In these latter customs the confusion between the
human and the animal shape of the corn-spirit meets us again.
Further, the corn-spirit in bull form is sometimes believed to be
killed at threshing. At Auxerre, in threshing the last bundle of
corn, they call out twelve times, "We are killing the Bull." In the
neighbourhood of Bordeaux, where a butcher kills an ox on the field
immediately after the close of the reaping, it is said of the man
who gives the last stroke at threshing that "he has killed the
Bull." At Chamb?ry the last sheaf is called the sheaf of the Young
Ox, and a race takes place to it in which all the reapers join. When
the last stroke is given at threshing they say that "the Ox is
killed"; and immediately thereupon a real ox is slaughtered by the
reaper who cut the last corn. The flesh of the ox is eaten by the
threshers at supper.
We have seen that sometimes the young corn-spirit, whose task it is
to quicken the corn of the coming year, is believed to be born as a
Corn-baby on the harvest-field. Similarly in Berry the young
corn-spirit is sometimes supposed to be born on the field in calf
form; for when a binder has not rope enough to bind all the corn in
sheaves, he puts aside the wheat that remains over and imitates the
lowing of a cow.
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