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This explanation applies
with peculiar force to the very common case in which the animal
embodiment of the corn-spirit is believed to lurk in the last
standing corn. For at harvest a number of wild animals, such as
hares, rabbits, and partridges, are commonly driven by the progress
of the reaping into the last patch of standing corn, and make their
escape from it as it is being cut down. So regularly does this
happen that reapers and others often stand round the last patch of
corn armed with sticks or guns, with which they kill the animals as
they dart out of their last refuge among the stalks. Now, primitive
man, to whom magical changes of shape seem perfectly credible, finds
it most natural that the spirit of the corn, driven from his home in
the ripe grain, should make his escape in the form of the animal
which is seen to rush out of the last patch of corn as it falls
under the scythe of the reaper. Thus the identification of the
corn-spirit with an animal is analogous to the identification of him
with a passing stranger.


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