“Adam the while
Waiting desirous her return, had wove
Of choicest flow'rs a garland to adorn
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown,
As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen.”
The corn-spirit as the Old Woman or Old Man at threshing.
Often customs of this sort are practised, not on the harvest-field but on the threshing-floor. The spirit of the corn, fleeing before the reapers as they cut down the ripe grain, quits the reaped corn and takes refuge in the barn, where it appears in the last sheaf threshed, either to perish under the blows of the flail or to flee thence to the still unthreshed corn of a neighbouring farm.[491] Thus the last corn to be threshed is called the Mother-Corn or the Old Woman. Sometimes the person who gives the last stroke with the flail is called the Old Woman, and is wrapt in the straw of 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 carted through the village amid general laughter. In some districts of Bavaria, Thüringen, and elsewhere, the man who threshes the last 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 set down at last [pg 148] on the dunghill, or taken to the threshing-floor of a neighbouring farmer who has not finished his threshing.[492] In Poland the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is called Baba (Old Woman); he is wrapt in corn and wheeled through the village.[493] Sometimes in Lithuania the last sheaf is not threshed, but is fashioned into female shape and carried to the barn of a neighbour who has not finished his threshing.[494]
The man who gives the last stroke at threshing is called the Corn-fool, the Oats-fool, etc.
At Chorinchen, near Neustadt, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is said to “get the Old Man.”[495] In various parts of Austrian Silesia he is called the corn-fool, the oats-fool, and so forth according to the crop, and retains the name till the next kind of grain has been reaped. Sometimes he is called the Klöppel or mallet. He is much ridiculed and in the Bennisch district he is dressed out in the threshing-implements and obliged to carry them about the farmyard to the amusement of his fellows. In Dobischwald the man who gives the last stroke at threshing has to carry a log or puppet of wood wrapt in straw to a neighbour who has not yet finished his threshing. There he throws his burden into the barn, crying, “There you have the Mallet (Klöppel),” and makes off as fast as he can. If they catch him, they tie the puppet on his back, and he is known as the Mallet (Klöppel) for the whole of the year; he may be the Corn-mallet or the Wheat-mallet or so forth according to the particular crop.[496]
The man who gives the last stroke at threshing is said to get the Old Woman or the Old Man. The Corn-woman at threshing.