The rainbow never sets

women on the carts as well. When the whole procession came to a halt, all, except the fornals, came down and walked slowly towards our stairs. Four women were carrying a 'harvest crown', two per crown. They looked a bit like a very large lamp shade, where bunches of ears of corn were tied around the wires, a bit how wreaths are tied, interspersed with flowers and coloured ribbons. When it is fully decorated, it does look like a crown, though I wouldn't like to wear one."

"Would be a bit scratchy, I imagine? But what did you do with them?" "They came up the steps, two at a time, and presented a crown first to Opa and Oma, the other was for Vater and Mutter. It was considered a gift from all the people to honour my grandparents and my parents. Afterwards they were hung up in our hallways, where they would hang until at least spring time. But that was not all. Another pair of women walked up the steps, and walked right up to where Günter and I were standing. They presented us with an open basket with two rabbits. We were very thrilled, of course, and as we held the basket up for everyone to see, they all clapped."

"So what did you do with the rabbits?" "Our carpenter made us a hutch for them and we put it under Oma's verandah, on the west side of the manor house. There was no floor, just sand, but it had a door, and the area was closed in. We let them run around there, feeding them occasionally, but someone else must have helped with that, because we were still not responsible enough to look fully after them. As you know, rabbits are terrific breeders and after a few weeks, instead of two, there were already ten running around. They had dug holes into the sand and lived there almost like wild rabbits, and breeding like them too. Of course, we had no idea where they came from."

"And did you ask your parents?" "I can't remember, but I think not, because we still had no idea where all these young rabbits came from."

"It would have been a good opportunity for your parents to tell you." "Of course, but I think they missed it. They multiplied so much, that eventually there were rabbits everywhere. And then, one day, one by one they all died."

"How awful. Why was that?" "Vater said, much later, mind you, that they were in-bred. They had lost their resistance and just died."

"What a sad ending to a lovely story." "Hang on, I haven't finished telling you about the harvest festival. The following year we received a pair of pigeons on a plate. They too did very well in the pigeon tower in our yard."

"Yeah, but what about the actual harvest festival? Better get on with that."

"I told you it is a long story. After the presentations, Vater made a speech, thanking everybody for their good work that year, that they had

90