In the neighbourhood of Belfast the last sheaf sometimes goes
by the name of the Granny. It is not cut in the usual way, but all
the reapers throw their sickles at it and try to bring it down. It
is plaited and kept till the (next?) autumn. Whoever gets it will
marry in the course of the year.
Often the last sheaf is called the Old Woman or the Old Man. In
Germany it is frequently shaped and dressed as a woman, and the
person who cuts it or binds it is said to "get the Old Woman." At
Altisheim, in Swabia, when all the corn of a farm has been cut
except a single strip, all the reapers stand in a row before the
strip; each cuts his share rapidly, and he who gives the last cut
"has the Old Woman." When the sheaves are being set up in heaps, the
person who gets hold of the Old Woman, which is the largest and
thickest of all the sheaves, is jeered at by the rest, who call out
to him, "He has the Old Woman and must keep her." The woman who
binds the last sheaf is sometimes herself called the Old Woman, and
it is said that she will be married in the next year.
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