The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

159have found independent reasons for identifying Demeter as theCorn-mother, and of the two species of corn associated withher in Greek religion, namely barley and wheat, the barley has [132]perhaps the better claim to be her original element; for not onlywould it seem to have been the staple food of the Greeks inthe Homeric age, but there are grounds for believing that it isone of the oldest, if not the very oldest, cereal cultivated by theAryan race. Certainly the use of barley in the religious ritual ofthe ancient Hindoos as well as of the ancient Greeks furnishes astrong argument in favour of the great antiquity of its cultivation,which is known to have been practised by the lake-dwellers ofthe Stone Age in Europe. 421Analogies to the Corn-mother or Barley-mother of ancientGreece have been collected in great abundance by W. Mannhardtfrom the folk-lore of modern Europe. The following may serveas specimens.In Germany the corn is very commonly personified under the The Corn-mothername of the Corn-mother. Thus in spring, when the corn wavesin the wind, the peasants say, “There comes the Corn-mother,”or “The Corn-mother is running over the field,” or “The Cornmotheris going through the corn.” 422 When children wish to gointo the fields to pull the blue corn-flowers or the red poppies,421 A. Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks 2 (Gütersloh,1886), pp. 68 sq.; O. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischenAltertumskunde, pp. 11, 12, 289; id., Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, 3ii. 189, 191, 197 sq.; H. Hirt, Die Indogermanen (Strasburg, 1905-1907), i.276 sqq. In the oldest Vedic ritual barley and not rice is the cereal chieflyemployed. See H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), p. 353.For evidence that barley was cultivated in Europe by the lake-dwellers of theStone Age, see A. de Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants (London, 1884),pp. 368, 369; R. Munro, The Lake-dwellings of Europe (London, Paris, andMelbourne, 1890), pp. 497 sq. According to Pliny (Nat. Hist. xviii. 72) barleywas the oldest of all foods.422 W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen (Strasburg, 1884), p. 296.Compare O. Hartung, “Zur Volkskunde aus Anhalt,” Zeitschrift des Vereinsfür Volkskunde, vii. (1897) p. 150.among theGermans and theSlavs.