标签 麦田 下的文章

东洛锡安的金黄麦田，苏格兰 Barley field in East Lothian, Scotland (© Scott Masterton/plainpicture)

Welcome to Scotland's garden

Today, we're in the 'Garden of Scotland,' better known as the East Lothian region, to pay homage to the area's agricultural roots on Lammas Day. Also known as Loaf Mass Day, it's an observance that marks the beginning of the harvest season and is traditionally celebrated on August 1. The holiday is descended from the ancient British tradition known during the Middle Ages as the Gule of August and was gradually incorporated into the Christian liturgy celebrating Holy Communion. It gets its name from loaves of bread baked from the first harvested grain of the season each year.

Traditionally, Lammastide festivals would mean up to 10 days of raucous eating, drinking, and general merriment. Scottish couples could also take advantage of another common practice during a Lammas fair: a trial marriage, or 'handfast,' where a young couple could live together for a trial period that could last as long as the Lammas festival itself, or even up to a full year. If at the end of the trial the couple decided to call things off, the woman could return to her family with all of her possessions. If a child was born from this union, it would go live with the father without stigma. And while this arrangement seems awfully modern, it was likely just a consequence of a lack of priests—handfasts allowed a single traveling priest to perform all the town's weddings in one day.

欢迎来到苏格兰花园

今天，我们来到了“苏格兰花园”，更著名的是东洛锡安地区，在南丫岛日向该地区的农业根源致敬。也被称为面包弥撒日，这是一个标志着收获季节开始的节日，传统上在8月1日庆祝。这个节日起源于中世纪英国古老的传统，被称为八月红色，并逐渐融入基督教庆祝圣餐的礼拜仪式中。它的名字来源于每年收获的第一批谷物烘焙的面包。

传统上，Lammatide节日将意味着长达10天的喧闹的饮食和一般的欢乐。苏格兰夫妇还可以利用拉玛节期间的另一种常见做法：试婚，或“禁手”，年轻夫妇可以在一起生活一段试婚期，这段试婚期可能与拉玛节本身一样长，甚至长达一整年。如果在庭审结束时，这对夫妇决定取消婚约，这名妇女可以带着她所有的财产回到家中。如果一个孩子是从这种结合中出生的，那么他将与父亲生活在一起，没有任何耻辱感。虽然这种安排看起来非常现代，但很可能只是因为缺少牧师的手铐，一个旅行的牧师可以在一天内完成镇上所有的婚礼。

云下的麦田，西班牙巴利亚多利德 Wheat field against cloudy sky, Valladolid, Castilla y León, Spain (© Carlos Javier García Prieto/EyeEm/Getty Images)

Fields of Castile

What you can see today in our image is a wheat field in the province of Valladolid, northwest Spain, cut out under the Castilian sky. We show you this because now is taking place the harvest season in most of the country. And also because on this day in 1875 was born Spanish poet Antonio Machado, whose master piece is called ‘Campos de Castilla’ (Fields of Castile).

Machado wrote it during his stay in Soria, not in Valladolid (both provinces belong to the same region), and managed to portray with extraordinary fidelity the personality of the rural Castilians, with their weaknesses and virtues, as a metaphor of the whole country. As long as he described dozens of landscapes as the one you can see in the picture.