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

§ 4. The Corn-spirit slain in his Human Representatives. 315successive years were to be found hanging up together. In thesetwo ways of disposing of the neck one sees the embodiment, nodoubt, of the two ways of looking at the corn-spirit, as good (tobe kept) or as bad (to be passed on to the neighbour).” 823 [268]In the foregoing customs a particular bunch of ears, generallythe last left standing, 824 is conceived as the neck of the cornspirit,who is consequently beheaded when the bunch is cutdown. Similarly in Shropshire the name “neck,” or “the gander'sneck,” used to be commonly given to the last handful of ears leftstanding in the middle of the field when all the rest of the cornwas cut. It was plaited together, and the reapers, standing ten ortwenty paces off, threw their sickles at it. Whoever cut it throughwas said to have cut off the gander's neck. The “neck” was takento the farmer's wife, who was supposed to keep it in the housefor good luck till the next harvest came round. 825 Near Trèves,the man who reaps the last standing corn “cuts the goat's neckoff.” 826 At Faslane, on the Gareloch (Dumbartonshire), the lasthandful of standing corn was sometimes called the “head.” 827At Aurich, in East Friesland, the man who reaps the last corn“cuts the hare's tail off.” 828 In mowing down the last corner ofa field French reapers sometimes call out, “We have the cat bythe tail.” 829 In Bresse (Bourgogne) the last sheaf represented thefox. Beside it a score of ears were left standing to form thetail, and each reaper, going back some paces, threw his sickleat it. He who succeeded in severing it “cut off the fox's tail,”823 Frances Hoggan, M.D., “The Neck Feast,” Folk-lore, iv. (1893) p. 123. InPembrokeshire the last sheaf of corn seems to have been commonly known as“the Hag” (wrach) rather than as “the Neck.” See above, pp. 142-144.824 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 20 (Bohn's edition); Miss C. S. Burne andMiss G. F. Jackson, Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 371.825 Burne and Jackson, l.c.826 W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, p. 185.827 See above, p. 158.828 W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, p. 185.829 Ibid.Cutting “the neck”in Shropshire. Whythe last corn cut iscalled “the neck.”