Chapter III: Killing the God (5)

In Russia also the last sheaf is often shaped and dressed as a woman, and carried with dance and song to the farmhouse. Out of the last sheaf the Bulgarians make a doll which they call the Corn-queen or Corn-mother; it is dressed in a woman’s shirt, carried round the village, and then thrown into the river in order to secure plenty of rain and dew for the next year’s crop. Or it is burned and the ashes strewn on the fields, doubtless to fertilise them.(1143) The name Queen, as applied to the last sheaf, has its analogies in Northern Europe. Thus Brand quotes from Hutchinson’s _History of Northumberland_ the following: “I have seen, in some places, an image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, and a sycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with music and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres.”(1144) From Cambridge also Dr. E. D. Clarke reported that “at the Hawkie [harvest-home], as it is called, I have seen a clown dressed in woman’s clothes, having his face painted, his head decorated with ears of corn, and bearing about him other symbols of Ceres, carried in a waggon, with great pomp and loud shouts, through the streets, the horses being covered with white sheets; and when I inquired the meaning of the ceremony, was answered by the people, that they were drawing the Harvest Queen.”(1145)

Often the customs we have been examining 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 corn, quits the cut 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.(1146) 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, etc., 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 on the dunghill, or taken to the threshing-floor of a neighbouring farmer who has not finished his threshing.(1147) 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.(1148) 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.(1149) In some parts of Sweden, when a stranger woman appears on the threshing-floor, a flail is put round her body, stalks of corn are wound round her neck, a crown of ears is placed on her head, and the threshers call out, “Behold the Corn-woman.” Here the stranger woman, thus suddenly appearing, is taken to be the corn-spirit who has just been expelled by the flails from the corn-stalks.(1150) In other cases the farmer’s wife represents the corn-spirit. Thus in the Commune of Saligné, Canton de Poiret (Vendée), the farmer’s wife, along with the last sheaf, is tied up in a sheet, placed on a litter, and carried to the threshing machine, under which she is shoved. Then the woman is drawn out and the sheaf is threshed by itself, but the woman is tossed in the sheet (in imitation of winnowing).(1151) It would be impossible to express more clearly the identification of the woman with the corn than by this graphic imitation of threshing and winnowing her.

In these customs the spirit of the ripe corn is regarded as old, or at least as of mature age. Hence the names of Mother, Grandmother, Old Woman, etc. But in other cases the corn-spirit is conceived as young, sometimes as a child who is separated from its mother by the stroke of the sickle. This last view appears in the Polish custom of calling out to the man who cuts the last handful of corn, “You have cut the navel-string.”(1152) In some districts of West Prussia the figure made out of the last sheaf is called the Bastard, and a boy is wrapt up in it. The woman who binds the last sheaf and represents the Corn-mother, is told that she is about to be brought to bed; she cries like a woman in travail, and an old woman in the character of grandmother acts as midwife. At last a cry is raised that the child is born; whereupon the boy who is tied up in the sheaf whimpers and squalls like an infant. The grandmother wraps a sack, in imitation of swaddling bands, round the pretended baby, and it is carried joyfully to the barn, lest it catch cold in the open air.(1153) In other parts of North Germany, the last sheaf, or the puppet made out of it, is called the Child, the Harvest Child, etc. In the North of England the last handful of corn was cut by the prettiest girl and dressed up as the Corn Baby or Kern Baby; it was brought home to music, set up in a conspicuous place at the harvest supper, and generally kept in the parlour for the rest of the year. The girl who cut it was the Harvest Queen.(1154) In Kent the Ivy Girl is (or was) “a figure composed of some of the best corn the field produces, and made as well as they can into a human shape; this is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings, cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, etc., of the finest lace. It is brought home with the last load of corn from the field upon the waggon, and they suppose entitles them to a supper at the expense of the employer.”(1155) In the neighbourhood of Balquhidder, Perthshire, the last handful of corn is cut by the youngest girl on the field, and is made into the rude form of a female doll, clad in a paper dress, and decked with ribbons. It is called the Maiden, and is kept in the farmhouse, generally above the chimney, for a good while, sometimes till the Maiden of the next year is brought in. The writer of this book witnessed the ceremony of cutting the Maiden at Balquhidder in September 1888.(1156) On some farms on the Gareloch, Dumbartonshire, about sixty years ago the last handful of standing corn was called the Maiden. It was divided in two, plaited, and then cut with the sickle by a girl, who, it was thought, would be lucky and would soon be married. When it was cut the reapers gathered together and threw their sickles in the air. The Maiden was dressed with ribbons and hung in the kitchen near the roof, where it was kept for several years with the date attached. Sometimes five or six Maidens might be seen hanging at once on hooks. The harvest supper was called the Kirn.(1157) In other farms on the Gareloch the last handful of corn was called the Maidenhead or the Head; it was neatly plaited, sometimes decked with ribbons, and hung in the kitchen for a year, when the grain was given to the poultry.(1158) In the North of Scotland, the Maiden is kept till Christmas morning, and then divided among the cattle “to make them thrive all the year round.”(1159) In Aberdeenshire also the last sheaf (called the clyack sheaf) was formerly cut, as it is still cut at Balquhidder, by the youngest girl on the field; then it was dressed in woman’s clothes, carried home in triumph, and kept till Christmas or New Year’s morning, when it was given to a mare in foal, or, failing such, to the oldest cow.(1160) Lastly, a somewhat maturer, but still youthful age is assigned to the corn-spirit by the appellations of Bride, Oats-bride, and Wheat-bride, which in Germany and Scotland are sometimes bestowed both on the last sheaf and on the woman who binds it.(1161) Sometimes the idea implied in these names is worked out more fully by representing the productive powers of vegetation as bride and bridegroom. Thus in some parts of Germany a man and woman dressed in straw and called the Oats-wife and the Oats-man, or the Oats-bride and the Oats-bridegroom dance at the harvest festival; then the corn-stalks are plucked from their bodies till they stand as bare as a stubble field. In Silesia, the woman who binds the last sheaf is called the Wheat-bride or the Oats-bride. With the harvest crown on her head, a bridegroom by her side, and attended by bridesmaids, she is brought to the farmhouse with all the solemnity of a wedding procession.(1162)

The harvest customs just described are strikingly analogous to the spring customs which we reviewed in the first chapter. (1.) As in the spring customs the tree-spirit is represented both by a tree and by a person,(1163) so in the harvest customs the corn-spirit is represented both by the last sheaf and by the person who cuts or binds or threshes it. The equivalence of the person to the sheaf is shown by giving him or her the same name as the sheaf, or _vice versâ_; by wrapping him or her in the sheaf; and by the rule observed in some places, that when the sheaf is called the Mother, it must be cut by the oldest married woman; but when it is called the Maiden, it must be cut by the youngest girl.(1164) Here the age of the personal representative of the corn-spirit corresponds with that of the supposed age of the corn-spirit, just as the human victims offered by the Mexicans to promote the growth of the maize varied with the age of the maize.(1165) For in the Mexican, as in the European, custom the human beings were probably representatives of the corn-spirit rather than victims offered to him. (2.) Again, the same fertilising influence which the tree-spirit is supposed to exert over vegetation, cattle, and even women(1166) is ascribed to the corn-spirit. Thus, its supposed influence on vegetation is shown by the practice of taking some of the grain of the last sheaf (in which the corn-spirit is regularly supposed to be present), and scattering it among the young corn in spring.(1167) Its influence on cattle is shown by giving the straw of the last sheaf to the cattle at Christmas with the express intention of making them thrive.(1168) Lastly, its influence on women is indicated by the custom of delivering the Mother-sheaf, made into the likeness of a pregnant woman, to the farmer’s wife;(1169) by the belief that the woman who binds the last sheaf will have a child next year;(1170) perhaps, too, by the idea that the person who gets it will marry next year.(1171)

Plainly, therefore, these spring and harvest customs are based on the same ancient modes of thought, and form parts of the same primitive heathendom, which was doubtless practised by our forefathers long before the dawn of history, as it is practised to this day by many of their descendants. Amongst the marks of a primitive religion, we may note the following:—

(1.) No special class of persons is set apart for the performance of the rites; in other words, there are no priests. The rites may be performed by any one, as occasion demands.

(2.) No special places are set apart for the performance of the rites; in other words, there are no temples. The rites may be performed anywhere, as occasion demands.

(3.) Spirits, not gods, are recognised. (_a._) As distinguished from gods, spirits are restricted in their operations to definite departments of nature. Their names are general, not proper. Their attributes are generic, rather than individual; in other words, there is an indefinite number of spirits of each class, and the individuals of a class are all much alike; they have no definitely marked individuality; no accepted traditions are current as to their origin, life, adventures, and character. (_b._) On the other hand gods, as distinguished from spirits, are not exclusively restricted in their operations to definite departments of nature. It is true that there is generally some one department over which they preside as their special province; but they are not rigorously confined to it; they can exert their power for good or evil in many other spheres of nature and life. Again, they bear individual or proper names, such as Ceres, Proserpine, Bacchus; and their individual characters and histories are fixed by current myths and the representations of art.

(4.) The rites are magical rather than propitiatory. In other words, the desired objects are attained, not by propitiating the favour of divine beings through sacrifice, prayer, and praise, but by ceremonies which, as has been explained,(1172) are believed to influence the course of nature directly through a physical sympathy or resemblance between the rite and the effect which it is the intention of the rite to produce.

Judged by these tests, the spring and harvest customs of our European peasantry deserve to rank as primitive. For no special class of persons and no special places are set exclusively apart for their performance; they may be performed by any one, master or man, mistress or maid, boy or girl; they are practised, not in temples or churches, but in the woods and meadows, beside brooks, in barns, on harvest fields and cottage floors. The supernatural beings whose existence is taken for granted in them are spirits rather than deities; their functions are limited to certain well-defined departments of nature; their names are general, like the Barley-mother, the Old Woman, the Maiden, not proper names like Ceres, Proserpine, Bacchus. Their generic attributes are known, but their individual histories and characters are not the subject of myths. For they exist in classes rather than as individuals, and the members of each class are indistinguishable. For example, every farm has its Corn-mother, or its Old Woman, or its Maiden; but every Corn-mother is much like every other Corn-mother, and so with the Old Women and Maidens. Lastly, in these harvest, as in the spring, customs, the ritual is magical rather than propitiatory. This is shown by throwing the Corn-mother into the river in order to secure rain and dew for the crops;(1173) by making the Old Woman heavy in order to get a heavy crop next year;(1174) by strewing grain from the last sheaf amongst the young crops in spring;(1175) and giving the last sheaf to the cattle to make them thrive.(1176)

Further, the custom of keeping the puppet—the representative of the corn-spirit—till next harvest, is a charm to maintain the corn-spirit in life and activity throughout the year.(1177) This is proved by a similar custom observed by the ancient Peruvians, and thus described by the historian Acosta. “They take a certain portion of the most fruitefull of the Mays [_i.e._ maize] that growes in their farmes, the which they put in a certaine granary which they doe call _Pirua_, with certaine ceremonies, watching three nightes; they put this Mays in the richest garments they have, and beeing thus wrapped and dressed, they worship this _Pirua_, and hold it in great veneration, saying it is the mother of the mays of their inheritances, and that by this means the mays augments and is preserved. In this moneth [the sixth month, answering to May] they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demaund of this _Pirua_, if it hath strength sufficient to continue untill the next yeare; and if it answers no, then they carry this Mays to the farme to burne, whence they brought it, according to every man’s power; then they make another _Pirua_, with the same ceremonies, saying that they renue it, to the end the seede of Mays may not perish, and if it answers that it hath force sufficient to last longer, they leave it untill the next yeare. This foolish vanity continueth to this day, and it is very common amongest the Indians to have these _Piruas_.”(1178) There seems to be some error in this description of the custom. Probably it was the dressed-up bunch of maize, not the granary (_Pirua_), which was worshipped by the Peruvians and regarded as the Mother of the Maize. This is confirmed by what we know of the Peruvian custom from another source. The Peruvians, we are told, believed all useful plants to be animated by a divine being who causes their growth. According to the particular plant, these divine beings were called the Maize-mother (_Zara-mama_), the Quinoa-mother (_Quinoa-mama_), the Cocoa-mother (_Coca-mama_), and the Potato-mother (_Axo-mama_). Figures of these divine mothers were made respectively of ears of maize and leaves of the quinoa and cocoa plants; they were dressed in women’s clothes and worshipped. Thus the Maize-mother was represented by a puppet made of stalks of maize, dressed in full female attire; and the Indians believed that “as mother, it had the power of producing and giving birth to much maize.”(1179) Probably, therefore, Acosta misunderstood his informant, and the Mother of the Maize which he describes was not the granary (_Pirua_) but the bunch of maize dressed in rich vestments. The Peruvian Mother of the Maize, like the harvest Maiden at Balquhidder, was kept for a year in order that by her means the corn might grow and multiply. But lest her strength might not suffice to last out the year, she was asked in the course of the year how she felt, and if she answered that she felt weak, she was burned and a fresh Mother of the Maize made, “to the end the seede of Mays may not perish.” Here, it may be observed, we have a strong confirmation of the explanation already given of the custom of killing the god, both periodically and occasionally. The Mother of the Maize was allowed, as a rule, to live through a year, that being the period during which her strength might reasonably be supposed to last unimpaired; but on any symptom of her strength failing she was put to death and a fresh and vigorous Mother of the Maize took her place, lest the maize which depended on her for its existence should languish and decay.

Hardly less clearly does the same train of thought come out in the harvest customs formerly observed by the Zapotecs of Mexico. At harvest the priests, attended by the nobles and people, went in procession to the maize fields, where they picked out the largest and finest sheaf. This they took with great ceremony to the town or village, and placed it in the temple upon an altar adorned with wild flowers. After sacrificing to the harvest god, the priests carefully wrapt up the sheaf in fine linen and kept it till seed-time. Then the priests and nobles met again at the temple, one of them bringing the skin of a wild beast, elaborately ornamented, in which the linen cloth containing the sheaf was enveloped. The sheaf was then carried once more in procession to the field from which it had been taken. Here a small cavity or subterranean chamber had been prepared, in which the precious sheaf was deposited, wrapt in its various envelopes. After sacrifice had been offered to the gods of the fields for an abundant crop, the chamber was closed and covered over with earth. Immediately thereafter the sowing began. Finally, when the time of harvest drew near, the buried sheaf was solemnly disinterred by the priests, who distributed the grain to all who asked for it. The packets of grain so distributed were carefully preserved as talismans till the harvest.(1180) In these ceremonies, which continued to be annually celebrated long after the Spanish conquest, the intention of keeping the finest sheaf buried in the maize field from seed-time to harvest was undoubtedly to quicken the growth of the maize.

In the Punjaub, to the east of the Jumna, when the cotton boles begin to burst, it is usual “to select the largest plant in the field, and having sprinkled it with butter-milk and rice-water, it is bound all over with pieces of cotton, taken from the other plants of the field. This selected plant is called Sirdar, or Bhogaldaí, _i.e._ mother-cotton, from bhogla, a name sometimes given to a large cotton-pod, and daí (for daiya) a mother, and after salutations are made to it, prayers are offered that the other plants may resemble it in the richness of their produce.”(1181)

If the reader still feels any doubts as to the original meaning of the harvest customs practised by our peasantry, these doubts may be dispelled by comparing the harvest customs of the Dyaks of Borneo. At harvest the Dyaks of Northern Borneo have a special feast, the object of which is “to secure the soul of the rice, which if not so detained, the produce of their farms would speedily rot and decay.” The mode of securing the soul of the rice varies in different tribes. Sometimes the priest catches it, in the form of a few grains of rice, in a white cloth. Sometimes a large shed is erected outside the village, and near it is reared a high and spacious altar. The corner-posts of the altar are lofty bamboos with leafy tops, from one of which there hangs a long narrow streamer of white cloth. Here gaily-dressed men and women dance with slow and solemn steps. Suddenly the elders and priests rush at the white streamer, seize the end of it, and begin dancing and swaying to and fro, amid a burst of wild music and the yells of the spectators. An elder leaps on the altar and shakes the bamboos violently, whereupon small stones, bunches of hair and grains of rice fall at the feet of the dancers and are carefully picked up by attendants. These grains of rice are the soul of the rice. At sowing-time some of this soul of the rice is planted with the other seeds, “and is thus propagated and communicated.”(1182) The same need of securing the soul of the rice, if the crop is to thrive, is keenly felt by the Karens of Burma. When a rice-field does not flourish, they suppose that the soul (_kelah_) of the rice is in some way detained from the rice. If the soul cannot be called back, the crop will fail. The following formula is used in recalling the _kelah_ (soul) of the rice: “O come, rice-_kelah_, come! Come to the field. Come to the rice. With seed of each gender, come. Come from the river Kho, come from the river Kaw; from the place where they meet, come. Come from the West, come from the East. From the throat of the bird, from the maw of the ape, from the throat of the elephant. Come from the sources of rivers and their mouths. Come from the country of the Shan and Burman. From the distant kingdoms come. From all granaries come. O rice-_kelah_, come to the rice.”(1183) Again, the European custom of representing the corn-spirit in the double form of bride and bridegroom(1184) is paralleled by a custom observed at the rice-harvest in Java. Before the reapers begin to cut the rice, the priest or sorcerer picks out a number of ears of rice, which are tied together, smeared with ointment, and adorned with flowers. Thus decked out, the ears are called the _padi-pëngantèn_, that is, the Rice-bride and the Rice-bridegroom; their wedding feast is celebrated, and the cutting of the rice begins immediately afterwards. Later on, when the rice is being got in, a bridal chamber is partitioned off in the barn, and furnished with a new mat, a lamp, and all kinds of toilet articles. Sheaves of rice, to represent the wedding guests, are placed beside the Rice-bride and the Rice-bridegroom. Not till this has been done may the whole harvest be housed in the barn. And for the first forty days after the rice has been housed, no one may enter the barn, for fear of disturbing the newly-wedded pair.(1185)

Compared with the Corn-mother of Germany and the harvest Maiden of Balquhidder, the Demeter and Proserpine of Greece are late products of religious growth. But, as Aryans, the Greeks must at one time or another have observed harvest customs like those which are still practised by Celts, Teutons, and Slavs, and which, far beyond the limits of the Aryan world, have been practised by the Incas of Peru, the Dyaks of Borneo, and the Malays of Java—a sufficient proof that the ideas on which these customs rest are not confined to any one race, but naturally suggest themselves to all untutored peoples engaged in agriculture. It is probable, therefore, that Demeter and Proserpine, those stately and beautiful figures of Greek mythology, grew out of the same simple beliefs and practices which still prevail among our modern peasantry, and that they were represented by rude dolls made out of the yellow sheaves on many a harvest-field long before their breathing images were wrought in bronze and marble by the master hands of Phidias and Praxiteles. A reminiscence of that olden time—a scent, so to say, of the harvest-field—lingered to the last in the title of the Maiden (_Kore_) by which Proserpine was commonly known. Thus if the prototype of Demeter is the Corn-mother of Germany, the prototype of Proserpine is the harvest Maiden, which, autumn after autumn, is still made from the last sheaf on the Braes of Balquhidder. Indeed if we knew more about the peasant-farmers of ancient Greece we should probably find that even in classical times they continued annually to fashion their Corn-mothers (Demeters) and Maidens (Proserpines) out of the ripe corn on the harvest fields. But unfortunately the Demeter and Proserpine whom we know are the denizens of towns, the majestic inhabitants of lordly temples; it was for such divinities alone that the refined writers of antiquity had eyes; the rude rites performed by rustics amongst the corn were beneath their notice. Even if they noticed them, they probably never dreamed of any connection between the puppet of corn-stalks on the sunny stubble-field and the marble divinity in the shady coolness of the temple. Still the writings even of these town-bred and cultured persons afford us an occasional glimpse of a Demeter as rude as the rudest that a remote German village can show. Thus the story that Iasion begat a child Plutus (“wealth,” “abundance”) by Demeter on a thrice-ploughed field,(1186) may be compared with the West Prussian custom of the mock birth of a child on the harvest field.(1187) In this Prussian custom the pretended mother represents the Corn-mother (_Žytniamatka_); the pretended child represents the Corn-baby, and the whole ceremony is a charm to ensure a crop next year.(1188) There are other folk-customs, observed both in spring and at harvest, with which the legend of the begetting of the child Plutus is probably still more intimately connected. Their general purport is to impart fertility to the fields by performing, or at least mimicking, upon them the process of procreation.(1189) Another glimpse of the savage under the civilised Demeter will be afforded farther on, when we come to deal with another aspect of these agricultural divinities.

The reader may have observed that in modern folk-customs the corn-spirit is generally represented either by a Corn-mother (Old Woman, etc.) or by a Maiden (Corn-baby, etc.), not both by a Corn-mother and by a Maiden. Why then did the Greeks represent the corn both as a mother and a daughter? In the Breton custom the mother-sheaf—a large figure made out of the last sheaf with a small corn-doll inside of it—clearly represents both the Corn-mother and the Corn-daughter, the latter still unborn.(1190) Again, in the Prussian custom just described, the woman who plays the part of Corn-mother represents the ripe corn; the child appears to represent next year’s corn, which may be regarded, naturally enough, as the child of this year’s corn, since it is from the seed of this year’s harvest that next year’s corn will spring. Demeter would thus be the ripe corn of this year; Proserpine the seed-corn taken from it and sown in autumn, to reappear in spring. The descent of Proserpine into the lower world(1191) would thus be a mythical expression for the sowing of the seed; her reappearance in spring(1192) would express the sprouting of the young corn. Thus the Proserpine of this year becomes the Demeter of the next, and this may very well have been the original form of the myth. But when with the advance of religious thought the corn came to be personified, no longer as a being that went through the whole cycle of birth, growth, reproduction, and death within a year, but as an immortal goddess, consistency requires that one of the two personifications, the mother or the daughter, should be sacrificed. But the double conception of the corn as mother and daughter was too old and too deeply rooted in the popular mind to be eradicated by logic, and so room had to be found in the reformed myth both for mother and daughter. This was done by assigning to Proserpine the rôle of the corn sown in autumn and sprouting in spring, while Demeter was left to play the somewhat vague and ill-defined part of mother of the corn, who laments its annual disappearance underground, and rejoices over its reappearance in spring. Thus instead of a regular succession of divine beings, each living a year and then giving birth to her successor, the reformed myth exhibits the conception of two divine and immortal beings, one of whom annually disappears into and reappears from the ground, while the other has little to do but to weep and rejoice at the appropriate times.

This explanation of the double personification of the corn in Greek myth assumes that both personifications (Demeter and Proserpine) are original. But if we assume that the Greek myth started with a single personification, the after-growth of a second personification may perhaps be explained as follows. On looking over the peasant harvest customs which have been passed under review, it may be noticed that they involve two distinct conceptions of the corn-spirit. For whereas in some of the customs the corn-spirit is treated as immanent in the corn, in others it is regarded as external to it. Thus when a particular sheaf is called by the name of the corn-spirit, and is dressed in clothes and treated with reverence,(1193) the corn-spirit is clearly regarded as immanent in the corn. But when the corn-spirit is said to make the corn grow by passing through it, or to blight the corn of those against whom she has a grudge,(1194) she is clearly conceived as quite separate from, though exercising power over, the corn. Conceived in the latter way the corn-spirit is in a fair way to become a deity of the corn, if she has not become so already. Of these two conceptions, that of the corn-spirit as immanent in the corn is doubtless the older, since the view of nature as animated by indwelling spirits appears to have generally preceded the view of it as controlled by deities external to it; to put it shortly, animism precedes deism. In the harvest customs of our European peasantry the conception of the corn-spirit as immanent appears to be the prevalent one; the conception of it as external occurs rather as an exception. In Greek mythology, on the other hand, Demeter is distinctly conceived in the latter way; she is the deity of the corn rather than the spirit immanent in it.(1195) The process of thought which seems to be chiefly instrumental in producing the transition from the one mode of conception to the other is anthropomorphism, or the gradual investment of the immanent spirits with more and more of the attributes of humanity. As men emerge from savagery the tendency to anthropomorphise or humanise their divinities gains strength; and the more anthropomorphic these become, the wider is the breach which severs them from those natural objects of which they were at first merely the animating spirits or souls. But in the progress upwards from savagery, men of the same generation do not march abreast; and though the anthropomorphic gods may satisfy the religious wants of more advanced individuals, the more backward members of the community will cling by preference to the older animistic notions. Now when the spirit of any natural object (as the corn) has been invested with human qualities, detached from the object, and converted into a deity controlling it, the object itself is, by the withdrawal of its spirit, left inanimate, it becomes, so to say, a spiritual vacuum. But the popular fancy, intolerant of such a vacuum, in other words, unable to conceive anything as inanimate, immediately creates a fresh mythical being, with which it peoples the vacant object. Thus the same natural object is now represented in mythology by two separate beings; first, by the old spirit now separated from it and raised to the rank of a deity; second, by the new spirit, freshly created by the popular fancy to supply the place vacated by the old spirit on its elevation to a higher sphere. The problem for mythology now is, having got two separate personifications of the same object, what to do with them? How are their relations to each other to be adjusted, and room found for both in the mythological system? When the old spirit or new deity is conceived as creating or producing the object in question, the problem is easily solved. Since the object is believed to be produced by the old spirit, and animated by the new one, the latter, as the soul of the object, must also owe its existence to the former; thus the old spirit will stand to the new one as producer to produced, that is (in mythology), as parent to child, and if both spirits are conceived as female, their relation will be that of mother and daughter. In this way, starting from a single personification of the corn as female, mythology might in time reach a double personification of it as mother and daughter. It would be very rash to affirm that this was the way in which the myth of Demeter and Proserpine actually took shape; but it seems a legitimate conjecture that the reduplication of deities, of which Demeter and Proserpine furnish an example, may sometimes have arisen in the way indicated. For example, among the pairs of deities whom we have been considering, it has been shown that there are grounds for regarding both Isis and her companion god Osiris as personifications of the corn.(1196) On the hypothesis just suggested, Isis would be the old corn-spirit, and Osiris would be the newer one, whose relationship to the old spirit was variously explained as that of brother, husband, and son;(1197) for of course mythology would always be free to account for the coexistence of the two divinities in more ways than one. Further, this hypothesis offers at least a possible explanation of the relation of Virbius to the Arician Diana. The latter, as we have seen,(1198) was a tree-goddess; and if, as I have conjectured, the Flamen Virbialis was no other than the priest of Nemi himself, that is, the King of the Wood, Virbius must also have been a tree-spirit. On the present hypothesis he was the newer tree-spirit, whose relation to the old tree-spirit (Diana) was explained by representing him as her favourite or lover. It must not, however, be forgotten that this proposed explanation of such pairs of deities as Demeter and Proserpine, Isis and Osiris, Diana and Virbius, is purely conjectural, and is only given for what it is worth.

§ 9.—Lityerses.

In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to show that in the Corn-mother and harvest Maiden of Northern Europe we have the prototypes of Demeter and Proserpine. But an essential feature is still wanting to complete the resemblance. A leading incident in the Greek myth is the death and resurrection of Proserpine; it is this incident which, coupled with the nature of the goddess as a deity of vegetation, links the myth with the cults of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, and Dionysus; and it is in virtue of this incident that the myth is considered in this chapter. It remains, therefore, to see whether the conception of the annual death and resurrection of a god, which figures so prominently in these great Greek and Oriental worships, has not also its origin in the rustic rites observed by reapers and vine-dressers amongst the corn-shocks and the vines.

Our general ignorance of the popular superstitions and customs of the ancients has already been confessed. But the obscurity which thus hangs over the first beginnings of ancient religion is fortunately dissipated to some extent in the present case. The worships of Osiris, Adonis, and Attis had their respective seats, as we have seen, in Egypt, Syria, and Phrygia; and in each of these countries certain harvest and vintage customs are known to have been observed, the resemblance of which to each other and to the national rites struck the ancients themselves, and, compared with the harvest customs of modern peasants and barbarians, seem to throw some light on the origin of the rites in question.

It has been already mentioned, on the authority of Diodorus, that in ancient Egypt the reapers were wont to lament over the first sheaf cut, invoking Isis as the goddess to whom they owed the discovery of corn.(1199) To the plaintive song or cry sung or uttered by Egyptian reapers the Greeks gave the name of Maneros, and explained the name by a story that Maneros, the only son of the first Egyptian king, invented agriculture, and, dying an untimely death, was thus lamented by the people.(1200) It appears, however, that the name Maneros is due to a misunderstanding of the formula _mââ-ne-hra_, “come thou back,” which has been discovered in various Egyptian writings, for example in the dirge of Isis in the Book of the Dead.(1201) Hence we may suppose that the cry _mââ-ne-hra_ was chanted by the reapers over the cut corn as a dirge for the death of the corn-spirit (Isis or Osiris) and a prayer for its return. As the cry was raised over the first ears reaped, it would seem that the corn-spirit was believed by the Egyptians to be present in the first corn cut and to die under the sickle. We have seen that in Java the first ears of rice are taken to represent the Corn-bride and the Corn-bridegroom.(1202) In parts of Russia the first sheaf is treated much in the same way that the last sheaf is treated elsewhere. It is reaped by the mistress herself, taken home and set in the place of honour near the holy pictures; afterwards it is threshed separately, and some of its grain is mixed with the next year’s seed-corn.(1203)

In Phoenicia and Western Asia a plaintive song, like that chanted by the Egyptian corn-reapers, was sung at the vintage and probably (to judge by analogy) also at harvest. This Phoenician song was called by the Greeks Linus or Ailinus and explained, like Maneros, as a lament for the death of a youth named Linus.(1204) According to one story Linus was brought up by a shepherd, but torn to pieces by his dogs.(1205) But, like Maneros, the name Linus or Ailinus appears to have originated in a verbal misunderstanding, and to be nothing more than the cry _ai lanu_, that is “woe to us,” which the Phoenicians probably uttered in mourning for Adonis;(1206) at least Sappho seems to have regarded Adonis and Linus as equivalent.(1207)

In Bithynia a like mournful ditty, called Bormus or Borimus, was chanted by Mariandynian reapers. Bormus was said to have been a handsome youth, the son of King Upias or of a wealthy and distinguished man. One summer day, watching the reapers at work in his fields, he went to fetch them a drink of water and was never heard of more. So the reapers sought for him, calling him in plaintive strains, which they continued to use ever afterwards.(1208)

In Phrygia the corresponding song, sung by harvesters both at reaping and at threshing, was called Lityerses. According to one story, Lityerses was a bastard son of Midas, King of Phrygia. He used to reap the corn, and had an enormous appetite. When a stranger happened to enter the corn-field or to pass by it, Lityerses gave him plenty to eat and drink, then took him to the corn-fields on the banks of the Maeander and compelled him to reap along with him. Lastly, he used to wrap the stranger in a sheaf, cut off his head with a sickle, and carry away his body, wrapt in the corn stalks. But at last he was himself slain by Hercules, who threw his body into the river.(1209) As Hercules was probably reported to have slain Lityerses in the same way that Lityerses slew others (as Theseus treated Sinis and Sciron), we may infer that Lityerses used to throw the bodies of his victims into the river. According to another version of the story, Lityerses, a son of Midas, used to challenge people to a reaping match with him, and if he vanquished them he used to thrash them; but one day he met with a stronger reaper, who slew him.(1210)

There are some grounds for supposing that in these stories of Lityerses we have the description of a Phrygian harvest custom in accordance with which certain persons, especially strangers passing the harvest field, were regularly regarded as embodiments of the corn-spirit and as such were seized by the reapers, wrapt in sheaves, and beheaded, their bodies, bound up in the corn-stalks, being afterwards thrown into water as a rain-charm. The grounds for this supposition are, first, the resemblance of the Lityerses story to the harvest customs of European peasantry, and, second, the fact that human beings have been commonly killed by savage races to promote the fertility of the fields. We will examine these grounds successively, beginning with the former.

In comparing the story with the harvest customs of Europe,(1211) three points deserve special attention, namely: I. the reaping match and the binding of persons in the sheaves; II. the killing of the corn-spirit or his representatives; III. the treatment of visitors to the harvest-field or of strangers passing it.

I. In regard to the first head, we have seen that in modern Europe the person who cuts or binds or threshes the last sheaf is often exposed to rough treatment at the hands of his fellow-labourers. For example, he is bound up in the last sheaf, and, thus encased, is carried or carted about, beaten, drenched with water, thrown on a dunghill, etc. Or, if he is spared this horseplay, he is at least the subject of ridicule or is believed destined to suffer some misfortune in the course of the year. Hence the harvesters are naturally reluctant to give the last cut at reaping or the last stroke at threshing or to bind the last sheaf, and towards the close of the work this reluctance produces an emulation among the labourers, each striving to finish his task as fast as possible, in order that he may escape the invidious distinction of being last.(1212) For example, in the neighbourhood of Danzig, when the winter corn is cut and mostly bound up in sheaves, the portion which still remains to be bound is divided amongst the women binders, each of whom receives a swath of equal length to bind. A crowd of reapers, children, and idlers gathers round to witness the contest, and at the word, “Seize the Old Man,” the women fall to work, all binding their allotted swaths as hard as they can. The spectators watch them narrowly, and the woman who cannot keep pace with the rest and consequently binds the last sheaf has to carry the Old Man (that is, the last sheaf made up in the form of a man) to the farmhouse and deliver it to the farmer with the words, “Here I bring you the Old Man.” At the supper which follows, the Old Man is placed at the table and receives an abundant portion of food which, as he cannot eat it, falls to the share of the woman who carried him. Afterwards the Old Man is placed in the yard and all the people dance round him. Or the woman who bound the last sheaf dances for a good while with the Old Man, while the rest form a ring round them; afterwards they all, one after the other, dance a single round with him. Further, the woman who bound the last sheaf goes herself by the name of the Old Man till the next harvest, and is often mocked with the cry, “Here comes the Old Man.”(1213) At Aschbach, Bavaria, when the reaping is nearly finished, the reapers say, “Now we will drive out the Old Man.” Each of them sets himself to reap a patch of corn and reaps as fast as he can; he who cuts the last handful or the last stalk is greeted by the rest with an exulting cry, “You have the Old Man.” Sometimes a black mask is fastened on the reaper’s face and he is dressed in woman’s clothes; or if the reaper is a woman, she is dressed in man’s clothes; a dance follows. At the supper the Old Man gets twice as large a portion of food as the others. At threshing, the proceedings are the same; the person who gives the last stroke is said to have the Old Man.(1214)

These examples illustrate the contests in reaping, threshing, and binding which take place amongst the harvesters, on account of their unwillingness to suffer the ridicule and personal inconvenience attaching to the individual who happens to finish his work last. It will be remembered that the person who is last at reaping, binding, or threshing, is regarded as the representative of the corn-spirit,(1215) and this idea is more fully expressed by binding him or her in corn-stalks. The latter custom has been already illustrated, but a few more instances may be added. At Kloxin, near Stettin, the harvesters call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, “You have the Old Man, and must keep him.” The Old Man is a great bundle of corn decked with flowers and ribbons, and fashioned into a rude semblance of the human form. It is fastened on a rake or strapped on a horse, and brought with music to the village. In delivering the Old Man to the farmer, the woman says—

“Here, dear Sir, is the Old Man.
He can stay no longer on the field,
He can hide himself no longer,
He must come into the village.
Ladies and gentlemen, pray be so kind
As to give the Old Man a present.”

Forty or fifty years ago the custom was to tie up the woman herself in pease-straw, and bring her with music to the farmhouse, where the harvesters danced with her till the pease-straw fell off.(1216) In other villages round Stettin, when the last harvest-waggon is being loaded, there is a regular race amongst the women, each striving not to be last. For she who places the last sheaf on the waggon is called the Old Man, and is completely swathed in corn-stalks; she is also decked with flowers, and flowers and a helmet of straw are placed on her head. In solemn procession she carries the harvest-crown to the squire, over whose head she holds it while she utters a string of good wishes. At the dance which follows, the Old Man has the right to choose his (or rather her) partner; it is an honour to dance with him.(1217) At Blankenfelde, in the district of Potsdam, the woman who binds the last sheaf at the rye-harvest is saluted with the cry, “You have the Old Man.” A woman is then tied up in the last sheaf in such a way that only her head is left free; her hair also is covered with a cap made of rye-stalks, adorned with ribbons and flowers. She is called the Harvest-man, and must keep dancing in front of the last harvest-waggon till it reaches the squire’s house, where she receives a present, and is released from her envelope of corn.(1218) At Gommern, near Magdeburg, the reaper who cuts the last ears of corn is often wrapt up in corn-stalks so completely that it is hard to see whether there is a man in the bundle or not. Thus wrapt up he is taken by another stalwart reaper on his back, and carried round the field amid the joyous cries of the harvesters.(1219) At Neuhausen, near Merseburg, the person who binds the last sheaf is wrapt in ears of oats and saluted as the Oats-man, whereupon the others dance round him.(1220) At Brie, Isle de France, the farmer himself is tied up in the _first_ sheaf.(1221) At the harvest-home at Udvarhely, Transylvania, a person is encased in corn-stalks, and wears on his head a crown made out of the last ears cut. On reaching the village he is soused with water over and over.(1222) At Dingelstedt, in the district of Erfurt, about fifty years ago it was the custom to tie up a man in the last sheaf. He was called the Old Man, and was brought home on the last waggon, amid huzzas and music. On reaching the farmyard he was rolled round the barn and drenched with water.(1223) At Nördlingen, Bavaria, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is wrapt in straw and rolled on the threshing-floor.(1224) In some parts of Oberpfalz, Bavaria, he is said to “get the Old Man,” is wrapt in straw, and carried to a neighbour who has not yet finished his threshing.(1225) In Thüringen a sausage is stuck in the last sheaf at threshing, and thrown, with the sheaf, on the threshing-floor. It is called the _Barrenwurst_ or _Banzenwurst_, and is eaten by all the threshers. After they have eaten it a man is encased in pease-straw, and thus attired is led through the village.(1226)

“In all these cases the idea is that the spirit of the corn—the Old Man of vegetation—is driven out of the corn last cut or last threshed, and lives in the barn during the winter. At sowing-time he goes out again to the fields to resume his activity as animating force among the sprouting corn.”(1227)

Much the same ideas are attached to the last corn in India; for we are told that in the Central Provinces, “when the reaping is nearly done, about a _bisvá_, say a rood of land, of corn is left standing in the cultivator’s last field, and the reapers rest a little. Then they rush at this _bisvá_, tear it up, and cast it into the air, shouting victory to Omkár Maháráj or Jhámájí, or Rámjí Dás, etc., according to their respective possessions. A sheaf is made up of this corn, tied to a bamboo, and stuck up in the last harvest cart, and carried home in triumph. It is fastened up in the threshing-floor to a tree, or to the cattle-shed, where its services are essential in averting the evil-eye.”(1228)