The newlyweds sprinted across the newly ploughed field. The spring air was warm and lush with earthy odors of soil, sod, and seed. After a long, hard, and cold winter, the sun was warm and life giving, full of promise.

It was also Renewal, festival to the Earth Mother, the life giver, and the provider of a bountiful harvest. When the young people of marrying age are betrothed, according to the century old traditions and started their lives together.

The ceremony started at dawn with the women and men bathing in the still VERY cold river, women upstream and men down, with the grandmothers in between. Dressed in white robes the women were paraded into the square from the east (the way of the dawn), and the men from the south (the way of the summer). Tables were set with spring fawn, tubers, berries, and lots of beer that had been aging over the winter. The young couples were kept apart while the elders danced, sang, and told stories.

At a pre-determined time, the fathers would stand before their daughters, tie a white cord to her left wrist and the mothers before the sons to tie a golden cord to his right wrist. The mothers would then lead the daughters away, as would the fathers with the sons, each to provide instructions on being a good wife, husband, mother, and father. They would return at the tolling of the village bell and the loose end of the cords tied to their arranged spouse. The shaman blessed the newlyweds and sent them to the fields for a special kind of planting.

The couple, wrist tied together ran through rich soil of their homeland, laughing and giggling. The woman, small but very pretty, with large dark eyes and long hair, the color of the soil, her skin white as the freshly fallen snow. Her body was slender, lithe, and firm. The man, tall, with piercing blue eyes, broad shoulder and chest and curly pleantiful blond locks. They know what they were to do. The elders told them Renewal was a time for the Earth Mother and to show the seed what they were to do. Their older siblings and cousins let them in on the secret and the young newlywed could not wait to "encourage the seeds".

They found a place in a shallow dell, between two knolls. Casting their robes to the wind, the husband and wife fell to the warm, moist earth, wrapped in each other arms. Laughing the happy-lusty laughs that only the young can laugh. They kissed and their bodies rolled over the land, his lips pressing against her soft-full lips. Their passion rising and heating, like the sun on a summer's day, warm, and getting warmer and the it rose. He kissed her neck; she giggled as if it tickled. He kissed her small, firm breasts that sent bolts of energy through her like those of a summer storm. He reached for him and grasped his stem, coaxing it to rise strong and straight, like the great oak trees of the forest. She rubbed him as he kissed her. Sounds were coming from their body and they did not know from whence it came. Their passion was taking over, they were becoming one with the earth and with each other. Their lust and passion like the ground, on which they laid, warm, rich, wet, and full of promise and life. The sun warmed as the soil enriched. They fell further and further into the Earth Mother's arms.

As if they read each other's thoughts, he entered her, tilling her fertile richness. Driving deep into the moistness that was she. Her screams were animal-like, as were the claws digging deep into his flesh. He was like the plowman with a strong, robust plough, preparing the fields for the seed. The more he ploughed, the more she screamed. Deeper and deeper, louder and louder until he released his seed deep into her richness.

They laid on the warm, soft soil, listening to the sounds of their hearts and breathing and to the sounds around them … birds, wind, the other couples. They looked into each other's arms and smiled. She rolled on top of her husband, and smiled for the ploughman was not done turning the soil.

Very nice! Been working in our garden lately, but as it's in our front yard, not much opportunity to "plough" out there