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.He has a round object which Globthought might be phallic, but could simply be a seed-bag (Reynolds 1979: 17).In some areas of the world the cutting of three furrows was a rite marking thebeginning of spring.In China the Emperor ploughed three furrows in the royalfield, and his chief ministers then worked the plough in turn, and similar riteswere practised in India and Ceylon (Armstrong 1943: 251ff.; Bray 1984: 1).Almgren(1927: 301) refers to the ploughing of three furrows in Sweden on the first day ofspring in the early twentieth century.He describes how the sods had to be turnedup in the direction of the sun, and some of the earth rubbed on the forelocks ofthe horses, while the ploughman was given bread which had been baked at Yuleand stored in the corn-bin.A branch from a fruit-bearing tree was carried by the59 Mistress of the Grain Figure 10 Bronze Age rock carving from Litsleby, Bohuslän, representingploughman with oxen.After P.Gelling (1969).Lelly Aldworth.ploughman, or fixed in the horses reins; this custom was known in Småland andScania up to 1921.This makes it probable that the branch carried in the BronzeAge carving was part of a ritual ploughing rite and not merely to keep off theflies.There is also evidence for the ritual burial of ards in the British Isles, and theywere deposited in peat bogs in Denmark and north Germany (Glob 1951: 42).In1994 a perfectly preserved ard was recovered from a ditch forming part of a hengemonument near Dumfries, which has been dated to the third millennium BC (TheTimes 5 September 1994), while other later examples have come from Scotlandand from Irish bogs (Rees 1979: 42).Some of the continental examples were judgedunsuitable for use, while others were worn out (Glob 1951: 131ff.).Of particularinterest is a find from Vindumhede in Denmark, where hair plaits have been foundbeside an ard, suggesting a link with a women s cult (Glob 1951: 105).There aretwo examples of plough finds from a later period mentioned by Struve; in onefrom Sjaelland an incomplete plough was buried with parts of wagons and bonesof cattle, sheep and pigs; in the second, from north Germany, the plough wasaccompanied by human skulls and animal bones (Struve 1967: 57, 59).Thesuggestion has been made that an ard and the man using it were buried in one ofa series of unfurnished graves at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, dated to the seventh oreighth century AD, but the evidence for human sacrifice is not conclusive here(Davidson 1992: 332, 339).In the Celtic and Roman Iron Age in northern Europe the ard was replaced onprogressive farms by the plough, a larger, more effective implement with anasymmetrical share and mouldboard, which turned the earth over, although theard remained widely in use (Duby 1968: 18).The heavier plough might be fittedwith a wheel carriage to enable it to be turned round without tipping over (Figure60 Mistress of the Grain 11).It needed powerful animals to draw it, and was more difficult to assemble andkeep in good repair (Steensberg 1986: 143ff.).Oxen continued to be used, as theywere slow and strong, and would stop if the share encountered an obstacle,although Reynolds discovered that males were difficult to train, and preferredthe more tractable cows (Reynolds 1979: 50).The ritual use of the plough continued to mark the beginning of spring, theseason of growth, up to the twentieth century.Although it was usually men whoworked the plough, and no women are shown with it in the Scandinavian BronzeAge rock engravings, the sowing of the seed was associated with the goddessof grain, as in Ancient Greece.This is brought out clearly in one surviving Anglo-Saxon charm, an isolated piece of evidence for a pre-Christian goddess in England(Grendan 1909: 105 237).The spell, a mixture of prose directions and alliterativeverse, has a number of Christian rites included in it, such as the saying of OurFather and the insertion into the holes from which turves were taken of fourlittle wooden crosses on which the names of the evangelists were written.Thefour pieces of turf were placed before the altar with the earthy side turned towardsit, just as the earth turned up in the spring plough ceremony described by Almgren(1927) had to face the sun, and four masses were to be sung over them.But thelines spoken when these turves were replaced on the four sides of the land,suggest an older ritual.After bowing humbly nine times, the farmer uttered thefollowing prayer:I stand facing east, I pray for favour,I pray to the great and mighty Lord,I pray to the holy guardian of the heavenly realm,I pray to earth and high heavenand to the true Saint Maryand then follows a plea for harvests for earthly need , some Christian prayersand canticles, and the blessing of the seed, which had to be obtained from abeggar, given twice as much in exchange.The ploughing implements werecollected, and incense, fennel, consecrated soap and salt placed on the woodenbeam of the plough with the seed.Next came a fresh appeal:Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth,May the almighty, eternal Lord grant to youfields growing and flourishing,increasing, gaining strength,bright harvests of shafts of millet,broad harvests of barley,shining crops of wheat,and all the harvests of earth61 Mistress of the Grain Figure 11 Diagram of plough, showing: (1) guiding handles; (2) beam; (3) wheels;(4) hake, connecting to chains for horses; (5 and 6) coulters, to cut into earth toseparate furrow slice; (7) share; (8) mouldboard to turn slice over.Eileen Aldworth.After a prayer to God and the saints that the fields be protected fromwitchcraft, the first furrow was cut with the plough, with a further incantation:Wholeness to you, earth, mother of men,that you may have increase, in god s embrace,and be filled with food for the use of men.Then a loaf as broad as a man s palm was baked from every kind of graingrown on the land, kneaded with milk and holy water, and laid beneath thefirst furrow [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |
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