CHAPTER VIII. THE CORN-SPIRIT AS AN ANIMAL.

§ 1. Animal Embodiments of the Corn-spirit.

(M229) 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 Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Dionysus, Demeter, and Virbius.

(M230) Amongst the many animals whose forms the corn-spirit is supposed to take are the wolf, dog, hare, fox, cock, goose, quail, cat, goat, cow (ox, bull), pig, and horse. In one or other of these shapes the corn-spirit is often 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 shews 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.(833) These general statements will now be illustrated by examples.

§ 2. The Corn-spirit as a Wolf or a Dog.

(M231) 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 Rye-wolf is rushing over the field,” “the Wolf is in the corn,” “the mad Dog is in the corn,” “the big Dog is there.”(834) 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.(835) 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.(836)

(M232) Both dog and wolf appear as embodiments of the corn-spirit in harvest-customs. Thus in some parts of Silesia the person who cuts or binds the last sheaf is called the Wheat-dog or the Peas-pug.(837) But it is in the harvest-customs of the north-east of France that the idea of the Corn-dog comes out most clearly. Thus when a harvester, through sickness, weariness, or laziness, cannot or will not keep up with the reaper in front of him, they say, “The White Dog passed near him,” “he has the White Bitch,” or “the White Bitch has bitten him.”(838) In the Vosges the Harvest-May is called the “Dog of the harvest,”(839) and the person who cuts the last handful of hay or wheat is said to “kill the Dog.”(840) About Lons-le-Saulnier, in the Jura, the last sheaf is called the Bitch. In the neighbourhood of Verdun the regular expression for finishing the reaping is, “They are going to kill the Dog”; and at Epinal they say, according to the crop, “We will kill the Wheat-dog, or the Rye-dog, or the Potato-dog.”(841) In Lorraine it is said of the man who cuts the last corn, “He is killing the Dog of the harvest.”(842) At Dux, in the Tyrol, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is said to “strike down the Dog”;(843) and at Ahnebergen, near Stade, he is called, according to the crop, Corn-pug, Rye-pug, Wheat-pug.(844)

(M233) So with the wolf. In Silesia, when the reapers gather round the last patch of standing corn to reap it they are said to be about “to catch the Wolf.”(845) In various parts of Mecklenburg, where the belief in the Corn-wolf is particularly prevalent, every one fears to cut the last corn, because they say that the Wolf is sitting in it; hence every reaper exerts himself to the utmost in order not to be the last, and every woman similarly fears to bind the last sheaf because “the Wolf is in it.” So both among the reapers and the binders there is a competition not to be the last to finish.(846) And in Germany generally it appears to be a common saying that “the Wolf sits in the last sheaf.”(847) In some places they call out to the reaper, “Beware of the Wolf”; or they say, “He is chasing the Wolf out of the corn.”(848) In Mecklenburg the last bunch of standing corn is itself commonly called the Wolf, and the man who reaps it “has the Wolf,” the animal being described as the Rye-wolf, the Wheat-wolf, the Barley-wolf, and so on according to the particular crop. The reaper of the last corn is himself called Wolf or the Rye-wolf, if the crop is rye, and in many parts of Mecklenburg he has to support the character by pretending to bite the other harvesters or by howling like a wolf.(849) The last sheaf of corn is also called the Wolf or the Rye-wolf or the Oats-wolf according to the crop, and of the woman who binds it they say, “The Wolf is biting her,” “She has the Wolf,” “She must fetch the Wolf” (out of the corn). Moreover, she herself is called Wolf; they cry out to her, “Thou art the Wolf,” and she has to bear the name for a whole year; sometimes, according to the crop, she is called the Rye-wolf or the Potato-wolf.(850) In the island of Rügen not only is the woman who binds the last sheaf called Wolf, but when she comes home she bites the lady of the house and the stewardess, for which she receives a large piece of meat. Yet nobody likes to be the Wolf. The same woman may be Rye-wolf, Wheat-wolf, and Oats-wolf, if she happens to bind the last sheaf of rye, wheat, and oats.(851) At Buir, in the district of Cologne, it was formerly the custom to give to the last sheaf the shape of a wolf. It was kept in the barn till all the corn was threshed. Then it was brought to the farmer and he had to sprinkle it with beer or brandy.(852) At Brunshaupten in Mecklenburg the young woman who bound the last sheaf of wheat used to take a handful of stalks out of it and make “the Wheat-wolf” with them; it was the figure of a wolf about two feet long and half a foot high, the legs of the animal being represented by stiff stalks and its tail and mane by wheat-ears. This Wheat-wolf she carried back at the head of the harvesters to the village, where it was set up on a high place in the parlour of the farm and remained there for a long time.(853) In many places the sheaf called the Wolf is made up in human form and dressed in clothes. This indicates a confusion of ideas between the corn-spirit conceived in human and in animal form. Generally the Wolf is brought home on the last waggon with joyful cries. Hence the last waggon-load itself receives the name of the Wolf.(854)

(M234) Again, the Wolf is supposed to hide himself amongst the cut corn in the granary, until he is driven out of the last bundle by the strokes of the flail. Hence at Wanzleben, near Magdeburg, after the threshing the peasants go in procession, leading by a chain a man who is enveloped in the threshed-out straw and is called the Wolf.(855) He represents the corn-spirit who has been caught escaping from the threshed corn. In the district of Treves it is believed that the Corn-wolf is killed at threshing. The men thresh the last sheaf till it is reduced to chopped straw. In this way they think that the Corn-wolf, who was lurking in the last sheaf, has been certainly killed.(856)

(M235) In France also the Corn-wolf appears at harvest. Thus they call out to the reaper of the last corn, “You will catch the Wolf.” Near Chambéry they form a ring round the last standing corn, and cry, “The Wolf is in there.” In Finisterre, when the reaping draws near an end, the harvesters cry, “There is the Wolf; we will catch him.” Each takes a swath to reap, and he who finishes first calls out, “I’ve caught the Wolf.”(857) In Guyenne, when the last corn has been reaped, they lead a wether all round the field. It is called “the Wolf of the field.” Its horns are decked with a wreath of flowers and corn-ears, and its neck and body are also encircled with garlands and ribbons. All the reapers march, singing, behind it. Then it is killed on the field. In this part of France the last sheaf is called the _coujoulage_, which, in the patois, means a wether. Hence the killing of the wether represents the death of the corn-spirit, considered as present in the last sheaf; but two different conceptions of the corn-spirit—as a wolf and as a wether—are mixed up together.(858)

(M236) Sometimes it appears to be thought that the Wolf, caught in the last corn, lives during the winter in the farmhouse, ready to renew his activity as corn-spirit in the spring. Hence at midwinter, when the lengthening days begin to herald the approach of spring, the Wolf makes his appearance once more. In Poland a man, with a wolf’s skin thrown over his head, is led about at Christmas; or a stuffed wolf is carried about by persons who collect money.(859) There are facts which point to an old custom of leading about a man enveloped in leaves and called the Wolf, while his conductors collected money.(860)

§ 3. The Corn-spirit as a Cock.

(M237) Another form which the corn-spirit often assumes is that of a cock. In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn-fields, because the Corn-cock sits there, and will peck their eyes out.(861) In North Germany they say that “the Cock sits in the last sheaf”; and at cutting the last corn the reapers cry, “Now we will chase out the Cock.” When it is cut they say, “We have caught the Cock.”(862) At Braller, in Transylvania, when the reapers come to the last patch of corn, they cry, “Here we shall catch the Cock.”(863) At Fürstenwalde, when the last sheaf is about to be bound, the master releases a cock, which he has brought in a basket, and lets it run over the field. All the harvesters chase it till they catch it. Elsewhere the harvesters all try to seize the last corn cut; he who succeeds in grasping it must crow, and is called Cock.(864) Among the Wends it is or used to be customary for the farmer to hide a live cock under the last sheaf as it lay on the field; and when the corn was being gathered up, the harvester who lighted upon this sheaf had a right to keep the cock, provided he could catch it. This formed the close of the harvest-festival and was known as “the Cock-catching,” and the beer which was served out to the reapers at this time went by the name of “Cock-beer.”(865) The last sheaf is called Cock, Cock-sheaf, Harvest-cock, Harvest-hen, Autumn-hen. A distinction is made between a Wheat-cock, Bean-cock, and so on, according to the crop.(866) At Wünschensuhl, in Thüringen, the last sheaf is made into the shape of a cock, and called the Harvest-cock.(867) A figure of a cock, made of wood, pasteboard, ears of corn, or flowers, is borne in front of the harvest-waggon, especially in Westphalia, where the cock carries in his beak fruits of the earth of all kinds. Sometimes the image of the cock is fastened to the top of a May-tree on the last harvest-waggon. Elsewhere a live cock, or a figure of one, is attached to a harvest-crown and carried on a pole. In Galicia and elsewhere this live cock is fastened to the garland of corn-ears or flowers, which the leader of the women-reapers carries on her head as she marches in front of the harvest procession.(868) In Silesia a live cock is presented to the master on a plate. The harvest-supper is called Harvest-cock, Stubble-cock, etc., and a chief dish at it, at least in some places, is a cock.(869) If a waggoner upsets a harvest-waggon, it is said that “he has spilt the Harvest cock,” and he loses the cock, that is, the harvest-supper.(870) The harvest-waggon, with the figure of the cock on it, is driven round the farmhouse before it is taken to the barn. Then the cock is nailed over or at the side of the house-door, or on the gable, and remains there till next harvest.(871) In East Friesland the person who gives the last stroke at threshing is called the Clucking-hen, and grain is strewed before him as if he were a hen.(872)

(M238) Again, the corn-spirit is killed in the form of a cock. In parts of Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Picardy the reapers place a live cock in the corn which is to be cut last, and chase it over the field, or bury it up to the neck in the ground; afterwards they strike off its head with a sickle or scythe.(873) In many parts of Westphalia, when the harvesters bring the wooden cock to the farmer, he gives them a live cock, which they kill with whips or sticks, or behead with an old sword, or throw into the barn to the girls, or give to the mistress to cook. If the harvest-cock has not been spilt—that is, if no waggon has been upset—the harvesters have the right to kill the farmyard cock by throwing stones at it or beheading it. Where this custom has fallen into disuse, it is still common for the farmer’s wife to make cockie-leekie for the harvesters, and to shew them the head of the cock which has been killed for the soup.(874) In the neighbourhood of Klausenburg, Transylvania, a cock is buried on the harvest-field in the earth, so that only its head appears. A young man then takes a scythe and cuts off the cock’s head at a single sweep. If he fails to do this, he is called the Red Cock for a whole year, and people fear that next year’s crop will be bad.(875) Near Udvarhely, in Transylvania, a live cock is bound up in the last sheaf and killed with a spit. It is then skinned. The flesh is thrown away, but the skin and feathers are kept till next year; and in spring the grain from the last sheaf is mixed with the feathers of the cock and scattered on the field which is to be tilled.(876) Nothing could set in a clearer light the identification of the cock with the spirit of the corn. By being tied up in the last sheaf and killed, the cock is identified with the corn, and its death with the cutting of the corn. By keeping its feathers till spring, then mixing them with the seed-corn taken from the very sheaf in which the bird had been bound, and scattering the feathers together with the seed over the field, the identity of the bird with the corn is again emphasised, and its quickening and fertilising power, as an embodiment of the corn-spirit, is intimated in the plainest manner. Thus the corn-spirit, in the form of a cock, is killed at harvest, but rises to fresh life and activity in spring. Again, the equivalence of the cock to the corn is expressed, hardly less plainly, in the custom of burying the bird in the ground, and cutting off its head (like the ears of corn) with the scythe.

§ 4. The Corn-spirit as a Hare.

(M239) Another common embodiment of the corn-spirit is the hare.(877) In Galloway the reaping of the last standing corn is called “cutting the Hare.” The mode of cutting it is as follows. When the rest of the corn has been reaped, a handful is left standing to form the Hare. It is divided into three parts and plaited, and the ears are tied in a knot. The reapers then retire a few yards and each throws his or her sickle in turn at the Hare to cut it down. It must be cut below the knot, and the reapers continue to throw their sickles at it, one after the other, until one of them succeeds in severing the stalks below the knot. The Hare is then carried home and given to a maidservant in the kitchen, who places it over the kitchen-door on the inside. Sometimes the Hare used to be thus kept till the next harvest. In the parish of Minnigaff, when the Hare was cut, the unmarried reapers ran home with all speed, and the one who arrived first was the first to be married.(878) In Southern Ayrshire the last corn cut is also called the Hare, and the mode of cutting it seems to be the same as in Galloway; at least in the neighbourhood of Kilmarnock the last corn left standing in the middle of the field is plaited, and the reapers used to try to cut it by throwing their sickles at it. When cut, it was carried home and hung up over the door.(879) In the Vosges Mountains the person who cuts the last handful of hay or wheat is sometimes said to have caught the Hare; he is congratulated by his comrades and has the honour of carrying the nosegay or the small fir-tree decorated with ribbons which marks the conclusion of the harvest.(880) In Germany also one of the names for the last sheaf is the Hare.(881) Thus in some parts of Anhalt, when the corn has been reaped and only a few stalks are left standing, they say, “The Hare will soon come,” or the reapers cry to each other, “Look how the Hare comes jumping out.”(882) In East Prussia they say that the Hare sits in the last patch of standing corn, and must be chased out by the last reaper. The reapers hurry with their work, each being anxious not to have “to chase out the Hare”; for the man who does so, that is, who cuts the last corn, is much laughed at.(883) At Birk, in Transylvania, when the reapers come to the last patch, they cry out, “We have the Hare.”(884) At Aurich, as we have seen,(885) an expression for cutting the last corn is “to cut off the Hare’s tail.” “He is killing the Hare” is commonly said of the man who cuts the last corn in Germany, Sweden, Holland, France, and Italy.(886) In Norway the man who is thus said to “kill the Hare” must give “hare’s blood” in the form of brandy, to his fellows to drink.(887) In Lesbos, when the reapers are at work in two neighbouring fields, each party tries to finish first in order to drive the Hare into their neighbour’s field; the reapers who succeed in doing so believe that next year the crop will be better. A small sheaf of corn is made up and kept beside the holy picture till next harvest.(888)

§ 5. The Corn-spirit as a Cat.

(M240) Again, the corn-spirit sometimes takes the form of a cat. Near Kiel children are warned not to go into the corn-fields because “the Cat sits there.” In the Eisenach Oberland they are told “the Corn-cat will come and fetch you,” “the Corn-cat goes in the corn.” In some parts of Silesia at mowing the last corn they say, “The Cat is caught”; and at threshing, the man who gives the last stroke is called the Cat. In the neighbourhood of Lyons the last sheaf and the harvest-supper are both called the Cat. About Vesoul when they cut the last corn they say, “We have the Cat by the tail.” At Briançon, in Dauphiné, at the beginning of reaping a cat is decked out with ribbons, flowers, and ears of corn. It is called the Cat of the ball-skin (_le chat de peau de balle_). If a reaper is wounded at his work, they make the cat lick the wound. At the close of the reaping the cat is again decked out with ribbons and ears of corn; then they dance and make merry. When the dance is over the girls solemnly strip the cat of its finery. At Grüneberg, in Silesia, the reaper who cuts the last corn goes by the name of the Tom-cat. He is enveloped in rye-stalks and green withes, and is furnished with a long plaited tail. Sometimes as a companion he has a man similarly dressed, who is called the (female) Cat. Their duty is to run after people whom they see and to beat them with a long stick. Near Amiens the expression for finishing the harvest is, “They are going to kill the Cat”; and when the last corn is cut they kill a cat in the farmyard. At threshing, in some parts of France, a live cat is placed under the last bundle of corn to be threshed, and is struck dead with the flails. Then on Sunday it is roasted and eaten as a holiday dish.(889) In the Vosges Mountains the close of haymaking or harvest is called “catching the cat,” “killing the dog,” or more rarely “catching the hare.” The cat, the dog, or the hare is said to be fat or lean according as the crop is good or bad. The man who cuts the last handful of hay or of wheat is said to catch the cat or the hare or to kill the dog. He is congratulated by his comrades and has the honour of carrying the nosegay or rather the small fir-tree decked with ribbons which marks the end of the haymaking or of the harvest.(890) In Franche-Comté also the close of harvest is called “catching or killing the cat.”(891)

§ 6. The Corn-spirit as a Goat.

(M241) Further, the corn-spirit often appears in the form of a goat. In some parts of Prussia, when the corn bends before the wind, they say, “The Goats are chasing each other,” “the wind is driving the Goats through the corn,” “the Goats are browsing there,” and they expect a very good harvest. Again they say, “The Oats-goat is sitting in the oats-field,” “the Corn-goat is sitting in the rye-field.”(892) Children are warned not to go into the corn-fields to pluck the blue corn-flowers, or amongst the beans to pluck pods, because the Rye-goat, the Corn-goat, the Oats-goat, or the Bean-goat is sitting or lying there, and will carry them away or kill them.(893) When a harvester is taken sick or lags behind his fellows at their work, they call out, “The Harvest-goat has pushed him,” “he has been pushed by the Corn-goat.”(894) In the neighbourhood of Braunsberg (East Prussia) at binding the oats every harvester makes haste “lest the Corn-goat push him.” At Oefoten, in Norway, each reaper has his allotted patch to reap. When a reaper in the middle has not finished reaping his piece after his neighbours have finished theirs, they say of him, “He remains on the island.” And if the laggard is a man, they imitate the cry with which they call a he-goat; if a woman, the cry with which they call a she-goat.(895) Near Straubing, in Lower Bavaria, it is said of the man who cuts the last corn that “he has the Corn-goat, or the Wheat-goat, or the Oats-goat,” according to the crop. Moreover, two horns are set up on the last heap of corn, and it is called “the horned Goat.” At Kreutzburg, East Prussia, they call out to the woman who is binding the last sheaf, “The Goat is sitting in the sheaf.”(896) At Gablingen, in Swabia, when the last field of oats upon a farm is being reaped, the reapers carve a goat out of wood. Ears of oats are inserted in its nostrils and mouth, and it is adorned with garlands of flowers. It is set up on the field and called the Oats-goat. When the reaping approaches an end, each reaper hastens to finish his piece first; he who is the last to finish gets the Oats-goat.(897) Again, the last sheaf is itself called the Goat. Thus, in the valley of the Wiesent, Bavaria, the last sheaf bound on the field is called the Goat, and they have a proverb, “The field must bear a goat.”(898) At Spachbrücken, in Hesse, the last handful of corn which is cut is called the Goat, and the man who cuts it is much ridiculed.(899) At Dürrenbüchig and about Mosbach in Baden the last sheaf is also called the Goat.(900) Sometimes the last sheaf is made up in the form of a goat, and they say, “The Goat is sitting in it.”(901) Again, the person who cuts or binds the last sheaf is called the Goat. Thus, in parts of Mecklenburg they call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, “You are the Harvest-goat.” Near Uelzen, in Hanover, the harvest festival begins with “the bringing of the Harvest-goat”; that is, the woman who bound the last sheaf is wrapt in straw, crowned with a harvest-wreath, and brought in a wheelbarrow to the village, where a round dance takes place. About Luneburg, also, the woman who binds the last corn is decked with a crown of corn-ears and is called the Corn-goat.(902) At Münzesheim in Baden the reaper who cuts the last handful of corn or oats is called the Corn-goat or the Oats-goat.(903) In the Canton St. Gall, Switzerland, the person who cuts the last handful of corn on the field, or drives the last harvest-waggon to the barn, is called the Corn-goat or the Rye-goat, or simply the Goat.(904) In the Canton Thurgau he is called Corn-goat; like a goat he has a bell hung round his neck, is led in triumph, and drenched with liquor. In parts of Styria, also, the man who cuts the last corn is called Corn-goat, Oats-goat, or the like. As a rule, the man who thus gets the name of Corn-goat has to bear it a whole year till the next harvest.(905)

(M242) According to one view, the corn-spirit, who has been caught in the form of a goat or otherwise, lives in the farmhouse or barn over winter. Thus, each farm has its own embodiment of the corn-spirit. But, according to another view, the corn-spirit is the genius or deity, not of the corn of one farm only, but of all the corn. Hence when the corn on one farm is all cut, he flees to another where there is still corn left standing. This idea is brought out in a harvest-custom which was formerly observed in Skye. The farmer who first finished reaping sent a man or woman with a sheaf to a neighbouring farmer who had not finished; the latter in his turn, when he had finished, sent on the sheaf to his neighbour who was still reaping; and so the sheaf made the round of the farms till all the corn was cut. The sheaf was called the _goabbir bhacagh_, that is, the Cripple Goat.(906) The custom appears not to be extinct at the present day, for it was reported from Skye only a few years ago. We are told that when the crofters and small farmers are cutting down their corn, each tries his best to finish before his neighbour. The first to finish goes to his neighbour’s field and makes up at one end of it a bundle of sheaves in a fanciful shape which goes by the name of the _gobhar bhacach_ or Lame Goat. As each man in succession finishes reaping his field, he proceeds to set up a lame goat of this sort in his neighbour’s field where there is still corn standing. No one likes to have the Lame Goat put in his field, “not from any ill-luck it brings, but because it is humiliating to have it standing there visible to all neighbours and passers-by, and of course he cannot retaliate.”(907) The corn-spirit was probably thus represented as lame because he had been crippled by the cutting of the corn. We have seen that sometimes the old woman who brings home the last sheaf must limp on one foot.(908) In the Böhmer Wald mountains, between Bohemia and Bavaria, when two peasants are driving home their corn together, they race against each other to see who shall get home first. The village boys mark the loser in the race, and at night they come and erect on the roof of his house the Oats-goat, which is a colossal figure of a goat made of straw.(909)

(M243) But sometimes the corn-spirit, in the form of a goat, is believed to be slain on the harvest-field by the sickle or scythe. Thus, in the neighbourhood of Bernkastel, on the Moselle, the reapers determine by lot the order in which they shall follow each other. The first is called the fore-reaper, the last the tail-bearer. If a reaper overtakes the man in front he reaps past him, bending round so as to leave the slower reaper in a patch by himself. This patch is called the Goat; and the man for whom “the Goat is cut” in this way, is laughed and jeered at by his fellows for the rest of the day. When the tail-bearer cuts the last ears of corn, it is said, “He is cutting the Goat’s neck off.”(910) In the neighbourhood of Grenoble, before the end of the reaping, a live goat is adorned with flowers and ribbons and allowed to run about the field. The reapers chase it and try to catch it. When it is caught, the farmer’s wife holds it fast while the farmer cuts off its head. The goat’s flesh serves to furnish the harvest-supper. A piece of the flesh is pickled and kept till the next harvest, when another goat is killed. Then all the harvesters eat of the flesh. On the same day the skin of the goat is made into a cloak, which the farmer, who works with his men, must always wear at harvest-time if rain or bad weather sets in. But if a reaper gets pains in his back, the farmer gives him the goat-skin to wear.(911) The reason for this seems to be that the pains in the back, being inflicted by the corn-spirit, can also be healed by it. Similarly, we saw that elsewhere, when a reaper is wounded at reaping, a cat, as the representative of the corn-spirit, is made to lick the wound.(912) Esthonian reapers in the island of Mon think that the man who cuts the first ears of corn at harvest will get pains in his back,(913) probably because the corn-spirit is believed to resent especially the first wound; and, in order to escape pains in the back, Saxon reapers in Transylvania gird their loins with the first handful of ears which they cut.(914) Here, again, the corn-spirit is applied to for healing or protection, but in his original vegetable form, not in the form of a goat or a cat.

(M244) Further, the corn-spirit under the form of a goat is sometimes conceived as lurking among the cut corn in the barn, till he is driven from it by the threshing-flail. Thus in Baden the last sheaf to be threshed is called the Corn-goat, the Spelt-goat, or the Oats-goat according to the kind of grain.(915) Again, near Marktl, in Upper Bavaria, the sheaves are called Straw-goats or simply Goats. They are laid in a great heap on the open field and threshed by two rows of men standing opposite each other, who, as they ply their flails, sing a song in which they say that they see the Straw-goat amongst the corn-stalks. The last Goat, that is, the last sheaf, is adorned with a wreath of violets and other flowers and with cakes strung together. It is placed right in the middle of the heap. Some of the threshers rush at it and tear the best of it out; others lay on with their flails so recklessly that heads are sometimes broken. In threshing this last sheaf, each man casts up to the man opposite him the misdeeds of which he has been guilty throughout the year.(916) At Oberinntal, in the Tyrol, the last thresher is called Goat.(917) So at Haselberg, in West Bohemia, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing oats is called the Oats-goat.(918) At Tettnang, in Würtemburg, the thresher who gives the last stroke to the last bundle of corn before it is turned goes by the name of the He-goat, and it is said, “He has driven the He-goat away.” The person who, after the bundle has been turned, gives the last stroke of all, is called the She-goat.(919) In this custom it is implied that the corn is inhabited by a pair of corn-spirits, male and female.

(M245) Further, the corn-spirit, captured in the form of a goat at threshing, is passed on to a neighbour whose threshing is not yet finished. In Franche Comté, as soon as the threshing is over, the young people set up a straw figure of a goat on the farmyard of a neighbour who is still threshing. He must give them wine or money in return. At Ellwangen, in Würtemburg, the effigy of a goat is made out of the last bundle of corn at threshing; four sticks form its legs, and two its horns. The man who gives the last stroke with the flail must carry the Goat to the barn of a neighbour who is still threshing and throw it down on the floor; if he is caught in the act, they tie the goat on his back.(920) A similar custom is observed at Indersdorf, in Upper Bavaria; the man who throws the straw Goat into the neighbour’s barn imitates the bleating of a goat; if they catch him, they blacken his face and tie the Goat on his back.(921) At Zabern, in Elsace, when a farmer is a week or more behind his neighbours with his threshing, they set a real stuffed goat or fox before his door.(922)

(M246) Sometimes the spirit of the corn in goat form is believed to be killed at threshing. In the district of Traunstein, Upper Bavaria, they think that the Oats-goat is in the last sheaf of oats. He is represented by an old rake set up on end, with an old pot for a head. The children are then told to kill the Oats-goat.(923) Elsewhere, however, the corn-spirit in the form of a goat is apparently thought to live in the field throughout the winter. Hence at Wannefeld near Gardelegen, and also between Calbe and Salzwedel, in the Altmark, the last stalks used to be left uncut on the harvest-field with the words, “That shall the He-goat keep!” Evidently the last corn was here left as a provision for the corn-spirit, lest, robbed of all his substance, he should die of hunger. A stranger passing a harvest-field is sometimes taken for the Corn-goat escaping in human shape from the cut or threshed grain. Thus, when a stranger passes a harvest-field, all the labourers stop and shout as with one voice, “He-goat! He-goat!” At rape-seed threshing in Schleswig, which is generally done on the field, the same cry is raised if the stranger does not take off his hat.(924)

(M247) At sowing their winter corn the old Prussians used to kill a goat, consume its flesh with many superstitious ceremonies, and hang the skin on a high pole near an oak and a large stone. There it remained till harvest, when a great bunch of corn and herbs was fastened to the pole above the goat-skin. Then, after a prayer had been offered by a peasant who acted as priest (_Weidulut_), the young folks joined hands and danced round the oak and the pole. Afterwards they scrambled for the bunch of corn, and the priest distributed the herbs with a sparing hand. Then he placed the goat-skin on the large stone, sat down on it, and preached to the people about the history of their forefathers and their old heathen customs and beliefs.(925) The goat-skin thus suspended on the field from sowing time to harvest perhaps represents the corn-spirit superintending the growth of the corn. The Tomori of Central Celebes imagine that the spirits which cause rice to grow have the form of great goats with long hair and long lips.(926)

§ 7. The Corn-spirit as a Bull, Cow, or Ox.

(M248) Another form which the corn-spirit often assumes is that of a bull, cow, or ox. When the wind sweeps over the corn they say at Conitz, in West Prussia, “The Steer is running in the corn”;(927) when the corn is thick and strong in one spot, they say in some parts of East Prussia, “The Bull is lying in the corn.” When a harvester has overstrained and lamed himself, they say in the Graudenz district of West Prussia, “The Bull pushed him”; in Lothringen they say, “He has the Bull.” The meaning of both expressions is that he has unwittingly lighted upon the divine corn-spirit, who has punished the profane intruder with lameness.(928) So near Chambéry when a reaper wounds himself with his sickle, it is said that he has “the wound of the Ox.”(929) In the district of Bunzlau (Silesia) the last sheaf is sometimes made into the shape of a horned ox, stuffed with tow and wrapt in corn-ears. This figure is called the Old Man. In some parts of Bohemia the last sheaf is made up in human form and called the Buffalo-bull.(930) These cases shew a confusion of the human with the animal shape of the corn-spirit. The confusion is like that of killing a wether under the name of a wolf.(931) In the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland, the last sheaf, if it is a large one, is called the Cow.(932) All over Swabia the last bundle of corn on the field is called the Cow; the man who cuts the last ears “has the Cow,” and is himself called Cow or Barley-cow or Oats-cow, according to the crop; at the harvest-supper he gets a nosegay of flowers and corn-ears and a more liberal allowance of drink than the rest. But he is teased and laughed at; so no one likes to be the Cow.(933) The Cow was sometimes represented by the figure of a woman made out of ears of corn and corn-flowers. It was carried to the farmhouse by the man who had cut the last handful of corn. The children ran after him and the neighbours turned out to laugh at him, till the farmer took the Cow from him.(934) Here again the confusion between the human and the animal form of the corn-spirit is apparent. In various parts of Switzerland the reaper who cuts the last ears of corn is called Wheat-cow, Corn-cow, Oats-cow, or Corn-steer, and is the butt of many a joke.(935) In some parts of East Prussia, when a few ears of corn have been left standing by inadvertence on the last swath, the foremost reaper seizes them and cries, “Bull! Bull!”(936) On the other hand, in the district of Rosenheim, Upper Bavaria, when a farmer is later of getting in his harvest than his neighbours, they set up on his land a Straw-bull, as it is called. This is a gigantic figure of a bull made of stubble on a framework of wood and adorned with flowers and leaves. Attached to it is a label on which are scrawled doggerel verses in ridicule of the man on whose land the Straw-bull is set up.(937)

(M249) Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a bull or ox is killed on the harvest-field at the close of the reaping. At Pouilly, near Dijon, when the last ears of corn are about to be cut, an ox adorned with ribbons, flowers, and ears of corn is led all round the field, followed by the whole troop of reapers dancing. Then a man disguised as the Devil cuts the last ears of corn and immediately slaughters the ox. Part of the flesh of the animal is eaten at the harvest-supper; part is pickled and kept till the first day of sowing in spring. At Pont à Mousson and elsewhere on the evening of the last day of reaping, a calf adorned with flowers and ears of corn is led thrice round the farmyard, being allured by a bait or driven by men with sticks, or conducted by the farmer’s wife with a rope. The calf chosen for this ceremony is the calf which was born first on the farm in the spring of the year. It is followed by all the reapers with their tools. Then it is allowed to run free; the reapers chase it, and whoever catches it is called King of the Calf. Lastly, it is solemnly killed; at Lunéville the man who acts as butcher is the Jewish merchant of the village.(938)

(M250) Sometimes again the corn-spirit hides himself amongst the cut corn in the barn to reappear in bull or cow form at threshing. Thus at Wurmlingen, in Thüringen, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is called the Cow, or rather the Barley-cow, Oats-cow, Peas-cow, or the like, according to the crop. He is entirely enveloped in straw; his head is surmounted by sticks in imitation of horns, and two lads lead him by ropes to the well to drink. On the way thither he must low like a cow, and for a long time afterwards he goes by the name of the Cow.(939) At Obermedlingen, in Swabia, when the threshing draws near an end, each man is careful to avoid giving the last stroke. He who does give it “gets the Cow,” which is a straw figure dressed in an old ragged petticoat, hood, and stockings. It is tied on his back with a straw-rope; his face is blackened, and being bound with straw-ropes to a wheelbarrow he is wheeled round the village.(940) Here, again, we meet with that confusion between the human and animal shape of the corn-spirit which we have noted in other customs. In Canton Schaffhausen the man who threshes the last corn is called the Cow; in Canton Thurgau, the Corn-bull; in Canton Zurich, the Thresher-cow. In the last-mentioned district he is wrapt in straw and bound to one of the trees in the orchard.(941) At Arad, in Hungary, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is enveloped in straw and a cow’s hide with the horns attached to it.(942) At Pessnitz, in the district of Dresden, the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is called Bull. He must make a straw-man and set it up before a neighbour’s window.(943) Here, apparently, as in so many cases, the corn-spirit is passed on to a neighbour who has not finished threshing. So at Herbrechtingen, in Thüringen, the effigy of a ragged old woman is flung into the barn of the farmer who is last with his threshing. The man who throws it in cries, “There is the Cow for you.” If the threshers catch him they detain him over night and punish him by keeping him from the harvest-supper.(944) In these latter customs the confusion between the human and the animal shape of the corn-spirit meets us again.

(M251) Further, the corn-spirit in bull form is sometimes believed to be killed at threshing. At Auxerre, in threshing the last bundle of corn, they call out twelve times, “We are killing the Bull.” In the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, where a butcher kills an ox on the field immediately after the close of the reaping, it is said of the man who gives the last stroke at threshing that “he has killed the Bull.”(945) At Chambéry the last sheaf is called the sheaf of the Young Ox, and a race takes place to it in which all the reapers join. When the last stroke is given at threshing they say that “the Ox is killed”; and immediately thereupon a real ox is slaughtered by the reaper who cut the last corn. The flesh of the ox is eaten by the threshers at supper.(946)

(M252) We have seen that sometimes the young corn-spirit, whose task it is to quicken the corn of the coming year, is believed to be born as a Corn-baby on the harvest-field.(947) Similarly in Berry the young corn-spirit is sometimes supposed to be born on the field in calf form; for when a binder has not rope enough to bind all the corn in sheaves, he puts aside the wheat that remains over and imitates the lowing of a cow. The meaning is that “the sheaf has given birth to a calf.”(948) In Puy-de-Dôme when a binder cannot keep up with the reaper whom he or she follows, they say “He (or she) is giving birth to the Calf.”(949) In some parts of Prussia, in similar circumstances, they call out to the woman, “The Bull is coming,” and imitate the bellowing of a bull.(950) In these cases the woman is conceived as the Corn-cow or old corn-spirit, while the supposed calf is the Corn-calf or young corn-spirit. In some parts of Austria a mythical calf (_Muhkälbchen_) is believed to be seen amongst the sprouting corn in spring and to push the children; when the corn waves in the wind they say, “The Calf is going about.” Clearly, as Mannhardt observes, this calf of the spring-time is the same animal which is afterwards believed to be killed at reaping.(951)

§ 8. The Corn-spirit as a Horse or Mare.

(M253) Sometimes the corn-spirit appears in the shape of a horse or mare. Between Kalw and Stuttgart, when the corn bends before the wind, they say, “There runs the Horse.”(952) At Bohlingen, near Radolfzell in Baden, the last sheaf of oats is called the Oats-stallion.(953) In Hertfordshire, at the end of the reaping, there is or used to be observed a ceremony called “crying the Mare.” The last blades of corn left standing on the field are tied together and called the Mare. The reapers stand at a distance and throw their sickles at it; he who cuts it through “has the prize, with acclamations and good cheer.” After it is cut the reapers cry thrice with a loud voice, “I have her!” Others answer thrice, “What have you?”—“A Mare! a Mare! a Mare!”—“Whose is she?” is next asked thrice. “A. B.’s,” naming the owner thrice. “Whither will you send her?”—“To C. D.,” naming some neighbour who has not reaped all his corn.(954) In this custom the corn-spirit in the form of a mare is passed on from a farm where the corn is all cut to another farm where it is still standing, and where therefore the corn-spirit may be supposed naturally to take refuge. In Shropshire the custom is similar. “Crying, calling, or shouting the mare is a ceremony performed by the men of that farm which is the first in any parish or district to finish the harvest. The object of it is to make known their own prowess, and to taunt the laggards by a pretended offer of the ‘owd mar’’ [old mare] to help out their ‘chem’ [team]. All the men assemble (the wooden harvest-bottle being of course one of the company) in the stackyard, or, better, on the highest ground on the farm, and there shout the following dialogue, preceding it by a grand ‘Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!’

“ ‘I ’ave ’er, I ’ave ’er, I ’ave ’er!’

“ ‘Whad ’ast thee, whad ’ast thee, whad ’ast thee?’

“ ‘A mar’! a mar’! a mar’!’

“ ‘Whose is ’er, whose is ’er, whose is ’er?’

“ ‘Maister A.’s, Maister A.’s, Maister A.’s!’ (naming the farmer whose harvest is finished).

“ ‘W’eer sha’t the’ send ’er? w’eer sha’t the’ send ’er? w’eer sha’t the’ send ’er?’

“ ‘To Maister B.’s, to Maister B.’s, to Maister B.’s’ (naming one whose harvest is _not_ finished).

“ ‘’Uth a hip, hip, hip, hurrah!’ (in chorus).”

The farmer who finishes his harvest last, and who therefore cannot send the Mare to any one else, is said “to keep her all winter.” The mocking offer of the Mare was sometimes responded to by a mocking acceptance of her help. Thus an old man told an enquirer, “While we wun at supper, a mon cumm’d wi’ a autar [halter] to fatch her away.” But at one place (Longnor, near Leebotwood), down to about 1850, the Mare used really to be sent. “The head man of the farmer who had finished harvest first was mounted on the best horse of the team—the leader—both horse and man being adorned with ribbons, streamers, etc. Thus arrayed, a boy on foot led the pair in triumph to the neighbouring farmhouses. Sometimes the man who took the ‘mare’ received, as well as plenty of harvest-ale, some rather rough, though good-humoured, treatment, coming back minus his decorations, and so on.”(955)

(M254) In the neighbourhood of Lille the idea of the corn-spirit in horse form is clearly preserved. When a harvester grows weary at his work, it is said, “He has the fatigue of the Horse.” The first sheaf, called the “Cross of the Horse,” is placed on a cross of boxwood in the barn, and the youngest horse on the farm must tread on it. The reapers dance round the last blades of corn, crying, “See the remains of the Horse.” The sheaf made out of these last blades is given to the youngest horse of the parish (_commune_) to eat. This youngest horse of the parish clearly represents, as Mannhardt says, the corn-spirit of the following year, the Corn-foal, which absorbs the spirit of the old Corn-horse by eating the last corn cut; for, as usual, the old corn-spirit takes his final refuge in the last sheaf. The thresher of the last sheaf is said to “beat the Horse.”(956) Again, a trace of the horse-shaped corn-spirit is reported from Berry. The harvesters there are accustomed to take a noonday nap in the field. This is called “seeing the Horse.” The leader or “King” of the harvesters gives the signal for going to sleep. If he delays giving the signal, one of the harvesters will begin to neigh like a horse, the rest imitate him, and then they all go “to see the Horse.”(957)

§ 9. The Corn-spirit as a Bird.

(M255) Sometimes the corn-spirit assumes the form of a bird. Thus among the Saxons of the Bistritz district in Transylvania there is a saying that the quail is sitting in the last standing stalks on the harvest-field, and all the reapers rush at these stalks in order, as they say, to catch the quail.(958) Exactly the same expression is used by reapers in Austrian Silesia when they are about to cut the last standing corn, whatever the kind of grain may be.(959) In the Bocage of Normandy, when the reapers have come to the last ears of the last rig, they surround them for the purpose of catching the quail, which is supposed to have taken refuge there. They run about the corn crying, “Mind the Quail!” and make believe to grab at the bird amid shouts and laughter.(960) Connected with this identification of the corn-spirit with a quail is probably the belief that the cry of the bird in spring is prophetic of the price of corn in the autumn; in Germany they say that corn will sell at as many gulden a bushel as the quail uttered its cry over the fields in spring. Similar prognostications are drawn from the note of the bird in central and western France, in Switzerland and in Tuscany.(961) Perhaps one reason for identifying the quail with the corn-spirit is that the bird lays its eggs on the ground, without making much of a nest.(962) Similarly the Toradjas of Central Celebes think that the soul of the rice is embodied in a pretty little blue bird which builds its nest in the rice-field at the time when the rice is beginning to germinate, and which disappears again after the harvest. Thus both the place and the time of the appearance of the bird suggest to the natives the notion that the blue bird is the rice incarnate. And like the note of the quail in Europe the note of this little bird in Celebes is believed to prognosticate the state of the harvest, foretelling whether the rice will be abundant or scarce. Nobody may drive the bird away; to do so would not merely injure the rice, it would hurt the eyes of the sacrilegious person and might even strike him blind. In Minahassa, a district in the north of Celebes, a similar though less definite belief attaches to a sort of small quail which loves to haunt the rice-fields before the rice is reaped; and when the Galelareeze of Halmahera hear a certain kind of bird, which they call _togè_, croaking among the rice in ear, they say that the bird is putting the grain into the rice, so they will not kill it.(963)

§ 10. The Corn-spirit as a Fox.

(M256) Another animal whose shape the corn-spirit is sometimes thought to assume is the fox. The conception is recorded at various places in Germany and France. Thus at Nördlingen in Bavaria, when the corn waves to and fro in the wind, they say, “The fox goes through the corn,” and at Usingen in Nassau they say, “The foxes are marching through the corn.” At Ravensberg, in Westphalia, and at Steinau, in Kurhessen, children are warned against straying in the corn, “because the Fox is there.” At Campe, near Stade, when they are about to cut the last corn, they call out to the reaper, “The Fox is sitting there, hold him fast!” In the Department of the Moselle they say, “Watch whether the Fox comes out.” In Bourbonnais the expression is, “You will catch the Fox.” When a reaper wounds himself or is sick at reaping, they say in the Lower Loire that “He has the Fox.” In Côte-d’or they say, “He has killed the Fox.” At Louhans, in Sâone-et-Loire, when the reapers are cutting the last corn they leave a handful standing and throw their sickles at it. He who hits it is called the Fox, and two girls deck his bonnet with flowers. In the evening there is a dance, at which the Fox dances with all the girls. The supper which follows is also called the Fox; they say, “We have eaten the Fox,” meaning that they have partaken of the harvest-supper. In the Canton of Zurich the last sheaf is called the Fox. At Bourgogne, in Ain, they cry out, “The Fox is sitting in the last sheaf,” and having made the figure of an animal out of white cloth and some ears of the last corn, they dub it the Fox and throw it into the house of a neighbour who has not yet got in all his harvest.(964) In Poitou, when the corn is being reaped in a district, all the reapers strive to finish as quickly as possible in order that they may send “the Fox” to the fields of a farmer who has not yet garnered his sheaves. The man who cuts the last handful of standing corn is said to “have the Fox.” This last handful is carried to the farmer’s house and occupies a place on the table during the harvest-supper; and the custom is to drench it with water. After that it is set up on the chimney-piece and remains there the whole year.(965) At threshing, also, in Sâone-et-Loire, the last sheaf is called the Fox; in Lot they say, “We are going to beat the Fox”; and at Zabern in Alsace they set a stuffed fox before the door of the threshing-floor of a neighbour who has not finished his threshing.(966) With this conception of the fox as an embodiment of the corn-spirit may possibly be connected an old custom, observed in Holstein and Westphalia, of carrying a dead or living fox from house to house in spring; the intention of the custom was perhaps to diffuse the refreshing and invigorating influence of the reawakened spirit of vegetation.(967) In Japan the rice-god Inari is represented as an elderly man with a long beard riding on a white fox, and the fox is always associated with this deity. In front of his shrines may usually be seen a pair of foxes carved in wood or stone.(968)

§ 11. The Corn-spirit as a Pig (Boar or Sow).

(M257) The last animal embodiment of the corn-spirit which we shall notice is the pig (boar or sow). In Thüringen, when the wind sets the young corn in motion, they sometimes say, “The Boar is rushing through the corn.”(969) Amongst the Esthonians of the island of Oesel the last sheaf is called the Rye-boar, and the man who gets it is saluted with a cry of “You have the Rye-boar on your back!” In reply he strikes up a song, in which he prays for plenty.(970) At Kohlerwinkel, near Augsburg, at the close of the harvest, the last bunch of standing corn is cut down, stalk by stalk, by all the reapers in turn. He who cuts the last stalk “gets the Sow,” and is laughed at.(971) In other Swabian villages also the man who cuts the last corn “has the Sow,” or “has the Rye-sow.”(972) In the Traunstein district, Upper Bavaria, the man who cuts the last handful of rye or wheat “has the Sow,” and is called Sow-driver.(973) At Bohlingen, near Radolfzell in Baden, the last sheaf is called the Rye-sow or the Wheat-sow, according to the crop; and at Röhrenbach in Baden the person who brings the last armful for the last sheaf is called the Corn-sow or the Oats-sow. And in the south-east of Baden the thresher who gives the last stroke at threshing, or is the last to hang up his flail on the wall, is called the Sow or the Rye-sow.(974) At Friedingen, in Swabia, the thresher who gives the last stroke is called Sow—Barley-sow, Corn-sow, or the like, according to the crop. At Onstmettingen the man who gives the last stroke at threshing “has the Sow”; he is often bound up in a sheaf and dragged by a rope along the ground.(975) And, generally, in Swabia the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is called Sow. He may, however, rid himself of this invidious distinction by passing on to a neighbour the straw-rope, which is the badge of his position as Sow. So he goes to a house and throws the straw-rope into it, crying, “There, I bring you the Sow.” All the inmates give chase; and if they catch him they beat him, shut him up for several hours in the pig-sty, and oblige him to take the “Sow” away again.(976) In various parts of Upper Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke at threshing must “carry the Pig”—that is, either a straw effigy of a pig or merely a bundle of straw-ropes. This he carries to a neighbouring farm where the threshing is not finished, and throws it into the barn. If the threshers catch him they handle him roughly, beating him, blackening or dirtying his face, throwing him into filth, binding the Sow on his back, and so on; if the bearer of the Sow is a woman they cut off her hair. At the harvest supper or dinner the man who “carried the Pig” gets one or more dumplings made in the form of pigs; sometimes he gets a large dumpling and a number of small ones, all in pig form, the large one being called the sow and the small ones the sucking-pigs. Sometimes he has the right to be the first to put his hand into the dish and take out as many small dumplings (“sucking-pigs”) as he can, while the other threshers strike at his hand with spoons or sticks. When the dumplings are served up by the maid-servant, all the people at table cry “Süz, süz, süz!” that being the cry used in calling pigs. Sometimes after dinner the man who “carried the Pig” has his face blackened, and is set on a cart and drawn round the village by his fellows, followed by a crowd crying “Süz, süz, süz!” as if they were calling swine. Sometimes, after being wheeled round the village, he is flung on the dunghill.(977)

(M258) Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a pig plays his part at sowing-time as well as at harvest At Neuautz, in Courland, when barley is sown for the first time in the year, the farmer’s wife boils the chine of a pig along with the tail, and brings it to the sower on the field. He eats of it, but cuts off the tail and sticks it in the field; it is believed that the ears of corn will then grow as long as the tail.(978) Here the pig is the corn-spirit, whose fertilising power is sometimes supposed to lie especially in his tail.(979) As a pig he is put in the ground at sowing-time, and as a pig he reappears amongst the ripe corn at harvest. For amongst the neighbouring Esthonians, as we have seen,(980) the last sheaf is called the Rye-boar. Somewhat similar customs are observed in Germany. In the Salza district, near Meiningen, a certain bone in the pig is called “the Jew on the winnowing-fan.” The flesh of this bone is boiled on Shrove Tuesday, but the bone is put amongst the ashes which the neighbours exchange as presents on St. Peter’s Day (the twenty-second of February), and then mix with the seed-corn.(981) In the whole of Hesse, Meiningen, and other districts, people eat pea-soup with dried pig-ribs on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas. The ribs are then collected and hung in the room till sowing-time, when they are inserted in the sown field or in the seed-bag amongst the flax seed. This is thought to be an infallible specific against earth-fleas and moles, and to cause the flax to grow well and tall.(982) In many parts of White Russia people eat a roast lamb or sucking-pig at Easter, and then throw the bones backwards upon the fields, to preserve the corn from hail.(983)

(M259) But the idea of the corn-spirit as embodied in pig form is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the Scandinavian custom of the Yule Boar. In Sweden and Denmark at Yule (Christmas) it is the custom to bake a loaf in the form of a boar-pig. This is called the Yule Boar. The corn of the last sheaf is often used to make it. All through Yule the Yule Boar stands on the table. Often it is kept till the sowing-time in spring, when part of it is mixed with the seed-corn and part given to the ploughmen and plough-horses or plough-oxen to eat, in the expectation of a good harvest.(984) In this custom the corn-spirit, immanent in the last sheaf, appears at midwinter in the form of a boar made from the corn of the last sheaf; and his quickening influence on the corn is shewn by mixing part of the Yule Boar with the seed-corn, and giving part of it to the ploughman and his cattle to eat. Similarly we saw that the Corn-wolf makes his appearance at midwinter, the time when the year begins to verge towards spring.(985) We may conjecture that the Yule straw, which Swedish peasants turn to various superstitious uses, comes, in part at least, from the sheaf out of which the Yule Boar is made. The Yule straw is long rye-straw, a portion of which is always set apart for this season. It is strewn over the floor at Christmas, and the peasants attribute many virtues to it. For example, they think that some of it scattered on the ground will make a barren field productive. Again, the peasant at Christmas seats himself on a log; and his eldest son or daughter, or the mother herself, if the children are not old enough, places a wisp of the Yule straw on his knee. From this he draws out single straws, and throws them, one by one, up to the ceiling; and as many as lodge in the rafters, so many will be the sheaves of rye he will have to thresh at harvest.(986) Again, it is only the Yule straw which may be used in binding the fruit-trees as a charm to fertilise them.(987) These uses of the Yule straw shew that it is believed to possess fertilising virtues analogous to those ascribed to the Yule Boar; we may therefore fairly conjecture that the Yule straw is made from the same sheaf as the Yule Boar. Formerly a real boar was sacrificed at Christmas,(988) and apparently also a man in the character of the Yule Boar. This, at least, may perhaps be inferred from a Christmas custom still observed in Sweden. A man is wrapt up in a skin, and carries a wisp of straw in his mouth, so that the projecting straws look like the bristles of a boar. A knife is brought, and an old woman, with her face blackened, pretends to sacrifice him.(989)

(M260) On Christmas Eve in some parts of the Esthonian island of Oesel they bake a long cake with the two ends turned up. It is called the Christmas Boar, and stands on the table till the morning of New Year’s Day, when it is distributed among the cattle. In other parts of the island the Christmas Boar is not a cake but a little pig born in March, which the housewife fattens secretly, often without the knowledge of the other members of the family. On Christmas Eve the little pig is secretly killed, then roasted in the oven, and set on the table standing on all fours, where it remains in this posture for several days. In other parts of the island, again, though the Christmas cake has neither the name nor the shape of a boar, it is kept till the New Year, when half of it is divided among all the members and all the quadrupeds of the family. The other half of the cake is kept till sowing-time comes round, when it is similarly distributed in the morning among human beings and beasts.(990) In other parts of Esthonia, again, the Christmas Boar, as it is called, is baked of the first rye cut at harvest; it has a conical shape and a cross is impressed on it with a pig’s bone or a key, or three dints are made in it with a buckle or a piece of charcoal. It stands with a light beside it on the table all through the festal season. On New Year’s Day and Epiphany, before sunrise, a little of the cake is crumbled with salt and given to the cattle. The rest is kept till the day when the cattle are driven out to pasture for the first time in spring. It is then put in the herdsman’s bag, and at evening is divided among the cattle to guard them from magic and harm. In some places the Christmas Boar is partaken of by farm-servants and cattle at the time of the barley sowing, for the purpose of thereby producing a heavier crop.(991)

§ 12. On the Animal Embodiments of the Corn-spirit.

(M261) So much for the animal embodiments of the corn-spirit as they are presented to us in the folk-customs of Northern Europe. These customs bring out clearly the sacramental character of the harvest-supper. The corn-spirit is conceived as embodied in an animal; this divine animal is slain, and its flesh and blood are partaken of by the harvesters. Thus, the cock, the goose, the hare, the cat, the goat, and the ox are eaten sacramentally by the harvesters, and the pig is eaten sacramentally by ploughmen in spring.(992) Again, as a substitute for the real flesh of the divine being, bread or dumplings are made in his image and eaten sacramentally; thus, pig-shaped dumplings are eaten by the harvesters, and loaves made in boar-shape (the Yule Boar) are eaten in spring by the ploughman and his cattle.

(M262) The reader has probably remarked the complete parallelism between the conceptions of the corn-spirit in human and in animal form. The parallel may be here briefly resumed. When the corn waves in the wind it is said either that the Corn-mother or that the Corn-wolf, etc., is passing through the corn. Children are warned against straying in corn-fields either because the Corn-mother or because the Corn-wolf, etc., is there. In the last corn cut or the last sheaf threshed either the Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., is supposed to be present. The last sheaf is itself called either the Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., and is made up in the shape either of a woman or of a wolf, etc. The person who cuts, binds, or threshes the last sheaf is called either the Old Woman or the Wolf, etc., according to the name bestowed on the sheaf itself. As in some places a sheaf made in human form and called the Maiden, the Mother of the Maize, etc., is kept from one harvest to the next in order to secure a continuance of the corn-spirit’s blessing; so in some places the Harvest-cock and in others the flesh of the goat is kept for a similar purpose from one harvest to the next. As in some places the grain taken from the Corn-mother is mixed with the seed-corn in spring to make the crop abundant; so in some places the feathers of the cock, and in Sweden the Yule Boar, are kept till spring and mixed with the seed-corn for a like purpose. As part of the Corn-mother or Maiden is given to the cattle at Christmas or to the horses at the first ploughing, so part of the Yule Boar is given to the ploughing horses or oxen in spring. Lastly, the death of the corn-spirit is represented by killing or pretending to kill either his human or his animal representative; and the worshippers partake sacramentally either of the actual body and blood of the representative of the divinity, or of bread made in his likeness.

(M263) Other animal forms assumed by the corn-spirit are the stag, roe, sheep, bear, ass, mouse, stork, swan, and kite.(993) If it is asked why the corn-spirit should be thought to appear in the form of an animal and of so many different animals, we may reply that to primitive man the simple appearance of an animal or bird among the corn is probably enough to suggest a mysterious link between the creature and the corn; and when we remember that in the old days, before fields were fenced in, all kinds of animals must have been free to roam over them, we need not wonder that the corn-spirit should have been identified even with large animals like the horse and cow, which nowadays could not, except by a rare accident, be found straying in an English corn-field. 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. As the sudden appearance of a stranger near the harvest-field or threshing-floor is, to the primitive mind, enough to identify him as the spirit of the corn escaping from the cut or threshed corn, so the sudden appearance of an animal issuing from the cut corn is enough to identify it with the corn-spirit escaping from his ruined home. The two identifications are so analogous that they can hardly be dissociated in any attempt to explain them. Those who look to some other principle than the one here suggested for the explanation of the latter identification are bound to shew that their theory covers the former identification also.

NOTE. THE PLEIADES IN PRIMITIVE CALENDARS.

(M264) The constellation of the Pleiades plays an important part in the calendar of primitive peoples, both in the northern and in the southern hemisphere; indeed for reasons which at first sight are not obvious savages appear to have paid more attention to this constellation than to any other group of stars in the sky, and in particular they have commonly timed the various operations of the agricultural year by observation of its heliacal rising or setting. Some evidence on the subject was adduced by the late Dr. Richard Andree,(994) but much more exists, and it may be worth while to put certain of the facts together.

(M265) In the first place it deserves to be noticed that great attention has been paid to the Pleiades by savages in the southern hemisphere who do not till the ground, and who therefore lack that incentive to observe the stars which is possessed by peoples in the agricultural stage of society; for we can scarcely doubt that in early ages the practical need of ascertaining the proper seasons for sowing and planting has done more than mere speculative curiosity to foster a knowledge of astronomy by compelling savages to scrutinise the great celestial clock for indications of the time of year. Now amongst the rudest of savages known to us are the Australian aborigines, none of whom in their native state ever practised agriculture. Yet we are told that “they do, according to their manner, worship the hosts of heaven, and believe particular constellations rule natural causes. For such they have names, and sing and dance to gain the favour of the Pleiades (_Mormodellick_), the constellation worshipped by one body as the giver of rain; but if it should be deferred, instead of blessings curses are apt to be bestowed upon it.”(995) According to a writer, whose evidence on other matters of Australian beliefs is open to grave doubt, some of the aborigines of New South Wales denied that the sun is the source of heat, because he shines also in winter when the weather is cold; the real cause of warm weather they held to be the Pleiades, because as the summer heat increases, that constellation rises higher and higher in the sky, reaching its greatest elevation in the height of summer, and gradually sinking again in autumn as the days grow cooler, till in winter it is either barely visible or lost to view altogether.(996) Another writer, who was well acquainted with the natives of Victoria in the early days of the colony and whose testimony can be relied upon, tells us that an old chief of the Spring Creek tribe “taught the young people the names of the favourite planets and constellations, as indications of the seasons. For example, when Canopus is a very little above the horizon in the east at daybreak, the season for emu eggs has come; when the Pleiades are visible in the east an hour before sunrise, the time for visiting friends and neighbouring tribes is at hand.”(997)

(M266) Again, the Abipones of Paraguay, who neither sowed nor reaped,(998) nevertheless regarded the Pleiades as an image of their ancestor. As that constellation is invisible in the sky of South America for several months every year, the Abipones believed that their ancestor was then sick, and they were dreadfully afraid that he would die. But when the constellation reappeared in the month of May, they saluted the return of their ancestor with joyous shouts and the glad music of flutes and horns, and they congratulated him on his recovery from sickness. Next day they all went out to collect wild honey, from which they brewed a favourite beverage. Then at sunset they feasted and kept up the revelry all night by the light of torches, while a sorceress, who presided at the festivity, shook her rattle and danced. But the proceedings were perfectly decorous; the sexes did not mix with each other.(999) The Mocobis of Paraguay also looked upon the Pleiades as their father and creator.(1000) The Guaycurus of the Gran Chaco used to rejoice greatly at the reappearance of the Pleiades. On this occasion they held a festival at which men and women, boys and girls all beat each other soundly, believing that this brought them health, abundance, and victory over their enemies.(1001) Amongst the Lengua Indians of Paraguay at the present day the rising of the Pleiades is connected with the beginning of spring, and feasts are held at this time, generally of a markedly immoral character.(1002) The Guaranis of Paraguay knew the time of sowing by observation of the Pleiades;(1003) they are said to have revered the constellation and to have dated the beginning of their year from the rising of the constellation in May.(1004) The Tapuiyas, formerly a numerous and warlike tribe of Brazil, hailed the rising of the Pleiades with great respect, and worshipped the constellation with songs and dances.(1005) The Indians of north-western Brazil, an agricultural people who subsist mainly by the cultivation of manioc, determine the time for their various field labours by the position of certain constellations, especially the Pleiades; when that constellation has sunk beneath the horizon, the regular, heavy rains set in.(1006) The Omagua Indians of Brazil ascribe to the Pleiades a special influence on human destiny.(1007) A Brazilian name for the Pleiades is _Cyiuce_, that is, “Mother of those who are thirsty.” The constellation, we are told, “is known to the Indians of the whole of Brasil and appears to be even worshipped by some tribes in Matto Grosso. In the valley of the Amazon a number of popular sayings are current about it. Thus they say that in the first days of its appearance in the firmament, while it is still low, the birds and especially the fowls sleep on the lower branches or perches, and that just as it rises so do they; that it brings much cold and rain; that when the constellation vanishes, the serpents lose their venom; that the reeds used in making arrows must be cut before the appearance of the Pleiades, else they will be worm-eaten. According to the legend the Pleiades disappear in May and reappear in June. Their reappearance coincides with the renewal of vegetation and of animal life. Hence the legend relates that everything which appears before the constellation is renewed, that is, the appearance of the Pleiades, marks the beginning of spring.”(1008) The Indians of the Orinoco called the Pleiades _Ucasu_ or _Cacasau_, according to their dialect, and they dated the beginning of their year from the time when these stars are visible in the east after sunset.(1009)

(M267) By the Indians of Peru “the Pleiades were called _Collca_ (the maize-heap): in this constellation the Peruvians both of the sierra and the coast beheld the prototype of their cherished stores of corn. It made their maize to grow, and was worshipped accordingly.”(1010) When the Pleiades appeared above the horizon on or about Corpus Christi Day, these Indians celebrated their chief festival of the year and adored the constellation “in order that the maize might not dry up.”(1011) Adjoining the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco there was a cloister with halls opening off it. One of these halls was dedicated to the Moon, and another to the planet Venus, the Pleiades, and all the other stars. The Incas venerated the Pleiades because of their curious position and the symmetry of their shape.(1012) The tribes of Vera Cruz, on the coast of Mexico, dated the beginning of their year from the heliacal setting of the Pleiades, which in the latitude of Vera Cruz (19° N.) in the year 1519 fell on the first of May of the Gregorian calendar.(1013) The Aztecs appear to have attached great importance to the Pleiades, for they timed the most solemn and impressive of all their religious ceremonies so as to coincide with the moment when that constellation was in the middle of the sky at midnight. The ceremony consisted in kindling a sacred new fire on the breast of a human victim on the last night of a great period of fifty-two years. They expected that at the close of one of these periods the stars would cease to revolve and the world itself would come to an end. Hence, when the critical moment approached, the priests watched from the top of a mountain the movement of the stars, and especially of the Pleiades, with the utmost anxiety. When that constellation was seen to cross the meridian, great was the joy; for they knew that the world was respited for another fifty-two years. Immediately the bravest and handsomest of the captives was thrown down on his back; a board of dry wood was placed on his breast, and one of the priests made fire by twirling a stick between his hands on the board. As soon as the flame burst forth, the breast of the victim was cut open, his heart was torn out, and together with the rest of his body was thrown into the fire. Runners carried the new fire at full speed to all parts of the kingdom to rekindle the cold hearths; for every fire throughout the country had been extinguished as a preparation for this solemn rite.(1014)

(M268) The Blackfeet Indians of North America “know and observe the Pleiades, and regulate their most important feast by those stars. About the first and the last days of the occultation of the Pleiades there is a sacred feast among the Blackfeet. The mode of observance is national, the whole of the tribe turning out for the celebration of its rites, which include two sacred vigils, the solemn blessing and planting of the seed. It is the opening of the agricultural season.... In all highly religious feasts the calumet, or pipe, is always presented towards the Pleiades, with invocation for life-giving goods. The women swear by the Pleiades as the men do by the sun or the morning star.” At the general meeting of the nation there is a dance of warriors, which is supposed to represent the dance of the seven young men who are identified with the Pleiades. For the Indians say that the seven stars of the constellation were seven brothers, who guarded by night the field of sacred seed and danced round it to keep themselves awake during the long hours of darkness.(1015) According to another legend told by the Blackfeet, the Pleiades are six children, who were so ashamed because they had no little yellow hides of buffalo calves that they wandered away on the plains and were at last taken up into the sky. “They are not seen during the moon, when the buffalo calves are yellow (spring, the time of their shame), but, every year, when the calves turn brown (autumn), the lost children can be seen in the sky every night.”(1016) This version of the myth, it will be observed, recognises only six stars in the constellation, and many savages apparently see no more, which speaks ill for the keenness of their vision; since among ourselves persons endowed with unusually good sight are able, I understand, to discern seven. Among the Pueblo Indians of Tusayan, an ancient province of Arizona, the culmination of the Pleiades is often used to determine the proper time for beginning a sacred nocturnal rite, especially an invocation addressed to the six deities who are believed to rule the six quarters of the world. The writer who records this fact adds: “I cannot explain its significance, and why of all stellar objects this minute cluster of stars of a low magnitude is more important than other stellar groups is not clear to me.”(1017) If the Pueblo Indians see only six stars in the cluster, as to which I cannot speak, it might seem to them a reason for assigning one of the stars to each of the six quarters, namely, north, south, east, west, above, and below.

(M269) The Society Islanders in the South Pacific divided the year into two seasons, which they determined by observation of the Pleiades. “The first they called _Matarii i nia_, Pleiades above. It commenced when, in the evening, these stars appeared on or near the horizon; and the half year, during which, immediately after sunset, they were seen above the horizon, was called _Matarii i nia_. The other season commenced when, at sunset, the stars were invisible, and continued until at that hour they appeared again above the horizon. This season was called _Matarii i raro_, Pleiades below.”(1018) In the Hervey Islands of the South Pacific it is said that the constellation was originally a single star, which was shattered into six fragments by the god Tane. “This cluster of little stars is appropriately named Mata-riki or _little-eyes_, on account of their brightness. It is also designated Tau-ono, or _the-six_, on account of the apparent number of the fragments; the presence of the seventh star not having been detected by the unassisted native eye.”(1019) Among these islanders the arrival of the new year was indicated by the appearance of the constellation on the eastern horizon just after sunset, that is, about the middle of December. “Hence the idolatrous worship paid to this beautiful cluster of stars in many of the South Sea Islands. The Pleiades were worshipped at Danger Island, and at the Penrhyns, down to the introduction of Christianity in 1857. In many islands extravagant joy is still manifested at the rising of this constellation out of the ocean.”(1020) For example, in Manahiki or Humphrey’s Island, South Pacific, “when the constellation Pleiades was seen there was unusual joy all over the month, and expressed by singing, dancing, and blowing-shell trumpets.”(1021) So the Maoris of New Zealand, another Polynesian people of the South Pacific, divided the year into moons and determined the first moon by the rising of the Pleiades, which they called _Matariki_.(1022) Indeed throughout Polynesia the rising of the Pleiades (variously known as Matariki, Mataliki, Matalii, Makalii, etc.) seems to have marked the beginning of the year.(1023)

(M270) Among some of the Melanesians also the Pleiades occupy an important position in the calendar. “The Banks’ islanders and Northern New Hebrides people content themselves with distinguishing the Pleiades, by which the approach of yam harvest is marked.”(1024) “Amongst the constellations, the Pleiades and Orion’s belt seem to be those which are most familiar to the natives of Bougainville Straits. The former, which they speak of as possessing six stars, they name _Vuhu_; the latter _Matatala_. They have also names for a few other stars. As in the case of many other savage races, the Pleiades is a constellation of great significance with the inhabitants of these straits. The Treasury Islanders hold a great feast towards the end of October, to celebrate, as far as I could learn, the approaching appearance of the constellation above the eastern horizon soon after sunset. Probably, as in many of the Pacific Islands, this event marks the beginning of their year. I learned from Mr. Stephens that, in Ugi, where of all the constellations the Pleiades alone receives a name, the natives are guided by it in selecting the times for planting and taking up the yams.”(1025)

(M271) The natives of the Torres Straits islands observe the appearance of the Pleiades (_Usiam_) on the horizon at sunset; and when they see it, they say that the new yam time has come.(1026) The Kai and the Bukaua, two agricultural tribes of German New Guinea, also determine the season of their labour in the fields by observation of the Pleiades: the Kai say that the time for such labours is when the Pleiades are visible above the horizon at night.(1027) In some districts of northern Celebes the rice-fields are similarly prepared for cultivation when the Pleiades are seen at a certain height above the horizon.(1028) As to the Dyaks of Sarawak we read that “the Pleiades themselves tell them when to farm; and according to their position in the heavens, morning and evening, do they cut down the forest, burn, plant, and reap. The Malays are obliged to follow their example, or their lunar year would soon render their farming operations unprofitable.”(1029) When the season for clearing fresh land in the forest approaches, a wise man is appointed to go out before dawn and watch for the Pleiades. As soon as the constellation is seen to rise while it is yet dark, they know that the time has come to begin. But not until the Pleiades are at the zenith before dawn do the Dyaks think it desirable to burn the fallen timber and to sow the rice.(1030) However, the Kenyahs and Kayans, two other tribes of Sarawak, determine the agricultural seasons by observation of the sun rather than of the stars; and for this purpose they have devised certain simple but ingenious mechanisms. The Kenyahs measure the length of the shadow cast by an upright pole at noon; and the Kayans let in a beam of light through a hole in the roof and measure the distance from the point immediately below the hole to the place where the light reaches the floor.(1031) But the Kayans of the Mahakam river, in Dutch Borneo, determine the time for sowing by observing when the sun sets in a line with two upright stones.(1032) In Bali, an island to the east of Java, the appearance of the Pleiades at sunset in March marks the end of the year.(1033) The Pleiades and Orion are the only constellations which the people of Bali observe for the purpose of correcting their lunar calendar by intercalation. For example, they bring the lunar year into harmony with the solar by prolonging the month Asada until the Pleiades are visible at sunset.(1034) The natives of Nias, an island to the south of Sumatra, pay little heed to the stars, but they have names for the Morning Star and for the Pleiades; and when the Pleiades appear in the sky, the people assemble to till their fields, for they think that to do so before the rising of the constellation would be useless.(1035) In some districts of Sumatra “much confusion in regard to the period of sowing is said to have arisen from a very extraordinary cause. Anciently, say the natives, it was regulated by the stars, and particularly by the appearance (heliacal rising) of the _bintang baniak_ or Pleiades; but after the introduction of the Mahometan religion, they were induced to follow the returns of the _puāsa_ or great annual fast, and forgot their old rules. The consequence of this was obvious; for the lunar year of the _hejrah_ being eleven days short of the sidereal or solar year, the order of the seasons was soon inverted; and it is only astonishing that its inaptness to the purposes of agriculture should not have been immediately discovered.”(1036) The Battas or Bataks of central Sumatra date the various operations of the agricultural year by the positions of Orion and the Pleiades. When the Pleiades rise before the sun at the beginning of July, the Achinese of northern Sumatra know that the time has come to sow the rice.(1037)

(M272) Scattered and fragmentary as these notices are, they suffice to shew that the Pleiades have received much attention from savages in the tropical regions of the world from Brasil in the east to Sumatra in the west. Far to the north of the tropics the rude Kamchatkans are said to know only three constellations, the Great Bear, the Pleiades, and three stars in Orion.(1038) When we pass to Africa we again find the Pleiades employed by tribes in various parts of the continent to mark the seasons of the agricultural year. We have seen that the Caffres of South Africa date their new year from the rising of the Pleiades just before sunrise and fix the time for sowing by observation of that constellation.(1039) “They calculate only twelve lunar months for the year, for which they have descriptive names, and this results in frequent confusion and difference of opinion as to which month it really is. The confusion is always rectified by the first appearance of Pleiades just before sunrise, and a fresh start is made and things go on smoothly till once more the moons get out of place, and reference has again to be made to the stars.”(1040) According to another authority on the Bantu tribes of South Africa, “the rising of the Pleiades shortly after sunset was regarded as indicating the planting season. To this constellation, as well as to several of the prominent stars and planets, they gave expressive names. They formed no theories concerning the nature of the heavenly bodies and their motions, and were not given to thinking of such things.”(1041) The Amazulu call the Pleiades _Isilimela_, which means “The digging-for (stars),” because when the Pleiades appear the people begin to dig. They say that “_Isilimela_ (the Pleiades) dies, and is not seen. It is not seen in winter; and at last, when the winter is coming to an end, it begins to appear—one of its stars first, and then three, until going on increasing it becomes a cluster of stars, and is perfectly clear when the sun is about to rise. And we say _Isilimela_ is renewed, and the year is renewed, and so we begin to dig.”(1042) The Bechuanas “are directed by the position of certain stars in the heavens, that the time has arrived, in the revolving year, when particular roots can be dug up for use, or when they may commence their labours of the field. This is their _likhakologo_ (turnings or revolvings), or what we should call the spring time of the year. The Pleiades they call _seleméla_, which may be translated ‘cultivator,’ or the precursor of agriculture, from _leméla_, the relative verb to cultivate _for_; and _se_, a pronominal prefix, distinguishing them as the actors. Thus, when this constellation assumes a certain position in the heavens, it is the signal to commence cultivating their fields and gardens.”(1043) Among some of these South African tribes the period of seclusion observed by lads after circumcision comes to an end with the appearance of the Pleiades, and accordingly the youths are said to long as ardently for the rising of the constellation as Mohammedans for the rising of the moon which will put an end to the fast of Ramadan.(1044) The Hottentots date the seasons of the year by the rising and setting of the Pleiades.(1045) An early Moravian missionary settled among the Hottentots, reports that “at the return of the Pleiades these natives celebrate an anniversary; as soon as these stars appear above the eastern horizon mothers will lift their little ones on their arms, and running up to elevated spots, will show to them those friendly stars, and teach them to stretch their little hands towards them. The people of a kraal will assemble to dance and to sing according to the old custom of their ancestors. The chorus always sings: ‘O Tiqua, our Father above our heads, give rain to us, that the fruits (bulbs, etc.), _uientjes_, may ripen, and that we may have plenty of food, send us a good year.’ ”(1046) With some tribes of British Central Africa the rising of the Pleiades early in the evening is the signal for the hoeing to begin.(1047) To the Masai of East Africa the appearance of the Pleiades in the wrest is the sign of the beginning of the rainy season, which takes its name from the constellation.(1048) In Masailand the Pleiades are above the horizon from September till about the seventeenth of May; and the people, as they express it themselves, “know whether it will rain or not according to the appearance or non-appearance of the six stars, called The Pleiades, which follow after one another like cattle. When the month which the Masai call ‘Of the Pleiades’(1049) arrives, and the Pleiades are no longer visible, they know that the rains are over. For the Pleiades set in that month and are not seen again until the season of showers has come to an end:(1050) it is then that they reappear.”(1051) The only other groups of stars for which the Masai appear to have names are Orion’s sword and Orion’s belt.(1052) The Nandi of British East Africa have a special name (_Koremerik_) for the Pleiades, “and it is by the appearance or non-appearance of these stars that the Nandi know whether they may expect a good or a bad harvest.”(1053) The Kikuyu of the same region say that “the Pleiades is the mark in the heavens to show the people when to plant their crops; they plant when this constellation is in a certain position early in the night.”(1054) In Sierra Leone “the proper time for preparing the plantations is shewn by the particular situation in which the Pleiades, called by the Bulloms _a-warrang_, the only stars which they observe or distinguish by peculiar names, are to be seen at sunset.”(1055) We have seen that ancient Greek farmers reaped their corn when the Pleiades rose at sunrise in May, and that they ploughed their fields when the constellation set at sunrise in November.(1056) The interval between the two dates is about six months. Both the Greeks and the Romans dated the beginning of summer from the heliacal rising of the Pleiades and the beginning of winter from their heliacal setting.(1057) Pliny regarded the autumnal setting of the Pleiades as the proper season for sowing the corn, particularly the wheat and the barley, and he tells us that in Greece and Asia all the crops were sown at the setting of that constellation.(1058)

(M273) So widespread over the world has been and is the association of the Pleiades with agriculture, especially with the sowing or planting of the crops. The reason for the association seems to be the coincidence of the rising or setting of the constellation with the commencement of the rainy season; since men must very soon have learned that the best, if not the only, season to sow and plant is the time of year when the newly-planted seeds or roots will be quickened by abundant showers. The same association of the Pleiades with rain seems sufficient to explain their importance even for savages who do not till the ground; for ignorant though such races are, they yet can hardly fail to observe that wild fruits grow more plentifully, and therefore that they themselves have more to eat after a heavy fall of rain than after a long drought. In point of fact we saw that some of the Australian aborigines, who are wholly ignorant of agriculture, look on the Pleiades as the givers of rain, and curse the constellation if its appearance is not followed by the expected showers.(1059) On the other side of the world, and at the opposite end of the scale of culture, the civilised Greeks similarly supposed that the autumnal setting of the Pleiades was the cause of the rains which followed it; and the astronomical writer Geminus thought it worth while to argue against the supposition, pointing out that the vicissitudes of the weather and of the seasons, though they may coincide with the risings and settings of the constellations, are not produced by them, the stars being too distant from the earth to exercise any appreciable influence on our atmosphere. Hence, he says, though the constellations serve as the signals, they must not be regarded as the causes, of atmospheric changes; and he aptly illustrates the distinction by a reference to beacon-fires, which are the signals, but not the causes, of war.(1060)

FOOTNOTES

M1 Death and resurrection of Oriental gods of vegetation. The Dying and Reviving god of vegetation in ancient Greece. M2 Dionysus, the god of the vine, originally a Thracian deity.

1 On Dionysus in general, see L. Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_,4 i. 659 _sqq._; Fr. Lenormant, _s.v._ “Bacchus,” in Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, i. 591 _sqq._; Voigt and Thraemer, _s.v._ “Dionysus,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, i. 1029 _sqq._; E. Rohde, _Psyche_3 (Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903), ii. 1 _sqq._; Miss J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, Second Edition (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 363 _sqq._; Kern, _s.v._ “Dionysus,” in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_, v. 1010 _sqq._; M. P. Nilsson, _Griechische Feste von religiöser Bedeutung_ (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 258 _sqq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, v. (Oxford, 1909) pp. 85 _sqq._ The epithet _Bromios_ bestowed on Dionysus, and his identification with the Thracian and Phrygian deity Sabazius, have been adduced as evidence that Dionysus was a god of beer or of other cereal intoxicants before he became a god of wine. See W. Headlam, in _Classical Review_, xv. (1901) p. 23; Miss J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, pp. 414-426.

2 Plato, _Laws_, i. p. 637 E; Theopompus, cited by Athenaeus, x. 60, p. 442 E F; Suidas, _s.v._ κατασκεδάζειν; compare Xenophon, _Anabasis_, vii. 3. 32. For the evidence of the Thracian origin of Dionysus, see the writers cited in the preceding note, especially Dr. L. R. Farnell, _op. cit._ v. 85 _sqq._ Compare W. Ridgeway, _The Origin of Tragedy_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 10 _sqq._

3 Herodotus, ii. 49; Diodorus Siculus, i. 97. 4; P. Foucart, _Le Culte de Dionyse en Attique_ (Paris, 1904), pp. 9 _sqq._, 159 _sqq._ (_Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres_, xxxvii.).

M3 Dionysus a god of trees, especially of fruit-trees.

4 Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ v. 3: Διονύσῳ δὲ δενδρίτῃ πάντες, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, Ἕλληνες θύουσιν.

5 Hesychius, _s.v._ Ἔνδενδρος.

6 See the pictures of his images, drawn from ancient vases, in C. Bötticher’s _Baumkultus der Hellenen_ (Berlin, 1856), plates 42, 43, 43 A, 43 B, 44; Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, i. 361, 626 _sq._

7 Daremberg et Saglio, _op. cit._ i. 626.

8 P. Wendland und O. Kern, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie und Religion_ (Berlin, 1895), pp. 79 _sqq._; Ch. Michel, _Recueil d’ Inscriptions Grecques_ (Brussels, 1900), No. 856.

9 Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 30.

10 Pindar, quoted by Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35.

11 Maximus Tyrius, _Dissertat._ viii. 1.

12 Athenaeus, iii. chs. 14 and 23, pp. 78 C, 82 D.

_ 13 Orphica_, Hymn l. 4. liii. 8.

14 Aelian, _Var. Hist._ iii. 41; Hesychius, _s.v._ Φλέω[ς]. Compare Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ v. 8. 3.

15 Pausanias, i. 31. 4; _id._ vii. 21. 6.

16 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 636, vol. ii. p. 435, τῶν καρπῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ. However, the words may equally well refer to the cereal crops.

17 Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ v. 3.

18 Pausanias, ii. 2. 6 _sq._ Pausanias does not mention the kind of tree; but from Euripides, _Bacchae_, 1064 _sqq._, and Philostratus, _Imag._ i. 17 (18), we may infer that it was a pine, though Theocritus (xxvi. 11) speaks of it as a mastich-tree.

19 Müller-Wieseler, _Denkmäler der alten Kunst_, ii. pll. xxxii. _sqq._; A. Baumeister, _Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums_, i. figures 489, 491, 492, 495. Compare F. Lenormant, in Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, i. 623; Ch. F. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_ (Königsberg, 1829), p. 700.

20 Pausanias, i. 31. 6.

21 Athenaeus, iii. 14, p. 78 C.

M4 Dionysus as a god of agriculture and the corn. The winnowing-fan as an emblem of Dionysus.

22 Himerius, _Orat._ i. 10, Δίονυσος γεωργεῖ.

23 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 64. 1-3, iv. 4. 1 _sq._ On the agricultural aspect of Dionysus, see L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, v. (Oxford, 1909) pp. 123 _sq._

24 [Aristotle,] _Mirab. Auscult._ 122 (p. 842 A, ed. Im. Bekker, Berlin edition).

25 Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ i. 166; Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35. The literary and monumental evidence as to the winnowing-fan in the myth and ritual of Dionysus has been collected and admirably interpreted by Miss J. E. Harrison in her article “Mystica Vannus Iacchi,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxiii. (1903) pp. 292-324. Compare her _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_2 (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 517 _sqq._ I must refer the reader to these works for full details on the subject. In the passage of Servius referred to the reading is somewhat uncertain; in his critical edition G. Thilo reads λικμητὴν and λικμὸς instead of the usual λικνιτὴν and λικνόν. But the variation does not affect the meaning.

M5 Use of the winnowing-fan to cradle infants. The winnowing-fan sometimes intended to avert evil spirits from children.

26 Ἐν γὰρ λείκνοις τὸ παλαιὸν κατεκοίμιζον τὰ Βρέφη πλοῦτον καὶ καρπούς οἰωνιζόμενοι, Scholiast on Callimachus, i. 48 (_Callimachea_, edidit O. Schneider, Leipsic, 1870-1873, vol. i. p. 109).

27 T. S. Raffles, _History of Java_ (London, 1817), i. 323; C. F. Winter, “Instellingen, Gewoontenen Gebruiken der Javanen te Soerakarta,” _Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indie_, Vijfde Jaargang, Eerste Deel (1843), p. 695; P. J. Veth, _Java_ (Haarlem, 1875-1884), i. 639.

28 C. Poensen, “Iets over de kleeding der Javanen,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xx. (1876) pp. 279 _sq._

29 Rev. J. Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, edited and revised by the Rev. Paxton Hood (London, 1868), pp. 90 _sq._

30 Rev. E. M. Gordon, “Some Notes concerning the People of Mungēli Tahsīl, Bilaspur District,” _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxxi., Part iii. (Calcutta, 1903) p. 74; _id._, _Indian Folk Tales_ (London, 1908), p. 41.

31 C. B. Klunzinger, _Bilder aus Oberägypten_ (Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 181, 182; _id._, _Upper Egypt, its People and Products_ (London, 1878), pp. 185, 186.

32 R. C. Temple, “Opprobrious Names,” _Indian Antiquary_, x. (1881) pp. 331 _sq._ Compare H. A. Rose, “Hindu Birth Observances in the Punjab,” _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) p. 234. See also _Panjab Notes and Queries_, vol. iii. August 1886, § 768, pp. 184 _sq._: “The winnowing fan in which a newly-born child is laid, is used on the fifth day for the worship of Satwáí. This makes it impure, and it is henceforward used only for the house-sweepings.”

33 Lieut.-Colonel Gunthorpe, “On the Ghosí or Gaddí Gaolís of the Deccan,” _Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, i. 45.

34 C. Bock, _Temples and Elephants_ (London, 1884), pp. 258 _sq._

M6 Use of the winnowing-fan to avert evil from children in India, Madagascar, and China. Karen ceremony of fanning away evils from children.

35 S. Mateer, _Native Life in Travancore_ (London, 1883), p. 213.

36 J. Richardson, “Tanala Customs, Superstitions, and Beliefs,” _Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine, Reprint of the First Four Numbers_ (Antananarivo, 1885), pp. 226 _sq._

37 Pausanias, ii. 31. 8; K. F. Hermann, _Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen_2 (Heidelberg, 1858), pp. 132 _sq._, § 23, 25.

38 Rev. J. Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, edited and revised by the Rev. Paxton Hood (London, 1868), pp. 114 _sq._ The beans used in the ceremony had previously been placed before an image of the goddess of small-pox.

39 Rev. F. Mason, D.D., “Physical Character of the Karens,” _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, New Series, No. cxxxi. (Calcutta, 1866), pp. 9 _sq._

M7 Among the reasons for the use of the winnowing-fan in birth-rites may have been the wish to avert evils and to promote fertility and growth.

40 Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ i. 166: “_Et vannus Iacchi.... Mystica autem Bacchi ideo ait, quod Liberi patris sacra ad purgationem animae pertinebant: et sic homines ejus mysteriis purgabantur, sicut vannis frumenta purgantur._”

41 W. Mannhardt, “Kind und Korn,” _Mythologische Forschungen_ (Strasburg, 1884), pp. 351-374.

42 W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ pp. 351 _sqq._

43 W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ p. 372, citing A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volks-aberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 339, § 543; L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 81.

44 Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche_ (St. Petersburg, 1854), p. 61. This custom is also cited by Mannhardt (_l.c._).

M8 Use of the winnowing-fan in the rites of Dionysus.

45 Miss J. E. Harrison, “Mystica Vannus Iacchi,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxiii. (1903) pp. 296 _sqq._; _id._, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_,2 pp. 518 _sqq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, v. (Oxford, 1909) p. 243.

46 Herodotus, ii. 48, 49; Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 34, pp. 29-30, ed. Potter; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 19, vol. i. p. 32; M. P. Nilsson, _Studia de Dionysiis Atticis_ (Lund, 1900), pp. 90 _sqq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, v. 125, 195, 205.

47 Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vii. 21.

M9 Myth of the death and resurrection of Dionysus. Legend that the infant Dionysus occupied for a short time the throne of his father Zeus. Death and resurrection of Dionysus represented in his rites.

48 Nonnus, _Dionys._ vi. 155-205.

49 Firmicus Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, 6.

50 Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 17. Compare Ch. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, pp. 1111 _sqq._

51 Proclus on Plato, _Cratylus_, p. 59, quoted by E. Abel, _Orphica_, p. 228. Compare Chr. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, pp. 552 _sq._

52 Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 19. Compare _id._ ii. 22; Scholiast on Lucian, _Dial. Meretr._ vii. p. 280, ed. H. Rabe.

53 Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 18; Proclus on Plato’s _Timaeus_, iii. p. 200 D, quoted by Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, p. 562, and by Abel, _Orphica_, p. 234. Others said that the mangled body was pieced together, not by Apollo but by Rhea (Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 30).

54 Ch. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, pp. 572 _sqq._ See _The Dying God_, p. 3. For a conjectural restoration of the temple, based on ancient authorities and an examination of the scanty remains, see an article by J. H. Middleton, in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, ix. (1888) pp. 282 _sqq._ The ruins of the temple have now been completely excavated by the French.

55 S. Clemens Romanus, _Recognitiones_, x. 24 (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, i. col. 1434).

56 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 62.

57 Macrobius, _Comment. in Somn. Scip._ i. 12. 12; _Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini tres Romae nuper reperti_ (commonly referred to as _Mythographi Vaticani_), ed. G. H. Bode (Cellis, 1834), iii. 12. 5, p. 246; Origen, _Contra Celsum_, iv. 17 (vol. i. p. 286, ed. P. Koetschau).

58 Himerius, _Orat._ ix. 4.

59 Proclus, _Hymn to Minerva_, quoted by Ch. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, p. 561; _Orphica_, ed. E. Abel, p. 235.

60 Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 167.

61 The festivals of Dionysus were biennial in many places. See G. F. Schömann, _Griechische Alterthümer_,4 ii. 524 _sqq._ (The terms for the festival were τριετηρίς, τριετηρικός, both terms of the series being included in the numeration, in accordance with the ancient mode of reckoning.) Perhaps the festivals were formerly annual and the period was afterwards lengthened, as has happened with other festivals. See W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 172, 175, 491, 533 _sq._, 598. Some of the festivals of Dionysus, however, were annual. Dr. Farnell has conjectured that the biennial period in many Greek festivals is to be explained by “the original shifting of land-cultivation which is frequent in early society owing to the backwardness of the agricultural processes; and which would certainly be consecrated by a special ritual attached to the god of the soil.” See L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, v. 180 _sq._

62 Firmicus Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, 6.

_ 63 Mythographi Vaticani_, ed. G. H. Bode, iii. 12. 5, p. 246.

64 Plutarch, _Consol. ad uxor._ 10. Compare _id._, _Isis et Osiris_, 35; _id._, _De E Delphico_, 9; _id._, _De esu carnium_, i. 7.

65 Pausanias, ii. 31. 2 and 37. 5; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 5. 3.

66 Pausanias, ii. 37. 5 _sq._; Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35; _id._, _Quaest. Conviv._ iv. 6. 2.

67 Himerius, _Orat._ iii. 6, xiv. 7.

68 For Dionysus in this capacity see F. Lenormant in Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, i. 632. For Osiris, see _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 344 _sq._

M10 Dionysus represented in the form of a bull.

69 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35; _id._, _Quaest. Graec._ 36; Athenaeus, xi. 51, p. 476 A; Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 16; _Orphica_, Hymn xxx. _vv._ 3, 4, xlv. 1, lii. 2, liii. 8; Euripides, _Bacchae_, 99; Scholiast on Aristophanes, _Frogs_, 357; Nicander, _Alexipharmaca_, 31; Lucian, _Bacchus_, 2. The title Εἰραφιώτης applied to Dionysus (_Homeric Hymns_, xxxiv. 2; Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, iii. 17; Dionysius, _Perieg._ 576; _Etymologicum Magnum_, p. 371. 57) is etymologically equivalent to the Sanscrit _varsabha_, “a bull,” as I was informed by my lamented friend the late R. A. Neil of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

70 Euripides, _Bacchae_, 920 _sqq._, 1017; Nonnus, _Dionys._ vi. 197 _sqq._

71 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35; Athenaeus, xi. 51, p. 476 A.

72 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 64. 2, iv. 4. 2; Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 30.

73 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 64. 2; J. Tzetzes, _Schol. on Lycophron_, 209, 1236; Philostratus, _Imagines_, i. 14 (15).

74 Müller-Wieseler, _Denkmäler der alten Kunst_, ii. pl. xxxiii.; Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, i. 619 _sq._, 631; W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, i. 1149 _sqq._; F. Imhoof-Blumer, “Coin-types of some Kilikian Cities,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xviii. (1898) p. 165.

75 F. G. Welcker, _Alte Denkmäler_ (Göttingen, 1849-1864), v. taf. 2.

_ 76 Archaeologische Zeitung_, ix. (1851) pl. xxxiii., with Gerhard’s remarks, pp. 371-373.

_ 77 Gazette Archéologique_, v. (1879) pl. 3.

78 Pausanias, viii. 19. 2.

79 Plutarch, _Quaestiones Graecae_, 36; _id._, _Isis et Osiris_, 35.

80 J. Tzetzes, _Schol. on Lycophron_, 1236.

81 Nonnus, _Dionys._ vi. 205.

82 Firmicus Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, 6.

83 Euripides, _Bacchae_, 735 _sqq._; Scholiast on Aristophanes, _Frogs_, 357.

M11 Dionysus as a goat. Live goats rent and devoured by his worshippers.

84 Hesychius, _s.v._ Ἔριφος ὁ Διόνυσος, on which there is a marginal gloss ὁ μικρὸς αἴξ, ὁ ἐν τῷ ἔαρι φαινόμενος, ἤγουν ὁ πρώϊμος; Stephanus Byzantius, _s.v._ Ἀκρώρεια.

85 Pausanias, ii. 35. 1; Scholiast on Aristophanes, _Acharn._ 146; _Etymologicum Magnum_, _s.v._ Ἀπατούρια, p. 118. 54 _sqq._; Suidas, _s.vv._ Ἀπατούρια and μελαναίγιδα Διόνυσον; Nonnus, _Dionys._ xxvii. 302. Compare Conon, _Narrat._ 39, where for Μελανθίδῃ we should perhaps read Μελαναίγιδι.

86 Pausanias, ii. 13. 6. On their return from Troy the Greeks are said to have found goats and an image of Dionysus in a cave of Euboea (Pausanias, i. 23. 1).

87 Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 4. 3.

88 Ovid, _Metam._ v. 329; Antoninus Liberalis, _Transform._ 28; _Mythographi Vaticani_, ed. G. H. Bode, i. 86, p. 29.

89 Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, v. 19. Compare Suidas, _s.v._ αἰγίζειν. As fawns appear to have been also torn in pieces at the rites of Dionysus (Photius, _Lexicon_, _s.v._ νεβρίζειν; Harpocration, _s.v._ νεβρίζων), it is probable that the fawn was another of the god’s embodiments. But of this there seems no direct evidence. Fawn-skins were worn both by the god and his worshippers (Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 30). Similarly the female Bacchanals wore goat-skins (Hesychius, _s.v._ τραγηφόροι).

M12 Custom of rending and devouring animals and men as a religious rite. Ceremonial cannibalism among the Indians of British Columbia.

90 Mr. Duncan, quoted by Commander R. C. Mayne, _Four Years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island_ (London, 1862), pp. 284-288. The instrument which made the screeching sound was no doubt a bull-roarer, a flat piece of stick whirled at the end of a string so as to produce a droning or screaming note according to the speed of revolution. Such instruments are used by the Koskimo Indians of the same region at their cannibal and other rites. See Fr. Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians,” _Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895_ (Washington, 1897), pp. 610, 611.

M13 Religious societies of Cannibals and Dog-eaters among the Indians of British Columbia. Live goats rent in pieces and devoured by fanatics in Morocco.

91 Fr. Boas, _op. cit._ pp. 437-443, 527 _sq._, 536, 537 _sq._, 579, 664; _id._, in “Fifth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” _Report of the British Association for 1889_, pp. 54-56 (separate reprint); _id._, in “Sixth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” _Report of the British Association for 1890_, pp. 62, 65 _sq._ (separate reprint). As to the rules observed after the eating of human flesh, see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 188-190.

92 Fr. Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians,” _Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895_ (Washington, 1897), pp. 649 _sq._, 658 _sq._; _id._, in “Sixth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” _Report of the British Association for 1890_, p. 51; (separate reprint); _id._, “Seventh Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” _Report of the British Association for 1891_, pp. 10 _sq._ (separate reprint); _id._, “Tenth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” _Report of the British Association for 1895_, p. 58 (separate reprint).

93 G. M. Dawson, _Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878_ (Montreal, 1880), pp. 125 B, 128 B.

94 J. R. Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_ (Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 156, 160 _sq._, 170 _sq._, 181 (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History_). For details as to the practice of these savage rites among the Indian coast tribes of British Columbia, see my _Totemism and Exogamy_ (London, 1910), iii. pp. 501, 511 _sq._, 515 _sq._, 519, 521, 526, 535 _sq._, 537, 539 _sq._, 542 _sq._, 544, 545.

95 A. Leared, _Morocco and the Moors_ (London, 1876), pp. 267-269. Compare Budgett Meakin, _The Moors_ (London, 1902), pp. 331 _sq._ The same order of fanatics also exists and holds similar orgies in Algeria, especially at the town of Tlemcen. See E. Doutté, _Les Aïssâoua à Tlemcen_ (Châlons-sur-Marne, 1900), p. 13.

M14 Later misinterpretations of the custom of killing a god in animal form.

96 Varro, _Rerum rusticarum_, i. 2. 19; Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 376-381, with the comments of Servius on the passage and on _Aen._ iii. 118; Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 353 _sqq._; _id._, _Metamorph._ xv. 114 _sq._; Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 30.

97 Euripides, _Bacchae_, 138 _sq._: ἀγρεύων αἷμα τραγοκτόνον, ὠμοφάγον χάριν.

98 Schol. on Aristophanes, _Frogs_, 357.

99 Hera αἰγοφάγος at Sparta, Pausanias, iii. 15. 9; Hesychius, _s.v._ αἰγοφάγος (compare the representation of Hera clad in a goat’s skin, with the animal’s head and horns over her head, Müller-Wieseler, _Denkmäler der alten Kunst_, i. No. 229 B; and the similar representation of the Lanuvinian Juno, W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. 605 _sqq._); Zeus αἰγοφάγος, _Etymologicum Magnum_, _s.v._ αἰγοφάγος, p. 27. 52 (compare Scholiast on Oppianus, _Halieut._ iii. 10; L. Stephani, in _Compte-Rendu de la Commission Impériale Archéologique pour l’année 1869_ (St. Petersburg, 1870), pp. 16-18); Apollo ὀψοφάγος at Elis, Athenaeus, viii. 36, p. 346 B; Artemis καπροφάγος in Samos, Hesychius, _s.v._ καπροφάγος; compare _id._, _s.v._ κριοφάγος. Divine titles derived from killing animals are probably to be similarly explained, as Dionysus αἰγόβολος (Pausanias, ix. 8. 2); Rhea or Hecate κυνοσφαγής (J. Tzetzes, _Scholia on Lycophron_, 77); Apollo λυκοκτόνος (Sophocles, _Electra_, 6); Apollo σαυροκτόνος (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxiv. 70).

100 See below, vol. ii. pp. 184, 194, 196, 197 _sq._, 233.

M15 Human sacrifices in the worship of Dionysus.

101 Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, ii. 55.

102 Pausanias, ix. 8. 2.

103 See _The Dying God_, pp. 163 _sq._

M16 The legendary deaths of Pentheus and Lycurgus may be reminiscences of a custom of sacrificing divine kings in the character of Dionysus.

_ 104 Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 332 _sq._

105 Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 5. 1.

_ 106 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 344, 345, 346, 352, 354, 366 _sq._

107 Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 5. 1.

108 Herodotus, vii. 197; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, i. 9. 1 _sq._; Scholiast on Aristophanes, _Clouds_, 257; J. Tzetzes, _Schol. on Lycophron_, 21; Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 1-5. See _The Dying God_, pp. 161-163.

109 Clemens Romanus, _Recognitiones_, x. 24 (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, i. col. 1434).

110 Euripides, _Bacchae_, 43 _sqq._, 1043 _sqq._; Theocritus, _Idyl._ xxvi.; Pausanias, ii. 2. 7. Strictly speaking, the murder of Pentheus is said to have been perpetrated not at Thebes, of which he was king, but on Mount Cithaeron.

M17 Survival of Dionysiac rites among the modern Thracian peasantry.

111 See Mr. R. M. Dawkins, “The Modern Carnival in Thrace and the Cult of Dionysus,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxvi. (1906) pp. 191-206. Mr. Dawkins describes the ceremonies partly from his own observation, partly from an account of them published by Mr. G. M. Vizyenos in a Greek periodical Θρακικὴ Ἐπετηρίς, of which only one number was published at Athens in 1897. From his personal observations Mr. Dawkins was able to confirm the accuracy of Mr. Vizyenos’s account.

_ 112 Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 333 _sq._

M18 Drama annually performed at the Carnival in the villages round Viza, an old Thracian capital. The actors in the drama.

113 Strabo, vii. frag. 48; Stephanus Byzantius, _s.v._ Βιζύη.

114 R. M. Dawkins, _op. cit._ p. 192.

M19 The ceremonies include the forging of a ploughshare, a mock marriage, and a pretence of death and resurrection. M20 The ceremonies also include a simulation of ploughing and sowing by skin-clad men, accompanied by prayers for good crops.

115 R. M. Dawkins, “The Modern Carnival in Thrace and the Cult of Dionysus,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxvi. (1906) pp. 193-201.

M21 Kindred ceremony performed by a masked and skin-clad man who is called a king.

116 R. M. Dawkins, _op. cit._ pp. 201 _sq._

M22 Analogy of these modern Thracian ceremonies to the ancient rites of Dionysus.

117 They have been clearly indicated by Mr. R. M. Dawkins, _op. cit._ pp. 203 _sqq._ Compare W. Ridgeway, _The Origin of Tragedy_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 15 _sqq._, who fully recognises the connexion of the modern Thracian ceremonies with the ancient rites of Dionysus.

118 Lucian, _Dialogi Deorum_, ix. 2; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 4. 4. According to the latter writer Dionysus was born in the sixth month.

M23 The modern Thracian celebration seems to correspond most closely to the ancient Athenian festival of the Anthesteria.

119 As to such festivals of All Souls see _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 301-318.

120 The passages of ancient authors which refer to the Anthesteria are collected by Professor Martin P. Nilsson, _Studia de Dionysiis Atticis_ (Lund, 1900), pp. 148 _sqq._ As to the festival, which has been much discussed of late years, see August Mommsen, _Heortologie_ (Leipsic, 1864), pp. 345 _sqq._; _id._, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 384 _sqq._; G. F. Schoemann, _Griechische Alterthümer_4 (Berlin, 1902), ii. 516 _sqq._; E. Rohde, _Psyche_3 (Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903), i. 236 _sqq._; Martin P. Nilsson, _op. cit._ pp. 115 _sqq._; P. Foucart, _Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique_ (Paris, 1904), pp. 107 _sqq._; Miss J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_2 (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 32 _sqq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, v. (Oxford, 1909) pp. 214 _sqq._ As to the marriage of Dionysus to the Queen of Athens, see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 136 _sq._

121 By Professor U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, _Aristoteles und Athen_ (Berlin, 1893), ii. 42; and afterwards by Miss J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_,2 p. 536.

_ 122 The Dying God_, p. 71.

123 Plutarch, _Conjugalia Praecepta_, 42.

124 Miss J. E. Harrison, _Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens_ (London, 1890), pp. 166 _sq._

125 Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 3. As to the situation of the Prytaneum see my note on Pausanias, i. 18. 3 (vol. ii. p. 172).

M24 Theory that the rites of the Anthesteria comprised a drama of the violent death and resurrection of Dionysus.

126 August Mommsen, _Heortologie_, pp. 371 _sqq._; _id._, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_, pp. 398 _sqq._; P. Foucart, _Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique_, pp. 138 _sqq._

127 Demosthenes, _Contra Neaer_. 73, pp. 1369 _sq._; Julius Pollux, viii. 108; _Etymologicum Magnum_, p. 227, _s.v._ γεραῖραι; Hesychius, _s.v._ γεραραί.

128 Chr. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, p. 505.

129 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 18, 42.

130 The resurrection of Osiris is not described by Plutarch in his treatise _Isis et Osiris_, which is still our principal source for the myth of the god; but it is fortunately recorded in native Egyptian writings. See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, p. 274. P. Foucart supposes that the resurrection of Dionysus was enacted at the Anthesteria; August Mommsen prefers to suppose that it was enacted in the following month at the Lesser Mysteries.

M25 Legends of human sacrifice in the worship of Dionysus may be mere misinterpretations of ritual.

131 Aelian, _De Natura Animalium_, xii. 34. Compare W. Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_2 (London, 1894), pp. 300 _sqq._

132 Aulus Gellius, v. 12. 12.

133 See _The Dying God_, p. 166 note 1, and below, p. 249.

M26 Demeter and Persephone as Greek personifications of the decay and revival of vegetation. M27 The Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_. The rape of Persephone. The wrath of Demeter. The return of Persephone.

134 R. Foerster, _Der Raub und die Rückkehr der Persephone_ (Stuttgart, 1874), pp. 37-39; _The Homeric Hymns_, edited by T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes (London, 1904), pp. 10 _sq._ A later date—the age of the Pisistratids—is assigned to the hymn by A. Baumeister (_Hymni Homerici_, Leipsic, 1860, p. 280).

_ 135 Hymn to Demeter_, 1 _sqq._, 302 _sqq._, 330 _sqq._, 349 _sqq._, 414 _sqq._, 450 _sqq._

_ 136 Hymn to Demeter_, 310 _sqq._ With the myth as set forth in the Homeric hymn may be compared the accounts of Apollodorus (_Bibliotheca_, i. 5) and Ovid (_Fasti_, iv. 425-618; _Metamorphoses_, v. 385 _sqq._).

M28 The aim of the Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_ is to explain the traditional foundation of the Eleusinian mysteries by Demeter.

_ 137 Hymn to Demeter_, 47-50, 191-211, 292-295, with the notes of Messrs. Allen and Sikes in their edition of the Homeric Hymns (London, 1904). As to representations of the candidates for initiation seated on stools draped with sheepskins, see L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 237 _sqq._, with plate xv _a_. On a well-known marble vase there figured the stool is covered with a lion’s skin and one of the candidate’s feet rests on a ram’s skull or horns; but in two other examples of the same scene the ram’s fleece is placed on the seat (Farnell, _op. cit._ p. 240 note a), just as it is said to have been placed on Demeter’s stool in the Homeric hymn. As to the form of communion in the Eleusinian mysteries, see Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ 21, p. 18 ed. Potter; Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, v. 26; L. R. Farnell, _op. cit._ iii. 185 _sq._, 195 _sq._ For discussions of the ancient evidence bearing on the Eleusinian mysteries it may suffice to refer to Chr. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_ (Königsberg, 1829), pp. 3 _sqq._; G. F. Schoemann, _Griechische Alterthümer_,4 ii. 387 _sqq._; Aug. Mommsen, _Heortologie_ (Leipsic, 1864), pp. 222 _sqq._; _id._, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 204 _sqq._; P. Foucart, _Recherches sur l’Origine et la Nature des Mystères d’Eleusis_ (Paris, 1895) (_Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, xxxv.); _id._, _Les grands Mystères d’Eleusis_ (Paris, 1900) (_Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, xxxvii.); F. Lenormant and E. Pottier, _s.v._ “Eleusinia,” in Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, ii. 544 _sqq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. 126 _sqq._

M29 Revelation of a reaped ear of corn the crowning act of the mysteries.

138 Hippolytus, _Refutatio Omnium Haeresium_, v. 8, p. 162, ed. L. Duncker et F. G. Schneidewin (Göttingen, 1859). The word which the poet uses to express the revelation (δεῖξε, _Hymn to Demeter_, verse 474) is a technical one in the mysteries; the full phrase was δεικνύναι τὰ ἱερά. See Plutarch, _Alcibiades_, 22; Xenophon, _Hellenica_, vi. 3. 6; Isocrates, _Panegyricus_, 6; Lysias, _Contra Andocidem_, 51; Chr. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, p. 51.

139 Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 12, p. 12 ed. Potter: Δηὼ δὲ καὶ Κόρη δρᾶμα ἤδη ἐγενέσθην μυστικόν; καὶ τὴν πλάνην καὶ τὴν ἀρπαγὴν καὶ τὸ πένθος αὐταῖν Ἐλευσὶς δᾳδουχεῖ. Compare F. Lenormant, _s.v._ “Eleusinia,” in Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_ iii. 578: “_Que le drame mystique des aventures de Déméter et de Coré constituât le spectacle essentiel de l’initiation, c’est ce dont il nous semble impossible de douter_.” A similar view is expressed by G. F. Schoemann (_Griechische Alterthümer_,4 ii. 402); Preller-Robert (_Griechische Mythologie_, i. 793); P. Foucart (_Recherches sur l’Origine et la Nature des Mystères d’Eleusis_, Paris, 1895, pp. 43 _sqq._; _id._, _Les Grands Mystères d’Eleusis_, Paris, 1900, p. 137); E. Rohde (_Psyche_,3 i. 289); and L. R. Farnell (_The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. 134, 173 _sqq._).

M30 Demeter and Persephone personifications of the corn. Persephone the seed sown in autumn and sprouting in spring. Demeter the old corn of last year. The view that Demeter was the Earth goddess is implicitly rejected by the author of the Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_.

140 On Demeter and Proserpine as goddesses of the corn, see L. Preller, _Demeter und Persephone_ (Hamburg, 1837), pp. 315 _sqq._; and especially W. Mannhardt, _Mythologische Forschungen_ (Strasburg, 1884), pp. 202 _sqq._

141 According to the author of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (verses 398 _sqq._, 445 _sqq._) and Apollodorus (_Bibliotheca_, i. 5. 3) the time which Persephone had to spend under ground was one third of the year; according to Ovid (_Fasti_, iv. 613 _sq._; _Metamorphoses_, v. 564 _sqq._) and Hyginus (_Fabulae_, 146) it was one half.

142 This view of the myth of Persephone is, for example, accepted and clearly stated by L. Preller (_Demeter und Persephone_, pp. 128 _sq._).

143 See, for example, Firmicus Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, 17. 3: “_Frugum substantiam volunt Proserpinam dicere, quia fruges hominibus cum seri coeperint prosunt. Terram ipsam Cererem nominant, nomen hoc a gerendis fructibus mutuati_”; L. Preller, _Demeter und Persephone_, p. 128, “_Der Erdboden wird Demeter, die Vegetation Persephone_.” François Lenormant, again, held that Demeter was originally a personification of the earth regarded as divine, but he admitted that from the time of the Homeric poems downwards she was sharply distinguished from Ge, the earth-goddess proper. See Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, _s.v._ “Ceres,” ii. 1022 _sq._ Some light might be thrown on the question whether Demeter was an Earth Goddess or a Corn Goddess, if we could be sure of the etymology of her name, which has been variously explained as “Earth Mother” (Δῆ μήτηρ equivalent to Γῆ μήτηρ) and as “Barley Mother” (from an alleged Cretan word δηαί “barley”: see _Etymologicum Magnum_, _s.v._ Δηώ, pp. 263 _sq._). The former etymology has been the most popular; the latter is maintained by W. Mannhardt. See L. Preller, _Demeter und Persephone_, pp. 317, 366 _sqq._; F. G. Welcker, _Griechische Götterlehre_, i. 385 _sqq._; Preller-Robert, _Griechische Mythologie_, i. 747 note 6; Kern, in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_, iv. 2713; W. Mannhardt, _Mythologische Forschungen_, pp. 281 _sqq._ But my learned friend the Rev. Professor J. H. Moulton informs me that both etymologies are open to serious philological objections, and that no satisfactory derivation of the first syllable of Demeter’s name has yet been proposed. Accordingly I prefer to base no argument on an analysis of the name, and to rest my interpretation of the goddess entirely on her myth, ritual, and representations in art. Etymology is at the best a very slippery ground on which to rear mythological theories.

_ 144 Hymn to Demeter_, 8 _sqq._

M31 The Yellow Demeter, the goddess who sifts the ripe grain from the chaff at the threshing-floor. The Green Demeter the goddess of the green corn.

_ 145 Hymn to Demeter_, 279, 302.

146 Homer, _Iliad_, v. 499-504.

_ 147 Iliad_, xiii. 322, xxi. 76.

148 Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 31 _sq._

149 Quoted by Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 66.

150 Pausanias, i. 22. 3 with my note; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 615; J. de Prott et L. Ziehen, _Leges Graecorum Sacrae_, Fasciculus I. (Leipsic, 1896) p. 49; Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 28; Scholiast on Sophocles, _Oedipus Colon._ 1600; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. 312 _sq._

M32 The cereals called “Demeter’s fruits.”

151 Herodotus, i. 193, iv. 198; Xenophon, _Hellenica_, vi. 3. 6; Aelian, _Historia Animalium_, xvii. 16; Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 28; _Geoponica_, i. 12. 36; _Paroemiographi Graeci_, ed. Leutsch et Schneidewin, Appendix iv. 20 (vol. i. p. 439).

_ 152 Cerealia_ in Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxiii. 1; _Cerealia munera_ and _Cerealia dona_ in Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, xi. 121 _sq._

153 Libanius, ed. J. J. Reiske, vol. iv. p. 367, _Corinth. Oratio_: Οὐκ αὖθις ἡμῶν ακαρποσ ἡ γῆ δοκεῖ γεγονέναι? οὐ πάλιν ὁ πρὸ Δήμητρος εἶναι βίος? καί τοι καὶ πρὸ Δήμητρος αἱ γεωργίαι μὲν οὐκ ἦσαν; οὐδὲ ἄροτοι, αὐτόφυτοι δὲ βοτάναι καὶ πόαι; καὶ πολλὰ εἶχεν εἰς σωτηρίαν ἀνθρώπων αὐτοσχέδια ἄνθη ἡ γῆ ὠδίνουσα καὶ κύουσα πρὸ τῶν ἡμέρων τὰ ἄγρια. Ἐπλανῶντο μὲν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλους; ἄλση καὶ ὄρη περιῄσαν, ζητοῦντες αὐτόματον τροφήν. In this passage, which no doubt represents the common Greek view on the subject, the earth is plainly personified (ὠδίνουσα καὶ κύουσα), which points the antithesis between her and the goddess of the corn. Diodorus Siculus also says (v. 68) that corn grew wild with the other plants before Demeter taught men to cultivate it and to sow the seed.

M33 Corn and poppies as symbols of Demeter.

154 Ovid, _Fasti_, iv. 616; Eusebius, _Praeparatio Evangelii_, iii. 11. 5; Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 28; _Anthologia Palatina_, vi. 104. 8; W. Mannhardt, _Mythologische Forschungen_, p. 235; J. Overbeck, _Griechische Kunstmythologie_, iii. (Leipsic, 1873-1878) pp. 420, 421, 453, 479, 480, 502, 505, 507, 514, 522, 523, 524, 525 _sq._; L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. 217 _sqq._, 220 _sq._, 222, 226, 232, 233, 237, 260, 265, 268, 269 _sq._, 271.

155 Theocritus, _Idyl._ vii. 155 _sqq._ That the sheaves which the goddess grasped were of barley is proved by verses 31-34 of the poem.

156 Eusebius, _Praeparatio Evangelii_, iii. 11. 5; Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 28, p. 56, ed. C. Lang; Virgil, _Georg._ i. 212, with the comment of Servius.

157 See the references to the works of Overbeck and Farnell above. For example, a fine statue at Copenhagen, in the style of the age of Phidias, represents Demeter holding poppies and ears of corn in her left hand. See Farnell, _op. cit._ iii. 268, with plate xxviii.

158 Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 28, p. 56 ed. C. Lang.

M34 Persephone portrayed as the young corn sprouting from the ground.

159 Percy Gardner, _Types of Greek Coins_ (Cambridge, 1883), p. 174, with plate x. No. 25.

M35 Demeter invoked and propitiated by Greek farmers before the autumnal sowing. Boeotian festival of mourning for the descent of Persephone at the autumnal sowing.

160 Diodorus Siculus, v. 68. 1.

161 Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 448-474; Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, iii. 21. 12. For the autumnal migration and clangour of the cranes as the signal for sowing, see Aristophanes, _Birds_, 711; compare Theognis, 1197 _sqq._ But the Greeks also ploughed in spring (Hesiod, _op. cit._ 462; Xenophon, _Oeconom._ 16); indeed they ploughed thrice in the year (Theophrastus, _Historia Plantarum_, vii. 13. 6). At the approach of autumn the cranes of northern Europe collect about rivers and lakes, and after much trumpeting set out in enormous bands on their southward journey to the tropical regions of Africa and India. In early spring they return northward, and their flocks may be descried passing at a marvellous height overhead or halting to rest in the meadows beside some broad river. The bird emits its trumpet-like note both on the ground and on the wing. See Alfred Newton, _Dictionary of Birds_ (London, 1893-1896), pp. 110 _sq._

162 Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 383 _sq._, 615-617; Aratus, _Phaenomena_, 254-267; L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_ (Berlin, 1825-1826), i. 241 _sq._ According to Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xviii. 49) wheat, barley, and all other cereals were sown in Greece and Asia from the time of the autumn setting of the Pleiades. This date for ploughing and sowing is confirmed by Hippocrates and other medical writers. See W. Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,3 i. 234. Latin writers prescribe the same date for the sowing of wheat. See Virgil, _Georg._ i. 219-226; Columella, _De re rustica_, ii. 8; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xviii. 223-226. In Columella’s time the Pleiades, he tells us (_l.c._), set in the morning of October 24th of the Julian calendar, which would correspond to the October 16th of our reckoning.

163 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 69.

164 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 70. Similarly Cornutus says that “Hades is fabled to have carried off Demeter’s daughter because the seed vanishes for a time under the earth,” and he mentions that a festival of Demeter was celebrated at the time of sowing (_Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 28, pp. 54, 55 ed. C. Lang). In a fragment of a Greek calendar which is preserved in the Louvre “the ascent (ἀναβάσις) of the goddess” is dated the seventh day of the month Dius, and “the descent or setting (δύσις) of the goddess” is dated the fourth day of the month Hephaestius, a month which seems to be otherwise unknown. See W. Froehner, _Musée Nationale du Louvre, Les Inscriptions Grecques_ (Paris, 1880), pp. 50 _sq._ Greek inscriptions found at Mantinea refer to a worship of Demeter and Persephone, who are known to have had a sanctuary there (Pausanias, viii. 9. 2). The people of Mantinea celebrated “mysteries of the goddess” and a festival called the _koragia_, which seems to have represented the return of Persephone from the lower world. See W. Immerwahr, _Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens_ (Leipsic, 1891), pp. 100 _sq._; S. Reinach, _Traité d’Epigraphie Grecque_ (Paris, 1885), pp. 141 _sqq._; Hesychius, _s.v._ κοράγειν.

M36 Thank-offerings of ripe grain presented by Greek farmers to Demeter after the harvest. Theocritus’s description of a harvest-home in Cos.

165 Theocritus, _Idyl._ vii.

M37 The harvest-home described by Theocritus fell in autumn.

166 In ancient Greece the vintage seems to have fallen somewhat earlier; for Hesiod bids the husbandman gather the ripe clusters at the time when Arcturus is a morning star, which in the poet’s age was on the 18th of September. See Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 609 _sqq._; L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, i. 247.

167 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, p. 190 note 2.

M38 The Greeks seem to have deferred the offering of first-fruits till the autumn in order to propitiate the Corn Goddess at the moment of ploughing and sowing, when her help was urgently needed.

168 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, p. 190 note 2.

169 Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 383 _sq._

170 L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, i. 242.

171 Compare Xenophon, _Oeconomicus_, 17, ἐπειδὰν γὰρ ὁ μετοπωρινὸς χρόνος ἔλθῃ, πάντες που οἱ ἄνθρωποι πρὸς τὸν θέον ἀποβλέπουσιν, ὅποτε βρέξας τὴν γῆν ἀφήσει αὐτοὺς σπείρειν.

172 August Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_, p. 193.

173 See above, pp. 44 _sqq._

M39 The festival of the _Proerosia_ (“Before the Ploughing”) held at Eleusis in honour of Demeter.

174 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 283 _sqq._

175 Scholiast on Aristophanes, _Knights_, 720; Suidas, _s.vv_. εἰρεσιώνη and προηροσίαι; _Etymologicum Magnum_, Hesychius, and Photius, _Lexicon_, _s.v._ προηρόσια; Plutarch, _Septem Sapientum Convivium_, 15; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 521, line 29, and No. 628; Aug. Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 192 _sqq._ The inscriptions prove that the Proerosia was held at Eleusis and that it was distinct from the Great Mysteries, being mentioned separately from them. Some of the ancients accounted for the origin of the festival by a universal plague instead of a universal famine. But this version of the story no doubt arose from the common confusion between the similar Greek words for plague and famine (λοιμός and λιμός). That in the original version famine and not plague must have been alleged as the reason for instituting the Proerosia, appears plainly from the reference of the name to ploughing, from the dedication of the festival to Demeter, and from the offerings of first-fruits; for these circumstances, though quite appropriate to ceremonies designed to stay or avert dearth and famine, would be quite inappropriate in the case of a plague.

M40 The _Proerosia_ seems to have been held before the ploughing in October but after the Great Mysteries in September. However, the date of the Great Mysteries, being determined by the lunar calendar, must have fluctuated in the solar year; whereas the date of the _Proerosia_, being determined by observation of Arcturus, must have been fixed.

176 Hesychius, _s.v._ προηρόσια.

177 August Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_, p. 194.

178 August Mommsen, _l.c._

179 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 521, lines 29 _sqq._

180 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 628.

181 The view that the Festival before Ploughing (_Proerosia_) fell in Pyanepsion is accepted by W. Mannhardt and W. Dittenberger. See W. Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_ (Berlin, 1877), pp. 238 _sq._; _id._, _Mythologische Forschungen_, p. 258; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 note 2 on Inscr. No. 628 (vol. ii. pp. 423 _sq._). The view that the Festival before Ploughing fell in Boedromion is maintained by August Mommsen. See his _Heortologie_ (Leipsic, 1864), pp. 218 _sqq._; _id._, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 192 _sqq._

182 See below, p. 82.

183 L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_ (Berlin, 1825-1826), i. 292 _sq._; compare August Mommsen, _Chronologie_ (Leipsic, 1883), pp. 58 _sq._

184 For example, Theophrastus notes that squills flowered thrice a year, and that each flowering marked the time for one of the three ploughings. See Theophrastus, _Historia Plantarum_, vii. 13. 6.

185 Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 383 _sqq._ The poet indeed refers (_vv._ 765 _sqq._) to days of the month as proper times for engaging in certain tasks; but such references are always simply to days of the lunar month and apply equally to every month; they are never to days as dates in the solar year.

M41 Offerings of the first-fruits of the barley and wheat to Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis. Isocrates on the offerings of first-fruits at Eleusis.

186 See below, p. 72.

187 Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ i. 12. 2.

188 Xenophon, _Historia Graeca_, vi. 3. 6.

189 Isocrates, _Panegyric_, 6 _sq._

M42 Athenian decree concerning the offerings of first-fruits at Eleusis.

190 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 20 (vol. i. pp. 33 _sqq._); E. S. Roberts and E. A. Gardner, _An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy_, Part ii. (Cambridge, 1905) No. 9, pp. 22 _sqq._

191 Aristides, _Panathen._ and _Eleusin._, vol. i. pp. 167 _sq._, 417 ed. G. Dindorf (Leipsic, 1829).

M43 Even after foreign states ceased to send first-fruits of the corn to Eleusis, they continued to acknowledge the benefit which the Athenians had conferred on mankind by diffusing among them Demeter’s gift of the corn. Testimony of the Sicilian historian Diodorus. Testimony of Cicero and Himerius.

192 Diodorus Siculus, v. 2 and 4; Cicero, _In C. Verrem_, act. ii. bk. iv. chapters 48 _sq._ Both writers mention that the whole of Sicily was deemed sacred to Demeter and Persephone, and that corn was said to have grown in the island before it appeared anywhere else. In support of the latter claim Diodorus Siculus (v. 2. 4) asserts that wheat grew wild in many parts of Sicily.

193 Diodorus Siculus, v. 4.

194 This legend, which is mentioned also by Cicero (_In C. Verrem_, act. ii. bk. iv. ch. 48), was no doubt told to explain the use of torches in the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone. The author of the Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_ tells us (verses 47 _sq._) that Demeter searched for her lost daughter for nine days with burning torches in her hands, but he does not say that the torches were kindled at the flames of Etna. In art Demeter and Persephone and their attendants were often represented with torches in their hands. See L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. (Oxford, 1907) plates xiii., xv. _a_, xvi., xvii., xviii., xix., xx., xxi. _a_, xxv., xxvii. _b_. Perhaps the legend of the torchlight search for Persephone and the use of the torches in the mysteries may have originated in a custom of carrying fire about the fields as a charm to secure sunshine for the corn. See _The Golden Bough_,2 iii. 313.

195 The words which I have translated “the bringing home of the Maiden” (τῆς Κόρης τὴν καταγωγήν) are explained with great probability by Professor M. P. Nilsson as referring to the bringing of the ripe corn to the barn or the threshing-floor (_Griechische Feste_, Leipsic, 1906, pp. 356 _sq._). This interpretation accords perfectly with a well-attested sense of καταγωγή and its cognate verb κατάγειν, and is preferable to the other possible interpretation “the bringing down,” which would refer to the descent of Persephone into the nether world; for such a descent is hardly appropriate to a harvest festival.

196 Cicero, _Pro L. Flacco_, 26.

197 Himerius, _Orat._ ii. 5.

198 Μητρόπολις τῶν καρπῶν, Aristides, _Panathen._ vol. i. p. 168 ed. G. Dindorf (Leipzig, 1829).

M44 The Sicilians seem to have associated Demeter with the seed-corn and Persephone with the ripe ears. Difficulty of distinguishing between Demeter and Persephone as personifications of different aspects of the corn. M45 The time of the year when the first-fruits of the corn were offered to Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis is not known.

199 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 20, lines 25 _sqq._; E. S. Roberts and E. A. Gardner, _Introduction to Greek Epigraphy_, ii. (Cambridge, 1905) No. 9, lines 25 _sqq._, κελευέτω δὲ καί ὁ ἱεροφάντης καὶ ὁ δᾳδοῦχος μυστηρίοις ἀπάρχεσθαι τοὺς Ἔλληνας τοῦ καρποῦ κατὰ τὰ πάτρια καὶ τὴν μαντείαν τὴν ἐγ Δελφῶν. By coupling μυστηρίοις with ἀπάρχεσθαι instead of with κελεύετω, Miss J. E. Harrison understands the offering instead of the exhortation to have been made at the mysteries (_Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, Second Edition, p. 155, “Let the Hierophant and the Torchbearer command that at the mysteries the Hellenes should offer first-fruits of their crops,” etc.). This interpretation is no doubt grammatically permissible, but the context seems to plead strongly, if not to be absolutely decisive, in favour of the other. It is to be observed that the exhortation was addressed not to the Athenians and their allies (who were compelled to make the offering) but only to the other Greeks, who might make it or not as they pleased; and the amount of such voluntary contributions was probably small compared to that of the compulsory contributions, as to the date of which nothing is said. That the proclamation to the Greeks in general was an exhortation (κελευέτω), not a command, is clearly shewn by the words of the decree a few lines lower down, where commissioners are directed to go to all Greek states exhorting but not commanding them to offer the first-fruits (ἐκείνοις δὲ μὴ ἐπιτάττοντας, κελεύοντας δὲ ἀπάρχεσθαι ἐὰν βούλωνται κατὰ τὰ πάτρια καὶ τὴν μαντείαν ἐγ Δελφῶν). The Athenians could not command free and independent states to make such offerings, still less could they prescribe the exact date when the offerings were to be made. All that they could and did do was, taking advantage of the great assembly of Greeks from all quarters at the mysteries, to invite or exhort, by the mouth of the great priestly functionaries, the foreigners to contribute.

200 August Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 192 _sqq._

M46 The Festival of the Threshing-floor (_Haloa_) at Eleusis.

201 Eustathius on Homer, _Iliad_, ix. 534, p. 772; Im. Bekker, _Anecdota Graeca_, i. 384 _sq._, _s.v._ Ἁλῶα. Compare O. Rubensohn, _Die Mysterienheiligtümer in Eleusis und Samothrake_ (Berlin, 1892), p. 116.

202 Eustathius on Homer, _Iliad_, ix. 534, p. 772; Im. Bekker, _Anecdota Graeca_, i. 384 _sq._, _s.v._ Ἁλῶα.

_ 203 Scholia in Lucianum_, ed. H. Rabe (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 279 _sq._ (scholium on _Dialog. Meretr._ vii. 4).

204 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 Nos. 192, 246, 587, 640; Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολογική, 1884, coll. 135 _sq._ The passages of inscriptions and of ancient authors which refer to the festival are collected by Dr. L. R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, iii. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 315 _sq._ For a discussion of the evidence see August Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 359 _sqq._; Miss J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, Second Edition (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 145 _sqq._

205 The threshing-floor of Triptolemus at Eleusis (Pausanias, i. 38. 6) is no doubt identical with the Sacred Threshing-floor mentioned in the great Eleusinian inscription of 329 B.C. (Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 587, line 234). We read of a hierophant who, contrary to ancestral custom, sacrificed a victim on the hearth in the Hall at Eleusis during the Festival of the Threshing-floor, “it being unlawful to sacrifice victims on that day” (Demosthenes, _Contra Neaeram_, 116, pp. 1384 _sq._), but from such an unlawful act no inference can be drawn as to the place where the festival was held. That the festival probably had special reference to the threshing-floor of Triptolemus has already been pointed out by O. Rubensohn (_Die Mysterienheiligtümer in Eleusis und Samothrake_, Berlin, 1892, p. 118).

206 See above, pp. 41 _sq._, 43. Maximus Tyrius observes (_Dissertat._