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

177Of choicest flow'rs a garland to adornHer tresses, and her rural labours crown,As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen.”Often customs of this sort are practised, not on the harvestfieldbut on the threshing-floor. The spirit of the corn, fleeingbefore the reapers as they cut down the ripe grain, quits the reapedcorn and takes refuge in the barn, where it appears in the lastsheaf threshed, either to perish under the blows of the flail or toflee thence to the still unthreshed corn of a neighbouring farm. 491Thus the last corn to be threshed is called the Mother-Corn orthe Old Woman. Sometimes the person who gives the last strokewith the flail is called the Old Woman, and is wrapt in the strawof the last sheaf, or has a bundle of straw fastened on his back.Whether wrapt in the straw or carrying it on his back, he is cartedthrough the village amid general laughter. In some districts ofBavaria, Thüringen, and elsewhere, the man who threshes thelast sheaf is said to have the Old Woman or the Old Corn-woman;he is tied up in straw, carried or carted about the village, and setdown at last on the dunghill, or taken to the threshing-floor of [148]a neighbouring farmer who has not finished his threshing. 492 InPoland the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is calledBaba (Old Woman); he is wrapt in corn and wheeled through thevillage. 493 Sometimes in Lithuania the last sheaf is not threshed,but is fashioned into female shape and carried to the barn of aneighbour who has not finished his threshing. 494At Chorinchen, near Neustadt, the man who gives the laststroke at threshing is said to “get the Old Man.” 495 In various491 W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, pp. 333 sq.492 Ibid. p. 334.493 W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, p. 334.494 Ibid. p. 336.495 A. Kuhn and W. Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche(Leipsic, 1848), p. 397.The corn-spirit asthe Old Womanor Old Man atthreshing.The man who givesthe last stroke atthreshing is calledthe Corn-fool, theOats-fool, etc.