According to another version of the story, Lityerses, a son of
Midas, was wont to challenge people to a reaping match with him, and
if he vanquished them he used to thrash them; but one day he met
with a stronger reaper, who slew him.
There are some grounds for supposing that in these stories of
Lityerses we have the description of a Phrygian harvest custom in
accordance with which certain persons, especially strangers passing
the harvest field, were regularly regarded as embodiments of the
corn-spirit, and as such were seized by the reapers, wrapt in
sheaves, and beheaded, their bodies, bound up in the corn-stalks,
being after-wards thrown into water as a rain-charm. The grounds for
this supposition are, first, the resemblance of the Lityerses story
to the harvest customs of European peasantry, and, second, the
frequency of human sacrifices offered by savage races to promote the
fertility of the fields. We will examine these grounds successively,
beginning with the former.
In comparing the story with the harvest customs of Europe, three
points deserve special attention, namely: I.
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