

prefer the child of a god

to that of some

acne-scarred artisan?

- And you, you encourage them in this?

- Actively.

It's most important that each new

generation born on Summerisle

be made aware that here

the old gods aren't dead.

But what of the true god...

to whose glory churches and

monasteries have been built

on these islands

for generations past?

Now sir, what of him?

He's dead.

He can't complain.

He had his chance, and in the

modern parlance, he blew it.

- What?

- It's very simple.

Let me show you.

In the last century,

the islanders were starving.

Like our neighbors today, they were

scratching a bare subsistence from sheep

and sea.

Then in 1868, my grandfather

bought this barren island

and began to change things.

A distinguished victorian scientist,

agronomist, free thinker.

How formidably benevolent

he seems.

Essentially the face of a man

incredulous of all human good.

You are very cynical,

my lord.

What attracted my

grandfather to the island,

apart from the profuse source

of wiry labor that it promised,

was the unique combination

of volcanic soil

and the warm gulf stream

that surrounded it.

You see, his experiments

had led him to believe

that it was possible to induce

here the successful growth

of certain new strains of fruit

that he had developed.

So, with typical mid-victorian zeal,

he set to work.

The best way of accomplishing

this, so it seemed to him,

was to rouse the people

from their apathy...

by giving them back

their joyous old gods,

and as a result of

this worship,

the barren island would burgeon and

bring forth fruit in great abundance.

What he did, of course, was to develop

new cultivars of hardy fruits

suited to local conditions.

But, of course, to begin with,

they worked for him because

he fed them and clothed them,

but then later when the trees

starting fruiting,

it became

a very different matter,

and the ministers fled the island,

never to return.

What my grandfather

had started out of expediency,

My father continued out of... Love.

He brought me up the same way -

to reverence the music and the drama

and rituals of the old gods.

To love nature and to fear it,

and to rely on it and to

appease it where necessary.

- He brought me up -

- He brought you up to be a pagan!

A heathen, conceivably, but not,

I hope, an unenlightened one.

Lord Summerisle, I am interested

in one thing:
the law.

But I must remind you, sir,

that despite everything you've said,

you are the subject of a christian country.

Now, sir, if I may have your permission

to exhume the body of Rowan Morrison.

I was under the impression I'd already given it to you.

Ah, there's your transport.

It's been a great pleasure

meeting a christian copper.

There was a tinker lived of late

Who walked the streets of Rhine.

He bore his pack, upon his back

Watches and plugs did cry

Oh, I have brass within my bag

My hammer's full of metal,

And as to skill I work in clouts

And mend a broken kettle.

A maiden did this tinker meet

And to him boldly say: "Oh, sure

My kettle hath much need

If you will pass my way. "

She took the tinker by the hand

And led him to her door.

Says she "My kettle I will show,

And you can clout it sure.

For patching and plugging is his delight

I found that in Rowan Morrison's grave.

- Little Rowan loved the march hares.

- Hmm.

It's sacrilege.

Only if the ground is consecrated

to the christian belief.

Personally, I think it makes

a very lovely transmutation.

I'm sure Rowan is most happy with it.

Do you not think so, Lord Summerisle?

Miss, I hope you don't think that I can

be made a fool of indefinitely.

Where is Rowan Morrison?

Why, here she is - what

remains of her physically.

Her soul, of course, may even now -

Lord Summerisle, where is Rowan Morrison?

Sergeant Howie, I think that...

you are supposed to be the detective here.

A child is reported missing on your island.

At first I'm told there is no such child.

I- I then - I then find that there is,

in fact, but that she has been killed.

I subsequently discover that

there is no death certificate.

and now I find that there is a grave.

There's no body.

Very perplexing for you.

What do you think could have happened?

I think Rowan Morrison was murdered...

under circumstances of pagan barbarity,

which I can scarcely bring myself to believe...

as taking place in the 20th century.

Now, it is my intention tomorrow

to return to the mainland...

and report my suspicions

to the Chief Constable

of the West Highland Constabulary.

And I will demand a full inquiry takes place

into the affairs of this heathen island.

You must, of course, do as you see fit, Sergeant.

Perhaps it's just as well that

you won't be here tomorrow,

to be offended by the sight of our

May Day celebrations here.

Broome, would you kindly

show the Sergeant out?

- This way, sir.

- Good-bye.

Fair maid, says he, your kettle's cracked

the cause is plainly told

There hath so many nails been drove

mine own could not take hold...

There's hardly any produce.

Well, that's it - the crops failed.

And it's Rowan! Rowan and the crops failed!

Now,

what does the old religion say about crop failure?

...to reverence the music,

the drama, the rituals of the old gods,

to love nature and to fear it,

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