yesterday, JY was out in the garden doing his manly thing that the manly men do here in France ... when he spied something.He came into the kitchen and requested scissors. I obliged and he asked me to follow him back outside.
He showed me 2 wheat plants randomly growing in back. He carefully counted out 13 stalks of wheat and handed them to me, then proceeded to count out 13 more.
We returned as he told me that every year, as a young boy, he watched his mother do this very same thing. He told me firmly that it was necessary to hang these stalks of wheat near the front door, and this would bring abundance and prosperity through our doors. He smiled as he told me and it was obvious he believed it worked!! but it must be 13!
We then went on to our task of going to the dechetterie to dispose of our load of work schmutz that had accumulated. While there, I found 3 really cool chrome barstools in perfectly good condition, a woven rattan fateuil, 2 table bases that can be used for the restaurant, a cast iron-back for the fireplace with a really interesting relief (these are trés cher at the vide-greniers), and a big lot of chromed tubular poles that we can use in the atelier.
Now, while this isn't money directly into the bank account, it certainly is money not leaving!!!
that blé is bringing the bling already!
9 comments:
I need a little help here. We could use a bit of that old world magic around here. I spotted some wheat growing in the pasture and am prepared to construct one of these mojo bundles. But please clarify one thing. The one in the photo has more than 13. Is it two bundles of 13? What did he use to tie it together?
GP-the photo is just of wheat.
Snip 13 stalks (he cut 2 bundles ... one for his house, one for mine). tie them up with a piece of the 'grass' that grows with the wheat plant and hang them above your door. I read a little further and this is definitely a long standing tradition in France and Italy ... an offering of sorts. bon chance!
ps-leave it up all year long till the next harvest of your wheat on your land.
pss! JY will love hearing that you embraced this tradition, I can't wait to tell him. He asks after you regularly!
ok, I'm really NOT trying to up my own comment count. GPops, I changed the photo to the real magillacuddy (yeah, I just channeled my own gpop with that phrase) ... so you can see what we did. xx
Crazy Old Europe superstitions. Now Bigfoot, that's real stuff.
I'll have to recount the number of stalks we bundled up. May have f___'d up. Woke up at 3:00 this morning to see that the field was on fire! Had an impromptu gathering of 10 or so people for Father's Day get-together - the proud members of the Lyle volunteer fire department. Was this lucky? Maybe, cuz we didn't parish in a fire. Maybe not cuz some dumb bird seems to have shorted out a transformer to start the fire. Maybe, cuz we got the stupid fire out before it did much damage. Maybe not, cuz I was tromping through poison oak with the hose. Please ask JY if the bundle is working?
ok-gpops, where did my 1st response from this a.m. go? grrr.
"le blé etais pour la monnaie, pas pour la chance. Mais je pense il à aidez-vous parce que vous n'etes pas mort de la feu!"
so sayeth JY although this morning he dictated and I wrote. now it is from memory and probably poorly spelled. but hopefully you'll sort it out! :P
With a little help from Google's translation service, I now understand JY's reply. The ble' is for prosperity rather than luck. And his point is well taken - we are lucky we didn't burn up in the feu. Or as my former father-in-law used to say "every day above ground is a good one." Merci JY.
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