Things to Know When You Find Yourself Stranded in a Small, Remote Utopian Community

1. May festivals and fertility festivals are trouble, but worst of all are harvest festivals.

2. Lucky you! You’re just in time for the harvest festival!

3. Although locals will say things like, “We don’t take kindly to strangers ’round these parts” and “We don’t get too many visitors here,” you will soon learn that your arrival has been foretold by the prophecy.

4. The prophecy must have brought you here, because the last thing you remember before waking up on a cot in a thatched-roof hut is a thunderstorm and the road ahead of you washing out.

5. Upon asking about your car, you’re told, “You need to talk to Brother Ezekiel about that,” but you’re not sure which one is Brother Ezekiel, as all the men look like Wilford Brimley.

6. The community is gracious and welcoming, but you’d like to let your family know where you are, or you have no family, friends, or coworkers. Either way, electronic devices don’t work here.

7. Don’t be a virgin. Just don’t.

8. Nothing written in runes bodes well.

9. Congratulations! That wreath of wheat and berries and leaves being placed on your head means you have been crowned Harvest Queen.

10. Don’t drink the mead, even if everyone is toasting you.

11. Hear the flutes, fiddles, and bagpipes tuning up?

12. The circle dance begins. Under the rise of a bright, white full moon, you dance until you’re so thirsty that only mead will quench your thirst.

13. The night is chilly, but avoid bonfires, especially the large pile of kindling and brush with a stake in the middle.

14. Chanting can’t be a good sign.

15. Neither can the slitting of the hart’s throat.

16. Or being bathed in its blood.

17. Blessed be the Harvest Queen, for the harvest is abundant. Let us give thanks.