Laughing brooch

I looooove this brooch....Southern Italy, 6th c BC. Pic from "Lo Schiavo 2010: F. Lo Schiavo, Le Fibule dell’Italia meridionale e della Sicilia dall’età del bronzo recente al VI secolo a. C."

Everyone is smiling 🙂 The man is smiling, the woman is smiling the bull is smiling. Apart from the ducks...They are pretending to be cool...

Why are people smiling? Maybe because, right after all the migratory birds arrive, the summer starts. I talked about the symbolism of migratory birds in my post "Leto"...

The summer starts in Taurus. Bull...Which marks the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle, aurochs...By the way all the zodiac animal symbols mark either mating or birthing of the animal in question...I talked about it in my post "Zodiac" and related posts...

And right then, in Taurus, when Pleiades rise, the grain harvest starts...First barley in May, then wheat in June and July...The grain harvest starts at the beginning of the summer and ends at the end of the summer. I talked about this in my post "Hesiod on grain"...

And summer is the season which is symbolised by a bull...It starts with the calving of the aurochs and ends with the mating of the aurochs. You can read more about this in my post "symbols of the seasons"...

 

The harvesting of the grain was in the past done in the same way people or animals were slaughtered: you pick the head (ears of wheat) and you slice across the neck (stalks of wheat). There is even a Cornish ritual of "cutting the neck of the wheat"...I talked about this in my post "Klas"... 

At the end of the harvest, at the end of summer, a bull was sacrificed...To mark the end of the grain harvest...The end of summer, which starts in Taurus and is symbolised by a bull...I talked about this in my posts "Bull of Grom Div" and "Bull of Crom Dubh"...

So maybe the bull shouldn't be smiling...

But maybe, they are all smiling because there is another harvest that starts in Taurus...Poppy harvest...You can read more about it in my post "Poppy priestess"...