It is true we have not found that a pretence is made of
killing him; but on the other hand we have found that a pretence is
made of killing the man who gives the last stroke at threshing, that
is, who is vanquished in the threshing contest. Now, since it is in
the character of representative of the corn-spirit that the thresher
of the last corn is slain in mimicry, and since the same
representative character attaches (as we have seen) to the cutter
and binder as well as to the thresher of the last corn, and since
the same repugnance is evinced by harvesters to be last in any one
of these labours, we may conjecture that a pretence has been
commonly made of killing the reaper and binder as well as the
thresher of the last corn, and that in ancient times this killing
was actually carried out. This conjecture is corroborated by the
common superstition that whoever cuts the last corn must die soon.
Sometimes it is thought that the person who binds the last sheaf on
the field will die in the course of next year. The reason for fixing
on the reaper, binder, or thresher of the last corn as the
representative of the corn-spirit may be this.
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