Who was milking on that fateful eighth day? Was it a domestic servant or a young unmarried woman? Possibly a virgin. Possibly all of the above. By the Victorian era, a maid was a domestic servant, and there were all types by then. A milkmaid was a girl who milked cows - our maids may or may not have been milkmaids. They were a-milking, though.
Eight maids is a significant number with historical references: a queen regnant (e.g. Queen Elizabeth) had the tradition of eight maids of honour. A maid of honour was a maiden - unmarried, and usually young - commonly in their sixteenth year or older.
However, when we move on to an expression about milkmaids, the implication is that they grew older than 16 by quite a bit - "as smooth as milkmaid's skin" means exceptionally smooth. Wikipedia says that "this phrase came about as a result of exposure to cowpox, which causes no serious symptoms, but does convey a partial immunity to the disfiguring (and often fatal) disease smallpox. Thus, milkmaids lacked the "pockmarked" complexion common to smallpox survivors. This observation led to the development of the first vaccine".
What is the yellow milkmaid syndrome? This is a reference to Johannes Vermeer's most famous painting - of a woman in a yellow dress pouring milk. There are over 10,000 copies on the internet - mostly poor, yellowish reproductions. The colours do not represent the work accurately. "At the national level, for example in the UK, the higher education community has issued the Open Metadata Principles calling on metadata to be openly available for innovative re-use". This is about open metadata in the cultural heritage sector - a current issue and the organization dealing with it is known as Europeana.
.So we look at our pictures today as two options to enter into the New Year - the portal to the golden landscape and the portal to the sea. Which will it be this year?
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