and holding them with both hands towards the ground. They then all begin at once in a very prolonged and harmonious tone to cry The neck!' at the same time slowly raising themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads; the person with the neck' also raising it on high. This is done three times. They then change their cry to 'Wee yen!'-'Way yen !'-which they sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular harmony and effect, three times. This last cry is accompanied by the same movements of the body and arms as in crying 'the neck.' . . . After having thus repeated 'the neck' three times, and 'wee yen,' or 'way yen,' as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them then gets 'the neck' and runs as hard as he can down to the farmhouse, where the dairymaid or one of the young female domestics stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. If he who holds 'the neck' can manage to get into the house, in any way unseen, or openly, by any other way than the door at which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused with the contents of the bucket. On a fine still autumn evening, the 'crying of the neck' has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the Turkish muezzin, which Lord Byron eulogises so much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells in Christendom. I have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of female voices. About three years back, on some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six or seven 'necks' cried in one night, although I know that some of them were four miles off. They are heard through the quiet evening air, at a considerable distance sometimes." Again, Mrs. Bray tells how, travelling in Devonshire, “she saw a party of reapers standing in a circle on a rising ground, holding their sickles aloft. One in the middle held up some ears of corn tied together with flowers, and the party shouted three times (what she writes as) 'Arnack, arnack, arnack, we haven, we haven, we haven' They 1 Hone, Every-day Book, ii. col. 1170 sq.

» 1

went home, accompanied by women and children carrying boughs of flowers, shouting and singing. The manservant who attended Mrs. Bray said 'it was only the people making their games, as they always did, to the spirit of harvest." Here, as Miss Burne remarks, “arnack, we haven!' is obviously in the Devon dialect, 'a neck (or nack)! we have un!'" "The neck" is generally hung up in the farmhouse, where it sometimes remains for two or three years. A similar custom is still observed in some parts of Cornwall, as I was told by my lamented friend J. H. Middleton. "The last sheaf is decked with ribbons. Two strong-voiced men are chosen and placed (one with the sheaf) on opposite sides of a valley. One shouts, 'I've gotten it.' The other shouts, 'What hast gotten?' The first answers, 'I'se gotten the neck.'" 8

2

In these Devonshire and Cornish customs a particular bunch of ears, generally the last left standing,* is conceived as the neck of the corn-spirit, who is consequently beheaded when the bunch is cut down. Similarly in Shropshire the name "neck," or "the gander's neck," used to be commonly given to the last handful of ears left standing in the middle of the field, when all the rest of the corn was cut. It was plaited together, and the reapers, standing ten or twenty paces off, threw their sickles at it. Whoever cut it through was said to have cut off the gander's neck. The "neck was taken to the farmer's wife, who was supposed to keep it in the house for good luck till the next harvest came round. Near Trèves, the man who reaps the last standing "cuts the goat's neck off." " At Faslane, on the Gareloch (Dumbartonshire), the last handful of standing corn was sometimes called the "head."7 At Aurich, in East Friesland, the man who reaps the last corn "cuts the

corn

1 Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 372 sq., referring to Mrs. Bray's Traditions of Devon, i. 330.

2 Hone, op. cit. ii. 1172.

3 The Rev. Sydney Cooper, of 80 Gloucester Street, Cirencester, writes to me (4th February 1893) that his wife remembers the "neck" being kept on the mantelpiece of the parlour in a

"

Cornish farmhouse; it generally stayed there throughout the year.

4 Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 20 (Bohn's ed.); Burne and Jackson, op. cit. p. 371.

5 Burne and Jackson, 1.c.

6 W. Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. p. 185.

7 See above, p. 185.

hare's tail off." 1 In mowing down the last corner of a field French reapers sometimes call out, "We have the cat by the tail." 2 In Bresse (Bourgogne) the last sheaf represented the fox. Beside it a score of ears were left standing to form the tail, and each reaper, going back some paces, threw his sickle at it. He who succeeded in severing it "cut off the fox's tail," and a cry of " You cou cou!" was raised in his honour.8 These examples leave no room to doubt the meaning of the Devonshire and Cornish expression "the neck," as applied to the last sheaf. The corn-spirit is conceived in human or animal form, and the last standing corn is part of its body-its neck, its head, or its tail. Sometimes, as we have seen, the last corn is regarded as the navel-string. Lastly, the Devonshire custom of drenching with water the person who brings in "the neck" is a raincharm, such as we have had many examples of. Its parallel in the mysteries of Osiris was the custom of pouring water on the image of Osiris or on the person who represented him.

In Germany cries of Waul! or Wol! or Wold! are sometimes raised by the reapers at cutting the last corn. Thus in some places the last patch of standing rye was called the Waul-rye; a stick decked with flowers was inserted in it, and the ears were fastened to the stick. Then all the reapers took off their hats and cried thrice, "Waul! Waul! Waul!" Sometimes they accompanied the cry by clashing with their whetstones on their scythes.5

§ 10. The Corn-spirit as an Animal

In some of the examples which I have cited to establish the meaning of the term "neck " as applied to the last sheaf, the corn-spirit appears in animal form as a gander, a goat, a

hare, a cat, and a fox. This introduces us to a new aspect of the corn-spirit, which we must now examine. By doing so we shall not only have fresh examples of killing the god, but may hope also to clear up some points which remain obscure in the myths and worship of Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Dionysus, Demeter, and Virbius.

Amongst the many animals whose forms the corn-spirit is supposed to take are the wolf, dog, hare, cock, goose, cat, goat, cow (ox, bull), pig, and horse. In one or other of these shapes the corn-spirit is believed to be present in the corn, and to be caught or killed in the last sheaf. As the corn is being cut the animal flees before the reapers, and if a reaper is taken ill on the field, he is supposed to have stumbled unwittingly on the corn-spirit, who has thus punished the profane intruder. It is said "the Rye-wolf has got hold of him," "the Harvest-goat has given him a push." The person who cuts the last corn or binds the last sheaf gets the name of the animal, as the Rye-wolf, the Rye-sow, the Oats-goat, and so forth, and retains the name sometimes for a year. Also the animal is frequently represented by a puppet made out of the last sheaf or of wood, flowers, and so on, which is carried home amid rejoicings on the last harvest-waggon. Even where the last sheaf is not made up in animal shape, it is often called the Rye-wolf, the Hare, Goat, and so forth. Generally each kind of crop is supposed to have its special animal, which is caught in the last sheaf, and called the Rye-wolf, the Barley-wolf, the Oats-wolf, the Pea-wolf, or the Potato-wolf, according to the crop; but sometimes the figure of the animal is only made up once for all at getting in the last crop of the whole harvest. Sometimes the creature is believed to be killed by the last stroke of the sickle or scythe. But oftener it is thought to live so long as there is corn still unthreshed, and to be caught in the last sheaf threshed. Hence the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is told that he has got the Corn-sow, the Threshing-dog, or the like. When the threshing is finished, a puppet is made in the form of the animal, and this is carried by the thresher of the last sheaf to a neighbouring farm, where the threshing is still going on. This again shows that the corn-spirit is believed to live wherever the corn is still being threshed. Sometimes

the thresher of the last sheaf himself represents the animal; and if the people of the next farm, who are still threshing, catch him, they treat him like the animal he represents, by shutting him up in the pig-sty, calling him with the cries commonly addressed to pigs and so forth.1

These general statements will now be illustrated by examples. We begin with the corn-spirit conceived as a wolf or a dog. This conception is common in France, Germany, and Slavonic countries. Thus, when the wind sets the corn in wave-like motion, the peasants often say, "The Wolf is going over, or through, the corn," "the Ryewolf is rushing over the field," "the Wolf is in the corn," "the mad Dog is in the corn," "the big Dog is there." 2 When children wish to go into the corn-fields to pluck ears or gather the blue corn-flowers, they are warned not to do so, for "the big Dog sits in the corn," or "the Wolf sits in the corn, and will tear you in pieces," "the Wolf will eat you." The wolf against whom the children are warned is not a common wolf, for he is often spoken of as the Corn-wolf, Rye-wolf, or the like; thus they say, "The Rye-wolf will come and eat you up, children," "the Rye-wolf will carry you off," and so forth. Still he has all the outward appearance of a wolf. For in the neighbourhood of Feilenhof (East Prussia), when a wolf was seen running through a field, the peasants used to watch whether he carried his tail in the air or dragged it on the ground. If he dragged it on the ground, they went after him, and thanked him for bringing them a blessing, and even set tit-bits before him. But if he carried his tail high, they cursed him and tried to kill him. Here the wolf is the corn-spirit, whose fertilising power is in his tail.1

8

Both dog and wolf appear as embodiments of the cornspirit in harvest-customs. Thus in some parts of Silesia the

1 W. Mannhardt, Die Korndämonen, PP. 1-6.

2 W. Mannhardt, Roggenwolf und Roggenhund (Danzig, 1865), p. 5; id., Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 318 sq.; id., Mythol. Forsch. p. 103; Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen, p. 213; O. Hartung, "Zur Volkskunde aus Anhalt," Zeit

schrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, vii. (1897), p. 150; W. Müller, Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren, p. 327.

3 W. Mannhardt, Roggenwolf und Roggenhund, p. 7 sqq.; id., A.W.F. P. 319.

4 W. Mannhardt, Roggenwolf, p. 10.