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They bring it home on the last
waggon and call it the Great Mother, though they do not fashion it
into any special shape. In the district of Erfurt a very heavy
sheaf, not necessarily the last, is called the Great Mother, and is
carried on the last waggon to the barn, where all hands lift it down
amid a fire of jokes.
Sometimes again the last sheaf is called the Grandmother, and is
adorned with flowers, ribbons, and a woman's apron. In East Prussia,
at the rye or wheat harvest, the reapers call out to the woman who
binds the last sheaf, "You are getting the Old Grandmother." In the
neighbourhood of Magdeburg the men and women servants strive who
shall get the last sheaf, called the Grandmother. Whoever gets it
will be married in the next year, but his or her spouse will be old;
if a girl gets it, she will marry a widower; if a man gets it, he
will marry an old crone. In Silesia the Grandmother--a huge bundle
made up of three or four sheaves by the person who tied the last
sheaf--was formerly fashioned into a rude likeness of the human
form.


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