French Country · Encyclopedia of objects
In the Fields
Footwear, yokes, scythes and measures were made to last a working life. Their plain forms owe everything to the job they did. (Dans les champs)
Leather-covered hobnailed clog (chaussure ferrée)
Tarn · wood, leather, iron nails
Neither quite a galosh nor quite a clog. The leather upper kept out the snow on country roads, and big nails on the wooden sole kept it from wearing down. It was heavy to walk in but built to last.
Flax ripple (drège à lin)
Wood and iron teeth
A stout plank set with long iron teeth. Flax growers pulled the stalks through it by hand to strip the seeds, used for oil, from the stems, which were then retted on the meadow to give linen fiber.
Cricket cage (cage à grillons)
Wood and wire
Children used to catch crickets to watch them and hear them sing. Two wooden discs, wire bars and a simple trapdoor were all the cage needed.
Scythe with a cradle rake (faux et râteau)
Ash wood, iron
A rake with curved teeth fixed to the scythe handle laid the cut stalks in one direction, which made the sheaves easier to bind. The ash joint is purely practical but gives the whole tool its beauty. A nineteenth-century wrought-iron pitchfork and a pruning hook complete the set.
Ox yoke (joug)
Alpes-Maritimes · poplar
Collectors have saved yokes from oblivion. Small ones like this come from the Alpes-Maritimes, where the draft animals were small too. Poplar is used because it is supple and does not hurt the animal.
Sheaf-binding peg (« liadou »)
Pyrenees · carved wood
Probably carved during Pyrenean winters, this long wooden spindle helped tighten the straw tie around bundles of wheat after harvest. Smooth with wear, some are engraved with the owner's initials.
Bushel measure (boisseau à coupe)
Anjou · wood and wrought iron
Under the Ancien Régime this measure, holding a little under ten litres of grain, was used to count the tithe the Church levied on grain and wine. This one has a fleur-de-lis branded on its base.
Source: Les Trésors de France: vieux métiers et objets d'autrefois (Éditions Rustica, Détours en France collection, 1995), pp. 109–111. Descriptions summarize the book's reportage and captions; the book was published in 1995, so workshops, people, prices and figures are described as the reporters found them then, and some workshops may since have closed or changed hands.