When the Gods Made Farmers: The Farmer's Prayer
When the Gods made Farmers, or the Farmer's Prayer, is a speech that was made into a poem and then later
turned into a regional prayer. It was written by Brave King Breian before he was king.
The speech was given during a meeting held at the Tyfferim town hall about a failed
harvest. All the farmers were gathered at the assembly hall to appeal to the
regent, to ask him to plead to the then-king about giving aid to the farms on their behalf.
Breian stood up and spoke for the farming community, his speech so poetic and
powerful that he was asked to give it in front of the king. The speech was transcribed
and repeated, and when Breian was made Regent of Tyfferim not long after, he wrote it
down as a poem and titled it When the Gods Made Farmers, which he recited in
honour of the farmers who kept the country fed during the Galleisian War. It was taken up
by the churches in Tyfferim and Sethshire as a prayer.
You can listen to a reading of the poem HERE.
What is the value of a rural life?
By what grace do we live, to walk the fields and tend
the herds
To till the rows and sling the slane and fetch the
spade for planting
To mend the fence and fix the thatch and pin it
through with hazel
To milk the cow and tack the mare and drive the jaunty
homeward
To winnow wheat and thresh the oats and bale the straw
for haying
We bear the ache of frozen furrows, of spoiled seed,
of barren ground
And make laments of failed crops and meager harvests
When the Gods Made Farmers, they put within us the
spirit of perseverance
The tenacity which we put to soil, despite fatigue and
because of it
The determination that asks us
to mind the pens and rope the paddocks and reap the
meadow over
The necessity that begs us
to ash the earth and root the spuds and salt the slugs
on boarders
The stubbornness that brings us to town of an evening
to talk over the badness of rocks and peat, and amend
our crops and ledgers
to share our small successes with those of us who have
met failure
When the Gods Made Farmers, they made those attuned to
the seasons
A bit of mud and mire, gravel and grain, earth and
water
Fired together with a goodly blaze, to give our voice
a holler,
To strengthen hands and temper limbs, our backs and
arms for lifting
When the Gods Made Farmers, they gifted us with
patience and cursed us with compassion
to befriend the rain, discount the gloom, and bide the
damp for tithing
to follow flocks and lead the droves and tend the old
and ailing
When the Gods Made Farmers, they gave us sense and
understanding
to count the corn and carry bushels and cast the seeds
for earnings
They made us a species unto ourselves, the creatures
of unquietness
Who will not sit still idly down when we have a plot
to plough, or sow to farrow, or a cart to wright
And gave us the powers of preference and cultivation,
the blood of practicality
With which to govern the pasture and manage the grange
and rule the barn and byre
When the Gods Made Farmers, they gifted us the force
of creation,
the joy of
watching the ewes lamb and trees fruit and flowers flourish
the pain of seeing the crops rot and sheep die and
disease spread
When the Gods Made Farmers, they made servants
beholden to a promise of doing Their Work
of being a steward of the stead, as husbandman, landlord,
tiller, and warden
By which families live, children eat, and friends and
neighbours thrive
Steadfast, by which the country continues and the
kingdom abides
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