Sécheresse

Let me briefly retell the old Breton folk tale of the White Doe. Marguerite, a young woman, has a secret, a secret that keeps her angry all the time. An anger she can express only to her mother as they walk in the woods in the daytime. The mother sings, but young Marguerite sighs and finally confesses to her mother that she turns into a white doe every night and runs wild through the forest. And she needs help from her mother, because the hunters pursue her, and one night she is sure they will catch up to her and kill her. The most fierce of these hunters is her brother, and one night, he does catch up to her and kill her, though he does not know the white doe is his sister. After her death, she is slaughtered and fed to the family at a feast, praising the heroism of the brother. This is what I learned sitting (and interpreted), hugging my knees to my chest, in the middle of a mysterious, crumbling church as Sophia Djebel Rose crafted a whole witch religion out of her music and her wails.