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

§ 6. The Corn-spirit as a Goat. 337finished. In Franche Comté, as soon as the threshing is over, theyoung people set up a straw figure of a goat on the farmyard of [287]a neighbour who is still threshing. He must give them wine ormoney in return. At Ellwangen, in Würtemburg, the effigy ofa goat is made out of the last bundle of corn at threshing; foursticks form its legs, and two its horns. The man who gives thelast stroke with the flail must carry the Goat to the barn of aneighbour who is still threshing and throw it down on the floor; ifhe is caught in the act, they tie the goat on his back. 920 A similarcustom is observed at Indersdorf, in Upper Bavaria; the manwho throws the straw Goat into the neighbour's barn imitates thebleating of a goat; if they catch him, they blacken his face andtie the Goat on his back. 921 At Zabern, in Elsace, when a farmeris a week or more behind his neighbours with his threshing, theyset a real stuffed goat or fox before his door. 922Sometimes the spirit of the corn in goat form is believed to bekilled at threshing. In the district of Traunstein, Upper Bavaria,they think that the Oats-goat is in the last sheaf of oats. Heis represented by an old rake set up on end, with an old potfor a head. The children are then told to kill the Oats-goat. 923Elsewhere, however, the corn-spirit in the form of a goat isapparently thought to live in the field throughout the winter.Hence at Wannefeld near Gardelegen, and also between Calbeand Salzwedel, in the Altmark, the last stalks used to be leftuncut on the harvest-field with the words, “That shall the Hegoatkeep!” Evidently the last corn was here left as a provisionfor the corn-spirit, lest, robbed of all his substance, he shoulddie of hunger. A stranger passing a harvest-field is sometimestaken for the Corn-goat escaping in human shape from the cut or920 W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 169.921 F. Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, ii. pp. 224 sq., § 420; W.Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 169.922 W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 169.923 Ibid. p. 170.The corn-spirit ingoat form killed atthreshing.