His groping about and making wild strokes in the air with
his sickle excited much hilarity. When he had tired himself out in
vain and given up the task as hopeless, another reaper was
blindfolded and pursued the quest, and so on, one after the other,
till at last the kirn was cut. The successful reaper was tossed up
in the air with three cheers by his brother harvesters. To decorate
the room in which the kirn-supper was held at Spottiswoode as well
as the granary, where the dancing took place, two women made
kirn-dollies or Queens every year; and many of these rustic effigies
of the corn-spirit might be seen hanging up together.
In some parts of the Highlands of Scotland the last handful of corn
that is cut by the reapers on any particular farm is called the
Maiden, or in Gaelic _Maidhdeanbuain,_ literally, "the shorn
Maiden." Superstitions attach to the winning of the Maiden. If it is
got by a young person, they think it an omen that he or she will be
married before another harvest. For that or other reasons there is a
strife between the reapers as to who shall get the Maiden, and they
resort to various stratagems for the purpose of securing it.
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