The villagers point out that these are portents of the gumma who lives beyond the wall. The gumma is spoken of in trembling whispers, with prayers to all known gods to ward off ill. For young children, gumma is the rakshasa who swoops down and carries them away forever if they are bad. For youngsters who are just becoming aware of each other, gumma is the most desirable boy or girl who taunts them to transgress. For the older folk, gumma is the one who kills his own brother for a paltry piece of land, or the son who throws his old father and mother out and enjoys their hard-earned house and property with his wife and children.

Gumma, whisper grandmothers, is handsome, virile, flowing with strength. He has velvet dark skin and is desired by all women. Women who have been with him are forever after dissatisfied with their partners, whether god or human. Goddesses give up their powers to him in return for his favours.

Once every seven full moon nights, the gumma makes mind-numbing sharey, pouring unknown ingredients into a pot over a huge, blazing fire fuelled by the limbs of men. The gumma’s naked chest ripples in the wicked glow. As the liquid boils, he dips his goatskin pouch into the pot, scoops out the sharey, throws his head back and guzzles it down. And he roars out ancient words of destruction that everyone fears to explain: Kamanna kattige, kattige ge kolu, kolige benki, benkige dahana. The world reverberates with them.

As the fire rises up, the black night bursts into colour: red, golden-yellow, ochre, orange, pink, magenta, blue, green, mauve, purple, violet, indigo, brown, silver, grey. If he throws red into the air, all is destroyed. If he throws green, all is fertile. Indigo racks the world with pain and black, of course, is death.

The servants of the gumma are evil spirits – beautiful women who roam freely behind the wall. The locals fearfully call them kolli devvas. They are said to have just one aim: snag young men for the gumma’s fire. They were once women whose love was unrequited or who pined for a lost lover. They died of desperately broken hearts and submitted to the gumma in their afterlives. The gumma turned them into these wandering bloodthirsty things that understand only lust.

The devvas are ravishing. They have exquisite red eyes that mesmerize. They wear white, flowing seeres, with hems high enough to show off glittering, harshly jangling anklets on inward-turned feet. They have long sheets of gleaming night-black hair.

Any youth that roams the old forests and hills around the villages is waylaid by the devvas. They confuse his sense of direction and lay a path for him to their own place in the land behind the wall. From then on, he is in their power. Ultimately, exhausted by their demands, the young man dies in the sexual act, and the devvas go off to trap another for the gumma’s fire.