“We do not easily remember peasants”

Patrick Joyce, Remembering Peasants: We do not easily remember peasants. The realities of their lives are a dim presence in the historical record. We catch only glimpses in the great obscurity that is the centuries-old peasant past of Europe. The first is from the Poland of a century ago: Every field knows its owner, the Earth is indignant at every crime committed on its face. The moon watches and prayers are still said to it. The stars answer a woman or man who knows the right way to ask them. Nothing bad should be said near water. The wind listens and talks. … While animals do not know as much as man they know things he does not, the properties of plants and substances for instance, which are shown to men by animals. Some animals understand and condemn the immoral acts of man, the bee will never stay with the thief, the stork and the swallow leave a farm when an evil deed has been committed there. … The lark, which soars so high, is the favorite bird of the Angels; during a storm…