" 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. In other
cases the farmer's wife represents the corn-spirit. Thus in the
Commune of Salign? (Vend?e), 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, as if she were being winnowed. 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, and so forth. But in other cases the corn-spirit is
conceived as young. Thus at Saldern, near Wolfenbuttel, when the rye
has been reaped, three sheaves are tied together with a rope so as
to make a puppet with the corn ears for a head.
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