by it, Lityerses gave him plenty to eat and drink, then took him to the corn-fields on the banks of the Maeander and compelled him to reap along with him. Lastly, he used to wrap the stranger in a sheaf, cut off his head with a sickle, and carry away his body, wrapt in the corn stalks. But at last he was himself slain by Hercules, who threw his body into the river.[1] As Hercules was probably reported to have slain Lityerses in the same way that Lityerses slew others (as Theseus treated Sinis and Sciron), we may infer that Lityerses used to throw the bodies of his victims into the river. According to another version of the story, Lityerses, a son of Midas, used to challenge people to a reaping match with him, and if he vanquished them he used to thrash them; but one day he met with a stronger reaper, who slew him.[2]
There are some grounds for supposing that in these stories of Lityerses we have the description of a Phrygian harvest custom in accordance with which certain persons, especially strangers passing the harvest field, were regularly regarded as embodiments of the corn-spirit and as such were seized by the reapers, wrapt in sheaves, and beheaded, their bodies, bound up in the corn-stalks, being afterwards thrown into water as a rain-charm. The grounds for this supposition are, first, the resemblance of the Lityerses story to the harvest customs of European peasantry, and, second, the fact that human beings have been commonly killed by savage races to promote the fertility of the fields. We
- ↑ The story was told by Sositheus in his play of Daphnis. His verses have been preserved in the tract of an anonymous writer. See Scriptores rerum mirabilium, ed. Westermann, p. 220; also Athenaeus, 415 B; Schol. on Theocritus, x. 41; Photius, Suidas,and Hesychius, s.v. Lityerses; Apostolius, x. 74. Photius mentions the sickle. Lityerses is the subject of a special study by Mannhardt (Mythologische Forschungen, p. 1 sqq.), whom I follow.
- ↑ Pollux, iv. 54.
