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

175sheaf or digs the last potato is the subject of much banter, andreceives and long retains the name of the Old Rye-woman or theOld Potato-woman. 484 The last sheaf—the Boba—is made intothe form of a woman, carried solemnly through the village onthe last harvest-waggon, and drenched with water at the farmer'shouse; then every one dances with it. 485 [146]In Russia also the last sheaf is often shaped and dressed as The Corn-queenand the Harvestqueen.a woman, and carried with dance and song to the farmhouse.Out of the last sheaf the Bulgarians make a doll which they callthe Corn-queen or Corn-mother; it is dressed in a woman's shirt,carried round the village, and then thrown into the river in orderto secure plenty of rain and dew for the next year's crop. Or it isburned and the ashes strewn on the fields, doubtless to fertilisethem. 486 The name Queen, as applied to the last sheaf, has itsanalogies in central and northern Europe. Thus, in the Salzburgdistrict of Austria, at the end of the harvest a great processiontakes place, in which a Queen of the Corn-ears (Ährenkönigin) isdrawn along in a little carriage by young fellows. 487 The customof the Harvest Queen appears to have been common in England.Brand quotes from Hutchinson's History of Northumberland thefollowing: “I have seen, in some places, an image apparelledin great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placedunder her arm, and a scycle in her hand, carried out of the villagein the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with music andmuch clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixedon a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is broughthome in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and itrepresents the Roman Ceres.” 488 Again, the traveller Dr. E. D.484 W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 331.485 Ibid.486 Ibid. p. 332.487 Th. Vernaleken, Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Oesterreich (Vienna,1859), p. 310.488 Hutchinson, History of Northumberland, ii. ad finem, 17, quoted by J.