will examine these grounds successively, beginning with the former.
In comparing the story with the harvest customs of Europe,[1] three points deserve special attention, namely: I. the reaping match and the binding of persons in the sheaves; II. the killing of the corn-spirit or his representatives; III. the treatment of visitors to the harvest-field or of strangers passing it.
I. In regard to the first head, we have seen that in modern Europe the person who cuts or binds or threshes the last sheaf is often exposed to rough treatment at the hands of his fellow-labourers. For example, he is bound up in the last sheaf, and, thus encased, is carried or carted about, beaten, drenched with water, thrown on a dunghill, etc. Or, if he is spared this horseplay, he is at least the subject of ridicule or is believed destined to suffer some misfortune in the course of the year. Hence the harvesters are naturally reluctant to give the last cut at reaping or the last stroke at threshing or to bind the last sheaf, and towards the close of the work this reluctance produces an emulation among the labourers, each striving to finish his task as fast as possible, in order that he may escape the invidious distinction of being last.[2] For example, in the neighbourhood of Danzig, when the winter corn is cut and mostly bound up in sheaves, the portion which still remains to be bound is divided amongst the women binders, each of whom
- ↑ In this comparison I closely follow Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. p. 18 sqq.
- ↑ Cp. above, p. 340. On the other hand, the last sheaf is sometimes an object of desire and emulation. See p. 336. It is so at Balquhidder also, Folk-lore Journal, vi. 269; and it was formerly so on the Gareloch, Dumbartonshire, where there was a competition for the honour of cutting it, several handfuls of standing corn being concealed under sheaves.—(From the information of Archie Leitch. See note on p. 345).
