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XLVII. Lityerses

1. Songs of the Corn Reapers
IN THE PRECEDING pages an attempt has been made to show that in the
Corn-mother and Harvest-maiden of Northern Europe we have the
prototypes of Demeter and Persephone. But an essential feature is
still wanting to complete the resemblance. A leading incident in the
Greek myth is the death and resurrection of Persephone; it is this
incident which, coupled with the nature of the goddess as a deity of
vegetation, links the myth with the cults of Adonis, Attis, Osiris,
and Dionysus; and it is in virtue of this incident that the myth
finds a place in our discussion of the Dying God. It remains,
therefore, to see whether the conception of the annual death and
resurrection of a god, which figures so prominently in these great
Greek and Oriental worships, has not also its origin or its analogy
in the rustic rites observed by reapers and vine-dressers amongst
the corn-shocks and the vines.
Our general ignorance of the popular superstitions and customs of
the ancients has already been confessed.


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