§ 10.—The corn-spirit as an animal.
In some of the examples cited above to establish the meaning of the term
“neck” as applied to the last sheaf, the corn-spirit appears in animal
form as a gander, a goat, a hare, a cat, and a fox. This introduces us to
a new aspect of the corn-spirit, which we must now examine. By doing so we
shall not only have fresh examples of killing the god, but may hope also
to clear up some points which remain obscure in the myths and worship of
Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Dionysus, Demeter, and Virbius.
Amongst the many animals whose forms the corn-spirit is supposed to take
are the wolf, dog, hare, cock, goose, cat, goat, cow (ox, bull), pig, and
horse. In one or other of these forms the corn-spirit is believed to be
present in the corn, and to be caught or killed in the last sheaf. As the
corn is being cut the animal flees before the reapers, and if a reaper is
taken ill on the field, he is supposed to have stumbled unwittingly on the
corn-spirit, who has thus punished the profane intruder. It is said “The
Rye-wolf has got hold of him,” “the Harvest-goat has given him a push.”
The person who cuts the last corn or binds the last sheaf gets the name of
the animal, as the Rye-wolf, the Rye-sow, the Oats-goat, etc., 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, etc., 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 on. 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 animal 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, etc. When the threshing
is finished, a puppet is made in the form of the animal, and this is
carried by the thresher of the last sheaf to a neighbouring farm, where
the threshing is still going on. This again shows that the corn-spirit is
believed to live wherever the corn is still being threshed. Sometimes the
thresher of the last sheaf himself represents the animal; and if the
people of the next farm, who are still threshing, catch him, they treat
him like the animal he represents, by shutting him up in the pig-sty,
calling him with the cries commonly addressed to pigs, and so forth.(1)
These general statements will now be illustrated by examples. We begin
with the corn-spirit conceived as a wolf or a dog. This conception is
common in France, Germany, and Slavonic countries. Thus, when the wind
sets the corn in wave-like motion, the peasants often say, “The Wolf is
going over, or through, the corn,” “the 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.”(2) When children wish to go into the corn-fields to pluck
ears or gather the blue corn-flowers, they are warned not to do so, for
“the big Dog sits in the corn,” or “the Wolf sits in the corn, and will
tear you in pieces,” “the Wolf will eat you.” The wolf against whom the
children are warned is not a common wolf, for he is often spoken of as the
Corn-wolf, Rye-wolf, etc.; thus they say, “The Rye-wolf will come and eat
you up, children,” “the Rye-wolf will carry you off,” and so forth.(3)
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.(4)
Both dog and wolf appear as embodiments of the corn-spirit in
harvest-customs. Thus in some parts of Silesia the person who binds the
last sheaf is called the Wheat-dog or the Peas-pug.(5) 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.”(6) In the Vosges the
Harvest-May is called the “Dog of the harvest.”(7) 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 Épinal they say, according to the crop, “We
will kill the Wheat-dog, or the Rye-dog, or the Potato-dog.”(8) In
Lorraine it is said of the man who cuts the last corn, “He is killing the
Dog of the harvest.”(9) At Dux, in the Tyrol, the man who gives the last
stroke at threshing is said to “strike down the Dog;”(10) and at
Ahnebergen, near Stade, he is called, according to the crop, Corn-pug,
Rye-pug, Wheat-pug.(11)
So with the wolf. In Germany it is said that “The Wolf sits in the last
sheaf.”(12) 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.”(13) The last
bunch of standing corn is called the Wolf, and the man who cuts it “has
the Wolf.” The last sheaf is also called the Wolf; 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).(14) Moreover, she is herself called
Wolf and has to bear the name for a whole year; sometimes, according to
the crop, she is called the Rye-wolf or the Potato-wolf.(15) In the island
of Rügen they call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, “You’re
Wolf;” and when she comes home she bites the lady of the house and the
stewardess, for which she receives a large piece of meat. 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.(16) 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.(17) In many places the sheaf called the Wolf is made up in human
form and dressed in clothes. This indicates a confusion between the
conceptions of the corn-spirit as theriomorphic (in animal form) and as
anthropomorphic (in human form).(18) Generally the Wolf is brought home on
the last waggon, with joyful cries.(19)
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.(20) He represents the
corn-spirit who has been caught escaping from the threshed corn. In Trier
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.(21)
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.”(22) 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.(23)
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.(24) 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.(25)
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.(26) 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.” Then a cock is made of
flowers, fastened on a pole, and carried home by the reapers, singing as
they go.(27) At Braller, in Transylvania, when the reapers come to the
last patch of corn, they cry, “Here we shall catch the Cock.”(28) At
Fürstenwalde, when the last sheaf is about to be bound, the master lets
loose 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.(29) The last sheaf is called Cock,
Cock-sheaf, Harvest-cock, Harvest-hen, Autumn-hen. A distinction is made
between a Wheat-cock, Bean-cock, etc., according to the crop.(30) At
Wünschensuhl, in Thüringen, the last sheaf is made into the shape of a
cock, and called Harvest-cock.(31) A figure of a cock, made of wood,
pasteboard, or ears of corn, 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.(32) 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.(33) 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.(34) 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.(35) 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.(36)
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.(37) 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 it into
the barn to the girls, or give it 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 of killing 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 show them the head of the cock which has been killed
for the soup.(38) 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 stroke. 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.(39) In the
neighbourhood of Udvarhely, 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.(40) 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 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.
Another common embodiment of the corn-spirit is the hare.(41) In some
parts of Ayrshire the cutting of the last corn is called “cutting the
Hare;”(42) and in Germany a name for the last sheaf is the Hare.(43) 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.(44) At Birk in Transylvania, when the reapers come to the last patch,
they cry out, “We have the Hare.”(45) At Aurich, as we have seen,(46) 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.(47) 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.(48)
Again, the corn-spirit sometimes takes the form of a cat.(49) 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 there is
dancing and merriment. When the dance is over, the cat is solemnly
stripped of its ornaments by the girls. At Grüneberg in Silesia the reaper
who cuts the last corn is called 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 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 a cat is killed 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.
Further, the corn-spirit often appears in the form of a goat. In the
province 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.”(50) Children are warned not
to go into the corn-fields to pluck the blue cornflowers, 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.(51) 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.”(52) 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 harvester has his allotted
patch to reap. When a harvester 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.(53) 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.”(54) 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 upon 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.(55) 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.”(56) 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.(57)
Sometimes the last sheaf is made up in the form of a goat,(58) and they
say, “The Goat is sitting in it.” 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.” In the
neighbourhood of 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
Lüneburg, also, the woman who binds the last corn is decked with a crown
of corn-ears and is called the Corn-goat.(59) 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.(60) 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, etc. As a rule, the man
who thus gets the name of Corn-goat has to bear it a whole year till the
next harvest.(61)
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.(62) 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.(63) 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.(64)
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.”(65) 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.(66) 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.(67) 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,(68)—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.(69) 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.
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. For example, in the neighbourhood of 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.(70) At Oberinntal in Tyrol the last thresher is called Goat.(71) At
Tettnang in Würtemberg 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.(72)
In this custom it is implied that the corn is inhabited by a pair of
corn-spirits, male and female. 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 Würtemberg 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.(73) 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.(74) At Zabern in Elsass, 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.(75) Sometimes the spirit of the corn in goat form is
believed to be killed at threshing. In the district of Traunstein, Upper
Bavaria, it is thought 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.(76) 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 generally
takes place on the field, the same cry is raised if the stranger does not
take off his hat.(77)
At sowing their winter corn the Prussian Slavs 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. Here it remained till harvest.
Then, after a prayer had been offered by a peasant who acted as priest
(_Weidulut_) the young folk 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.(78) The goat-skin thus suspended on the field from sowing time to
harvest represents the corn-spirit superintending the growth of the corn.
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;”(79) 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 (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.(80) So
near Chambéry when a reaper wounds himself with his sickle, it is said
that he has “the wound of the Ox.”(81) In the district of Bunzlau 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 (_der Alte_). In
some parts of Bohemia the last sheaf is made up in human form and called
the Buffalo-bull.(82) These cases show a confusion between the
anthropomorphic and the theriomorphic conception of the corn-spirit. The
confusion is parallel to that of killing a wether under the name of a
wolf.(83) In the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland, the last sheaf, if it is
a large one, is called the Cow.(84) 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.(85) 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.(86)
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.(87) 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!”(88) On the other hand, in the district of Rosenheim, in Upper
Bavaria, when a farmer is later in 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. A label is attached to it containing
doggerel verses in ridicule of the man on whose land the Straw-bull is
placed.(89)
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 kills 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 three times 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 selected 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 implements. 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.(90)
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, etc., 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.(91) 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, he is tied with
straw-ropes to a wheelbarrow, and wheeled round the village.(92) Here,
again, we are met with that confusion between the anthropomorphic and
theriomorphic conception of the corn-spirit, which has been already
signalised. 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.(93) 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.(94) 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.(95)
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.(96) In
these latter customs the confusion between the anthropomorphic and
theriomorphic conception of the corn-spirit meets us again. 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.”(97) 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.(98)
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.(99) Similarly in Berry the young corn-spirit is
sometimes believed 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.”(100) 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.”(101) 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.(102) 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.(103)
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.”(104) In Hertfordshire, at the end of the reaping, there
is or was 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 all his corn
reaped.(105) 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).”
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 inquirer, “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.”(106) 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 box-wood 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.”(107)
Again, a trace of the horse-shaped corn-spirit is reported from Berry. The
harvesters there are accustomed to take a noon-day sleep 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.”(108)
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.”(109)
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.(110) 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.(111) In other Swabian villages also the man who cuts the last
corn “has the Sow,” or “has the Rye-sow.”(112) 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.(113) At Friedingen, in Swabia, the
thresher who gives the last stroke is called Sow—Barley-sow, Corn-sow,
etc., 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.(114) 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.(115) 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, etc.; 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!” 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.(116)
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.(117) Here the pig is
the corn-spirit, whose fertilising power is sometimes supposed to lie
especially in his tail.(118) 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,(119) 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” (_der Jud’ auf der Wanne_). 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 (22d February), and then mix with the seed-corn.(120) In the
whole of Hessen, Meiningen, etc., 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.(121) 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.(122)
But the conception 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.(123) 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 shown 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.(124) We may conjecture that the Yule straw, of which Swedish
peasants make 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; 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.(125)
Again, it is only the Yule straw which may be used in binding the
fruit-trees as a charm to fertilise them.(126) These uses of the Yule
straw show that it is believed to possess fertilising virtues analogous to
those ascribed to the Yule Boar; the conjecture is therefore legitimate
that the Yule straw is made from the same sheaf as the Yule Boar. Formerly
a real boar was sacrificed at Christmas,(127) 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 the man.(128)
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.(129) 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.
The reader has probably remarked the complete parallelism between the
anthropomorphic and the theriomorphic conceptions of the corn-spirit. 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 is 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 to
eat in order that they may thrive, 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 (in reality or pretence) either his
human or his animal representative; and the worshippers partake
sacramentally either of the actual body and blood of the representative
(human or animal) of the divinity, or of bread made in his likeness.
Other animal forms assumed by the corn-spirit are the stag, roe, sheep,
bear, ass, fox, mouse, stork, swan, and kite.(130) 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 sufficient of
itself to suggest a mysterious connection between the animal or bird 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 among the corn. 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—hares, rabbits, partridges,
etc.—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 corn.
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 amongst the corn, 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, sufficient 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 show that their explanation covers the former identification
also.
But however we may explain it, the fact remains that in peasant folk-lore
the corn-spirit is very commonly conceived and represented in animal form.
May not this fact explain the relation in which certain animals stood to
the ancient deities of vegetation, Dionysus, Demeter, Adonis, Attis, and
Osiris?
To begin with Dionysus. We have seen that he was represented sometimes as
a goat and sometimes as a bull. As a goat he can hardly be separated from
the minor divinities, the Pans, Satyrs, and Silenuses, all of whom are
closely associated with him and are represented more or less completely in
the form of goats. Thus, Pan was regularly represented in sculpture and
painting with the face and legs of a goat.(131) The Satyrs were depicted
with pointed goat-ears, and sometimes with sprouting horns and short
tails.(132) They were sometimes spoken of simply as goats;(133) and in the
drama their parts were played by men dressed in goat-skins.(134) Silenus
is represented in art clad in a goat-skin.(135) Further, the Fauns, the
Italian counterpart of the Greek Pans and Satyrs, are described as being
half goats, with goat-feet and goat-horns.(136) Again, all these minor
goat-formed divinities partake more or less clearly of the character of
woodland deities. Thus, Pan was called by the Arcadians the Lord of the
Wood.(137) The Silenuses associated with the tree-nymphs.(138) The Fauns
are expressly designated as woodland deities;(139) and their character as
such is still further brought out by their association, or even
identification, with Silvanus and the Silvanuses, who, as their name of
itself indicates, are spirits of the woods.(140) Lastly, the association
of the Satyrs with the Silenuses, Fauns, and Silvanuses,(141) proves that
the Satyrs also were woodland deities. These goat-formed spirits of the
woods have their counterparts in the folk-lore of Northern Europe. Thus,
the Russian wood-spirits, called _Ljeschie_ (from _ljes_, “wood,”) are
believed to appear partly in human shape, but with the horns, ears, and
legs of goats. The _Ljeschi_ can alter his stature at pleasure; when he
walks in the wood he is as tall as the trees; when he walks in the meadows
he is no higher than the grass. Some of the _Ljeschie_ are spirits of the
corn as well as of the wood; before harvest they are as tall as the
corn-stalks, but after it they shrink to the height of the stubble.(142)
This brings out—what we have remarked before—the close connection between
tree-spirits and corn-spirits, and shows how easily the former may melt
into the latter. Similarly the Fauns, though wood-spirits, were believed
to foster the growth of the crops.(143) We have already seen how often the
corn-spirit is represented in folk-custom as a goat.(144) On the whole,
then, as Mannhardt argues,(145) the Pans, Satyrs, and Fauns appear to
belong to a widely diffused class of wood-spirits conceived in goat-form.
The fondness of goats for straying in woods and nibbling the bark of
trees—to which it is well known that they are most destructive—is an
obvious and perhaps sufficient reason why wood-spirits should so often be
supposed to take the form of goats. The inconsistency of a god of
vegetation subsisting upon the vegetation which he personifies is not one
to strike the primitive mind. Such inconsistencies arise when the deity,
ceasing to be immanent in the vegetation, comes to be regarded as its
owner or lord; for the idea of owning the vegetation naturally leads to
that of subsisting on it. We have already seen that the corn-spirit,
originally conceived as immanent in the corn, afterwards comes to be
regarded as its owner, who lives on it and is reduced to poverty and want
by being deprived of it.(146)
Thus the representation of wood-spirits in goat-form appears to be both
widespread and, to the primitive mind, natural. Therefore when we find, as
we have done, that Dionysus—a tree-god—is sometimes represented in goat
form,(147) we can hardly avoid concluding that this representation is
simply a part of his proper character as a tree-god and is not to be
explained by the fusion of two distinct and independent cults, in one of
which he originally appeared as a tree-god and in the other as a goat. If
such a fusion took place in the case of Dionysus, it must equally have
taken place in the case of the Pans and Satyrs of Greece, the Fauns of
Italy, and the _Ljeschie_ of Russia. That such a fusion of two wholly
disconnected cults should have occurred once is possible; that it should
have occurred twice independently is improbable; that it should have
occurred thrice independently is so unlikely as to be practically
incredible.
Dionysus was also represented, as we have seen,(148) in the form of a
bull. After what has gone before we are naturally led to expect that his
bull form must have been only another expression for his character as a
deity of vegetation, especially as the bull is a common embodiment of the
corn-spirit in Northern Europe;(149) and the close association of Dionysus
with Demeter and Proserpine in the mysteries of Eleusis shows that he had
at least strong agricultural affinities. The other possible explanation of
the bull-shaped Dionysus would be that the conception of him as a bull was
originally entirely distinct from the conception of him as a deity of
vegetation, and that the fusion of the two conceptions was due to some
such circumstance as the union of two tribes, one of which had previously
worshipped a bull-god and the other a tree-god. This appears to be the
view taken by Mr. Andrew Lang, who suggests that the bull-formed Dionysus
“had either been developed out of, or had succeeded to the worship of a
bull-totem.”(150) Of course this is possible. But it is not yet certain
that the Aryans ever had totemism. On the other hand, it is quite certain
that many Aryan peoples have conceived deities of vegetation as embodied
in animal forms. Therefore when we find amongst an Aryan people like the
Greeks a deity of vegetation represented as an animal, the presumption
must be in favour of explaining this by a principle which is certainly
known to have influenced the Aryan race rather than by one which is not
certainly known to have done so. In the present state of our knowledge,
therefore, it is safer to regard the bull form of Dionysus as being, like
his goat form, an expression of his proper character as a deity of
vegetation.
The probability of this view will be somewhat increased if it can be shown
that in other rites than those of Dionysus the ancients slew an ox as a
representative of the spirit of vegetation. This they appear to have done
in the Athenian sacrifice known as “the murder of the ox” (_bouphonia_).
It took place about the end of June or beginning of July, that is, about
the time when the threshing is nearly over in Attica. According to
tradition the sacrifice was instituted to procure a cessation of drought
and barrenness which had afflicted the land. The ritual was as follows.
Barley mixed with wheat, or cakes made of them, were laid upon the bronze
altar of Zeus Polieus on the Acropolis. Oxen were driven round the altar,
and the ox which went up to the altar and ate the offering on it was
sacrificed. The axe and knife with which the beast was slain had been
previously wetted with water brought by maidens called “water-carriers.”
The weapons were then sharpened and handed to the butchers, one of whom
felled the ox with the axe and another cut its throat with the knife. As
soon as he had felled the ox, the former threw the axe from him and fled;
and the man who cut the beast’s throat apparently imitated his example.
Meantime the ox was skinned and all present partook of its flesh. Then the
hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up; next the stuffed animal was set
on its feet and yoked to a plough as if it were ploughing. A trial then
took place in an ancient law-court presided over by the King (as he was
called) to determine who had murdered the ox. The maidens who had brought
the water accused the men who had sharpened the axe and knife; the men who
had sharpened the axe and knife blamed the men who had handed these
implements to the butchers; the men who had handed the implements to the
butchers blamed the butchers; and the butchers laid the blame on the axe
and knife, which were accordingly found guilty, condemned, and cast into
the sea.(151)
The name of this sacrifice,—“the _murder_ of the ox,”(152)—the pains taken
by each person who had a hand in the slaughter to lay the blame on some
one else, together with the formal trial and punishment of the axe or
knife or both, prove that the ox was here regarded not merely as a victim
offered to a god, but as itself a sacred creature, the slaughter of which
was sacrilege or murder. This is borne out by a statement of Varro that to
kill an ox was formerly a capital crime in Attica.(153) The mode of
selecting the victim suggests that the ox which tasted the corn was viewed
as the corn-deity taking possession of his own. This interpretation is
supported by the following custom. In Beauce, in the district of Orleans,
on the 24th or 25th of April they make a straw-man called “the great
_mondard_.” For they say that the old _mondard_ is now dead and it is
necessary to make a new one. The straw-man is carried in solemn procession
up and down the village and at last is placed upon the oldest apple-tree.
There he remains till the apples are gathered, when he is taken down and
thrown into the water, or he is burned and his ashes cast into water. But
the person who plucks the first fruit from the tree succeeds to the title
of “the great _mondard_.”(154). Here the straw figure, called “the great
_mondard_” and placed on the apple-tree in spring, represents the spirit
of the tree, who, dead in winter, revives when the apple-blossoms appear
in spring. The fact, therefore, that the person who plucks the first fruit
from the apple-tree receives the name of “the great _mondard_” proves that
he is regarded as a representative of the tree-spirit. Primitive peoples
are, as a rule, reluctant to taste the annual first-fruits of any crop,
until some ceremony has been performed which makes it safe and pious for
them to do so. The reason of this reluctance appears to be that the
first-fruits either are the property of, or actually contain, a divinity.
Therefore when a man or animal is seen boldly to appropriate the sacred
first-fruits, he or it is naturally regarded as the divinity himself in
human or animal form taking possession of his own. The time of the
Athenian sacrifice—about the close of the threshing—suggests that the
wheat and barley laid upon the altar were a harvest offering; and the
sacramental character of the subsequent repast—all partaking of the flesh
of the divine animal—would make it parallel to the harvest suppers of
modern Europe, in which, as we have seen, the flesh of the animal who
represents the corn-spirit is eaten by the harvesters. Again, the
tradition that the sacrifice was instituted in order to put an end to
drought and famine is in favour of taking it as a harvest festival. The
resurrection of the corn-spirit, represented by setting up the stuffed ox
and yoking it to the plough, may be compared with the resurrection of the
tree-spirit in the person of his representative, the Wild Man.(155)
The ox appears as a representative of the corn-spirit in other parts of
the world. At Great Bassam, in Guinea, two oxen are slain annually to
procure a good harvest. If the sacrifice is to be effectual, it is
necessary that the oxen should weep. So all the women of the village sit
in front of the beasts, chanting, “The ox will weep; yes, he will weep!”
From time to time one of the women walks round the beasts, throwing manioc
meal or palm wine upon them, especially into their eyes. When tears roll
down from the eyes of the oxen, the people dance, singing, “The ox weeps!
the ox weeps!” Then two men seize the tails of the beasts and cut them off
at one blow. It is believed that a great misfortune will happen in the
course of the year if the tails are not severed at one blow. The oxen are
afterwards killed, and their flesh is eaten by the chiefs.(156) Here the
tears of the oxen, like those of the human victims amongst the Khonds, are
probably a rain-charm. We have already seen that the virtue of the
corn-spirit, embodied in animal form, is sometimes supposed to reside in
the tail, and that the last handful of corn is sometimes conceived as the
tail of the corn-spirit.(157) Still more clearly does the ox appear as a
personification of the corn-spirit in a ceremony which is observed in all
the provinces and districts of China to welcome the approach of spring. On
the first day of spring the governor or prefect of the city goes in
procession to the east gate of the city, and sacrifices to the Divine
Husbandman, who is represented with a bull’s head on the body of a man. A
large effigy of an ox, cow, or buffalo has been prepared for the occasion,
and stands outside of the east gate, with agricultural implements beside
it. It is made of differently-coloured pieces of paper pasted on a
framework either by a blind man or according to the directions of a
necromancer. The colours of the paper indicate the character of the coming
year; if red prevails, there will be many fires; if white, there will be
floods and rain, etc. The mandarins walk slowly round the ox, beating it
severely at each step with rods of various colours. It is filled with five
kinds of grain, which pour forth when the ox is broken by the blows of the
rods. The paper fragments are then set on fire, and a scramble takes place
for the burning fragments, as the people believe that whoever gets one of
them is sure to be fortunate throughout the year. A live buffalo is then
killed, and its flesh is divided among the mandarins. According to one
account, the effigy of the ox is made of clay, and, after being beaten by
the governor, is stoned by the people till they break it in pieces, “from
which they expect an abundant year.”(158) Here the corn-spirit appears to
be plainly represented by the corn-filled ox, whose fragments may
therefore be supposed to bring fertility with them. We may compare the
Silesian spring custom of burning the effigy of Death, scrambling for the
burning fragments, and burying them in the fields to secure a good crop,
and the Florentine custom of sawing the Old Woman and scrambling for the
dried fruits with which she was filled.(159)
On the whole, then, we may perhaps conclude that both as a goat and as a
bull Dionysus was essentially a god of vegetation. The Chinese and
European customs just referred to may perhaps shed light on the custom of
rending a live bull or goat at the rites of Dionysus. The animal was torn
in fragments, as the Khond victim was cut in pieces, in order that the
worshippers might each secure a portion of the life-giving and fertilising
influence of the god. The flesh was eaten raw as a sacrament, and we may
conjecture that some of it was taken home to be buried in the fields, or
otherwise employed so as to convey to the fruits of the earth the
quickening influence of the god of vegetation. The resurrection of
Dionysus, related in his myth, may have been represented in his rites by
stuffing and setting up the slain ox, as was done at the Athenian
_bouphonia_.
Passing next to the corn-goddess Demeter, and remembering that in European
folk-lore the pig is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit,(160) we may
now ask, may not the pig, which was so closely associated with Demeter, be
nothing but the goddess herself in animal form? The pig was sacred to
her;(161) in art she was represented carrying or accompanied by a
pig;(162) and the pig was regularly sacrificed in her mysteries, the
reason assigned being that the pig injures the corn and is therefore an
enemy of the goddess.(163) But after an animal has been conceived as a god
or a god as an animal, it sometimes happens, as we have seen, that the god
sloughs off his animal form and becomes purely anthropomorphic; and that
then the animal, which at first had been slain in the character of the
god, comes to be regarded as a victim offered to the god on the ground of
its hostility to the deity; in short, that the god is sacrificed to
himself on the ground that he is his own enemy. This happened to Dionysus,
and it may have happened to Demeter also. And in fact the rites of one of
her festivals, the Thesmophoria, bear out the view that originally the pig
was an embodiment of the corn-goddess herself, either Demeter or her
daughter and double Proserpine. The Thesmophoria was an autumn festival,
celebrated by women alone in October,(164) and appears to have represented
with mourning rites the descent of Proserpine (or Demeter)(165) into the
lower world, and with joy her return from the dead.(166) Hence the name
Descent or Ascent variously applied to the first, and the name
_Kalligeneia_ (fair-born) applied to the third day of the festival. Now
from a scholion on Lucian, first edited in 1870,(167) we learn some
details about the mode of celebrating the Thesmophoria, which shed
important light on the part of the festival called the Descent or the
Ascent. The scholiast tells us that it was customary at the Thesmophoria
to throw pigs, cakes of dough, and branches of pine-trees into “the chasms
of Demeter and Proserpine,” which appear to have been sacred caverns or
vaults.(168) In these caverns or vaults there were said to be serpents,
which guarded the caverns and consumed most of the flesh of the pigs and
dough-cakes which were thrown in. Afterwards—apparently at the next annual
festival(169)—the decayed remains of the pigs, the cakes, and the
pine-branches were fetched by women called “drawers,” who, after observing
rules of ceremonial purity for three days, descended into the caverns,
and, frightening away the serpents by clapping their hands, brought up the
remains and placed them on the altar. Whoever got a piece of the decayed
flesh and cakes, and sowed it with the seed-corn in his field, was
believed to be sure of a good crop.
To explain this rude and ancient rite the following legend was told. At
the moment that Pluto carried off Proserpine, a swineherd called Eubuleus
was herding his swine on the spot, and his herd was engulfed in the chasm
down which Pluto vanished with Proserpine. Accordingly at the Thesmophoria
pigs were annually thrown into caverns in order to commemorate the
disappearance of the swine of Eubuleus. It follows from this that the
casting of the pigs into the vaults at the Thesmophoria formed part of the
dramatic representation of Proserpine’s descent into the lower world; and
as no image of Proserpine appears to have been thrown in, it follows that
the descent of the pigs must have been, not an accompaniment of her
descent, but the descent itself; in short, the pigs were Proserpine.
Afterwards when Proserpine or Demeter (for the two are equivalent) became
anthropomorphic, a reason had to be found for the custom of throwing pigs
into caverns at her festival; and this was done by saying that when
Proserpine was carried off, there happened to be some swine browsing near,
which were swallowed up along with her. The story is obviously a forced
and awkward attempt to bridge over the gulf between the old conception of
the corn-spirit as a pig and the new conception of her as an
anthropomorphic goddess. A trace of the older conception survived in the
legend that when Demeter was looking for the lost Proserpine, the
footprints of the latter were obliterated by the footprints of a pig;(170)
originally, no doubt, the footprints of the pig were the footprints of
Proserpine and of Demeter herself. A consciousness of the intimate
connection of the pig with the corn lurks in the tradition that the
swineherd Eubuleus was a brother of Triptolemus, to whom Demeter first
imparted the secret of the corn. Indeed, according to one version of the
story, Eubuleus himself received, jointly with his brother Triptolemus,
the gift of the corn from Demeter as a reward for revealing to her the
fate of Proserpine.(171) Further, it is to be noted that at the
Thesmophoria the women appear to have eaten swine’s flesh.(172) The meal,
if I am right, must have been a solemn sacrament or communion, the
worshippers partaking of the body of the god.
As thus explained, the Thesmophoria has its analogies in the folk-customs
of Northern Europe which have been already described. As at the
Thesmophoria—an autumn festival in honour of the corn-goddess—swine’s
flesh was partly eaten, partly kept in caverns till the following year,
when it was taken up to be sown with the seed-corn in the fields for the
purpose of securing a good crop; so in the neighbourhood of Grenoble the
goat killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten at the harvest supper,
partly pickled and kept till the next harvest;(173) so at Pouilly the ox
killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten by the harvesters, partly
pickled and kept till the first day of sowing in spring(174)—probably to
be then mixed with the seed, or eaten by the ploughmen, or both; so at
Udvarhely the feathers of the cock which is killed in the last sheaf at
harvest are kept till spring, and then sown with the seed on the
field;(175) so in Hessen and Meiningen the flesh of pigs is eaten on Ash
Wednesday or Candlemas, and the bones are kept till sowing-time, when they
are put into the field sown or mixed with the seed in the bag;(176) so,
lastly, the corn from the last sheaf is kept till Christmas, made into the
Yule Boar, and afterwards broken and mixed with the seed-corn at sowing in
spring.(177) Thus, to put it generally, the corn-spirit is killed in
animal form in autumn; part of his flesh is eaten as a sacrament by his
worshippers; and part of it is kept till next sowing-time or harvest as a
pledge and security for the continuance or renewal of the corn-spirit’s
energies. Whether in the interval between autumn and spring he is
conceived as dead, or whether, like the ox in the _bouphonia_, he is
supposed to come to life again immediately after being killed, is not
clear. At the Thesmophoria, according to Clement and Pausanias, as emended
by Lobeck,(178) the pigs were thrown in alive, and were supposed to
reappear at the festival of the following year. Here, therefore, if we
accept Lobeck’s emendations, the corn-spirit is conceived as alive
throughout the year; he lives and works under ground, but is brought up
each autumn to be renewed and then replaced in his subterranean
abode.(179)
If it is objected that the Greeks never could have conceived Demeter and
Proserpine to be embodied in the form of pigs, it may be answered that in
the cave of Phigalia in Arcadia the Black Demeter was represented with the
head and mane of a horse on the body of a woman.(180) Between the
representation of a goddess as a pig, and the representation of her as a
woman with a horse’s head, there is little to choose in respect of
barbarism. The legend told of the Phigalian Demeter indicates that the
horse was one of the animal forms assumed in ancient Greece, as in modern
Europe,(181) by the corn-spirit. It was said that in her search for her
daughter, Demeter assumed the form of a mare to escape the addresses of
Poseidon, and that, offended at his importunity, she withdrew to the cave
of Phigalia. There, robed in black, she stayed so long that the fruits of
the earth were perishing, and mankind would have died of famine if Pan had
not soothed the angry goddess and persuaded her to quit the cave. In
memory of this event, the Phigalians set up an image of the Black Demeter
in the cave; it represented a woman dressed in a long robe, with the head
and mane of a horse.(182) The Black Demeter, in whose absence the fruits
of the earth perish, is plainly a mythical expression for the state of
vegetation in winter.
Passing now to Attis and Adonis, we may note a few facts which seem to
show that these deities of vegetation had also, like other deities of
vegetation, their animal embodiments. The worshippers of Attis abstained
from eating the flesh of swine.(183) This fact is certainly in favour of
supposing that the pig was regarded as an embodiment of Attis. And the
legend that Attis was killed by a boar(184) points in the same direction.
For after the examples of the goat Dionysus and the pig Demeter it may
almost be laid down as a rule that an animal which is said to have injured
a god was originally the god himself. Perhaps the cry of “Hyes Attes! Hyes
Attes!”(185) which was raised by the worshippers of Attis, may be neither
more nor less than “Pig Attis! Pig Attis!”—_hyes_ being possibly a
Phrygian form of the Greek _hȳs_, “a pig.”
In regard to Adonis, his connection with the boar was not always explained
by the story that he was killed by a boar. According to another story, a
boar rent with his tusk the bark of the tree in which the infant Adonis
was born.(186) According to another story, he was killed by Hephaestus on
Mount Lebanon while he was hunting wild boars.(187) These variations in
the legend serve to show that, while the connection of the boar with
Adonis was certain, the reason of the connection was not understood, and
that consequently different stories were devised to explain it. Certainly
the pig was one of the sacred animals of the Syrians. At the great
religious metropolis of Hierapolis pigs were neither sacrificed nor eaten,
and if a man touched a pig he was unclean for the rest of the day. Some
people said this was because the pigs were unclean; others said it was
because the pigs were sacred.(188) This difference of opinion points to a
state of religious thought and feeling in which the ideas of sanctity and
uncleanness are not yet differentiated, and which is best indicated by the
word taboo. It is quite consistent with this that the pig should have been
held to be an embodiment of the divine Adonis, and the analogies of
Dionysus and Demeter make it probable that the story of the hostility of
the animal to the god was only a modern misunderstanding of the old view
of the god as embodied in a pig. The rule that pigs were not sacrificed or
eaten by worshippers of Attis and presumably of Adonis, does not exclude
the possibility that in these cults the pig was slain on solemn occasions
as a representative of the god and consumed sacramentally by the
worshippers. Indeed, the sacramental killing and eating of an animal, that
is the killing and eating it as a god, implies that the animal is sacred,
and is, as a general rule, not killed.(189)
The attitude of the Jews to the pig was as ambiguous as that of the
heathen Syrians towards the same animal. The Greeks could not decide
whether the Jews worshipped swine or abominated them. On the one hand they
might not eat swine; but on the other hand they might not kill them.(190)
And if the former rule speaks for the uncleanness, the latter speaks still
more strongly for the sanctity of the animal. For whereas both rules may,
and one rule must, be explained on the supposition that the pig was
sacred; neither rule must, and one rule cannot, be explained on the
supposition that the pig was unclean. If, therefore, we prefer the former
supposition, we must conclude that, originally at least, the pig was held
to be sacred rather than unclean by the Israelites. This is confirmed by
the fact that down to the time of Isaiah some of the Jews used to meet
secretly in gardens to eat the flesh of swine and mice as a religious
rite.(191) Doubtless this was a very ancient rite, dating from a time when
both the pig and the mouse were venerated as divine, and when their flesh
was partaken of sacramentally on rare and solemn occasions as the body and
blood of gods. And in general it may be said that all so-called unclean
animals were originally sacred; the reason why they were not eaten was
that they were divine.
In ancient Egypt, within historical times, the pig occupied the same
dubious position as in Syria and Palestine, though at first sight its
uncleanness is more prominent than its sanctity. The Egyptians are
generally said by Greek writers to have abhorred the pig as a foul and
loathsome animal.(192) If a man so much as touched a pig in passing, he
stepped into the river with all his clothes on, to wash off the
taint.(193) To drink pig’s milk was believed to cause leprosy to the
drinker.(194) Swineherds, though natives of Egypt, were forbidden to enter
any temple, and they were the only men who were thus excluded. No one
would give his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or marry a swineherd’s
daughter; the swineherds married among themselves.(195) Yet once a year
the Egyptians sacrificed pigs to the moon and to Osiris, and not only
sacrificed them, but ate of their flesh, though on any other day of the
year they would neither sacrifice them nor taste of their flesh. Those who
were too poor to offer a pig on this day baked cakes of dough, and offered
them instead.(196) This can hardly be explained except by the supposition
that the pig was a sacred animal which was eaten sacramentally by his
worshippers once a year. The view that in Egypt the pig was a sacred
animal is borne out by the very facts which, to moderns, might seem to
prove the contrary. Thus the Egyptians thought, as we have seen, that to
drink pig’s milk produced leprosy. But exactly analogous views are held by
savages about the animals and plants which they deem most sacred. Thus in
the island of Wetar (between New Guinea and Celebes) people believe
themselves to be variously descended from wild pigs, serpents, crocodiles,
turtles, dogs, and eels; a man may not eat an animal of the kind from
which he is descended; if he does so, he will become a leper, and go
mad.(197) Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America men whose totem
(sacred animal or plant) is the elk, believe that if they ate the flesh of
the male elk they would break out in boils and white spots in different
parts of their bodies.(198) In the same tribe men whose totem is the red
maize, think that if they ate red maize they would have running sores all
round their mouths.(199) The Bush negroes of Surinam, who have totemism,
believe that if they ate the _capiaï_ (an animal like a pig) it would give
them leprosy;(200) probably the _capiaï_ is one of their totems. In Samoa
each man had generally his god in the shape of some species of animal; and
if he ate one of these divine animals, it was supposed that the god
avenged himself by taking up his abode in the eater’s body, and there
generating an animal of the kind he had eaten till it caused his death.
For example, if a man whose god was the prickly sea-urchin, ate one of
these creatures, a prickly sea-urchin grew in his stomach and killed him.
If his god was an eel, and he ate an eel, he became very ill, and before
he died the voice of the god was heard from his stomach saying, “I am
killing this man; he ate my incarnation.”(201) These examples prove that
the eating of a sacred animal is often believed to produce skin-disease or
even death; so far, therefore, they support the view that the pig must
have been sacred in Egypt, since the effect of drinking its milk was
believed to be leprosy.
Again, the rule that, after touching a pig, a man had to wash himself and
his clothes, also favours the view of the sanctity of the pig. For it is a
common belief that the effect of contact with a sacred object must be
removed, by washing or otherwise, before a man is free to mingle with his
fellows. Thus the Jews wash their hands after reading the sacred
scriptures. Before coming forth from the tabernacle after the
sin-offering, the high priest had to wash himself, and put off the
garments which he had worn in the holy place.(202) It was a rule of Greek
ritual that, in offering an expiatory sacrifice, the sacrificer should not
touch the sacrifice, and that, after the offering was made, he must wash
his body and his clothes in a river or spring before he could enter a city
or his own house.(203) The Polynesians felt strongly the need of ridding
themselves of the sacred contagion, if it may be so called, which they
caught by touching sacred objects. Various ceremonies were performed for
the purpose of removing this sacred contagion. For example, in Tonga a man
who happened to touch a sacred chief, or anything personally belonging to
him, as his clothes or his mat, was obliged to go through the ceremony of
touching the soles of the chief’s (or of any chief’s) feet with his hands,
first applying the palm and then the back of each hand; next he had to
rinse his hands in water, or, if there was no water near, the sap of the
plantain or banana-tree might be used as a substitute. If he were to feed
himself with his hands before he performed this ceremony, it was believed
that he would swell up and die, or at least be afflicted with scrofula or
some other disease.(204) We have already seen what fatal effects are
supposed to follow, and do actually follow, from contact with a sacred
object in New Zealand.(205) In short, primitive man believes that what is
sacred is dangerous; it is pervaded by a sort of electrical sanctity which
communicates a shock to, even if it does not kill, whatever comes in
contact with it. Hence the savage is unwilling to touch or even to see
that which he deems peculiarly holy. Thus Bechuanas, of the Crocodile
clan, think it “hateful and unlucky” to meet or see a crocodile; the sight
is thought to cause inflammation of the eyes. Yet the crocodile is their
most sacred object; they call it their father, swear by it, and celebrate
it in their festivals.(206) The goat is the sacred animal of the
Madenassana Bushmen; yet “to look upon it would be to render the man for
the time impure, as well as to cause him undefined uneasiness.”(207) The
Elk clan, among the Omaha Indians, believe that even to touch the male elk
would be followed by an eruption of boils and white spots on the
body.(208) Members of the Reptile clan in the same tribe think that if one
of them touches or smells a snake, it will make his hair white.(209) In
Samoa people whose god was a butterfly believed that if they caught a
butterfly it would strike them dead.(210) Again, in Samoa the
reddish-seared leaves of the banana-tree were commonly used as plates for
handing food; but if any member of the Wild Pigeon clan had used banana
leaves for this purpose, it was believed that he would have suffered from
rheumatic swellings or an eruption all over the body like
chicken-pox.(211)
In the light of these parallels the beliefs and customs of the Egyptians
touching the pig are probably to be explained as based upon an opinion of
the extreme sanctity rather than of the extreme uncleanness of the animal;
or rather, to put it more correctly, they imply that the animal was looked
on, not simply as a filthy and disgusting creature, but as a being endowed
with high supernatural powers, and that as such it was regarded with that
primitive sentiment of religious awe and fear in which the feelings of
reverence and abhorrence are almost equally blended. The ancients
themselves seem to have been aware that there was another side to the
horror with which swine seemed to inspire the Egyptians. For the Greek
astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus, who resided fourteen months in Egypt
and conversed with the priests,(212) was of opinion that the Egyptians
spared the pig, not out of abhorrence, but from a regard to its utility in
agriculture; for, according to him, when the Nile had subsided, herds of
swine were turned loose over the fields to tread the seed down into the
moist earth.(213) But when a being is thus the object of mixed and
implicitly contradictory feelings, he may be said to occupy a position of
unstable equilibrium. In course of time one of the contradictory feelings
is likely to prevail over the other, and according as the feeling which
finally predominates is that of reverence or abhorrence, the being who is
the object of it will rise into a god or sink into a devil. The latter, on
the whole, was the fate of the pig in Egypt. For in historical times the
fear and horror of the pig seem certainly to have outweighed the reverence
and worship of which he must once have been the object, and of which, even
in his fallen state, he never quite lost trace. He came to be looked on as
an embodiment of Set or Typhon, the Egyptian devil and enemy of Osiris.
For it was in the shape of a boar that Typhon menaced the eye of the god
Horus, who burned him and instituted the sacrifice of the pig, the sun-god
Ra having declared the pig abominable.(214) Again, the story that Typhon
was hunting a boar when he discovered and mangled the body of Osiris, and
that this was the reason why the pig was sacrificed once a year,(215) is a
transparent modernisation of an older story that Osiris, like Adonis and
Attis, was slain or mangled by a boar, or by Typhon in the form of a boar.
Thus, the annual sacrifice of a pig to Osiris might naturally be
interpreted as vengeance inflicted on the hostile animal that had slain or
mangled the god. But, in the first place, when an animal is thus killed as
a solemn sacrifice once and once only in the year, it generally or always
means that the animal is divine—that he is spared and respected the rest
of the year as a god and slain, when he is slain, also in the character of
a god.(216) In the second place, the examples of Dionysus and Demeter, if
not of Attis and Adonis, have taught us that the animal which is
sacrificed to a god on the ground that he is the god’s enemy may have
been, and probably was, originally the god himself. Therefore, the fact
that the pig was sacrificed once a year to Osiris, and the fact that he
appears to have been sacrificed on the ground that he was the god’s enemy,
go to show, first, that originally the pig was a god, and, second, that he
was Osiris. At a later age the pig was distinguished from Osiris when the
latter became anthropomorphic and his original relation to the pig was
forgotten; later still, the pig was opposed as an enemy to Osiris by
mythologists who could think of no reason for killing an animal in
connection with the worship of a god except that the animal was the god’s
enemy; or, as Plutarch puts it, not that which is dear to the gods, but
that which is the contrary, is fit to be sacrificed.(217) At this later
stage the havoc which a wild boar notoriously makes amongst the corn would
supply a plausible reason for regarding him as an enemy of the
corn-spirit, though originally, if I am right, the very fact that the boar
was found ranging at will through the corn was the reason for identifying
him with the corn-spirit, to whom he was afterwards opposed as an enemy.
The view which identifies the pig with Osiris derives not a little support
from the fact that the day on which the pigs were sacrificed to him was
the day on which, according to tradition, Osiris was killed;(218) for thus
the killing of the pig was the annual representation of the killing of
Osiris, just as the throwing of the pigs into the caverns at the
Thesmophoria was an annual representation of the descent of Proserpine
into the lower world; and both customs are parallel to the European
practice of killing a goat, cock, etc., at harvest as a representative of
the corn-spirit.
Again, the view that the pig, originally Osiris himself, afterwards came
to be regarded as an embodiment of his enemy Typhon, is supported by the
similar relation of red-haired men and red oxen to Typhon. For in regard
to the red-haired men who were burned and whose ashes were scattered with
winnowing-fans, we have seen fair grounds for believing that originally,
like the red-haired puppies killed at Rome in spring, they were
representatives of the corn-spirit himself, that is, of Osiris, and were
slain for the express purpose of making the corn turn red or golden.
Yet at a later time these men were explained to be representatives, not of
Osiris, but of his enemy Typhon,(219) and the killing of them was regarded
as an act of vengeance inflicted on the enemy of the god. Similarly, the
red oxen sacrificed by the Egyptians were said to be sacrificed on the
ground of their resemblance to Typhon;(220) though it is more likely that
originally they were slain on the ground of their resemblance to the
corn-spirit Osiris. We have seen that the ox is a common representative of
the corn-spirit and is slain as such on the harvest-field.
Osiris was regularly identified with the bull Apis of Memphis and the bull
Mnevis of Heliopolis.(221) But it is hard to say whether these bulls were
embodiments of him as the corn-spirit, as the red oxen appear to have
been, or whether they were not rather entirely distinct deities which got
fused with Osiris by syncretism. The fact that these two bulls were
worshipped by _all_ the Egyptians,(222) seems to put them on a different
footing from the ordinary sacred animals whose cults were purely local.
Hence, if the latter were evolved from totems, as they probably were, some
other origin would have to be found for the worship of Apis and Mnevis. If
these bulls were not originally embodiments of the corn-god Osiris, they
may possibly be descendants of the sacred cattle worshipped by a pastoral
people.(223) If this were so, ancient Egypt would exhibit a stratification
of the three great types of religion corresponding to the three great
stages of society. Totemism or (roughly speaking) the worship of wild
animals—the religion of society in the hunting stage—would be represented
by the worship of the local sacred animals; the worship of cattle—the
religion of society in the pastoral stage—would be represented by the
cults of Apis and Mnevis; and the worship of cultivated plants, especially
of corn—the religion of society in the agricultural stage—would be
represented by the worship of Osiris and Isis. The Egyptian reverence for
cows, which were never killed,(224) might belong either to the second or
third of these stages. The fact that cows were regarded as sacred to, that
is, as embodiments of Isis, who was represented with cow’s horns, would
indicate that they, like the red oxen, were embodiments of the
corn-spirit. However, this identification of Isis with the cow, like that
of Osiris with the bulls Apis and Mnevis, may be only an effect of
syncretism. But whatever the original relation of Apis to Osiris may have
been, there is one fact about the former which ought not to be passed over
in a chapter dealing with the custom of killing the god. Although the bull
Apis was worshipped as a god with much pomp and profound reverence, he was
not suffered to live beyond a certain length of time which was prescribed
by the sacred books, and on the expiry of which he was drowned in a holy
spring.(225) The limit, according to Plutarch, was twenty-five years;(226)
but it cannot always have been enforced, for the tombs of the Apis bulls
have been discovered in the present century, and from the inscriptions on
them it appears that in the twenty-second dynasty two bulls lived more
than twenty-six years.(227)
We are now in a position to hazard a conjecture—for it can be little
more—as to the meaning of the tradition that Virbius, the first of the
divine Kings of the Wood at Aricia, was killed by horses. Having found,
first, that spirits of vegetation are not infrequently represented in the
form of horses;(228) and, second, that the animal which in later legends
is said to have injured the god was sometimes originally the god himself,
we may conjecture that the horses by which Virbius was said to have been
slain were really embodiments of him as a deity of vegetation. The myth
that Virbius had been killed by horses was probably invented to explain
certain features in his cult, amongst others the custom of excluding
horses from his sacred grove. For myth changes while custom remains
constant; men continue to do what their fathers did before them, though
the reasons on which their fathers acted have been long forgotten. The
history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new
reason; to find a sound theory for an absurd practice. In the case before
us we may be sure that the myth is more modern than the custom and by no
means represents the original reason for excluding horses from the grove.
From the fact that horses were so excluded it might be inferred that they
could not be the sacred animals or embodiments of the god of the grove.
But the inference would be rash. The goat was at one time a sacred animal
or embodiment of Athene, as may be inferred from the practice of
representing her clad in a goat-skin (_aegis_). Yet the goat was neither
sacrificed to her as a rule, nor allowed to enter her great sanctuary, the
Acropolis at Athens. The reason alleged for this was that the goat injured
the olive, the sacred tree of Athene.(229) So far, therefore, the relation
of the goat to Athene is parallel to the relation of the horse to Virbius,
both animals being excluded from the sanctuary on the ground of injury
done by them to the god. But from Varro we learn that there was an
exception to the rule which excluded the goat from the Acropolis. Once a
year, he says, the goat was driven on to the Acropolis for a necessary
sacrifice.(230) Now, as has been remarked before, when an animal is
sacrificed once and once only in the year, it is probably slain, not as a
victim offered to the god, but as a representative of the god himself.
Therefore we may infer that if a goat was sacrificed on the Acropolis once
a year, it was sacrificed in the character of Athene herself; and it may
be conjectured that the skin of the sacrificed animal was placed on the
statue of the goddess and formed the _aegis_, which would thus be renewed
annually. Similarly at Thebes in Egypt rams were sacred and were not
sacrificed. But on one day in the year a ram was killed, and its skin was
placed on the statue of the god Ammon.(231) Now, if we knew the ritual of
the Arician grove better, we might find the rule of excluding horses from
it, like the rule of excluding goats from the Acropolis at Athens, was
subject to an annual exception, a horse being once a year taken into the
grove and sacrificed as an embodiment of the god Virbius. By the usual
misunderstanding the horse thus killed would come in time to be regarded
as an enemy offered up in sacrifice to the god whom he had injured, like
the pig which was sacrificed to Demeter and Osiris or the goat which was
sacrificed to Athene and Dionysus. It is so easy for a writer to record a
rule without noticing an exception that we need not wonder at finding the
rule of the Arician grove recorded without any mention of an exception
such as I suppose. If we had had only the statements of Athenaeus and
Pliny, we should have known only the rule which forbade the sacrifice of
goats to Athene and excluded them from the Acropolis, without being aware
of the important exception which the fortunate preservation of Varro’s
work has revealed to us.
The conjecture that once a year a horse may have been sacrificed in the
Arician grove as a representative of the deity of the grove derives some
support from the fact that a horse sacrifice of a similar character took
place once a year at Rome. On the 15th of October in each year a
chariot-race took place on the Field of Mars. The right-hand horse of the
victorious team was sacrificed to Mars by being stabbed with a spear. The
object of the sacrifice was to ensure good crops. The animal’s head was
cut off and adorned with a string of loaves. The inhabitants of two
wards—the Sacred Way and the Subura—then contended with each other who
should get the head. If the people of the Sacred Way got it, they fastened
it to a wall of the king’s house; if the people of the Subura got it, they
fastened it to the Mamilian tower. The horse’s tail was cut off and
carried to the king’s house with such speed that the blood dripped on the
hearth of the house.(232) Further, it appears that the blood of the horse
was caught and preserved till the 21st of April, when it was mixed by the
Vestal virgins with the blood of the unborn calves which had been
sacrificed six days before. The mixture was then distributed to shepherds,
and used by them for fumigating their flocks.(233)
In this ceremony the decoration of the horse’s head with a string of
loaves, and the alleged object of the sacrifice, namely, to procure a good
harvest, clearly indicate that the horse was killed as one of those animal
representatives of the corn-spirit of which we have seen so many examples.
The custom of cutting off the horse’s tail is like the African custom of
cutting off the tails of the oxen and sacrificing them to obtain a good
crop.(234) In both the Roman and the African custom the animal represents
the corn-spirit; and its fructifying power is supposed to reside
especially in its tail. The latter idea occurs, as we have seen, in
European folk-lore.(235) Again, the custom of fumigating the cattle in
spring with the blood of the horse may be compared with the custom of
giving the Maiden as fodder to the cattle at Christmas, and giving the
Yule Boar to the ploughing oxen or horses to eat in spring.(236) All these
customs aim at ensuring the blessing of the corn-spirit on the homestead
and its inmates and storing it up for another year.
The Roman sacrifice of the October horse, as it was called, carries us
back to the early days when the Subura, afterwards a low and crowded
quarter of the great metropolis, was still a separate village, whose
inhabitants engaged in a friendly contest on the harvest-field with their
neighbours of Rome, then a little rural town. The Field of Mars on which
the ceremony took place lay beside the Tiber, and formed part of the
king’s domain down to the abolition of the monarchy. For tradition ran
that at the time when the last of the kings was driven from Rome, the corn
stood ripe for the sickle on the crown lands beside the river; but no one
would eat the accursed grain and it was flung into the river in such heaps
that, the water being low with the summer heat, it formed the nucleus of
an island.(237) The horse sacrifice was thus an old autumn custom observed
upon the king’s corn-fields at the end of the harvest. The tail and blood
of the horse, as the chief parts of the corn-spirit’s representative, were
taken to the king’s house and kept there; just as in Germany the
harvest-cock is nailed on the gable or over the door of the farmhouse; and
as the last sheaf, in the form of the Maiden, is carried home and kept
over the fireplace in the Highlands of Scotland. Thus the blessing of the
corn-spirit was brought to the king’s house and hearth and, through them,
to the community of which he was the head. Similarly in the spring and
autumn customs of Northern Europe the May-pole is sometimes set up in
front of the house of the mayor or burgomaster, and the last sheaf at
harvest is brought to him as the head of the village. But while the tail
and blood fell to the king, the neighbouring village of the Subura, which
no doubt once had a similar ceremony of its own, was gratified by being
allowed to compete for the prize of the horse’s head. The Mamilian tower
to which the Suburans nailed the horse’s head when they succeeded in
carrying it off, appears to have been a peel-tower or keep of the old
Mamilian family, the magnates of the village.(238) The ceremony thus
performed on the king’s fields and at his house on behalf of the whole
town and of the neighbouring village presupposes a time when each commune
performed a similar ceremony on its own fields. In the rural districts of
Latium the villages may have continued to observe the custom, each on its
own land, long after the Roman hamlets had merged their separate
harvest-homes in the common celebration on the king’s lands.(239) There is
no intrinsic improbability in the supposition that the sacred grove of
Aricia, like the Field of Mars at Rome, may have been the scene of a
common harvest celebration, at which a horse was sacrificed with the same
rude rites on behalf of the neighbouring villages. The horse would
represent the fructifying spirit both of the tree and of the corn, for the
two ideas melt into each other, as we see in customs like the Harvest-May.
§ 11.—Eating the god.
We have now seen that the corn-spirit is represented sometimes in human,
sometimes in animal form, and that in both cases he is killed in the
person of his representative and eaten sacramentally. To find examples of
actually killing the human representative of the corn-spirit we had of
course to go to savage races; but the harvest suppers of our European
peasants have furnished unmistakable examples of the sacramental eating of
animals as representatives of the corn-spirit. But further, as might have
been anticipated, the new corn is itself eaten sacramentally, that is, as
the body of the corn-spirit. In Wermland, Sweden, the farmer’s wife uses
the grain of the last sheaf to bake a loaf in the shape of a little girl;
this loaf is divided amongst the whole household and eaten by them.(240)
Here the loaf represents the corn-spirit conceived as a maiden; just as in
Scotland the corn-spirit is similarly conceived and represented by the
last sheaf made up in the form of a woman and bearing the name of the
Maiden. As usual, the corn-spirit is believed to reside in the last sheaf;
and to eat a loaf made from the last sheaf is, therefore, to eat the
corn-spirit itself. Similarly at La Palisse in France a man made of dough
is hung upon the fir-tree which is carried on the last harvest-waggon. The
tree and the dough-man are taken to the mayor’s house and kept there till
the vintage is over. Then the close of the harvest is celebrated by a
feast at which the mayor breaks the dough-man in pieces and gives the
pieces to the people to eat.(241)
In these examples the corn-spirit is represented and eaten in human shape.
In other cases, though the new corn is not baked in loaves of human shape,
still the solemn ceremonies with which it is eaten suffice to indicate
that it is partaken of sacramentally, that is, as the body of the
corn-spirit. For example, the following ceremonies used to be observed by
Lithuanian peasants at eating the new corn. When the harvest and the
sowing of the new corn were over, each farmer held a festival called
Sabarios, that is, “the mixing or throwing together.” He took a handful of
each kind of grain—wheat, barley, oats, flax, beans, lentils, etc.; and
each handful he divided into three parts. The twenty-seven portions of
each grain were then thrown on a heap and all mixed up together. The grain
used had to be the grain which was first threshed and winnowed and which
had been set aside and kept for this purpose. A part of the grain thus
mixed was used to bake little loaves, one for each of the household; the
rest was mixed with more barley or oats and made into beer. The first beer
brewed from this mixture was for the drinking of the farmer, his wife, and
children; the second brew was for the servants. The beer being ready, the
farmer chose an evening when no stranger was expected. Then he knelt down
before the barrel of beer, drew a jugful of the liquor and poured it on
the bung of the barrel, saying, “O fruitful earth, make rye and barley and
all kinds of corn to flourish.” Next he took the jug to the parlour, where
his wife and children awaited him. On the floor of the parlour lay bound a
black or white or speckled (not a red) cock and a hen of the same colour
and of the same brood, which must have been hatched within the year. Then
the farmer knelt down, with the jug in his hand, and thanked God for the
harvest and prayed for a good crop next year. Then all lifted up their
hands and said, “O God, and thou, O earth, we give you this cock and hen
as a free-will offering.” With that the farmer killed the fowls with the
blows of a wooden spoon, for he might not cut their heads off. After the
first prayer and after killing each of the birds he poured out a third of
the beer. Then his wife boiled the fowls in a new pot which had never been
used before. A bushel was then set, bottom upwards, on the floor, and on
it were placed the little loaves mentioned above and the boiled fowls.
Next the new beer was fetched, together with a ladle and three mugs, none
of which was used except on this occasion. When the farmer had ladled the
beer into the mugs, the family knelt down round the bushel. The father
then uttered a prayer and drank off the three mugs of beer. The rest
followed his example. Then the loaves and the flesh of the fowls were
eaten, after which the beer went round again, till every one had emptied
each of the three mugs nine times. None of the food should remain over;
but if anything did happen to be left, it was consumed next morning with
the same ceremonies. The bones were then given to the dog to eat; if he
did not eat them all up, the remains were buried under the dung in the
cattle-stall. This ceremony was observed at the beginning of December. On
the day on which it occurred no bad word might be spoken.(242)
Such was the custom about two hundred years ago. At the present day in
Lithuania, when new potatoes or loaves made from the new corn are being
eaten, all the people at table pull each other’s hair.(243) The meaning of
the latter custom is obscure, but a similar custom was certainly observed
by the heathen Lithuanians at their solemn sacrifices.(244) Many of the
Esthonians of the island of Oesel will not eat bread baked of the new corn
till they have first taken a bite at a piece of iron.(245) The iron is
here plainly a charm, intended to render harmless the spirit that is in
the corn.(246) In Sutherlandshire at the present day, when the new
potatoes are dug all the family must taste them, otherwise “the spirits in
them [the potatoes] take offence, and the potatoes would not keep.”(247)
In one part of Yorkshire it is still the custom for the clergyman to cut
the first corn; and my informant believes that the corn so cut is used to
make the communion bread.(248) If the latter part of the custom is
correctly reported (and analogy is all in its favour), it shows how the
Christian communion has absorbed within itself a sacrament which is
doubtless far older than Christianity.