“ | You have come of your own free will to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man. | „ |
~ Sister Summersisle |
Sister Summersisle is the landholder and ruler of the island Summersisle (named so after her great-grandmother, who set the basis for the island's current society), off the coast of Washington, United States of America, and the main antagonist of the 2006 Neil LaBute's supernatural/psychological horror-thriller The Wicker Man. She is also the mother of Willow Woodward, the ex-fiance of Edward, and the grandmother of Rowan Woodward.
She was portrayed by Ellen Burstyn, who also portrayed Olivia Foxworth in the 2014 film adaptation of Flowers in the Attic.
History[]
The island of Summersisle is primarily known on the outside for its exportation of honey. It is inhabited by a community of carefree and affable neo-pagans, whose culture seems to revolve mainly around the form of Celtic paganism and matriachy, as it is taught in schools and imbues local folklore songs.
When Officer Edward Malus of California arrives from the mainland in search of a missing girl, he is startled by the villagers' customs and also later, their strange behaviors. He heads towards the elderly matriach's domain for explanations, where she tells him the history of the island led all the way back to her Celtic ancestors' rebellion against the suppression of the feminine during the Dark Ages and her great-grandmother's settlement of the Summersisle island off the coast of the Americas.
Much of the island's pagan traditions, beliefs and practices date from several centuries ago, some of its deities being the mother goddess of Celtic mythology, the gods (both male and female) of nature and the goddess of the fields, the idea of reincarnation firmly rooted among the population and a few rituals that even include human sacrifice still in practice, which Sister Summersisle openly accepts and encourages as well.
Sister Summerisle and her pagan followers succeeded in their restoration of their dreaded harvest festival of the Day of Death and Rebirth as they manipulated Officer Malus' actions and the kidnapping of his child Rowan with the help of Willow who is revealed to be Summersisle's daughter. Sister Summerisle and the rest of her pagan religious community procreeded with the final part of the ceremonious festival which ened in the burning Wicker Man ritual and killed Edward Malus as the ultimate sacrifice.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Sister Summersisle share basic similarities including charisma and religious beliefs with Lord Summerisle, the main antagonist of the 1973 classic thriller The Wicker Man.