 Chapter 47 C. Litiurses. The Golden Bow by Sir James Fraser. Chapter 47 C. Litiurses. 4. The Corn Spirit slain in his human representatives. The barbarous rites just described offer analogies to the harvest customs of Europe. Thus the fertilising virtue ascribed to the corn spirit is shown equally in the savage custom of mixing the victim's blood or ashes with the seed corn and the European custom of mixing the grain from the last sheaf with the young corn in spring. Again, the identification of the person with the corn appears alike in the savage custom of adapting the age and stature of the victim to the age and stature whether actual or expected of the crop. In the Scotch and Styrian rules that when the corn spirit is conceived as the maiden, the last corn shall be cut by a young maiden, but when it is conceived as the corn mother it shall be cut by an old woman. In the warning given to old women in Lorraine to save themselves when the old woman is being killed, that is when the last corn is being threshed, and in the Tirelli's expectation that if the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is tall, the next year's corn will be tall also. Further, the same identification is implied in the savage custom of killing the representative of the corn spirit with hose or spades, or by grinding him between stones, and in the European custom of pretending to kill him with the scythe or the flail. Once more the conned custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the victim is parallel to the European customs of pouring water on the personal representative of the corn spirit, or plunging him into a stream. Both the conned and the European customs are range arms. To return now to the Litiersi's story. It has been shown that in rude society human beings have been commonly killed to promote the growth of the crops. There is therefore no improbability in the supposition that they may once have been killed for a light purpose in Phrygia and Europe. And when Phrygian legend and European folk custom, closely agreeing with each other, point to the conclusion that men were so slain, we are bound, provisionally at least, to accept the conclusion. Further, both the Litiersi's story and European harvest customs agree in indicating that the victim was put to death as a representative of the corn spirit. And this indication is in harmony with the view which some savages appear to take of the victim slain to make the crops flourish. On the whole then, we may fairly suppose that both in Phrygia and in Europe the representative of the corn spirit was annually killed upon the harvest field. Grounds have been already shown for believing that similarly in Europe the representative of the tree spirit was annually slain. The proofs of these two remarkable and closely analogous customs are entirely independent of each other. Their coincidence seems to furnish fresh presumption in favour of both. To the question, how was the representative of the corn spirit chosen, one answer has been already given. Both the Litiersi's story and the European folk custom show that passing strangers were regarded as manifestations of the corn spirit escaping from the cut or threshed corn, and as such were seized and slain. But this is not the only answer which the evidence suggests. According to the Phrygian legend, the victims of Litiersi's were not simply passing strangers, but persons whom he had vanquished in a reaping contest, and afterwards wrapped up in corn sheaves and beheaded. This suggests that the representative of the corn spirit may have been selected by a means of competition on the harvest field, in which the vanquished competitor was compelled to accept the fatal honour. The supposition is countenanced by European harvest customs. We have seen that in Europe there is sometimes a contest amongst the reapers to avoid being last, and that the person who is vanquished in this competition, that is who cuts the last corn, is often roughly handled. It is true we have not found that a pretence is made of killing him, but on the other hand we have found that a pretence is made of killing the man who gives the last stroke at threshing, that is who is vanquished in the threshing contest. Now since it is in the character of representative of the corn spirit that the thresher of the last corn is slain in mimicry, and since the same representative character attaches, as we have seen, to the cutter and binder, as well as to the thresher of the last corn, and since the same repugnance is evinced by harvesters to be last in any one of these labours, we may conjecture that a pretence has been commonly made of killing the reaper and binder, as well as the thresher of the last corn, and that in ancient times this killing was actually carried out. This conjecture is corroborated by the common superstition that whoever cuts the last corn must die soon. Sometimes it is thought that the person who binds the last chief on the field will die in the course of next year, the reason for fixing on the reaper, binder or thresher of the last corn, as the representative of the corn spirit may be this. The corn spirit is supposed to look as long as he can in the corn, retreating before the reapers, the binders and the threshers at their work. But when he is forcibly expelled from his refuge in the last corn cut or last chief bound, or the last grain threshed, he necessarily assumes some other form than that of the corn stalks, which had hitherto been his garment or body. And what form can the expelled corn spirit assume more naturally than that of the person who stands nearest to the corn from which he, the corn spirit, has just been expelled. But the person in question is necessarily the reaper, binder or thresher of the last corn. He or she therefore is seized and treated as the corn spirit himself. Thus the person who was killed on the harvest field as the representative of the corn spirit may have been either a passing stranger or the harvester who was last at reaping, binding or threshing. But there is a third possibility to which ancient legend and modern folk-customer-like point. Litiurses not only put strangers to death, he was himself slain, and apparently in the same way as he had slain others, namely by being wrapped in a corn sheaf, beheaded and cast into the river. And it is implied that this happened to Litiurses on his own land. Similarly in modern harvest-customs the pretence of killing appears to be carried out quite as often on the person of the master, farmer or squire, as on that of strangers. Now when we remember that Litiurses was said to have been the son of the king of Frigia, and that in one account he is himself called a king, and when we combine with this the tradition that he was put to death, apparently as a representative of the corn spirit, we are led to conjecture that we have here another trace of the custom of annually slaying one of those divine or priestly kings who are known to have held ghostly sway in many parts of western Asia and particularly in Frigia. The custom appears, as we have seen, to have been so far modified in places that the king's son was slain in the king's stead. Of the custom thus modified the story of Litiurses would be, in one version at least, a reminiscence. Turning now to the relation of the Frigian Litiurses to the Frigian Attis, it may be remembered that at Pesinos, the seat of a priestly kingship, the High Priest appears to have been annually slain in the character of Attis, a god of vegetation, and that Attis was described by an ancient authority as a reaped ear of corn. Thus Attis, as an embodiment of the corn spirit, annually slain in the person of his representative, might be thought to be ultimately identical with Litiurses, the latter being simply the rustic prototype out of which the state religion of Attis was developed. It may have been so, but, on the other hand, the analogy of European folk custom warns us that amongst the same people, two distinct deities of vegetation may have their separate representatives, both of whom are slain in the character of gods at different times of the year. For in Europe, as we have seen, it appears that one man was commonly slain in the character of the tree spirit in spring, and another in the character of the corn spirit in autumn. It may have been so in Frigia also. Attis was especially a tree god, and his connection with corn may have been only such an extension of the power of a tree spirit, as is indicated in customs like the harvest may. Again, the representative of Attis appears to have been slain in spring, whereas Litiurses must have been slain in summer or autumn according to the time of the harvest in Frigia. On the whole then, while we are not justified in regarding Litiurses as the prototype of Attis, the two may be regarded as parallel products of the same religious idea, and may have stood to each other as in Europe the old man of harvest stands to the wild man, the leaf man, and so forth of spring. Both were spirits or deities of vegetation, and the personal representatives of both were annually slain, but whereas the Attis worship became elevated into the dignity of a state religion and spread to Italy, the rites of Litiurses seemed never to have passed the limits of their native Frigia, and always retained their character of rustic ceremonies performed by peasants on the harvest field. At most a few villages may have clubbed together as amongst the corns to procure a human victim to be slain as representative of the corn spirit for their common benefit. Such victims may have been drawn from the families of priestly kings or kinglets, which would account for the legendary character of Litiurses as the son of a Frigian king or as himself a king. When villages did not so club together, each village or farm may have procured its own representative of the corn spirit by dooming to death either a passing stranger or the harvester who cut, bound, or threshed the last sheaf. Perhaps in the olden time the practice of headhunting as a means of promoting the growth of the corn may have been as common among the rude inhabitants of Europe and Western Asia as it still is, or was till lately, among the primitive agricultural tribes of Assam, Burma, the Philippine Islands, and the Indian archipelago. It is hardly necessary to add that in Frigia, as in Europe, the old barbarous custom of killing a man on the harvest field, or the threshing floor, had doubtless passed into a mere pretense long before the classical era, and was probably regarded by the reapers and threshers themselves as no more than a rough jest which the licence of a harvest home permitted them to play off on a passing stranger, a comrade, or even on their master himself. I have dwelt on the Litiursi's song at length because it affords so many points of comparison with European and savage folk custom. The other harvest songs of Western Asia and Egypt to which attention has been called above may now be dismissed much more briefly. The similarity of the Bithynian Bormus to the Frigian Litiursi's helps to bear out the interpretation which has been given of the latter. Bormus, whose death or rather disappearance was annually mourned by the reapers in a plaintive song was, like Litiursi's, a king's son, or at least the son of a wealthy and distinguished man. The reapers whom he watched were at work on his own fields, and he disappeared in going to fetch water for them. According to one version of the story, he was carried off by the nymphs, doubtless the nymphs of the spring or pool or river, wither he went to draw water. Viewed in the light of the Litiursi's story and of European folk custom, this disappearance of Bormus may be a reminiscence of the custom of binding the farmer himself in a corn sheaf and throwing him into the water. The mournful strain which the reapers sang was probably a lamentation over the death of the corn spirit, slain either in the cut corn or in the person of a human representative, and the call which they addressed to him may have been a prayer that he might return in fresh vigour next year. The Phoenician Linnus song was sung at the vintage, at least in the west of Asia Minor, as we learned from Homer, and this combined with the legend of Sileus, suggests that in ancient times passing strangers were handled by vintages and vine-diggers in much the same way as they are said to have been handled by the reaper Litiursi's. The Lydian Sileus, so ran the legend, compelled passers-by to dig for him in his vineyard, till Hercules came and killed him and dug up his vines by the roots. This seems to be the outline of a legend like that of Litiursi's, but neither ancient writers nor modern folk custom enable us to fill in the details. But further the Linnus song was probably sung also by Phoenician reapers, for Herodotus compares it to the Maneros song, which, as we have seen, was a lament raised by Egyptian reapers over the cut corn. Further Linnus was identified with Adonis, and Adonis has some claims to be regarded as especially a corn deity. Thus the Linnus lament, as sung at harvest, would be identical with the Adonis lament. Each would be the lamentation raised by reapers over the dead spirit of the corn. But whereas Adonis, like Attis, grew into a stately figure of mythology, adored and mourned in splendid cities far beyond the limits of his Phoenician home, Linnus appears to have remained a simple ditty sung by reapers and vintagers among the corn sheaves and the vines. The analogy of Litiursi's and of folk custom, both European and savage, suggests that in Phoenicia the slain corn spirit, the dead Adonis, may formally have been represented by a human victim, and this suggestion is possibly supported by the Haran legend that Tamus, Adonis, was slain by his cruel lord, who ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the wind. For in Mexico, as we have seen, the human victim at harvest was crushed between two stones, and both in Africa and India, the ashes or other remains of the victim, were scattered over the fields. But the Haran legend may be only a mythical way of expressing the grinding of corn in the mill and the scattering of the seed. It seems worth suggesting that the Mop King, who was annually killed at the Babylonian Festival of the Sakia on the 16th day of the month Lus, may have represented Tamus himself. For the historian Berosus, who records the festival and its date, probably used the Macedonian calendar since he dedicated his history to Antiochus Soter, and in his day the Macedonian month Lus appears to have corresponded to the Babylonian month Tamus. If this conjecture is right, the view that the Mop King at Sakia was slain in the character of a god would be established. There is a good deal more evidence that in Egypt the slain corn spirit, the dead Osiris, was represented by a human victim, whom the reapers slew on the harvest field, mourning his death in a dirge, to which the Greeks, through a verbal misunderstanding, gave the name of Maneros. For the legend of Bousiris seems to preserve a reminiscence of human sacrifices once offered by the Egyptians in connection with the worship of Osiris. Bousiris was said to have been an Egyptian king who sacrificed all strangers on the altar of Zeus. The origin of the custom was traced to a dearth which afflicted the land of Egypt for nine years. Aciprian Sia informed Bousiris that the dearth would cease if a man were annually sacrificed to Zeus, so Bousiris instituted the sacrifice. But when Hercules came to Egypt and was being dragged to the altar to be sacrificed, he burst his bonds and slew Bousiris and his son. Here then is a legend that in Egypt a human victim was annually sacrificed to prevent the failure of the crops, and a belief is implied that an omission of the sacrifice would have entailed a recurrence of that infertility which it was the object of the sacrifice to prevent. So the Pornese, as we have seen, believed that an omission of the human sacrifice at planting would have been followed by a total failure of their crops. The name Bousiris was in reality the name of a city, Pérasar, the house of Osiris, the city being so called because it contained the grave of Osiris. Indeed some high modern authorities believe that Bousiris was the original home of Osiris, from which his worship spread to other parts of Egypt. The human sacrifices were said to have been offered at his grave, and the victims were red-haired men whose ashes were scattered abroad by means of winnowing fans. This tradition of human sacrifices offered at the tomb of Osiris is confirmed by the evidence of the monuments. In the light of the foregoing discussion, the Egyptian tradition of Bousiris admits of a consistent and fairly probable explanation. Osiris, the corn spirit, was annually represented at harvest by a stranger whose red hair made him a suitable representative of the ripe corn. This man, in his representative character, was slain on the harvest field, and mourned by the reapers, who prayed at the same time that the corn spirit might revive and return, with renewed vigor in the following year. Finally, the victim, or some part of him, was burnt and the ashes scattered by winnowing fans over the fields to fertilize them. Here the choice of the victim on the ground of his resemblance to the corn, which he was to represent, agrees with the Mexican and African customs already described. Similarly, the woman who died in the character of the corn-mother at the Mexican Midsummer Sacrifice had her face painted red and yellow in token of the colours of the corn, and she wore a pasteboard mitre surmounted by waving plumes in imitation of the tassel of the maize. On the other hand, at the festival of the goddess of the white maize, the Mexicans sacrificed lepers. The Romans sacrificed red-haired puppies in spring to avert the supposed blighting influence of the dog-star, believing that the crops would thus grow ripe and ruddy. The heathen of Haran offered to the sun, moon, and planets human victims who were chosen on the ground of their supposed resemblance to the heavenly bodies to which they were sacrificed. For example, the priests, clothed in red and smeared with blood, offered a red-haired, red-cheeked man to the Red Planet Mars in a temple which was painted red and draped with red hangings. These and the light cases of assimilating the victim to the god, or to the natural phenomenon which he represents, are based ultimately on the principle of homeopathic or imitative magic, the notion being that the object aimed at will be most readily attained by means of a sacrifice which resembles the effect that it is designed to bring about. The story that the fragments of Osiris's body were scattered up and down the land and buried by Isis on the spots where they lay, may very well be a reminiscence of a custom, like that observed by the cons, of dividing the human victim in pieces and burying the pieces, often at intervals of many miles from each other in the fields. Thus, if I am right, the key to the mysteries of Osiris is furnished by the melancholy cry of the Egyptian reapers, which, down to Roman times, could be heard year after year sounding across the fields, announcing the death of the corn spirit, the rustic prototype of Osiris. Similar cries, as we have seen, were also heard on all the harvest fields of Western Asia. By the ancients they are spoken of as songs, but to judge from the analysis of the names Linus and Maneros, they probably consisted only of a few words uttered in a prolonged musical note which could be heard at a great distance. Such sonorous and long-drawn cries, raised by a number of strong voices in concert, must have had a striking effect, and could hardly fail to arrest the attention of any wayfarer who happened to be within hearing. The sounds, repeated again and again, could probably be distinguished with tolerable ease even at a distance. But to a Greek traveller in Asia or Egypt, the foreign words would commonly convey no meaning, and he might take them, not unnaturally, for the name of someone, Maneros, Linus, Letiasis, Bonmus, upon whom the reapers were calling. And if his journey led him through more countries than one, as Bithynia and Phrygia, or Phoenicia and Egypt, while the corn was being reaped, he would have an opportunity of comparing the various harvest cries of the different peoples. Thus we can readily understand why these harvest cries were so often noted and compared with each other by the Greeks. Whereas if they had been regular songs, they could not have been heard at such distances, and therefore could not have attracted the attention of so many travellers. And, moreover, even if the wayfarer were within hearing of them, he could not so easily have picked out the words. Down to recent times Devonshire reapers uttered cries of the same sort, and performed on the field a ceremony exactly analogous to that in which, if I am not mistaken, the rites of Osiris originated. The cry and the ceremony are thus described by an observer who wrote in the first half of the nineteenth century. After the wheat is all cut, on most farms in the north of Devon, the harvest people have a custom of crying the neck. I believe that this practice is seldom omitted on any large farm in that part of the country. It is done in this way. An old man, or someone else well acquainted with the ceremonies used on the occasion, when the labourers are reaping the last field of wheat, goes round to the shox and sheaves, and picks out a little bundle of all the best ears he can find. This bundle he ties up very neat and trim, and plaits and arranges the straws very tastefully. This is called the neck of wheat or wheat and ears. After the field is cut out, and the picture once more circulated, the reapers, binders and the women stand round in a circle. The person with the neck stands in the centre, grasping it with both his hands. He first stoopes and holds it near the ground, and all the men forming the ring take off their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands towards the ground. They then all begin at once in a very prolonged and harmonious tone to cry, the neck, at the same time slowly raising themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads. The person with the neck also raising it on high. This is done three times. They then change their cry to ween, ween, which they sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular harmony and effect three times. This last cry is accompanied by the same movements of the body and arms as in crying, the neck. After having thus repeated the neck three times, and ween or ween as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them then gets the neck and runs as hard as he can down to the farmhouse, where the dairymaid or one of the young female domestics stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. If he who holds the neck can manage to get into the house in any way unseen or openly by any other way than the door at which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her, but if otherwise he is regularly sourced with the contents of the bucket. On a fine still autumn evening the crying of the neck has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the Turkish muazzin which Lord Byron eulogises so much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells in Christendom. I have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of female voices. About three years back on some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six or seven necks cried in one night, although I know that some of them were four miles off. They are heard through the quiet evening air at a considerable distance sometimes. Again Mrs. Bray tells how, travelling in Devonshire, she saw a party of reapers standing in a circle on a rising ground, holding their sickles aloft. One in the middle held up some ears of corn tied together with flowers, and the party shouted three times, what she writes as, Our knack, our knack, our knack, we haven't, we haven't, we haven't. They went home accompanied by women and children, carrying boughs of flowers, shouting and singing. The manservant who attended Mrs. Bray said, It was only the people making their games, as they always did to the spirit of harvest. Here as Miss Burn remarks, Our knack, we haven't, it's obviously in the Devon dialect, a knack, or knack, we haven't. Another account of this old custom, written at Truro in 1839, runs thus. Now when all the corn was cut at Heligan, the farming men and maidens come in front of the house, and bring with them a small sheaf of corn, the last that has been cut, and this is adorned with ribbons and flowers, and one part is tied quite tight so as to look like a knack. Then they cry out, Our side, my side, as loud as I can, then the dairy maid gives the knack to the head farming man. He takes it and says very loudly three times, I have him, I have him, I have him. Then another farming man shouts very loudly, What have you, what have you, what have you? Then the first says a knack, a knack, a knack. And when he has said this, all the people make a very great shouting. This they do three times, and after one famous shout, go away and eat supper and dance and sing songs. According to another account, all went out to the field when the last corn was cut, the knack was tied with ribbons and plated, and they danced round it and carried it to the great kitchen where by and by the supper was. The words were as given in the previous account, and hip, I have him, I have him, I have him. It was hung up in the hall. Another account relates that one of the men rushed from the field with the last sheaf, while the rest pursued him with vessels of water, which they tried to throw over the sheaf before it could be brought into the barn. In the foregoing customs a particular bunch of ears, generally the last left standing, is conceived as the neck of the corn spirit, who is consequently beheaded when the bunch is cut down. Similarly in Shropshire, the name neck, or the gander's neck, used to be commonly given to the last handful of ears left standing in the middle of the field when all the rest of the corn was cut. It was plated together, and the reapers standing ten or twenty paces off through their sickles at it. Whoever cut it through was said to have cut off the gander's neck. The neck was taken to the farmer's wife, who was supposed to keep it in the house for good luck till the next harvest came round. Near Treve, the man who reaps the last standing corn cuts the goat's neck off. At Fastlane, on the Gaeloch, Dumbartonshire, the last handful of standing corn was sometimes called the head. At Aurech, in East Friesland, the man who reaps the last corn cuts the hare's tail off. In mowing down the last corner of a field, French reapers sometimes call out, We have the cat by the tail. In Bress, Bougogne, the last chief represented the fox. Beside it, a score of ears were left standing to form the tail, and each reaper, going back some paces, threw his sickle at it. He who succeeded in severing it cut off the fox's tail. And a cry of Yoko Koo was raised in his honour. These examples leave no room to doubt the meaning of the Devonshire and Cornish expression, the neck, as applied to the last chief. The corn spirit is conceived in human or animal form, and the last standing corn is part of its body, its neck, its head, or its tail. Sometimes, as we have seen, the last corn is regarded as the navel string. Lastly, the Devonshire custom of drenching with water, the person who brings in the neck, is a rain charm, such as we have had many examples of. Its parallel in the mysteries of Osiris was the custom of pouring water on the image of Osiris, or on the person who represented him. And of Chapter 47, Chapter 48a of the Golden Bough This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser Chapter 48a The Corn Spirit as an Animal 1. Animal embodiments of the Corn Spirit In some of the examples which I have cited to establish the meaning of the term neck as applied to the last sheaf, the Corn Spirit appears in animal form as a gander, a goat, a hare, a cat, and a fox. This introduces us to a new aspect of the Corn Spirit, which we must now examine. By doing so, we shall not only have fresh examples of killing the God, but may hope also to clear up some points which remain obscure in the myths and worship of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Dionysus, Demeter, and Virbius. Amongst the many animals whose forms the Corn Spirit is supposed to take are the wolf, dog, hare, fox, cock, goose, quail, cat, goat, cow, ox, bull, pig, and horse. In one or other of these shapes, the Corn Spirit is often believed to be present in the Corn, and to be caught or killed in the last sheaf. As the Corn is being cut, the animal flees before the reapers, and if a reaper is taken ill on the field, he is supposed to have stumbled unwittingly on the Corn Spirit, who has thus punished the profane intruder. It is said, the rye wolf has got hold of him, the harvest goat has given him a push. The person who cuts the last corn or binds the last sheaf gets the name of the animal, as the rye wolf, the rye sow, the oats goat, and so forth, and retains the name sometimes for a year. Also, the animal is frequently represented by a puppet made out of the last sheaf, or of wood, flowers, and so on, which is carried home amid rejoicings on the last harvest wagon. Even where the last sheaf is not made up in animal shape, it is often called the rye wolf, the hare, goat, and so forth. Generally, each kind of crop is supposed to have its special animal, which is caught in the last sheaf, and called the rye wolf, the barley wolf, the oats wolf, the pea wolf, or the potato wolf, according to the crop, but sometimes the figure of the animal is only made up once for all at getting in the last crop of the whole harvest. Sometimes the creature is believed to be killed by the last stroke of the sickle or scythe, but oftener it is thought to live so long as there is corn still unthreshed, and to be caught in the last sheaf threshed. Hence the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is told that he has got the corn sow, the threshing dog, or the like. When the threshing is finished, a puppet is made in the form of the animal, and this is carried by the thresher of the last sheaf to a neighbouring farm, where the threshing is still going on. This again shows that the corn spirit is believed to live wherever the corn is still being threshed. Sometimes the thresher of the last sheaf himself represents the animal, and if the people of the next farm who are still threshing catch him, they treat him like the animal he represents, by shutting him up in the pigstie, calling him with the cries commonly addressed to pigs, and so forth. These general statements will now be illustrated by examples. 2. The Corn Spirit as a Wolf or a Dog We begin with the corn spirit conceived as a wolf or a dog. This conception is common in France, Germany, and Slavonic countries. Thus, when the wind sets the corn in wave-like motion, the peasants often say, the wolf is going over, or through, the corn. The rye wolf is rushing over the field. The wolf is in the corn. The mad dog is in the corn. The big dog is there. When the children wish to go into the corn fields to pluck ears or gather the blue corn flowers, they are warned not to do so, for the big dog sits in the corn, or the wolf sits in the corn, and will tear you to pieces. The wolf against whom the children are warned is not a common wolf, for he is often spoken of as the corn wolf, rye wolf, or the like. Thus, they say, the rye wolf will come and eat you up, children. The rye wolf will carry you off, and so forth. Still, he has all the outward appearance of a wolf. 4. In the neighborhood of Feilenhof, East Prussia, when a wolf was seen running through a field, the peasants used to watch whether he carried his tail in the air or dragged it on the ground. If he dragged it on the ground, they went after him and thanked him for bringing them a blessing, and even set tidbits before him. But if he carried his tail high, they cursed him and tried to kill him. Here the wolf is the corn spirit, whose fertilizing power is in his tail. Both dog and wolf appear as embodiments of the corn spirit in harvest customs. Thus, in some parts of Silesia, the person who cuts or binds the last chief is called the wheat dog, or the peas-pug. But it is in the harvest customs of the northeast of France that the idea of the corn dog comes out most clearly. Thus, when a harvester, through sickness, weariness, or laziness, cannot or will not keep up with the reaper in front of him, they say, the white dog passed near him, he has the white bitch, or the white bitch has bitten him. In the vogue, the harvest may is called the dog of the harvest, and the person who cuts the last handful of hay or wheat is said to kill the dog. About L'en-Lessonnier, in the Dura, the last chief is called the bitch. In the neighbourhood of Verdun, the regular expression for finishing the reaping is, they are going to kill the dog, and at Epinel, they say, according to the crop, we will kill the wheat dog, or the rye dog, or the potato dog. In Lorraine, it is said of the man who cuts the last corn, he is killing the dog of the harvest. At Dukes, in the Tyrol, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is said to strike down the dog, and at Arnebergen, near Stade, he is called, according to the crop, corn-pug, rye-pug, wheat-pug. So with the wolf, in Silesia, when the reapers gather round the last patch of standing corn to reap it, they are said to be about to catch the wolf. In various parts of Mecklenburg, where the belief in the corn wolf is particularly prevalent, everyone fears to cut the last corn because they say that the wolf is sitting in it. Hence, every reaper exerts himself to the utmost in order not to be the last, and every woman similarly fears to bind the last sheath because the wolf is in it. So, both among the reapers and the binders, there is a competition not to be the last to finish. And in Germany, generally, it appears to be a common saying that the wolf sits in the last sheath. In some places, they call out to the reaper, beware of the wolf, or they say he is chasing the wolf out of the corn. In Mecklenburg, the last bunch of standing corn is itself commonly called the wolf, and the man who reaps it has the wolf, the animal being described as the rye wolf, the wheat wolf, the barley wolf, and so on, according to the particular crop. The reaper of the last corn is himself called wolf, or the rye wolf, if the crop is rye, and in many parts of Mecklenburg, he has to support the character by pretending to bite the other harvesters or by howling like a wolf. The last sheath of corn is also called the wolf, or the rye wolf, or the oats wolf, according to the crop, and of the woman who binds it, they say, the wolf is biting her, she has the wolf, she must fetch the wolf out of the corn. Moreover, she herself is called wolf, they cry out to her, thou art the wolf, and she has to bear the name for a whole year. Sometimes, according to the crop, she is called the rye wolf, or the potato wolf. In the island of Rügen, not only is the woman who binds the last sheath called wolf, but when she comes home, she bites the lady of the house and the stewardess, for which she receives a large piece of meat. Yet nobody likes to be the wolf. The same woman may be rye wolf, wheat wolf, or oats wolf, if she happens to bind the last sheath of rye, wheat, and oats. At Bauer in the district of Cologne, it was formerly the custom to give to the last sheath the shape of a wolf. It was kept in the barn till all the corn was threshed. Then it was brought to the farmer, and he had to sprinkle it with beer or brandy. At Brunshelpten in Mecklenburg, the young woman who bound the last sheath of wheat used to take a handful of stalks out of it, and make the wheat wolf with them. It was the figure of a wolf about two feet long, and half a foot high, the legs of the animal being represented by stiff stalks, and its tail and mane by wheat ears. This wheat wolf she carried back at the head of the harvesters to the village, where it was set up on a high place in the parlor of the farm, and remained there for a long time. In many places the sheath called the wolf is made up in human form and dressed in clothes. This indicates a confusion of ideas between the corn spirit conceived in human and animal form. Generally the wolf is brought home on the last wagon with joyful cries. Hence the last wagon-load itself receives the name of the wolf. Again the wolf is supposed to hide himself among the cut corn in the granary, until he is driven out of the last bundle by the strokes of the flail. Hence at Vansleben near Mecklenburg, after the threshing the peasants go in procession, leading by a chain, a man who is enveloped in the threshed-out straw, and is called the wolf. He represents the corn spirit who has been caught escaping from the threshed corn. In the district of Treve it is believed that the corn wolf is killed at threshing. The men thresh the last sheaf till it is reduced to chopped straw. In this way they think that the corn wolf, who was lurking in the last sheaf, has been certainly killed. In France also the corn wolf appears at harvest. Thus they call out to the reaper of the last corn, you will catch the wolf. Near Chambéry they form a ring round the last standing corn and cry, the wolf is there. In Finisterre when the reaping draws near an end the harvesters cry, there is the wolf we will catch him. Each takes a swath to reap, and he who finishes first calls out, I've caught the wolf. In Guyenne when the last corn has been reaped they lead a weather all round the field. It is called the wolf of the field. Its horns are decked with a wreath of flowers and corn ears, and its neck and body are also encircled with garlands and ribbons. All the reapers march singing behind it. Then it is killed on the field. In this part of France the last sheaf is called the cujoulage, which in the patois means a weather. Hence the killing of the weather represents the death of the corn spirit, considered as present in the last sheaf. But two different conceptions of the corn spirit, as a wolf and as a weather, are mixed up together. Sometimes it appears to be thought that the wolf caught in the last corn lives during the winter in the farmhouse, ready to renew his activity as corn spirit in the spring. Hence at midwinter when the lengthening days begin to herald the approach of spring the wolf makes his appearance once more. In Poland a man with a wolf skin thrown over his head is led about at Christmas, or a stuffed wolf is carried about by persons who collect money. There are facts which point to an old custom of leading about a man enveloped in leaves and called the wolf, while his conductors collected money. Three, the corn spirit as a cock. Another form which the corn spirit often assumes is that of a cock. In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn fields because the corn cock sits there and will peck their eyes out. In North Germany they say that the cock sits in the last sheaf, and at cutting the last corn the reapers cry, now we will chase out the cock. When it is cut they say, we have caught the cock. At Bralle in Transylvania when the reapers come to the last patch of corn they cry, here we shall catch the cock. At Fustenwalde when the last sheaf is about to be bound the master releases a cock which he has brought in a basket and lets it run over the field. All the harvesters chase it till they catch it. Elsewhere the harvesters all try to seize the last corn cut. He who succeeds in grasping it must crow and is called cock. Among the winds it is or used to be customary for the farmer to hide a live cock under the last sheaf as it lay on the field and when the corn was being gathered up the harvester who lighted upon this sheaf had a right to keep the cock provided he could catch it. This formed the close of the harvest festival and was known as the cock catching and the beer which was served out to the reapers at this time went by the name of cock beer. The last sheaf is called cock cock sheaf harvest cock harvest hen autumn hen. A distinction is made between a wheat cock bean cock and so on according to the crop. At Vunchenzul in Turingen the last sheaf is made into the shape of a cock and called the harvest cock. A figure of a cock made of wood pasteboard ears of corn or flowers is born in front of the harvest wagon especially in west failure where the cock carries in his beak fruits of the earth of all kinds. Sometimes the image of the cock is fastened to the top of a maitre on the last harvest wagon. Elsewhere a live cock or a figure of one is attached to a harvest crown and carried on a pole. In Galicia and elsewhere this live cock is fastened to the garland of corn ears or flowers which the leader of the women reapers carries on her head as she marches in front of the harvest procession. In Silesia a live cock is presented to the master on a plate. The harvest supper is called harvest cock stubble cock etc and a chief dish at it at least in some places is a cock. If a waggoner upsets a harvest wagon it is said that he has spilt the harvest cock and he loses the cock that is the harvest supper. The harvest wagon with the figure of the cock on it is driven round the farmhouse before it is taken to the barn. Then the cock is nailed over or at the side of the house door or on the gable and remains there till the next harvest. In East Friesland the person who gives the last stroke at threshing is called the clucking hen and grain is strewed before him as if he were a hen. Again the corn spirit is killed in the form of a cock. In parts of Germany, Hungary, Poland and Pikedy the reapers place a live cock in the corn which is to be cut last and chase it over the field or bury it up to the neck in the ground. Afterwards they strike off its head with a sickle or scythe. In many parts of Westphalia when the harvesters bring the wooden cock to the farmer he gives them a live cock which they kill with whips or sticks or behead with an old sword or throw into the barn to the girls or give to the mistress to cook. If the harvest cock has not been spilt that is if no wagon has been upset the harvesters have the right to kill the farm yard cock by throwing stones at it or beheading it. Where this custom has fallen into disuse it is still common for the farmer's wife to make cocky leaky for the harvesters and to show them the head of the cock which has been killed for the soup. In the neighbourhood of Klausenburg Transylvania a cock is buried on the harvest field in the earth so that only its head appears. A young man then takes a scythe and cuts off the cock's head at a single sweep. If he fails to do this he is called the red cock for a whole year and people fear that next year's crop will be bad. At Udvahalee in Transylvania a live cock is bound up in the last sheaf and killed with a spit. It is then skinned. The flesh is thrown away but the skin and feathers are kept till next year and in spring the grain from the last sheaf is mixed with the feathers of the cock and scattered on the field which is to be tilled. Nothing could set in a clearer light the identification of the cock with the spirit of the corn. By being tied up in the last sheaf and killed the cock is identified with the corn and its death with the cutting of the corn. By keeping its feathers till spring then mixing them with the seed corn taken from the very sheaf in which the bird had been bound and scattering the feathers together with the seed over the field the identity of the bird with the corn is again emphasised and its quickening and fertilising power as an embodiment of the corn spirit is intimated in the plainest manner. Thus the corn spirit in the form of a cock is killed at harvest but rises to fresh life and activity in spring. Again the equivalence of the cock to the corn is expressed hardly less plainly in the custom of burying the bird in the ground and cutting off its head like the ears of corn with the scythe. 4. The corn spirit as a hair Another common embodiment of the corn spirit is the hair. In Galloway the reaping of the last standing corn is called cutting the hair. The mode of cutting it is as follows. When the rest of the corn has been reaped a handful is left standing to form the hair. It is divided into three parts and plated and the ears are tied in a knot. The reapers then retire a few yards and each throws his or her sickle in turn at the hair to cut it down. It must be cut below the knot and the reapers continue to throw their sickles at it one after the other until one of them succeeds in severing the stalks below the knot. The hair is then carried home and given to a maid servant in the kitchen who places it over the kitchen door on the inside. Sometimes the hair used to be thus kept till the next harvest. In the parish of Minigaffe when the hair was cut the unmarried reapers ran home with all speed and the one who arrived first was the first to be married. In Germany also one of the names for the last sheaf is the hair thus in some parts of unhult when the corn has been reaped and only a few stalks are left standing they say the hair will soon come or the reapers cry to each other look how the hair comes jumping out. In East Prussia they say that the hair sits in the last patch of standing corn and must be chased out by the last reaper. The reapers hurry with their work each being anxious not to have to chase out the hair for the man who does so that is who cuts the last corn is much laughed at as we have seen an expression for cutting the last corn is to cut off the hair's tail. He is killing the hair is commonly said of the man who cuts the last corn in Germany, Sweden, Holland, France and Italy. In Norway the man who is thus said to kill the hair must give hair's blood in the form of brandy to his fellows to drink. In Lesbos when the reapers are at work in two neighbouring fields each party tries to finish first in order to drive the hair into their neighbour's field the reapers who succeed in doing so believe that next year the crop will be better. A small sheaf of corn is made up and kept beside the holy picture till next harvest. Five the corn spirit as a cat again the corn spirit sometimes takes the form of a cat. Near Kiel children are warned not to go into the corn fields because the cat sits there. In the Eisenach Oberland they are told the corn cat will come and fetch you. The corn cat goes in the corn. In some parts of Silesia at mowing the last corn they say the cat is caught and at threshing the man who gives the last stroke is called the cat. In the neighbourhood of Lyon the last sheaf and the harvest supper are both called the cat. About Vesoul when they cut the last corn they say we have the cat by the tail. At Briensson in the Dauphiné at the beginning of reaping a cat is decked out with ribbons, flowers and ears of corn. It is called the cat of the bullskin, le chade de pôle de balle. If a reaper is wounded at his work they make the cat lick the wound. At the close of the reaping the cat is again decked out with ribbons and ears of corn. Then they dance and make merry. When the dance is over the girls solemnly strip the cat of its finery. At Kronerberg in Silesia the reaper who cuts the last corn goes by the name of the Tomcat. He is enveloped in rice stalks and green wides and is furnished with a long plated tail. Sometimes as a companion he has a man similarly dressed who is called the female cat. Their duty is to run after people whom they see and to beat them with a long stick. Near Amiens the expression for finishing the harvest is they're going to kill the cat and when the last corn is cut they kill a cat in the farm yard. At Threshing in some parts of France a live cat is placed under the last bundle of corn to be threshed and is struck dead with the flails. Then on Sunday it is roasted and eaten as a holiday dish. In the Vosges Mountains the close of haymaking or harvest is called catching the cat, killing the dog or more rarely catching the hare. The cat, the dog or the hare is said to be fat or lean according as the crop is good or bad. The man who cuts the last handful of hay or of wheat is said to catch the cat or the hare or to kill the dog. 6. The corn spirit as a goat Further the corn spirit often appears in the form of a goat. In some parts of Prussia when the corn bends before the wind they say the goats are chasing each other. The wind is driving the goats through the corn, the goats are browsing there and they expect a very good harvest. Again they say the oats goat is sitting in the oats field, the corn goat is sitting in the rye field. Children are warned not to go into the corn fields to pluck the blue corn flowers or amongst the beans to pluck pods because the rye goat, the corn goat, the oats goat or the bean goat is sitting or lying there and will carry them away or kill them. When a harvester is taken sick or lags behind his fellows at their work they call out the harvest goat has pushed him, he has been pushed by the corn goat. In the neighborhood of Brownsburg East Prussia at binding the oats every harvester makes haste lest the corn goat push him. At Urfoten in Norway each reaper has his allotted patch to reap. When a reaper in the middle has not finished reaping his peace after his neighbors have finished theirs they say of him he remains on the island and if the laggard is a man they imitate the cry with which they call a he goat if a woman the cry with which they call a she goat. Near Straubing in lower Bavaria it is said of the man who cuts the last corn that he has the corn goat or the wheat goat or the oats goat according to the crop. Moreover two horns are set up on the last heap of corn and it is called the horned goat. At Kreuzburg East Prussia they call out to the woman who is binding the last sheaf. The goat is sitting on the sheaf. At Gablingen in Swabia when the last field of oats upon a farm is being reaped the reapers carve a goat out of wood. Ears of oats are inserted in its nostrils and mouth and it is adorned with garlands of flowers. It is set up on the field and called the oats goat. When the reaping approaches an end each reaper hastens to finish his peace first. He who is the last to finish gets the oats goat. Again the last sheaf is itself called the goat. Thus in the valley of Wiesent Bavaria the last sheaf bound on the field is called the goat and they have a proverb the field must bear a goat. At Spachbrücken in Hesse the last handful of corn which is cut is called the goat and the man who cuts it is much ridiculed. At Dürrenbuschik and about Mossbach in Baden the last sheaf is also called the goat. Sometimes the last sheaf is made up in the form of a goat and they say the goat is sitting in it. Again the person who cuts or binds the last sheaf is called the goat. Thus in parts of Mecklenburg they call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, you are the harvest goat. Near Urdsen in Hanover the harvest festival begins with the bringing of the harvest goat. That is the woman who bound the last sheaf is wrapped in straw crowned with a harvest wreath and brought in a wheelbarrow to the village where a round dance takes place. About Lüneburg also the woman who binds the last corn is decked with a crown of corn ears and is called the corn goat. At Munsesheim in Baden the reaper who cuts the last handful of corn or oats is called the corn goat or the oats goat. In the Kantonsangal Switzerland the person who cuts the last handful of corn on the field or drives the last harvest wagon to the barn is called the corn goat or the rye goat or simply the goat. In the Kantonsangal he is called the corn goat. Like a goat he has a bell hung round his neck, is led in triumph and drenched with liquor. In parts of Styria also the man who cuts the last corn is called corn goat, oats goat or the like. As a rule the man who thus gets the name of corn goat has to bear it a whole year till the next harvest. According to one view the corn spirit who has been caught in the form of a goat or otherwise lives in the farmhouse or barn over winter. Thus each farm has its own embodiment of the corn spirit, but according to another view the corn spirit is the genius or deity not of the corn of one farm only but of all the corn. Hence when the corn on one farm is all cut he flees to another where there is still corn left standing. This idea is brought out in a harvest custom which was formally observed in sky. The farmer who first finished reaping sent a man or woman with a sheaf to a neighboring farmer who had not finished. The latter in his turn when he had finished sent on the sheaf to his neighbor who was still reaping, and so the sheaf made the round of the farms till all the corn was cut. The sheaf was called the goreir vakch, that is the cripple goat. The customer appears not to be extinct at the present day for it was reported from sky not many years ago. The corn spirit was probably thus represented as lame because he had been crippled by the cutting of the corn. Sometimes the old woman who brings home the last sheaf must limp on one foot. But sometimes the corn spirit in the form of a goat is believed to be slain on the harvest field by the sickle or scythe. Thus in the neighborhood of Berncastle on the Moselle the reapers determined by lot the order in which they shall follow each other. The first is called the four reaper, the last the tail bearer. If a reaper overtakes the man in front he reaps past him, bending round so as to leave the slower reaper in a patch by himself. This patch is called the goat and the man for whom the goat is cut in this way is laughed and jeered at by his fellows for the rest of the day. When the tail bearer cuts the last ears of corn it is said he is cutting the goat's neck off. In the neighborhood of Grenoble before the end of the reaping a live goat is adorned with flowers and ribbons and allowed to run about the field. The reapers chase it and try to catch it. When it is caught the farmer's wife holds it fast while the farmer cuts off its head. The goat's flesh serves to finish the harvest supper. A piece of the flesh is pickled and kept till the next harvest when another goat is killed. Then all the harvesters eat of the flesh. On the same day the skin of the goat is made into a cloak which the farmer who works with his men must always wear at harvest time if rain or bad weather sets in. But if a reaper gets pains in his back the farmer gives him the goat's skin to wear. The reason for this seems to be that the pains in his back being inflicted by the corn spirit can also be healed by it. Similarly we saw that elsewhere when a reaper is wounded at reaping a cat as the representative of the corn spirit is made to lick the wound. Estonian reapers in the island of Mon think that the man who cuts the first ears of corn at harvest will get pains in his back probably because the corn spirit is believed to resent especially the first wound. And in order to escape pains in the back Saxon reapers in Transylvania gird their loins with the first handful of ears which they cut. Here again the corn spirit is applied to for healing or protection but in his original vegetable form not in the form of a goat or a cat. Further the corn spirit under the form of a goat is sometimes conceived as lurking among the cut corn in the barn till he is driven from it by the threshing flail. Thus in Barden the last sheaf to be threshed is called the corn goat, the spelt goat or the oats goat according to the kind of grain. Again near Marktul in Upper Bavaria the sheaves are called straw goats or simply goats. They are laid in a great heap on the open field and threshed by two rows of men standing opposite each other who as they ply their flails sing a song in which they say that they see the straw goat amongst the corn stalks. The last goat that is the last sheaf is adorned with a wreath of violets and other flowers and with cakes strung together it is placed right in the middle of the heap. Some of the threshers rush at it and tear the best of it out, others lay on with their flails so recklessly that heads are sometimes broken. At Oberinthal in the Tyrol the last thresher is called goat, so at Haselberg in West Bohemia the man who gives the last stroke at threshing oats is called the oats goat. At Tetnank in Wurtenburg the thresher who gives the last stroke to the last bundle of corn before it is turned goes by the name of the he goat and it is said he has driven the he goat away. The person who after the bundle has been turned gives the last stroke of all is called the she goat. In this custom it is implied that the corn is inhabited by a pair of corn spirits, male and female. Further the corn spirit, captured in the form of a goat at threshing, is passed on to a neighbour whose threshing is not yet finished. In Franche Comté, as soon as the threshing is over the young people set up a straw figure of a goat on the farmyard of a neighbour who is still threshing. He must give them wine or money in return. At Elvangen in Wurtenburg the effigy of a goat is made out of the last bundle of corn at threshing. Four sticks form its legs and two its horns. The man who gives the last stroke with the flail must carry the goat to the barn of a neighbour who is still threshing and throw it down on the floor. If he is caught in the act they tie the goat on his back. A similar custom is observed at Indersdorf in Upper Bavaria. The man who throws the straw goat into the neighbour's barn imitates the bleating of a goat. If they catch him they blacken his face and tie the goat on his back. At Savern in Alsace when a farmer is a week or more behind his neighbours with his threshing they set a real stuffed goat or fox before his door. Sometimes the spirit of the corn in goat form is believed to be killed at threshing. In the district of Trounstein Upper Bavaria they think that the oats goat is in the last sheaf of oats. He is represented by an old rake set up on end with an old pot for a head. The children are then told to kill the oats goat. Chapter 48a Chapter 48b of The Golden Bow This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Golden Bow by Sir James Fraser Chapter 48b The corn spirit as an animal 7. The corn spirit as a bull, cow or ox Another form which the corn spirit often assumes is that of a bull, cow or ox. When the wind sweeps over the corn they say at Connitz in West Prussia the steer is running in the corn. When the corn is thick and strong in one spot they say in some parts of East Prussia the bull is lying in the corn. When a harvester has overstrained and blamed himself they say in the Grau Dents district of West Prussia the bull pushed him. In Lorraine they say he has the bull. The meaning of both expressions is that he has unwittingly lighted upon the divine corn spirit who has punished the profane intruder with lameness. So near Chambéry when a reaper wounds himself with his sickle it is said that he has the wound of the ox. In the district of Bunzlau Silesia the last sheaf is sometimes made into the shape of a horned ox stuffed with toe and wrapped in corn ears. This figure is called the Old Man. In some parts of Bohemia the last sheaf is made up in human form and called the buffalo bull. These cases show a confusion of the human with the animal shape of the corn spirit. The confusion is like that of killing a weather under the name of a wolf. All over Swabia the last bundle of corn on the field is called the cow. The man who cuts the last ears has the cow and is himself called cow or barley cow or oats cow according to the crop. At the harvest supper he gets a nosegay of flowers and corn ears and a more liberal allowance of drink than the rest. But he is teased and laughed at so no one likes to be the cow. The cow was sometimes represented by the figure of a woman made out of ears of corn and corn flowers. It was carried to the farmhouse by the man who had cut the last handful of corn. The children ran after him and the neighbors turned out to laugh at him till the farmer took the cow from him. Here again the confusion between the human and the animal form of the corn spirit is apparent. In various parts of Switzerland the reaper who cuts the last ears of corn is called wheat cow, corn cow, oats cow or corn steer and is the butt of many a joke. On the other hand in the district of Rosenheim, Upper Bavaria, when a farmer is later of getting in his harvest than his neighbors they set up on his land a straw ball as it is called. This is a gigantic figure of a ball made of stubble on a framework of wood and adorned with flowers and leaves. Attached to it is a label on which are scrawled doggerel verses in ridicule of the man on whose land the straw ball is set up. Again the corn spirit in the form of a bull or ox is killed on the harvest field at the close of the reaping. At Puyi near Dijon when the last ears of corn are about to be cut an ox adorned with ribbons flowers and ears of corn is led all round the field followed by the whole troop of reapers dancing. Then a man disguised as the devil cuts the last ears of corn and immediately slaughters the ox. Part of the flesh of the animal is eaten at the harvest supper part is pickled and kept till the first day of sowing in spring. At Ponta Mousson and elsewhere on the evening of the last day of reaping a calf adorned with flowers and ears of corn is led thrice around the farmyard being allured by a bait or driven by men with sticks or conducted by the farmer's wife with a rope. The calf chosen for this ceremony is the calf which was born first on the farm in the spring of the year. It is followed by all the reapers with their tools. Then it is allowed to run free. The reapers chase it and whoever catches it is called king of the calf. Lastly it is solemnly killed. At Luneville the man who acts as butcher is the Jewish merchant of the village. Sometimes again the corn spirit hides himself amongst the cut corn in the barn to reappear in bull or cow form at threshing. Thus at Wormlingen in Turingen the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is called the cow or rather the barley cow, oats cow, peas cow or the like according to the crop. He is entirely enveloped in straw. His head is surmounted by sticks in imitation of horns and two lads lead him by ropes to the well to drink. On the way thither he must low like a cow and for a long time afterwards he goes by the name of the cow. But over Medlingen in Swabia when the threshing draws near an end each man is careful to avoid giving the last stroke. He who does give it gets the cow which is a straw figure dressed in an old ragged petticoat hood and stockings. It is tied on his back with a straw rope. His face is blackened and being bound with straw ropes to a wheelbarrow he is wheeled round the village. Here again we meet with that confusion between the human and animal shape of the corn spirit which we have noted in other customs. In Kanton Schaffhausen the man who threshes the last corn is called the cow. In Kanton Turgau the corn bull. In Kanton Zurich the thresher cow. In the last mentioned district he is wrapped in straw and bound to one of the trees in the orchard. At Arad in Hungary the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is enveloped in straw and a cow's hide with horns attached to it. At Pesnitz in the district of Dresden the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is called bull. He must make a strawman and set it up before a neighbour's window. Here apparently as in so many cases the corn spirit is passed on to a neighbour who has not finished threshing. So at Hebrechtingen in Turingen the effigy of a ragged old woman is flung into the barn of the farmer who is last with his threshing. The man who throws it in cries, there's the cow for you. If the threshes catch him they detain him overnight and punish him by keeping him from the harvest supper. In these latter customs the confusion between the human and the animal shape of the corn spirit meets us again. Further the corn spirit in bull form is sometimes believed to be killed at threshing but Alxer in threshing the last bundle of corn they call out twelve times we are killing the bull. In the neighbourhood of Bordeaux where a butcher kills an ox on the field immediately after the close of the reaping it is said of the man who gives the last stroke at threshing that he has killed the bull. At Chambery the last sheaf is called the sheaf of the young ox and a race takes place to it in which all the reapers join. When the last stroke is given at threshing they say that the ox is killed and immediately there upon a real ox is slaughtered by the reaper who cut the last corn. The flesh of the ox is eaten by the threshes but supper. We have seen that sometimes the young corn spirit whose task it is to quicken the corn of the coming year is believed to be born as a corn baby on the harvest field. Similarly in Berry the young corn spirit is sometimes supposed to be born on the field in calf form for when a binder has not rope enough to bind all the corn in sheaves he puts aside the wheat that remains over and imitates the lowing of a cow. The meaning is that the sheaf has given birth to a calf. In Puy de Dom when a binder cannot keep up with the reaper whom he or she follows they say he or she is giving birth to the calf. In some parts of Prussia in similar circumstances they call out to the woman the bull is coming and imitate the bellowing of a bull. In these cases the woman is conceived as the corn cow or old corn spirit while the supposed calf is the corn calf or young corn spirit. In some parts of Austria a mythical calf Moekelbschen is believed to be seen amongst the sprouting corn in spring and to push the children. When the corn waves in the wind they say the calf is going about. Clearly as Mannhardt observes this calf of the springtime is the same animal which is afterwards believed to be killed at reaping. 8. The corn spirit as a horse or mare 9. Sometimes the corn spirit appears in the shape of a horse or mare. Between Kallab and Stuttgart when the corn bends before the wind they say there runs the horse. But Bollingen near Radolfzell in Baden the last chief of oats is called the Oates stallion. In Hartfordshire at the end of reaping there is or used to be observed a ceremony called crying the mare. The last blades of corn left standing on the field are tied together and called the mare. The reapers stand at a distance and throw their sickles at it. He who cuts it through has the prize with acclamations and good cheer. After it is cut the reapers cry thrice with a loud voice. I have her. Others answer thrice. What have you? A mare. A mare. A mare. Who says she is next asked thrice. A B's naming the owner thrice. Whither will you send her to C.D. naming some neighbour who has not reaped all his corn. In this custom the corn spirit in the form of a mare is passed on from a farm where the corn is all cut to another farm where it is still standing and where therefore the corn spirit may be supposed naturally to take refuge. In Shropshire the custom is similar. The farmer who finishes his harvest last and who therefore cannot send the mare to anyone else is said to keep her all winter. The mocking offer of the mare to a laggard neighbour was sometimes responded to by a mocking acceptance of her help. Thus an old man told an inquirer, While we were not supper, a man come with a alter to fetch her away. At one place a real mare used to be sent but the man who wrote her was subjected to some rough treatment at the farmhouse to which he paid his unwelcome visit. In the neighbourhood of Leal the idea of the corn spirit in horse form is clearly preserved. When a harvester grows weary at his work it is said he has the fatigue of the horse. The first chief called the cross of the horse is placed on a cross of boxwood in the barn and the youngest horse on the farm must tread on it. The reapers dance round the last blades of corn crying, see the remains of the horse. The chief made out of these last blades is given to the youngest horse of the parish commune to eat. This youngest horse of the parish clearly represents, as manheart says, the corn spirit of the following year, the corn foal, which absorbs the spirit of the old corn horse by eating the last corn cut, for as usual the old corn spirit takes his final refuge in the last sheaf. The thresher of the last sheaf is said to beat the horse. 9. The corn spirit as a pig, boar or sow. The last animal embodiment of the corn spirit which we shall notice is the pig, boar or sow. In Turingan when the wind sets the young corn in motion they sometimes say the boar is rushing through the corn. Among the Estonians of the island of Ursel the last chief is called the rybore and the man who gets it is saluted with a cry of, you have the rybore on your back. In reply he strikes up a song in which he prays for plenty. At Kola Vinkel near Augsburg at the close of the harvest the last bunch of standing corn is cut down stalk by stalk by all the reapers in turn. He who cuts the last stalk gets the sow and is laughed at. In other Swabian villages also the man who cuts the last corn has the sow or has the ry-sow. At Borningen near Radolftsel in Baden the last chief is called the ry-sow or the wheat-sow according to the crop. And at Rörenbach in Baden the person who brings the last armful for the last chief is called the corn-sow or the oats-sow. At Freidingen in Swabia the thresher who gives the last stroke is called sow, barley-sow, corn-sow or the like according to the crop. At Onst Mettingen the man who gives the last stroke at threshing has the sow. He is often bound up in a sheaf and dragged by a rope along the ground. And generally in Swabia the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is called sow. He may however rid himself of this invidious distinction by passing on to a neighbour the straw-rope which is the badge of his position as sow. So he goes to a house and throws the straw-rope into it crying, there I bring you the sow. All the inmates give chase and if they catch him they beat him, shut him up for several hours in the pigsty and oblige him to take the sow away again. In various parts of Upper Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke at threshing must carry the pig that is either a straw effigy of a pig or merely a bundle of straw ropes. This he carries to a neighbouring farm where the threshing is not finished and throws it into the barn. If the threshers catch him they handle him roughly beating him, blackening or dirtying his face, throwing him into filth, binding the sow on his back and so on. If the bearer of the sow is a woman they cut off her hair. At the harvest supper or dinner the man who carried the pig gets one or more dumplings made in the form of pigs. When the dumplings are served up by the maid servant all the people at table cry, Suze, Suze, Suze, that being the cry used in calling pigs. Sometimes after dinner the man who carried the pig has his face blackened and is set on a cart and drawn round the village by his fellows followed by a crowd crying, Suze, Suze, Suze, as if they were calling swine. Sometimes after being wheeled round the village he is flung on the dung hill. Again the corn spirit in the form of a pig places part at sowing time as well as at harvest. At Noi Alts in Corland when barley is sown for the first time in the year the farmer's wife boils the chine of a pig along with the tail and brings it to the sower on the field. He eats of it but cuts off the tail and sticks it in the field. It is believed that the ears of corn will then grow as long as the tail. Here the pig is the corn spirit whose fertilizing power is sometimes supposed to lie especially in his tail. As a pig he is put in the ground at sowing time and as a pig he reappears amongst the ripe corn at harvest. For amongst the neighbouring Estonians as we have seen the last chief is called the Rye Boar. Sometimes similar customs are observed in Germany. In the Seltzer district near Meiningen a certain bone in the pig is called the Jew on the Winnowing Fan. The flesh of this bone is boiled on Shrove Tuesday but the bone is put amongst the ashes which the neighbours exchange as presents on St Peter's Day the 22nd of February and then mixed with the seed corn. In the whole of Hesse, Meiningen and other districts people eat pea soup with dried pig ribs on Ash Wednesday or Candle Mass. The ribs are then collected and hung in the room till sowing time when they are inserted in the sown field or in the seed bag amongst the flax seed. This is thought to be an infallible specific against earth fleas and moles and to cause the flax to grow well and tall. But the idea of the corn spirit as embodied in pig form is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the Scandinavian custom of the Yule Boar. In Sweden and Denmark at Yule Christmas it is the custom to bake a loaf in the form of a boar pig. This is called the Yule Boar. The corn of the last chief is often used to make it. All through Yule the Yule Boar stands on the table. Often it is kept till the sowing time in spring when part of it is mixed with the seed corn and part given to the ploughmen and plough horses or plough oxen to eat in the expectation of a good harvest. In this custom the corn spirit imminent in the last chief appears at midwinter in the form of a boar made from the corn of the last chief and his quickening influence on the corn is shown by mixing part of the Yule Boar with the seed corn and giving part of it to the ploughmen and his cattle to eat. Similarly we saw that the corn wolf makes his appearance at midwinter, the time when the year begins to verge towards spring. Formerly a real boar was sacrificed at Christmas and apparently also a man in the character of the Yule Boar. This at least may perhaps be inferred from a Christmas custom still observed in Sweden. A man is wrapped up in a skin and carries a wisp of straw in his mouth so that the projecting straws look like the bristles of a boar. A knife is brought and an old woman with her face blackened pretends to sacrifice him. On Christmas Eve in some parts of the Estonian island of Ursel they bake a long cake with the two ends turned up. It is called the Christmas boar and stands on the table till the morning of New Year's Day when it is distributed among the cattle. In other parts of the island the Christmas boar is not a cake but a little pig born in March which the housewife fattens secretly often without the knowledge of the other members of the family. On Christmas Eve the little pig is secretly killed then roasted in the oven and set on the table standing on all fours where it remains in this posture for several days. In other parts of the island again though the Christmas cake has neither the name nor the shape of a boar it is kept till the New Year when half of it is divided among all the members and all the quadrupeds of the family. The other half of the cake is kept till sewing time comes round when it is similarly distributed in the morning among human beings and beasts. In other parts of Estonia again the Christmas boar as it is called is baked of the first dry cut at harvest. It has a conical shape and a cross is impressed on it with a pig's bone or a key or three dints are made in it with a buckle or a piece of charcoal it stands with a light beside it on the table all through the festival season. On New Year's Day and Epiphany before sunrise a little of the cake is crumbled with salt and given to the cattle the rest is kept till the day when the cattle are driven out to pasture for the first time in spring it is then put in the herdsman's bag and at evening is divided among the cattle to guard them from magic and harm in some places the Christmas boar is partaken of by farm servants and cattle at the time of the barley sowing for the purpose of thereby producing a heavier crop. 10. On the animal embodiments of the corn spirit so much for the animal embodiments of the corn spirit as they are presented to us in the folk customs of northern Europe these customs bring out clearly the sacramental character of the harvest supper the corn spirit is conceived as embodied in an animal this divine animal is slain and its flesh and blood are partaken of by the harvesters thus the cock the hare the cat the goat and the ox are eaten sacramentally by the harvesters and the pig is eaten sacramentally by plowmen in spring again as a substitute for the real flesh of the divine being bread or dumplings are made in his image and eaten sacramentally thus pig-shaped dumplings are eaten by the harvesters and loaves made in boar shape the yule boar are eaten in spring by the plowmen and his cattle the reader has probably remarked the complete parallelism between the conceptions of the corn spirit in human and in animal form the parallel may be here briefly resumed when the corn waves in the wind it is said either that the corn mother or that the corn wolf etc is passing through the corn children are warned against straying in cornfields either because the corn mother or because the corn wolf etc is there in the last corn cut or the last sheath threshed either the corn mother or the corn wolf etc is supposed to be present the last sheath is itself called either the corn mother or the corn wolf etc and is made up in the shape either of a woman or of a wolf etc the person who cuts binds or threshes the last sheath is called either the old woman or the wolf etc according to the name bestowed on the sheath itself as in some places a sheath made in human form and called the maiden the mother of the maize etc is kept from one harvest to the next in order to secure a continuance of the corn spirit's blessing so in some places the harvest cock and in others the flesh of the goat is kept for a similar purpose from one harvest to the next as in some places the grain taken from the corn mother is mixed with the seed corn in spring to make the crop abundant so in some places the feathers of the cock and in sweden the yule boar are kept till spring and mixed with the seed corn for a like purpose as part of the corn mother or maiden is given to the cattle at christmas or to the horses at the first plowing so part of the yule boar is given to the plowing horses or oxen in spring lastly the death of the corn spirit is represented by killing or pretending to kill either his human or his animal representative and the worshippers partake sacramentally either of the actual body and blood of the representative of the divinity or of bread made in his likeness other animal forms assumed by the corn spirit are the fox stag row sheep bear ass mouse quail stalk swan and kite if it is asked why the corn spirit should be thought to appear in the form of an animal or of so many different animals we may reply that to primitive man the simple appearance of an animal or bird among the corn is probably enough to suggest a mysterious link between the creature and the corn and when we remember that in the old days before fields were fenced in all kinds of animals must have been free to roam over them we need not wonder that the corn spirit should have been identified even with large animals like the horse and cow which nowadays could not except by a rare accident be found straying in an English cornfield this explanation applies with peculiar force to the very common case in which the animal embodiment of the corn spirit is believed to look in the last standing corn for at harvest a number of wild animals such as hairs rabbits and partridges are commonly driven by the progress of the reaping into the last patch of standing corn and make their escape from it as it is being cut down so regularly does this happen that reapers and others often stand around the last patch of corn armed with sticks or guns with which they kill the animals as they dart out of their last refuge among the stalks now primitive man to whom magical changes of shape seem perfectly credible finds it most natural that the spirit of the corn driven from his home in the ripe grain should make his escape in the form of the animal which is seen to rush out of the last patch of corn as it falls under the side of the reaper thus the identification of the corn spirit with an animal is analogous to the identification of him with a passing stranger as the sudden appearance of a stranger near the harvest field or threshing floor is to the primitive mind enough to identify him as the spirit of the corn escaping from the cut or threshed corn so the sudden appearance of an animal issuing from the cut corn is enough to identify it with the corn spirit escaping from his ruined home the two identifications are so analogous that they can hardly be dissociated in any attempt to explain them those who look to some other principle than the one here suggested for the explanation of the latter identification are bound to show that their theory covers the former identification also and of chapter 48 b