For
whereas in some of the customs the corn-spirit is treated as
immanent in the corn, in others it is regarded as external to it.
Thus when a particular sheaf is called by the name of the
corn-spirit, and is dressed in clothes and handled with reverence,
the spirit is clearly regarded as immanent in the corn. But when the
spirit is said to make the crops grow by passing through them, or to
blight the grain of those against whom she has a grudge, she is
apparently conceived as distinct from, though exercising power over,
the corn. Conceived in the latter mode the corn-spirit is in a fair
way to become a deity of the corn, if she has not become so already.
Of these two conceptions, that of the cornspirit as immanent in the
corn is doubtless the older, since the view of nature as animated by
indwelling spirits appears to have generally preceded the view of it
as controlled by external deities; to put it shortly, animism
precedes deism. In the harvest customs of our European peasantry the
corn-spirit seems to be conceived now as immanent in the corn and
now as external to it.
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