82 THE PEASANT'S YEAR
times on hard clotted ground where the harrow could make but
little impression it was necessary for the peasant to break up the
, clods with wooden mallets, as they are seen to be doing in the
Luttrell Psalter }•
Once all this was finished the peasant's labours were not so
pressing, and he could turn to the many other secondary jobs
waiting to be done. If the land was heavy, draining operations
were constantly necessary and worth while; ditches wanted
digging out after the winter floods, and the good earth put on to
the land again; hedges and enclosures round the little home or
any private bit of enclosure required attention, and so on. Then,
as we have seen, it was time for the first ploughing of the fallow
field, and the busy activities in the garden where such vegetables
and fruits as were then available were grown.2
So the days went by with plenty to occupy men till the end of
May. The coming of June saw them making renewed efforts.
The haymaking called for all their strength: first, there were the
numerous compulsory days which they had to spend in getting
in the lord's hay; and, as well as this, there was their own crop
waiting in the enclosed meadows which had been carefully
guarded and reserved for this purpose since Christmas. The
mowers used a long scythe, not very different from that in
present use, the blade almost at right angles to the handle, and
perhaps a little shorter and broader than the modern scythe.3
With this they appear to have mowed not more than one acre in
a day.4
After the haymaking, the strips again called for much attention.
Thistles had to be uprooted, but this was not done before
St John's Day (June 24) as a country tradition asserted that
thistles cut before this would but multiply threefold*5 The fallow
ground was also ploughed up again to destroy weed—the
"second-stirring", or rebinatiwn, as it was called in the books.
Hemp and flax were gathered by the good-wife, and dried before
being spun into yarn for thread, rope or linen yarn. Both of these
plants were pulled up by the roots, not cut like corn, and then
1 Ibid., Plate 94.
a For the peasant's garden, see below, p. 232.
8 For illustrations see Joan Evans, Medieval France, 50, and Hartley,
Thomas Tusser, 77.
* Wilts Arch. Mag. xxxn, 318. 8 Walter of Henley, 17*