ErasmusHobart.com

Late summer is a surreal time of year for those of us living in the countryside. Driving to Nottingham on an August morning is like visiting a rural sculpture park; passing field after field with the hay baled and distributed, seemingly randomly, across the landscape, transient totems of a megafaeniliac age.

And as with all such phenomena there is variation between the tribes. Some favour the traditional cubes, sharply regular and striking against the gentle Midland slopes; others go for the more aesthetic cylinders. Both, no doubt, have their benefits, whether they are easier to move or to store.

By why do they stop there? I noticed this morning one of the traditional silly season stories about corn circles. Once, people would travel to marvel at these alleged alien markings. At least, that is, until it was admitted they were part of a practical joke. Now it doesn’t matter how elaborate the patterns become, few people bother to look. Why? The trouble with corn circles is that they aren’t really that visible at ground level. People get their best view in the newspapers. But what if, say, one enterprising farmer were to take his hay cubes and to stack them, not just anyhow, but in an approximation of Stonehenge? It would make the papers, naturally, but it would also attract visitors. Visitors who might be encouraged to visit a local farm shop, say. The success would encourage other farmers to try something similar the following year. And it could go on and on. For a couple of weeks in summer our countryside would be strewed with a myriad temporary sculptures, lightening the mood, encouraging trade and reconnecting us with both our cultural and agricultural origins.

Maybe that’s what the traditional stone circles were all about in the first place. Tradition is, after all, simply a name for something people keep doing because they can’t remember why they started. And our traditions have always been quirky ones. So go on, flatten the hay – and then stack it in interesting formations across our green and pleasant land.