Calling the Mare Track

In Medieval England, September was always known as the Harvest month and farmers would gather in the last of their crops, trying to prove that they had reaped the best produce and would try to best their colleagues to finish first. Calling the Mare was a ceremony involving gathering the last sheaf of all and fashioning it into the form of a mare. This would then be taken to neighouring farms with the shout 'Mare, Mare!' - signifying that wild horses would come and eat the harvest if they didn't gather it in quickly enough.