Headlong by Michael Frayn

in which month Hennessy also places hunters, though for hares rather than foxes, which seems to be Bruegel’s own variation on the theme. Glück agrees with the idea of January. But what are those women roasting over the fire they’re tending in the snow outside the village inn? Glück believes it’s corn, which reinforces his diagnosis of January. Tolnay thinks that it’s not corn but pork, which both the Hours of Hennessy and the Hours of Costa show for the month of December.
    So the Hunters might show any one of the three winter months. The Gloomy Day turns out to be just as indeterminable. Among the peasants pollarding the trees in the foreground are three who are not labouring at all. One of them’s eating something flat and rectangular, like a matzoh or a slice of pizza, and holding a piece of it up in the air – perhaps to keep it out of the reach of a child wearing a paper crown and carrying a lantern. Tolnay sees the food as a waffle, which together with the lantern suggests that the allusion’s to Carnival, in February, and Romdahl agrees. This, of course, overlaps with Hulin de Loo’s placing of the Hunters , but de Loo, having set the Hunters in February, believes thatthe paper crown identifies the child as the Bean King, whose celebration is at the beginning of January – before the Hunters ; Michel accepts this. But Glück places the scene in March, and Stechow agrees that in Hennessy (though not in other calendars) March is the month indicated by tree pruning.
    So the possibilities for The Gloomy Day also range over three months – and the two pictures may even be in reverse order. Haymaking is a little more tightly confined, within a range of only two possible readings. For Hulin de Loo, Michel and Glück it’s June, the month clearly established by the baskets full of beans and cherries being carried down towards the valley by the peasant women in the foreground. But in Hennessy and Grimani haymaking itself, the activity which occupies all the middle ground of the picture, is the main theme of July; as Stechow points out, the Netherlandish word for July is Hooimaand , Hay Moon. For Michel and Glück, though, July is the month of The Corn Harvest . But Stechow reminds us that Oegtmaand , Harvest Moon, is August – the month for which Tolnay says harvesting, the peasants’ repast and siesta are all themes in the calendars; though he opens the possibility of a third month here as well when he warns that what appears to be a game of boules in the middle ground could be alluding to September.
    Which leaves The Return of the Herd . This is apparently not a theme that figures in the calendars, but Tolnay believes it’s Bruegel’s adaptation of the return from the hunt, which the Calendrier flamand offers for November. Michel and Glück concur, and Hulin de Loo notes the bareness of the trees, and can somehow feel a cold wind blowing in the picture, both of which also suggest November. But then Tolnay draws attention to the ripe vineyards and nets in the valley below, and points out that both the wine harvest and the netting of birds are traditional for October. Stechow is likewise in two minds here, though at any rate not three.
    So which months do the five extant pictures show? According to the iconography, so far as I can disentangle it, they may show any or all of them.
    Except two. There are two months, and only two months, that are not identified in any of the various schemes, however many pictures are missing.
    April and May.
    For the first time since I set eyes on it, I allow myself to think about … about it , yes, about the unknown substance, the object for identification. The Merrymakers , as the label on the back names it. About my picture, as it’s going to become. About the mud underfoot, the flush of green spreading through the bare brown woods, the little town in the distance, where people must already be sitting outside in squares and on street corners in the fresh warmth of the