In Silesia the woman who binds the last sheaf has to
submit to a good deal of horse-play. She is pushed, knocked down,
and tied up in the sheaf, after which she is called the corn-puppet
(_Kornpopel_).
"In all these cases the idea is that the spirit of the corn--the Old
Man of vegetation--is driven out of the corn last cut or last
threshed, and lives in the barn during the winter. At sowing-time he
goes out again to the fields to resume his activity as animating
force among the sprouting corn."
II. Passing to the second point of comparison between the Lityerses
story and European harvest customs, we have now to see that in the
latter the corn-spirit is often believed to be killed at reaping or
threshing. In the Romsdal and other parts of Norway, when the
haymaking is over, the people say that "the Old Hay-man has been
killed." In some parts of Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke
at threshing is said to have killed the Corn-man, the Oats-man, or
the Wheat-man, according to the crop. In the Canton of Tillot, in
Lorraine, at threshing the last corn the men keep time with their
flails, calling out as they thresh, "We are killing the Old Woman!
We are killing the Old Woman!" If there is an old woman in the house
she is warned to save herself, or she will be struck dead.
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