Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
The Stangmen
They call them the Stangmen.
They also call them the Witchmen, though generally out of earshot.
A bunch of grizzled old farmers that look just like anyone else, though everyone knows who they are.
Everyone knows that at the Old Times they go up to the Hill—the one that everyone still calls Old Baldie, though the trees grew back long since—and there they do their work.
Back before the trees grew back, you could see every field and pasture in the district from up there.
They call them the Stangmen because they keep the four old stangs, handed down since no one knows when.
Different stangs for different times and different purposes: Ram, Bull, Stag, Goat.
Nobody knows what they do up there, and nobody cares to ask.
So long as the corn keeps growing and the milk keeps flowing: really, what does it matter?
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