The First Sheaf

H.R. Wakefield’s 1940 tale The First Sheaf, was first published in his collection, The Clock Strikes Twelve. Old Porteous tells his friend about his strange experiences as a boy in Reedley End, an isolated parish plagued by drought and crop failure, whose denizens may have tried to reverse their fortunes by turning to "the old ways". This is a folk horror story set in the backwaters of rural England. A new vicar goes to a rural parish that has suffered a terrible drought. The local folk shun him and want nothing of his God. He fears they have other gods of their own. Then a young girl goes missing, and the vicar's son must search out the mystery of the round field and pay a terrible price for the knowledge he gains. Think The Wicker Man meets John Barleycorn. Folk horror before they invented the term 'folk horror.