"We carry death out of the village!"

The birch tree in winter
Leaning over the secret pool
Is Narcissus in love
With the slight white branches,
The slim trunk,
In the dark glass;
But,
Spring coming on,
Is afraid,
And scarfs the white limbs
In green.

Lord Summerisle: "Now, those children out there, they're jumping through the flames in the Hope that the god of the fire will make them fruitful. Really, you can't blame them. After all, What girl would not prefer the child of a god to that of some acne-scarred artisan?"

Sergeant Howie: "And you encourage them in this?"

Lord Summerisle: "Actively! It's most important to teach new generation born of Summerisle Be made aware that here the old gods aren't dead."

Sergeant Howie: "And what of the true God? To whose glory churches and monasteries have Been built on these islands for generations past? Now shall what of Him?"

Lord Summerisle: "Oh, He's dead. He can't complain. He had his chance and in modern Parlance. Blew it."

Lord Summerisle: "And the ministers fled the island never to return. What my grandfather 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 the rituals of the old gods; to love nature And to fear it, and to rely on it and to appease it when necessary. He brought me up--"

Sergeant Howie: "He brought you up to be a pagan!"

Lord Summerisle: "A heathen, conceivably but not, I hope, an unenlightened one."