After the dance a pyre is made. All the girls, each wearing
a wreath, strip the puppet, pull it to pieces, and place it on the
pyre, along with the flowers with which it was adorned. Then the
girl who was the first to finish reaping sets fire to the pile, and
all pray that Ceres may give a fruitful year. Here, as Mannhardt
observes, the old custom has remained intact, though the name Ceres
is a bit of schoolmaster's learning. In Upper Brittany the last
sheaf is always made into human shape; but if the farmer is a
married man, it is made double and consists of a little corn-puppet
placed inside of a large one. This is called the Mother-sheaf. It is
delivered to the farmer's wife, who unties it and gives drink-money
in return.
Sometimes the last sheaf is called, not the Corn-mother, but the
Harvest-mother or the Great Mother. In the province of Osnabr?ck,
Hanover, it is called the Harvest-mother; it is made up in female
form, and then the reapers dance about with it. In some parts of
Westphalia the last sheaf at the rye-harvest is made especially
heavy by fastening stones in it.
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