Nevertheless, hard as the work was, Bodo sang lustily to cheer himself and Wido; for is it not related that once, when a clerk was singing the “Allelulia” in the emperor’s presence, Charles turned to one of the bishops, saying, “My clerk is singing very well,” whereat the rude bishop replied, “Any clown in our countryside drones as well as that to his oxen at their ploughing”? It is certain too that Bodo agreed with the names which the great Charles gave to the months of the year in his own Frankish tongue; for he called January “Winter-month,” February “Mud-month,” April “Easter-month,” May “Joy-month,” June “Plough-month,” July “Hay-month,” August “Harvest-month,” September “Wind-month,” October “Vintage-month,” November “Autumn-month,” and December “Holy-month.” And Bodo was a superstitious creature. The Franks had been Christian now for many years, but Christian though they were, the peasants clung to old beliefs and superstitions. On the estates of the holy monks of St. Germain you would have found the country people saying charms which were hoary with age, parts of the lay sung by the Frankish ploughman over his bewitched land long before he marched southwards into the Roman Empire, or parts of the spell which the bee-master performed when he swarmed his bees on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Christianity has colored these charms, but it has not effaced their heathen origin; and because the tilling of the soil is the oldest and most unchanging of human occupations, old beliefs and superstitions cling to it and the old gods stalk up and down the brown furrows, when they have long vanished from houses and roads. So on Abbot Irminon’s estate the peasant-farmers muttered charms over their sick cattle (and over their sick children too) and said incantations over the fields to make them fertile. If you had followed behind Bodo when he broke his first furrow you would have probably seen him take out of his jerkin a little cake, baked for him by Ermentrude out of different kinds of meal, and you would have seen him stoop and lay it under the furrow and sing: Earth, Earth, Earth! O Earth, our mother! May the All-Wielder, Ever-Lord grant thee Acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing, Pregnant with corn and plenteous in strength; Hosts of grain shafts and of glittering plants! Of broad barley the blossoms, And of white wheat ears waxing, Of the whole land the harvest ... * * * * * Acre, full-fed, bring forth fodder for men! Blossoming brightly, blessed become! And the God who wrought with earth grant us gift of growing That each of all the corns may come unto our need. Then he would drive his plough through the acre.