Clad only in a loincloth and a loose blue-gray shirt, a solitary thresher raises his arms behind his head, ready for the swinging stroke that will bring the full length and weight of his flail down on the unbound wheat sheaves lying on the grassy ground before him. Two bound sheaves stand behind him (Timothy B. Husband, The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, 2008)
Although he wears very little, the thresher is hatless, unlike the mower of June and the reapers of July. Threshing is hot work in a hot month, but despite the calendar convention, not all of the wheat reaped and bound at harvest time would be threshed in late summer, nor would threshing be performed out of doors, lest the precious grain be scattered and lost.