Back when a prayer and a song and a hymn and a story were one and the same and when Sicily was still known as Zizily, the Siciliani celebrated the harvests of the three branches of life—the grape, olive, and wheat. For the grape harvest they mixed warm blood of the lamb with the first vintage of the season. For the olive picking, a live serpent was entwined around a branch to guard against bad fruit. And for the wheat harvest, the peasants danced the tarantella wearing blindfolds in honor of the great Santa Lucia. One of their favorite feast days was for Santa Lucia a woman with beauty of classic proportions. Her eyes were so beautiful they lit up the night when there was no moon.