Domestic pigs

Domestic pigs are part of the material rhythm of farm life in Lipce: they are raised and fattened at home, driven to market, and weighed in cash terms when households face winter expenses. Their appearances connect seasonal husbandry to the pressure of taxes, debts, and scarce ready money. At the St Kordula’s Day fair, a sow and a hog from Maciej Boryna’s household become the focus of bargaining, showing how animal care and family livelihood meet in an uncertain sale.

Farm preparation and seasonal care

In the days before the fair, Lipce households calculate what they might sell and what they need to buy before winter. Taxes, commune contributions, loans, debts, and payments to servants all press on limited resources; even farmers with fifteen morgen reckon that they may have to take a horse or cow to market. Domestic pigs belong to this broader economy of preparation, in which animals are raised not only as part of farm life but also as potential sources of money when obligations come due.

At Maciej Boryna’s farm, the household prepares a sow for sale by fattening her. Józka Borynianka and Hanka Borynowa also select goslings to keep for rearing, while Maciej Boryna and Kuba finish threshing wheat. Meanwhile, Antek Boryna and Witek fetch brushwood from the forest before the expected rains, using some for the byre and stacking the rest against the house to help insulate it for winter. The preparations place the sow among a set of linked tasks: the family must finish the harvest work, ready livestock, and protect the dwelling before the season turns.

The sow and hog are taken to the fair as part of this household effort. Hanka Borynowa and Józka Borynianka leave at dawn with the sow and fattened hog, while Antek Boryna drives ten sacks of wheat and a bushel of red clover seed. The animals travel alongside the household’s other products, making the fair a place where several forms of farm labor may be converted into money. Maciej Boryna follows on foot; Kuba and Witek remain at home with Jagustynka, who has been called in to prepare food and look after the cows.

The fair and the work of valuation

The road to the fair is crowded with carts and people on foot. Among the animals being driven or carried are sows with piglets, whose movement through the press of carts requires constant attention: one seller chases squealing piglets and keeps them from running under the wheels. Pigs are thus shown not as static property but as living, unruly cargo, needing care even while being transported for sale.

At the fair, Maciej Boryna finds Hanka Borynowa and Józka Borynianka at the edge of the pig market, behind the monastery, where rows of pigs have gathered beneath large oaks. When he asks whether they have sold anything, they explain that butchers are bargaining over the sow but offering too little. They name thirty notes as the proposed price and report the buyers’ judgment that she is underfed. Maciej Boryna rejects that assessment: he feels along her back and flanks and insists that she has at least four fingers of fat. His touch is part of the dispute over value, a practical counter to the butchers’ claim that the animal is too thin.

He evaluates the hog separately. Its flanks are lean, he observes, but its hindquarters are suitable for ham; he tells the women to ask thirty-five for it. The exchange makes visible the different terms on which the two animals are judged: the sow’s condition is disputed, while the hog’s lean flanks are weighed against the worth of its hindquarters. The scene records proposed prices and efforts to secure a better bargain, not a confirmed sale. Maciej Boryna says he will return after looking for Antek Boryna and offers to buy Hanka Borynowa and Józka Borynianka sausage once they have sold the pig. Food at the fair is therefore both a modest immediate comfort and something he links to the hoped-for proceeds.

Household need and the farming year

The animals’ market appearance gains significance from the wider shortage of cash in Lipce. As winter approaches, villagers must meet expenses even when money is difficult to obtain; later, Antek Boryna and Hanka Borynowa face severe scarcity in their own household, living on potatoes and salt and fearing they may have to sell their cow. That later hardship does not establish what happened to Maciej Boryna’s pigs at the fair, but it clarifies the vulnerability of livestock-based household security: animals may be kept, fattened, or considered for sale as circumstances require.

Pigs also belong to the recurring agricultural calendar beyond the fair. In spring, alongside cows calving and fowl hatching, sows farrow. Their reproduction adds to the season’s already heavy work, when households must tend livestock and manage gardens and fields. The novel places pig-keeping within a cycle of preparation, market exchange, and renewed animal care rather than treating it as an isolated transaction.

Narrative significance

The fair episode gives the pigs a sharply practical presence. The sow’s fat, the hog’s flanks and hindquarters, the butchers’ offer, and Maciej Boryna’s hands-on inspection make farm value concrete and contested. Their sale is one possible response to the household’s need for cash, but the scene does not say that either animal is sold; the uncertainty matters, since a hoped-for bargain is not the same as money secured.

Across the seasonal cycle, domestic pigs mark the close link between household labor and material survival. Fattening the sow requires preparation before winter; taking the animals to market exposes their value to buyers’ judgments; and spring farrowing begins another round of care. The pigs are neither mere background nor symbols detached from farm life: their care and exchange register the pressures that shape the household’s decisions and the changing demands of the year.