The Sickle

The reaper’s sickle symbolizes the act of captivation that the reaper impresses upon the speaker and any other such passersby. Literally, the reaper uses her sickle in order to harvest and collect the grains growing in the fields. However, through the act of her singing, which is closely associated with her labor in the poem, she also in many ways becomes a harvester of travelers, like the speaker, who stop during their travels as they become arrested by her melody.

The Reaper

The reaper symbolizes the foreign other in civilization. While the speaker and the reaper presumably hail from the same island, their respective countries are culturally unique, so much so that the English speaker is unable to understand the words of the Scottish reaper’s song because they are sung in Scottish Gaelic. This linguistic divide, and the overall sense of stoic mystery...