On Plate III. we figure an object made of curiously-plaited straws, exhibited at the Meeting of December 17th by Miss E. M. Grafton, late of Heysham, Lancashire, who received it from Miss J. A. Gourlay, Kempshott Park, Basingstoke, with the following information:—
[In August, 1903] "we passed a field about five or six miles from Cambridge, where they were harvesting. I remember noticing that some of the people were sitting about (perhaps making these things). Soon afterwards we reached the village, Harston, and while waiting in front of the inn for tea a man came along our road— presumably from the field we had passed—with two of these straw brooms, which he pressed upon us. To justify his price he pointed out what a lot of work there was in them, but he did not seem to know much else about them. I remember thinking that he did not look like a local labourer, but more like a tramp harvester."
The maidservant at the lodgings where Miss Grafton was then staying in Cambridge recognised the exhibit as an object famihar to her. Dr. W. H. D. Rouse has since kindly undertaken to inquire into the matter, but has only succeeded in ascertaining that the objects in question are known also at Cottenham in the same neighbourhood, and are hung up as ornaments at harvest thanksgiving services in churches and chapels, and also in farmhouses. If they are a survival of the harvest-doll or corn-baby, they are a survival in the last stage of decay.
Any further information on the subject will be acceptable.
Editor.
