Labours of the Months
It’s been a big week here in trencher land, partly because the pictures I’d ordered from the Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum arrived and they were (in a sad, “whoa, I’m way-too-involved-in-my-project" kind of way) completely mind blowing. The Salisbury museum owns a set of the Labours of the Months trenchers, the very set I now believe was described by Felix Laurent in Notes and Queries 3rd S. XI. April 27, 1867. pp 346-47. What I was not prepared for is that they look so much like the set in the British Museum (1921,0216.34b-m) for a moment I wondered if one was a deliberate forgery of the other. Previously, I had thought that the prints had been used by individual families to create trenchers for home use, but these sets are more probably created by the same workshop for commercial sale. I hate the noise my pet theories make when they crash and burn so dramatically.
The good part is that I’ve got some interesting data points, and the second set of trenchers owned by the Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum are even more weirdly special than the Labours of the Months set. I also (finally) got motivated and wrote to the Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth MA and asked them about their November trencher and got an unbelievably speedy response from them.
January loves good drinks, warm clothes convenient be, And sporting on ice affords passing glee.
With masking, play, and dancing, February does begin, So use your sport and pleasure, [such] that you run not into sin.
In March with plow be forward in stirring of your ground. By pruning vine and grafting stock, much profit does abound.
April now dews the earth with many pleasant showers, And pleasure bids [you to] embrace and gather fragrant flowers.
May bids (you) rise early, sport you in pleasant fields. In boat to trace the rivers great recreation yields.
In June, whilst haycocks make and rakers stir apace, Coridon and Philida, each other’s love embrace.
The reapers lay on load from sun-rise until night; Whilst Bagpipe send forth July with mirth and much delight.
[August Missing]
The sea and land yields store of Fish and fruit, most fish; Eat not too much September wills, it may your health impair.
The grape [is] now ripe, October sends forth wine, and wills you [to] drink a health to that fair love of yours.
November pulls Hogs for bacon, brawn, and sauce; Housewives save for puddings good meat in poor man’s house.
Good fires, warm dinners, December so does stand. Forget not Him that sends these gifts, so prosper shall the land.