On the threshing-floor strangers are also regarded as embodiments of the corn-spirit, and are treated accordingly. At Wiedingharde in Schleswig when a stranger comes to the threshing-floor he is asked, “Shall I teach you the flail-dance?” If he says yes, they put the arms of the threshing-flail round his neck as if he were a sheaf of corn, and press them together so tight that he is nearly choked.[697] In some parishes of Wermland (Sweden), when a stranger enters the threshing-floor where the threshers are at work, they say that “they will teach him the threshing-song.” Then they put a flail round his neck and a straw rope about his body. Also, as we have seen, if a stranger woman enters the threshing-floor, the threshers put a flail round her body and a wreath of corn-stalks round her neck, and call out, “See the Corn-woman! See! that is how the Corn-maiden looks!”[698]
Custom observed at the madder-harvest in Zealand.
In these customs, observed both on the harvest-field and on the threshing-floor, a passing stranger is regarded as a personification of the corn, in other words, as the corn-spirit; and a show is made of treating him like the corn by mowing, binding, and threshing him. If the reader still doubts whether European peasants can really regard a passing stranger in this light, the following custom should set his doubts at rest. During the madder-harvest in the Dutch province of Zealand a stranger passing by a field, where the people are digging the madder-roots, will sometimes call out to them Koortspillers (a term of reproach). Upon this, two of the fleetest runners make after him, and, if they catch him, they bring him back to the madder-field and bury him in the earth up to his middle at least, jeering at him the while; then they ease nature before his face.[699]
The spirit of the corn conceived as poor and robbed by the reapers. Some of the corn left on the harvest-field for the corn-spirit. Little fields or gardens cultivated for spirits or gods.
This last act is to be explained as follows. The spirit of the corn and of other cultivated plants is sometimes conceived, not as immanent in the plant, but as its owner; hence the cutting of the corn at harvest, the digging of the roots, and the gathering of fruit from the fruit-trees are each and all of them acts of spoliation, which strip him of his property and reduce him to poverty. Hence he is often known as “the Poor Man” or “the Poor Woman.” Thus in the neighbourhood of Eisenach a small sheaf is sometimes left standing on the field for “the Poor Old Woman.”[700] At Marksuhl, near Eisenach, the puppet formed out of the last sheaf is itself called “the Poor Woman.” At Alt Lest in Silesia the man who binds the last sheaf is called the Beggar-man.[701] In a village near Roeskilde, in Zealand (Denmark), old-fashioned peasants sometimes make up the last sheaf into a rude puppet, which is called the Rye-beggar.[702] In Southern Schonen the sheaf which is bound last is called the Beggar; [pg 232] it is made bigger than the rest and is sometimes dressed in clothes. In the district of Olmütz the last sheaf is called the Beggar; it is given to an old woman, who must carry it home, limping on one foot.[703] Sometimes a little of the crop is left on the field for the spirit, under other names than “the Poor Old Woman.” Thus at Szagmanten, a village of the Tilsit district, the last sheaf was left standing on the field “for the Old Rye-woman.”[704] In Neftenbach (Canton of Zurich) the first three ears of corn reaped are thrown away on the field “to satisfy the Corn-mother and to make the next year's crop abundant.”[705] At Kupferberg, in Bavaria, some corn is left standing on the field when the rest has been cut. Of this corn left standing they say that “it belongs to the Old Woman,” to whom it is dedicated in the following words:—
“We give it to the Old Woman;
She shall keep it.
Next year may she be to us
As kind as this time she has been.”[706]
These words clearly shew that the Old Woman for whom the corn is left on the field is not a real personage, poor and hungry, but the mythical Old Woman who makes the corn to grow. At Schüttarschen, in West Bohemia, after the crop has been reaped, a few stalks are left standing and a garland is attached to them. “That belongs to the Wood-woman,” they say, and offer a prayer. In this way the Wood-woman, we are told, has enough to live on through the winter and the corn will thrive the better next year. The same thing is done for all the different kinds of corn-crop.[707] So in Thüringen, when the after-grass (Grummet) is being got in, a little heap is left lying on the field; it belongs to “the Little Wood-woman” in return for the blessing she has bestowed.[708] In the Frankenwald of Bavaria three handfuls of flax were left on the field “for the Wood-woman.”[709] [pg 233] At Lindau in Anhalt the reapers used to leave some stalks standing in the last corner of the last field for “the Corn-woman to eat.”[710] In some parts of Silesia it was till lately the custom to leave a few corn-stalks standing in the field, “in order that the next harvest should not fail.”[711] In Russia it is customary to leave patches of unreaped corn in the fields and to place bread and salt on the ground near them. “These ears are eventually knotted together, and the ceremony is called ‘the plaiting of the beard of Volos,’ and it is supposed that after it has been performed no wizard or other evilly-disposed person will be able to hurt the produce of the fields. The unreaped patch is looked upon as tabooed; and it is believed that if any one meddles with it he will shrivel up, and become twisted like the interwoven ears. Similar customs are kept up in various parts of Russia. Near Kursk and Voroneje, for instance, a patch of rye is usually left in honour of the Prophet Elijah, and in another district one of oats is consecrated to St. Nicholas. As it is well known that both the Saint and the Prophet have succeeded to the place once held in the estimation of the Russian people by Perun, it seems probable that Volos really was, in ancient times, one of the names of the thunder-god.”[712] In the north-east of Scotland a few stalks were sometimes left unreaped on the field for the benefit of “the aul' man.”[713] Here “the aul' man” is probably the equivalent of the harvest Old Man of Germany.[714] Among the Mohammedans of Zanzibar it is customary at sowing a field to reserve a certain portion of it for the guardian spirits, who at harvest are invited, to the tuck of drum, to come and take their share; tiny huts are also built in which food is deposited for their use.[715] In the island of Nias, to prevent the depredations of wandering spirits among the rice at harvest, a miniature field is dedicated [pg 234] to them and in it are sown all the plants that grow in the real fields.[716] The Hos, a Ewe tribe of negroes in Togoland, observe a similar custom for a similar reason. At the entrance to their yam-fields the traveller may see on both sides of the path small mounds on which yams, stock-yams, beans, and maize are planted and appear to flourish with more than usual luxuriance. These little gardens, tended with peculiar care, are dedicated to the “guardian gods” of the owner of the land; there he cultivates for their benefit the same plants which he cultivates for his own use in the fields; and the notion is that the “guardian gods” will content themselves with eating the fruits which grow in their little private preserves and will not poach on the crops which are destined for human use.[717]