The meadow rattle and the beginning of mowing

When is the right time to start mowing? When is the grass ready to be mown? How do people know all these details, in order to start harvesting hay?

These questions have always accompanied me during the fieldwork on the topic of hay meadows management, and beliefs and knowledge associated with the works performed in the meadows.

One of the most common answers was that the mowing starts when the grass is ripe. This made sense: in this way, the seeds of the plants are ready to be spread on the ground, as long as the grass is drying in the sun.

But when is the grass ripe? How could we know this?

In one of the Romanian villages from Maramureș region, I heard for the first time in 2009 the answer: When the meadow rattle rattles, the grass is ready to be mown. In Romanian sounds even nicer: “Când sună clocoticii-n iarbă, poate porni coasa!” [When the little bells rattle in the grass, the mowing can start!]. A little more about this plant and the way it is used in Șurdești, the village where I have done research, you can find here: www.doi.org/10.57225/martor.2016.21.06, along with other knowledge associated to hay and hay meadows.

“The little bells” is the name that the locals use when referring to the plant Rhinanthus minor. In English it would be “the meadow rattle,” as it is the name in Swedish, Ängsskallra, as my Swedish colleagues and friends that I was doing research with, told me. The only difference is that in Sweden, it is lost the use of the plants and the way it is connected to the way the meadows are managed.

Rhinanthus minor, "meadow rattle"

I remembered my childhood when I was walking in hay meadows, in hot summers, in July, and, while I was walking, the sound of small rattles was very distinctive in the grass. I always imagined that it is like this that a rattlesnake would also sound. For me, living in Romania, such a snake is a legendary figure, it can not be found in Romania. An animal that I only have heard of in the fairy tales. It was my imagination that connected the sound of the grass with the animals, in the story I was telling myself, as a child.

The use of the hay rattle is a live practice that can be found in Romania, in several mountain regions: starting from Maramureș (where I first heard the explanation for the first time), to Bucovina region, or Transylvania, such as Apuseni Mountains, or in Sibiu area, but also in the Southern Carpathians (in Buzău area, in Prahova region). Everywhere I went I kept asking the same questions: How do we know that the grass is ready to be mown? Is there a plant that is like a sign for this? And I got the same answer, connected to the one and only Rhinanthus minor, that bears several names, according to the region (“clocotici,” “sunătoare,” “clocotiși,” and so on).

The last time I got this answer was last year, the extremely hot summer of 2024. I was happy to know that the knowledge associated to the plant is still in use today.

Also last year I found out, from a biologist, that Rhinanthus is a parasitic plant (more information here: https://academic.oup.com/plphys/article/185/4/1309/6054812), but with a positive effect on the biodiversity of a meadow. I would add: with a positive effect also on the intangible heritage, the local knowledge associated with the meadows.

Author:

Anamaria Iuga

National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Bucharest, Romania