Pell-mell the rollers tossed her along down-current,
wild as the North Wind tossing thistle along the fields
at high harvest – dry stalks clutching each other tightly –
so the galewinds tumbled her down the sea, this way, that way,
now the South Wind flinging her over to North to sport with,
now the East Wind giving her up to West to harry on and on.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 5, lines 360-365. As Odysseus’ raft is tossed and blown about a stormy sea by winds and waves, an epic simile compares it to thistles being blown around the fields at harvest time.