The Golden Bough (1890)/Chapter 3/Section 8

by James George Frazer

 

§ 8.—Demeter and Proserpine

The Greek myth of Demeter and Proserpine is substantially identical with the Syrian myth of Aphrodite (Astarte) and Adonis, the Phrygian myth of Cybele and Attis, and the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris. In the Greek myth, as in its Asiatic and Egyptian counterparts, a goddess—Demeter—mourns the loss of a loved one—Proserpine—who personifies the vegetation, more especially the corn, which dies in summer^[1] to revive in spring. But in the Greek myth the loved and lost one is the daughter instead of the husband or lover of the goddess; and the mother as well as the daughter is a goddess of the corn.^[2] Thus, as modern scholars have recognised,^[3] Demeter and Proserpine are merely a mythical reduplication of the same natural phenomenon. Proserpine, so ran the Greek myth,^[4] was gathering flowers when the earth gaped, and Pluto, lord of the Dead, issuing from the abyss, carried her off on his golden car to be his bride in the gloomy subterranean world. Her sorrowing mother Demeter sought her over land and sea, and learning from the Sun her daughter’s fate, she suffered not the seed to grow, but kept it hidden in the ground, so that the whole race of men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not sent and fetched Proserpine from the nether world. Finally it was agreed that Proserpine should spend a third, or according to others a half,^[5] of each year with Pluto underground, but should come forth in spring to dwell with her mother and the gods in the upper world. Her annual death and resurrection, that is, her annual descent into the under world and her ascension from it, appear to have been represented in her rites.^[6]

With regard to the name Demeter, it has been plausibly argued by Mannhardt^[7] that the first part of the word is derived from dēai, a Cretan word for “barley”;^[8] and that thus Demeter means the Barley-mother or the Corn-mother; for the root of the word appears to have been applied to different kinds of grain by different branches of the Aryans, and even of the Greeks themselves.^[9] As Crete appears to have been one of the most ancient seats of the worship of Demeter,^[10] it is not surprising that her name should be of Cretan origin. This explanation of the name Demeter is supported by a host of analogies which the diligence of Mannhardt has collected from modern European folk-lore, and of which the following are specimens. In Germany the corn is very commonly personified under the name of the Corn-mother. Thus in spring, when the wind sets the corn in wave-like motion, the peasants say, “There comes the Corn-mother,” or “The Corn-mother is running over the field,” or “The Corn-mother is going through the corn.”^[11] When children wish to go into the fields to pull the blue corn-flowers or the red poppies, they are told not to do so, because the Corn-mother is sitting in the corn and will catch them.^[12] Or again she is called, according to the crop, the Rye-mother or the Pea-mother, and children are warned against straying in the rye or among the peas by threats of the Rye-mother or the Pea-mother. In Norway also the Pea-mother is said to sit among the peas.^[13] Similar expressions are current among the Slavs. The Poles and Czechs warn children against the Corn-mother who sits in the corn. Or they call her the Old Corn-woman, and say that she sits in the corn and strangles the children who tread it down.^[14] The Lithuanians say, “The Old Rye-woman sits in the corn.”^[15] Again the Corn-mother is believed to make the crop grow. Thus in the neighbourhood of Magdeburg it is sometimes said, “It will be a good year for flax; the Flax-mother has been seen.” At Dinkelsbühl (Bavaria) down to fifteen or twenty years ago, people believed that when the crops on a particular farm compared unfavourably with those of the neighbourhood, the reason was that the Corn-mother had punished the farmer for his sins.^[16] In a village of Styria it is said that the Corn-mother, in the shape of a female puppet made out of the last sheaf of corn and dressed in white, may be seen at midnight in the corn-fields, which she fertilises by passing through them; but if she is angry with a farmer, she withers up all his corn.^[17]

Further, the Corn-mother plays an important part in harvest customs. She is believed to be present in the handful of corn which is left standing last on the field; and with the cutting of this last handful she is caught, or driven away, or killed. In the first of these cases, the last sheaf is carried joyfully home and honoured as a divine being. It is placed in the barn, and at threshing the corn-spirit appears again.^[18] In the district of Hadeln (Hanover) the reapers stand round the last sheaf and beat it with sticks in order to drive the Corn-mother out of it. They call to each other, “There she is! hit her! Take care she doesn’t catch you!” The beating goes on till the grain is completely threshed out; then the Corn-mother is believed to be driven away.^[19] In the neighbourhood of Danzig the person who cuts the last ears of corn makes them into a doll, which is called the Corn-mother or the Old Woman, and is brought home on the last waggon.^[20] In some parts of Holstein the last sheaf is dressed in woman’s clothes and called the Corn-mother. It is carried home on the last waggon, and then thoroughly drenched with water. The drenching with water is doubtless a rain-charm.^[21] In the district of Bruck in Styria the last sheaf, called the Corn-mother, is made up into the shape of a woman by the oldest married woman in the village, of an age from fifty to fifty-five years. The finest ears are plucked out of it and made into a wreath, which, twined with flowers, is carried on her head by the prettiest girl of the village to the farmer or squire, while the Corn-mother is laid down in the barn to keep off the mice.^[22] In other villages of the same district the Corn-mother, at the close of harvest, is carried by two lads at the top of a pole. They march behind the girl who wears the wreath to the squire’s house, and while he receives the wreath and hangs it up in the hall, the Corn-mother is placed on the top of a pile of wood, where she is the centre of the harvest supper and dance. Afterwards she is hung up in the barn and remains there till the threshing is over. The man who gives the last stroke at threshing is called the son of the Corn-mother; he is tied up in the Corn-mother, beaten, and carried through the village. The wreath is dedicated in church on the following Sunday; and on Easter Eve the grain is rubbed out of it by a seven years’ old girl and scattered amongst the young corn. At Christmas the straw of the wreath is placed in the manger to make the cattle thrive.^[23] Here the fertilising power of the Corn-mother is plainly brought out by scattering the seed taken from her body (for the wreath is made out of the Corn-mother) among the new corn; and her influence over animal life is indicated by placing the straw in the manger. At Westerhüsen in Saxony the last corn cut is made in the shape of a woman decked with ribbons and cloth. It is fastened on a pole and brought home on the last waggon. One of the people on the waggon keeps waving the pole, so that the figure moves as if alive. It is placed on the threshing-floor, and stays there till the threshing is done.^[24] Amongst the Slavs also the last sheaf is known as the Rye-mother, the Wheat-mother, the Oats-mother, the Barley-mother, etc., according to the crop. In the district of Tarnow, Galicia, the wreath made out of the last stalks is called the Wheat-mother, Rye-mother, or Pea-mother. It is placed on a girl’s head and kept till spring, when some of the grain is mixed with the seed-corn.^[25] Here again the fertilising power of the Corn-mother is indicated. In France, also, in the neighbourhood of Auxerre, the last sheaf goes by the name of the Mother of the Wheat, Mother of the Barley, Mother of the Rye, or Mother of the Oats. It is left standing in the field till the last waggon is about to wend homewards. Then a puppet is made out of it, dressed with clothes belonging to the farmer, and adorned with a crown and a blue or white scarf. A branch of a tree is stuck in the breast of the puppet, which is now called the Ceres. At the dance in the evening the Ceres is placed in the middle of the floor, and the reaper who reaped fastest dances round it with the prettiest girl for his partner. After the dance a pyre is made. All the girls, each wearing a wreath, strip the puppet, pull it to pieces, and place it on the pyre, along with the flowers with which it was adorned. Then the girl who was the first to finish reaping sets fire to the pile, and all pray that Ceres may give a fruitful year. Here, as Mannhardt observes, the old custom has remained intact, though the name Ceres is a bit of schoolmaster’s learning.^[26] In Upper Britanny the last sheaf is always made into human shape; but if the farmer is a married man, it is made double and consists of a little corn-puppet placed inside of a large one. This is called the Mother-sheaf. It is delivered to the farmer’s wife, who unties it and gives drink-money in return.^[27]

Sometimes the last sheaf is called, not the Corn-mother, but the Harvest-mother or the Great Mother. In the province of Osnabrück (Hanover) it is called the Harvest-mother; it is made up in female form, and then the reapers dance about with it. In some parts of Westphalia the last sheaf at the rye harvest is made especially heavy by fastening stones in it. It is brought home on the last waggon and is called the Great Mother, though no special shape is given it. In the district of Erfurt a very heavy sheaf (not necessarily the last) is called the Great Mother, and is carried on the last waggon to the barn, where it is lifted down by all hands amid a fire of jokes.^[28]

Sometimes again the last sheaf is called the Grandmother, and is adorned with flowers, ribbons, and a woman’s apron. In East Prussia, at the rye or wheat harvest, the reapers call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, “You are getting the Old Grandmother.” In the neighbourhood of Magdeburg the men and women servants strive who shall get the last sheaf, called the Grandmother. Whoever gets it will be married in the next year, but his or her spouse will be old; if a girl gets it, she will marry a widower; if a man gets it, he will marry an old crone. In Silesia the Grandmother—a huge bundle made up of three or four sheaves by the person who tied the last sheaf—was formerly fashioned into a rude likeness of the human form.^[29] In the neighbourhood of Belfast the last sheaf is sometimes called Granny. It is not cut in the usual way, but all the reapers throw their sickles at it and try to bring it down. It is plaited and kept till the (next?) autumn. Whoever gets it will marry in the course of the year.^[30]

Oftener the last sheaf is called the Old Woman or the Old Man. In Germany it is often shaped and dressed as a woman, and the person who cuts it or binds it is said to “get the Old Woman.”^[31] At Altisheim in Swabia when all the corn of a farm has been cut except a single strip, all the reapers stand in a row before the strip; each cuts his share rapidly, and he who gives the last cut “has the Old Woman.”^[32] When the sheaves are being set up in heaps, the person who gets hold of the Old Woman, which is the largest and thickest of all the sheaves, is jeered at by the rest, who sing out to him, “He has the Old Woman and must keep her.”^[33] The woman who binds the last sheaf is sometimes herself called the Old Woman, and it is said that she will be married in the next year.^[34] In Neusaass, West Prussia, both the last sheaf—which is dressed up in jacket, hat and ribbons—and the woman who binds it are called the Old Woman. Together they are brought home on the last waggon and are drenched with water.^[35] At Hornkampe, near Tiegenhof (West Prussia), when a man or woman lags behind the rest in binding the corn, the other reapers dress up the last sheaf in the form of a man or woman, and this figure goes by the laggard’s name, as “the old Michael,” “the idle Trine.” It is brought home on the last waggon, and, as it nears the house, the bystanders call out to the laggard, “You have got the Old Woman and must keep her.”^[36]

In these customs, as Mannhardt has remarked, the person who is called by the same name as the last sheaf and sits beside it on the last waggon is obviously identified with it; he or she represents the corn-spirit which has been caught in the last sheaf; in other words, the corn-spirit is represented in duplicate, by a human being and by a sheaf.^[37] The identification of the person with the sheaf is made still clearer by the custom of wrapping up in the last sheaf the person who cuts or binds it. Thus at Hermsdorf in Silesia it used to be the regular custom to tie up in the last sheaf the woman who had bound it.^[38] At Weiden in Bavaria it is the cutter, not the binder, of the last sheaf who is tied up in it.^[39] Here the person wrapt up in the corn represents the corn-spirit, exactly as a person wrapt in branches or leaves represents the tree-spirit.^[40]

The last sheaf, designated as the Old Woman, is often distinguished from the other sheaves by its size and weight. Thus in some villages of West Prussia the Old Woman is made twice as long and thick as a common sheaf, and a stone is fastened in the middle of it. Sometimes it is made so heavy that a man can barely lift it.^[41] Sometimes eight or nine sheaves are tied together to make the Old Woman, and the man who sets it up complains of its weight.^[42] At Itzgrund, in Saxe-Coburg, the last sheaf, called the Old Woman, is made large with the express intention of thereby securing a good crop next year.^[43] Thus the custom of making the last sheaf unusually large or heavy is a charm, working by sympathetic magic, to secure a large and heavy crop in the following year.

In Denmark also the last sheaf is made larger than the others, and is called the Old Rye-woman or the Old Barley-woman. No one likes to bind it, because whoever does so will, it is believed, marry an old man or an old woman. Sometimes the last wheat-sheaf, called the Old Wheat-woman, is made up in human shape, with head, arms, and legs, is dressed in clothes and carried home on the last waggon, the harvesters sitting beside it, drinking and huzzaing.^[44] Of the person who binds the last sheaf it is said, “She (or he) is the Old Rye-woman.”^[45]

In Scotland, when the last corn was cut after Hallowmas, the female figure made out of it was sometimes called the Carlin or Carline, i.e. the Old Woman. But if cut before Hallowmas, it was called the Maiden; if cut after sunset, it was called the Witch, being supposed to bring bad luck.^[46] We shall return to the Maiden presently. In County Antrim, down to a few years ago, when the sickle was finally expelled by the reaping machine, the few stalks of corn left standing last on the field were plaited together; then the reapers, blindfolded, threw their sickles at the plaited corn, and whoever happened to cut it through took it home with him and put it over his door. This bunch of corn was called the Carley^[47]— probably the same word as Carlin.

Similar customs are observed by Slavonic peoples. Thus in Poland the last sheaf is commonly called the Baba, that is, the Old Woman. “In the last sheaf,” it is said, “sits the Baba.” The sheaf itself is also called the Baba, and is sometimes composed of twelve smaller sheaves lashed together,^[48] In some parts of Bohemia the Baba, made out of the last sheaf, has the figure of a woman with a great straw hat. It is carried home on the last harvest-waggon and delivered, along with a garland, to the farmer by two girls. In binding the sheaves the women strive not to be last, for she who binds the last sheaf will have a child next year.^[49] The last sheaf is tied up with others into a large bundle, and a green branch is stuck on the top of it.^[50] Sometimes the harvesters call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, “She has the Baba,” or “She is the Baba.” She has then to make a puppet, sometimes in female, sometimes in male form, out of the corn; the puppet is occasionally dressed with clothes, often with flowers and ribbons only. The cutter of the last stalks, as well as the binder of the last sheaf, was also called Baba; and a doll, called the Harvest-woman, was made out of the last sheaf and adorned with ribbons. The oldest reaper had to dance, first with this doll, and then with the farmer’s wife.^[51] In the district of Cracow, when a man binds the last sheaf, they say, “The Grandfather is sitting in it;” when a woman binds it, they say, “The Baba is sitting in it,” and the woman herself is wrapt up in the sheaf, so that only her head projects out of it. Thus encased in the sheaf, she is carried on the last harvest-waggon to the house, where she is drenched with water by the whole family. She remains in the sheaf till the dance is over, and for a year she retains the name of Baba.^[52]

In Lithuania the name for the last sheaf is Boba (Old Woman), answering to the Polish name Baba. The Boba is said to sit in the corn which is left standing last.^[53] The person who binds the last sheaf or digs the last potato is the subject of much banter, and receives and long retains the name of the Old Rye-woman or the Old Potato-woman.^[54] The last sheaf—the Boba—is made into the form of a woman, carried solemnly through the village on the last harvest-waggon, and drenched with water at the farmer’s house; then every one dances with it.^[55]

In Russia also the last sheaf is often shaped and dressed as a woman, and carried with dance and song to the farmhouse. Out of the last sheaf the Bulgarians make a doll which they call the Corn-queen or Corn-mother; it is dressed in a woman’s shirt, carried round the village, and then thrown into the river in order to secure plenty of rain and dew for the next year’s crop. Or it is burned and the ashes strewn on the fields, doubtless to fertilise them.^[56] The name Queen, as applied to the last sheaf, has its analogies in Northern Europe. Thus Brand quotes from Hutchinson’s History of Northumberland the following: “I have seen, in some places, an image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, and a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with music and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres.”^[57] From Cambridge also Dr. E. D. Clarke reported that “at the Hawkie [harvest-home], as it is called, I have seen a clown dressed in woman’s clothes, having his face painted, his head decorated with ears of corn, and bearing about him other symbols of Ceres, carried in a waggon, with great pomp and loud shouts, through the streets, the horses being covered with white sheets; and when I inquired the meaning of the ceremony, was answered by the people, that they were drawing the Harvest Queen.”^[58]

Often the customs we have been examining are practised, not on the harvest field, but on the threshing-floor. The spirit of the corn, fleeing before the reapers as they cut down the corn, quits the cut corn and takes refuge in the barn, where it appears in the last sheaf threshed, either to perish under the blows of the flail or to flee thence to the still unthreshed corn of a neighbouring farm.^[59] Thus the last corn to be threshed is called the Mother-corn or the Old Woman. Sometimes the person who gives the last stroke with the flail is called the Old Woman, and is wrapt in the straw of the last sheaf, or has a bundle of straw fastened on his back. Whether wrapt in the straw or carrying it on his back, he is carted through the village amid general laughter. In some districts of Bavaria, Thüringen, etc., the man who threshes the last sheaf is said to have the Old Woman or the Old Corn-woman; he is tied up in straw, carried or carted about the village, and set down at last on the dunghill, or taken to the threshing-floor of a neighbouring farmer who has not finished his threshing.^[60] In Poland the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is called Baba (Old Woman); he is wrapt in corn and wheeled through the village.^[61] Sometimes in Lithuania the last sheaf is not threshed, but is fashioned into female shape and carried to the barn of a neighbour who has not finished his threshing.^[62] In some parts of Sweden, when a stranger woman appears on the threshing-floor, a flail is put round her body, stalks of corn are wound round her neck, a crown of ears is placed on her head, and the threshers call out, “Behold the Corn-woman.” Here the stranger woman, thus suddenly appearing, is taken to be the corn-spirit who has just been expelled by the flails from the corn-stalks.^[63] In other cases the farmer’s wife represents the corn-spirit. Thus in the Commune of Saligné, Canton de Poiret (Vendée), the farmer’s wife, along with the last sheaf, is tied up in a sheet, placed on a litter, and carried to the threshing machine, under which she is shoved. Then the woman is drawn out and the sheaf is threshed by itself, but the woman is tossed in the sheet (in imitation of winnowing).^[64] It would be impossible to express more clearly the identification of the woman with the corn than by this graphic imitation of threshing and winnowing her.

In these customs the spirit of the ripe corn is regarded as old, or at least as of mature age. Hence the names of Mother, Grandmother, Old Woman, etc. But in other cases the corn-spirit is conceived as young, sometimes as a child who is separated from its mother by the stroke of the sickle. This last view appears in the Polish custom of calling out to the man who cuts the last handful of corn, “You have cut the navel-string.”^[65] In some districts of West Prussia the figure made out of the last sheaf is called the Bastard, and a boy is wrapt up in it. The woman who binds the last sheaf and represents the Corn-mother, is told that she is about to be brought to bed; she cries like a woman in travail, and an old woman in the character of grandmother acts as midwife. At last a cry is raised that the child is born; whereupon the boy who is tied up in the sheaf whimpers and squalls like an infant. The grandmother wraps a sack, in imitation of swaddling bands, round the pretended baby, and it is carried joyfully to the barn, lest it catch cold in the open air.^[66] In other parts of North Germany, the last sheaf, or the puppet made out of it, is called the Child, the Harvest Child, etc. In the North of England the last handful of corn was cut by the prettiest girl and dressed up as the Corn Baby or Kern Baby; it was brought home to music, set up in a conspicuous place at the harvest supper, and generally kept in the parlour for the rest of the year. The girl who cut it was the Harvest Queen.^[67] In Kent the Ivy Girl is (or was) “a figure composed of some of the best corn the field produces, and made as well as they can into a human shape; this is afterwards curiously dressed by the women, and adorned with paper trimmings, cut to resemble a cap, ruffles, handkerchief, etc., of the finest lace. It is brought home with the last load of corn from the field upon the waggon, and they suppose entitles them to a supper at the expense of the employer.”^[68] In the neighbourhood of Balquhidder, Perthshire, the last handful of corn is cut by the youngest girl on the field, and is made into the rude form of a female doll, clad in a paper dress, and decked with ribbons. It is called the Maiden, and is kept in the farmhouse, generally above the chimney, for a good while, sometimes till the Maiden of the next year is brought in. The writer of this book witnessed the ceremony of cutting the Maiden at Balquhidder in September 1888.^[69] On some farms on the Gareloch, Dumbartonshire, about sixty years ago the last handful of standing corn was called the Maiden. It was divided in two, plaited, and then cut with the sickle by a girl, who, it was thought, would be lucky and would soon be married. When it was cut the reapers gathered together and threw their sickles in the air. The Maiden was dressed with ribbons and hung in the kitchen near the roof, where it was kept for several years with the date attached. Sometimes five or six Maidens might be seen hanging at once on hooks. The harvest supper was called the Kirn.^[70] In other farms on the Gareloch the last handful of corn was called the Maidenhead or the Head; it was neatly plaited, sometimes decked with ribbons, and hung in the kitchen for a year, when the grain was given to the poultry.^[71] In the North of Scotland, the Maiden is kept till Christmas morning, and then divided among the cattle “to make them thrive all the year round.”^[72] In Aberdeenshire also the last sheaf (called the clyack sheaf) was formerly cut, as it is still cut at Balquhidder, by the youngest girl on the field; then it was dressed in woman’s clothes, carried home in triumph, and kept till Christmas or New Year’s morning, when it was given to a mare in foal, or, failing such, to the oldest cow.^[73] Lastly, a somewhat maturer, but still youthful age is assigned to the corn-spirit by the appellations of Bride, Oats-bride, and Wheat-bride, which in Germany and Scotland are sometimes bestowed both on the last sheaf and on the woman who binds it.^[74] Sometimes the idea implied in these names is worked out more fully by representing the productive powers of vegetation as bride and bridegroom, Thus in some parts of Germany a man and woman dressed in straw and called the Oats-wife and the Oats-man, or the Oats-bride and the Oats-bridegroom dance at the harvest festival; then the corn-stalks are plucked from their bodies till they stand as bare as a stubble field. In Silesia, the woman who binds the last sheaf is called the Wheat-bride or the Oats-bride. With the harvest crown on her head, a bridegroom by her side, and attended by bridesmaids, she is brought to the farmhouse with all the solemnity of a wedding procession.^[75]

The harvest customs just described are strikingly analogous to the spring customs which we reviewed in the first chapter. (1.) As in the spring customs the tree-spirit is represented both by a tree and by a person,^[76] so in the harvest customs the corn-spirit is represented both by the last sheaf and by the person who cuts or binds or threshes it. The equivalence of the person to the sheaf is shown by giving him or her the same name as the sheaf, or vice versâ; by wrapping him or her in the sheaf; and by the rule observed in some places, that when the sheaf is called the Mother, it must be cut by the oldest married woman; but when it is called the Maiden, it must be cut by the youngest girl.^[77] Here the age of the personal representative of the corn-spirit corresponds with that of the supposed age of the corn-spirit, just as the human victims offered by the Mexicans to promote the growth of the maize varied with the age of the maize.^[78] For in the Mexican, as in the European, custom the human beings were probably representatives of the corn-spirit rather than victims offered to him. (2.) Again, the same fertilising influence which the tree-spirit is supposed to exert over vegetation, cattle, and even women^[79] is ascribed to the corn-spirit. Thus, its supposed influence on vegetation is shown by the practice of taking some of the grain of the last sheaf (in which the corn-spirit is regularly supposed to be present), and scattering it among the young corn in spring.^[80] Its influence on cattle is shown by giving the straw of the last sheaf to the cattle at Christmas with the express intention of making them thrive.^[81] Lastly, its influence on women is indicated by the custom of delivering the Mother-sheaf, made into the likeness of a pregnant woman, to the farmer’s wife;^[82] by the belief that the woman who binds the last sheaf will have a child next year;^[83] perhaps, too, by the idea that the person who gets it will marry next year.^[84]

Plainly, therefore, these spring and harvest customs are based on the same ancient modes of thought, and form parts of the same primitive heathendom, which was doubtless practised by our forefathers long before the dawn of history, as it is practised to this day by many of their descendants. Amongst the marks of a primitive religion, we may note the following:—

(1.) No special class of persons is set apart for the performance of the rites; in other words, there are no priests. The rites may be performed by any one, as occasion demands.

(2.) No special places are set apart for the performance of the rites; in other words, there are no temples. The rites may be performed anywhere, as occasion demands.

(3.) Spirits, not gods, are recognised. (a.) As distinguished from gods, spirits are restricted in their operations to definite departments of nature. Their names are general, not proper. Their attributes are generic, rather than individual; in other words, there is an indefinite number of spirits of each class, and the individuals of a class are all much alike; they have no definitely marked individuality; no accepted traditions are current as to their origin, life, adventures, and character. (b.) On the other hand gods, as distinguished from spirits, are not exclusively restricted in their operations to definite departments of nature. It is true that there is generally some one department over which they preside as their special province; but they are not rigorously confined to it; they can exert their power for good or evil in many other spheres of nature and life. Again, they bear individual or proper names, such as Ceres, Proserpine, Bacchus; and their individual characters and histories are fixed by current myths and the representations of art.

(4.) The rites are magical rather than propitiatory. In other words, the desired objects are attained, not by propitiating the favour of divine beings through sacrifice, prayer, and praise, but by ceremonies which, as has been explained,^[85] are believed to influence the course of nature directly through a physical sympathy or resemblance between the rite and the effect which it is the intention of the rite to produce.

Judged by these tests, the spring and harvest customs of our European peasantry deserve to rank as primitive. For no special class of persons and no special places are set exclusively apart for their performance; they may be performed by any one, master or man, mistress or maid, boy or girl; they are practised, not in temples or churches, but in the woods and meadows, beside brooks, in barns, on harvest fields and cottage floors. The supernatural beings whose existence is taken for granted in them are spirits rather than deities; their functions are limited to certain well-defined departments of nature; their names are general, like the Barley-mother, the Old Woman, the Maiden, not proper names like Ceres, Proserpine, Bacchus. Their generic attributes are known, but their individual histories and characters are not the subject of myths. For they exist in classes rather than as individuals, and the members of each class are indistinguishable. For example, every farm has its Corn-mother, or its Old Woman, or its Maiden; but every Corn-mother is much like every other Corn-mother, and so with the Old Women and Maidens. Lastly, in these harvest, as in the spring, customs, the ritual is magical rather than propitiatory. This is shown by throwing the Corn-mother into the river in order to secure rain and dew for the crops;^[86] by making the Old Woman heavy in order to get a heavy crop next year;^[87] by strewing grain from the last sheaf amongst the young crops in spring;^[88] and giving the last sheaf to the cattle to make them thrive.^[89]

Further, the custom of keeping the puppet—the representative of the corn-spirit—till next harvest, is a charm to maintain the corn-spirit in life and activity throughout the year.^[90] This is proved by a similar custom observed by the ancient Peruvians, and thus described by the historian Acosta. “They take a certain portion of the most fruitefull of the Mays [i.e. maize] that growes in their farmes, the which they put in a certaine granary which they doe call Pirua, with certaine ceremonies, watching three nightes; they put this Mays in the richest garments they have, and beeing thus wrapped and dressed, they worship this Pirua, and hold it in great veneration, saying it is the mother of the mays of their inheritances, and that by this means the mays augments and is preserved. In this moneth [the sixth month, answering to May] they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demaund of this Pirua, if it hath strength sufficient to continue untill the next yeare; and if it answers no, then they carry this Mays to the farme to burne, whence they brought it, according to every man’s power; then they make another Pirua, with the same ceremonies, saying that they renue it, to the end the seede of Mays may not perish, and if it answers that it hath force sufficient to last longer, they leave it untill the next yeare. This foolish vanity continueth to this day, and it is very common amongest the Indians to have these Piruas.”^[91] There seems to be some error in this description of the custom. Probably it was the dressed-up bunch of maize, not the granary (Pirua), which was worshipped by the Peruvians and regarded as the Mother of the Maize. This is confirmed by what we know of the Peruvian custom from another source. The Peruvians, we are told, believed all useful plants to be animated by a divine being who causes their growth. According to the particular plant, these divine beings were called the Maize-mother (Zara-mama), the Quinoa-mother (Quinoa-mama), the Cocoa-mother (Coca-mama), and the Potato-mother (Axo-mama). Figures of these divine mothers were made respectively of ears of maize and leaves of the quinoa and cocoa plants; they were dressed in women’s clothes and worshipped. Thus the Maize-mother was represented by a puppet made of stalks of maize, dressed in full female attire; and the Indians believed that “as mother, it had the power of producing and giving birth to much maize.”^[92] Probably, therefore, Acosta misunderstood his informant, and the Mother of the Maize which he describes was not the granary (Pirua) but the bunch of maize dressed in rich vestments. The Peruvian Mother of the Maize, like the harvest Maiden at Balquhidder, was kept for a year in order that by her means the corn might grow and multiply. But lest her strength might not suffice to last out the year, she was asked in the course of the year how she felt, and if she answered that she felt weak, she was burned and a fresh Mother of the Maize made, “to the end the seede of Mays may not perish.” Here, it may be observed, we have a strong confirmation of the explanation already given of the custom of killing the god, both periodically and occasionally. The Mother of the Maize was allowed, as a rule, to live through a year, that being the period during which her strength might reasonably be supposed to last unimpaired; but on any symptom of her strength failing she was put to death and a fresh and vigorous Mother of the Maize took her place, lest the maize which depended on her for its existence should languish and decay.

Hardly less clearly does the same train of thought come out in the harvest customs formerly observed by the Zapotecs of Mexico. At harvest the priests, attended by the nobles and people, went in procession to the maize fields, where they picked out the largest and finest sheaf. This they took with great ceremony to the town or village, and placed it in the temple upon an altar adorned with wild flowers. After sacrificing to the harvest god, the priests carefully wrapt up the sheaf in fine linen and kept it till seed-time. Then the priests and nobles met again at the temple, one of them bringing the skin of a wild beast, elaborately ornamented, in which the linen cloth containing the sheaf was enveloped. The sheaf was then carried once more in procession to the field from which it had been taken. Here a small cavity or subterranean chamber had been prepared, in which the precious sheaf was deposited, wrapt in its various envelopes. After sacrifice had been offered to the gods of the fields for an abundant crop, the chamber was closed and covered over with earth. Immediately thereafter the sowing began. Finally, when the time of harvest drew near, the buried sheaf was solemnly disinterred by the priests, who distributed the grain to all who asked for it. The packets of grain so distributed were carefully preserved as talismans till the harvest.^[93] In these ceremonies, which continued to be annually celebrated long after the Spanish conquest, the intention of keeping the finest sheaf buried in the maize field from seed-time to harvest was undoubtedly to quicken the growth of the maize.

In the Punjaub, to the east of the Jumna, when the cotton boles begin to burst, it is usual “to select the largest plant in the field, and having sprinkled it with butter-milk and rice-water, it is bound all over with pieces of cotton, taken from the other plants of the field. This selected plant is called Sirdar, or Bhogaldaí, i.e. mother-cotton, from bhogla, a name sometimes given to a large cotton-pod, and daí (for daiya) a mother, and after salutations are made to it, prayers are offered that the other plants may resemble it in the richness of their produce.”^[94]

If the reader still feels any doubts as to the original meaning of the harvest customs practised by our peasantry, these doubts may be dispelled by comparing the harvest customs of the Dyaks of Borneo. At harvest the Dyaks of Northern Borneo have a special feast, the object of which is “to secure the soul of the rice, which if not so detained, the produce of their farms would speedily rot and decay.” The mode of securing the soul of the rice varies in different tribes. Sometimes the priest catches it, in the form of a few grains of rice, in a white cloth. Sometimes a large shed is erected outside the village, and near it is reared a high and spacious altar. The corner-posts of the altar are lofty bamboos with leafy tops, from one of which there hangs a long narrow streamer of white cloth. Here gaily-dressed men and women dance with slow and solemn steps. Suddenly the elders and priests rush at the white streamer, seize the end of it, and begin dancing and swaying to and fro, amid a burst of wild music and the yells of the spectators. An elder leaps on the altar and shakes the bamboos violently, whereupon small stones, bunches of hair and grains of rice fall at the feet of the dancers and are carefully picked up by attendants. These grains of rice are the soul of the rice. At sowing-time some of this soul of the rice is planted with the other seeds, “and is thus propagated and communicated.”^[95] The same need of securing the soul of the rice, if the crop is to thrive, is keenly felt by the Karens of Burma. When a rice-field does not flourish, they suppose that the soul (kelah) of the rice is in some way detained from the rice. If the soul cannot be called back, the crop will fail. The following formula is used in recalling the kelah (soul) of the rice: “O come, rice-kelah, come! Come to the field. Come to the rice. With seed of each gender, come. Come from the river Kho, come from the river Kaw; from the place where they meet, come. Come from the West, come from the East. From the throat of the bird, from the maw of the ape, from the throat of the elephant. Come from the sources of rivers and their mouths. Come from the country of the Shan and Burman. From the distant kingdoms come. From all granaries come. O rice-kelah, come to the rice.”^[96] Again, the European custom of representing the corn-spirit in the double form of bride and bridegroom^[97] is paralleled by a custom observed at the rice-harvest in Java. Before the reapers begin to cut the rice, the priest or sorcerer picks out a number of ears of rice, which are tied together, smeared with ointment, and adorned with flowers. Thus decked out, the ears are called the padi-pĕngantèn, that is, the Rice-bride and the Rice-bridegroom; their wedding feast is celebrated, and the cutting of the rice begins immediately afterwards. Later on, when the rice is being got in, a bridal chamber is partitioned off in the barn, and furnished with a new mat, a lamp, and all kinds of toilet articles. Sheaves of rice, to represent the wedding guests, are placed beside the Rice-bride and the Rice-bridegroom. Not till this has been done may the whole harvest be housed in the barn. And for the first forty days after the rice has been housed, no one may enter the barn, for fear of disturbing the newly-wedded pair.^[98]

Compared with the Corn-mother of Germany and the harvest Maiden of Balquhidder, the Demeter and Proserpine of Greece are late products of religious growth. But, as Aryans, the Greeks must at one time or another have observed harvest customs like those which are still practised by Celts, Teutons, and Slavs, and which, far beyond the limits of the Aryan world, have been practised by the Incas of Peru, the Dyaks of Borneo, and the Malays of Java—a sufficient proof that the ideas on which these customs rest are not confined to any one race, but naturally suggest themselves to all untutored peoples engaged in agriculture. It is probable, therefore, that Demeter and Proserpine, those stately and beautiful figures of Greek mythology, grew out of the same simple beliefs and practices which still prevail among our modern peasantry, and that they were represented by rude dolls made out of the yellow sheaves on many a harvest-field long before their breathing images were wrought in bronze and marble by the master hands of Phidias and Praxiteles. A reminiscence of that olden time—a scent, so to say, of the harvest-field—lingered to the last in the tide of the Maiden (Kore) by which Proserpine was commonly known. Thus if the prototype of Demeter is the Corn-mother of Germany, the prototype of Proserpine is the harvest Maiden, which, autumn after autumn, is still made from the last sheaf on the Braes of Balquhidder. Indeed if we knew more about the peasant-farmers of ancient Greece we should probably find that even in classical times they continued annually to fashion their Corn-mothers (Demeters) and Maidens (Proserpines) out of the ripe corn on the harvest fields. But unfortunately the Demeter and Proserpine whom we know are the denizens of towns, the majestic inhabitants of lordly temples; it was for such divinities alone that the refined writers of antiquity had eyes; the rude rites performed by rustics amongst the corn were beneath their notice. Even if they noticed them, they probably never dreamed of any connection between the puppet of corn-stalks on the sunny stubble-field and the marble divinity in the shady coolness of the temple. Still the writings even of these town-bred and cultured persons afford us an occasional glimpse of a Demeter as rude as the rudest that a remote German village can show. Thus the story that Iasion begat a child Plutus (“wealth,” “abundance”) by Demeter on a thrice-ploughed field,^[99] may be compared with the West Prussian custom of the mock birth of a child on the harvest held.^[100] In this Prussian custom the pretended mother represents the Corn-mother (Žytniamatka); the pretended child represents the Corn-baby, and the whole ceremony is a charm to ensure a crop next year.^[101] There are other folk-customs, observed both in spring and at harvest, with which the legend of the begetting of the child Plutus is probably still more intimately connected. Their general purport is to impart fertility to the fields by performing, or at least mimicking, upon them the process of procreation.^[102] Another glimpse of the savage under the civilised Demeter will be afforded farther on, when we come to deal with another aspect of these agricultural divinities.

The reader may have observed that in modern folk-customs the corn-spirit is generally represented either by a Corn-mother (Old Woman, etc.) or by a Maiden (Corn-baby, etc.), not both by a Corn-mother and by a Maiden. Why then did the Greeks represent the corn both as a mother and a daughter? In the Breton custom the mother-sheaf—a large figure made out of the last sheaf with a small corn-doll inside of it—clearly represents both the Corn-mother and the Corn-daughter, the latter still unborn.^[103] Again, in the Prussian custom just described, the woman who plays the part of Corn-mother represents the ripe corn; the child appears to represent next year’s corn, which may be regarded, naturally enough, as the child of this year’s corn, since it is from the seed of this year’s harvest that next year’s corn will spring. Demeter would thus be the ripe corn of this year; Proserpine the seed-corn taken from it and sown in autumn, to reappear in spring. The descent of Proserpine into the lower world^[104] would thus be a mythical expression for the sowing of the seed; her reappearance in spring^[105] would express the sprouting of the young corn. Thus the Proserpine of this year becomes the Demeter of the next, and this may very well have been the original form of the myth. But when with the advance of religious thought the corn came to be personified, no longer as a being that went through the whole cycle of birth, growth, reproduction, and death within a year, but as an immortal goddess, consistency requires that one of the two personifications, the mother or the daughter, should be sacrificed. But the double conception of the corn as mother and daughter was too old and too deeply rooted in the popular mind to be eradicated by logic, and so room had to be found in the reformed myth both for mother and daughter. This was done by assigning to Proserpine the rôle of the corn sown in autumn and sprouting in spring, while Demeter was left to play the somewhat vague and ill-defined part of mother of the corn, who laments its annual disappearance underground, and rejoices over its reappearance in spring. Thus instead of a regular succession of divine beings, each living a year and then giving birth to her successor, the reformed myth exhibits the conception of two divine and immortal beings, one of whom annually disappears into and reappears from the ground, while the other has little to do but to weep and rejoice at the appropriate times.

This explanation of the double personification of the corn in Greek myth assumes that both personifications (Demeter and Proserpine) are original. But if we assume that the Greek myth started with a single personification, the after-growth of a second personification may perhaps be explained as follows. On looking over the peasant harvest customs which have been passed under review, it may be noticed that they involve two distinct conceptions of the corn-spirit. For whereas in some of the customs the corn-spirit is treated as immanent in the corn, in others it is regarded as external to it. Thus when a particular sheaf is called by the name of the corn-spirit, and is dressed in clothes and treated with reverence,^[106] the corn-spirit is clearly regarded as immanent in the corn. But when the corn-spirit is said to make the corn grow by passing through it, or to blight the corn of those against whom she has a grudge,^[107] she is clearly conceived as quite separate from, though exercising power over, the corn. Conceived in the latter way the corn-spirit is in a fair way to become a deity of the corn, if she has not become so already. Of these two conceptions, that of the corn-spirit as immanent in the corn is doubtless the older, since the view of nature as animated by indwelling spirits appears to have generally preceded the view of it as controlled by deities external to it; to put it shortly, animism precedes deism. In the harvest customs of our European peasantry the conception of the corn-spirit as immanent appears to be the prevalent one; the conception of it as external occurs rather as an exception. In Greek mythology, on the other hand, Demeter is distinctly conceived in the latter way; she is the deity of the corn rather than the spirit immanent in it.^[108] The process of thought which seems to be chiefly instrumental in producing the transition from the one mode of conception to the other is anthropomorphism, or the gradual investment of the immanent spirits with more and more of the attributes of humanity. As men emerge from savagery the tendency to anthropomorphise or humanise their divinities gains strength; and the more anthropomorphic these become, the wider is the breach which severs them from those natural objects of which they were at first merely the animating spirits or souls. But in the progress upwards from savagery, men of the same generation do not march abreast; and though the anthropomorphic gods may satisfy the religious wants of more advanced individuals, the more backward members of the community will cling by preference to the older animistic notions. Now when the spirit of any natural object (as the corn) has been invested with human qualities, detached from the object, and converted into a deity controlling it, the object itself is, by the withdrawal of its spirit, left inanimate, it becomes, so to say, a spiritual vacuum. But the popular fancy, intolerant of such a vacuum, in other words, unable to conceive anything as inanimate, immediately creates a fresh mythical being, with which it peoples the vacant object. Thus the same natural object is now represented in mythology by two separate beings; first, by the old spirit now separated from it and raised to the rank of a deity; second, by the new spirit, freshly created by the popular fancy to supply the place vacated by the old spirit on its elevation to a higher sphere. The problem for mythology now is, having got two separate personifications of the same object, what to do with them? How are their relations to each other to be adjusted, and room found for both in the mythological system? When the old spirit or new deity is conceived as creating or producing the object in question, the problem is easily solved. Since the object is believed to be produced by the old spirit, and animated by the new one, the latter, as the soul of the object, must also owe its existence to the former; thus the old spirit will stand to the new one as producer to produced, that is (in mythology), as parent to child, and if both spirits are conceived as female, their relation will be that of mother and daughter. In this way, starting from a single personification of the corn as female, mythology might in time reach a double personification of it as mother and daughter. It would be very rash to affirm that this was the way in which the myth of Demeter and Proserpine actually took shape; but it seems a legitimate conjecture that the reduplication of deities, of which Demeter and Proserpine furnish an example, may sometimes have arisen in the way indicated. For example, among the pairs of deities whom we have been considering, it has been shown that there are grounds for regarding both Isis and her companion god Osiris as personifications of the corn.^[109] On the hypothesis just suggested, Isis would be the old corn-spirit, and Osiris would be the newer one, whose relationship to the old spirit was variously explained as that of brother, husband, and son;^[110] for of course mythology would always be free to account for the coexistence of the two divinities in more ways than one. Further, this hypothesis offers at least a possible explanation of the relation of Virbius to the Arician Diana. The latter, as we have seen,^[111] was a tree-goddess; and if, as I have conjectured, the Flamen Virbialis was no other than the priest of Nemi himself, that is, the King of the Wood, Virbius must also have been a tree-spirit. On the present hypothesis he was the newer tree-spirit, whose relation to the old tree-spirit (Diana) was explained by representing him as her favourite or lover. It must not, however, be forgotten that this proposed explanation of such pairs of deities as Demeter and Proserpine, Isis and Osiris, Diana and Virbius, is purely conjectural, and is only given for what it is worth.

1. It is to be remembered that on the Mediterranean coasts the harvest never falls so late as autumn.
2. On Demeter as a corn-goddess see Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, p. 224 sqq.; on Proserpine in the same character see Cornutus, De nat. deor. c. 28; Varro in Augustine, Civ. Dei, vii. 20; Hesychius, s.v. Φερσεφόνεια; Firmicus Maternus, De errore prof. relig. 17. In his careful account of Demeter as a corn-goddess Mannhardt appears to have overlooked the very important statement of Hippolytus (Refnt. omn. haeres. v. 8, p. 162, ed. Duncker and Schneidewin) that at the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries (the most famous of all the rites of Demeter) the central mystery revealed to the initiated was a reaped ear of corn.
3. Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre, ii. 532; Preller, in Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie für class. Alterthumswiss. vi. 107; Lenormant, in Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines, i. pt. ii. 1047 sqq.
4. Homer, Hymn to Demeter;i Apollodorus, i. 5; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 425 sqq., id., Metam. v. 385 sqq.
5. A third, according to Homer, H. to Demeter, 399, and Apollodorus, i. 5, 3; a half, according to Ovid, Fasti, iv. 614; id., Metam. v. 567; Hyginus, Fab. 146.
6. Schömann, Griech. Alterthümer,³ ii. 393; Preller, Griech. Mythologie,³ i. 628 sq., 644 sq., 650 sq. The evidence of the ancients on this head, though not full and definite, seems sufficient. See Diodorus, v. 4; Firmicus Maternus, cc. 7, 27; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 69; Apuleius, Met. vi. 2; Clemens Alex., Protrept. ii. §§ 12, 17.
7. Mythol. Forschungen, p. 292 sqq.
8. Etymol. Magmun. p. 264, 12 sq.
9. O. Schrader Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte² (Jena, 1890), pp. 409, 422; V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Uebergang aus Asien,⁴ p. 54. Δηαί is doubtless equivalent etymologically to ζειαί, which is often taken to be spelt, but this seems uncertain.
10. Hesiod, Theog. 971; Lenormant, in Daremberg et Saglio, 1. pt. ii. p. 1029.
11. W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. p. 296.
12. Ib. p. 297.
13. Ib. p. 297 sq.
14. Ib. p. 299.
15. Ib. p. 300.
16. Ib. p. 310.
17. W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. p. 310 sq.
18. Ib. p. 316.
19. Ib. p. 316.
20. Ib. p. 316 sq.
21. See above, pp. 16 sqq., 286 sq.
22. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 317.
23. Ib. p. 317
24. Ib. p. 318.
25. W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. p. 318.
26. Ib. p. 318 sq.
27. Sébillot, Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne, p. 306.
28. W. Mannhardt, M. F. p. 319
29. Ib. p. 320.
30. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. p. 321
31. Ib. pp. 321, 323, 325 sq.
32. Ib. p. 323; Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, ii. p. 219, No. 403.
33. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 325.
34. Ib. p. 323.
35. Ib.
36. Ib. p. 323 sq.
37. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 324.
38. Ib. p. 320.
39. Ib. p. 325.
40. See above, p. 83 sqq.
41. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 324.
42. Ib. p. 324 sq.
43. Ib. p. 325.
44. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 327.
45. Ib. p. 328.
46. Jamieson, Dictionary of the Scottish Language, s.v. “Maiden”; W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forschungen, p. 326.
47. Communicated by my friend Prof. W. Ridgeway, of Queen’s College, Cork.
48. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 328.
49. Ib.
50. Ib. p. 328 sq.
51. Ib. p. 329.
52. Ib. p. 330.
53. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 330.
54. Ib. p. 331.
55. Ib. p. 331.
56. Ib. p. 332.
57. Hutchinson, History of Northumberland, ii. ad finem, 17, quoted by Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 20, Bohn’s ed.
58. Quoted by Brand, op. cit. ii. 22.
59. W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. p. 333 sq.
60. Ib. p. 334.
61. Ib. p. 334.
62. W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 336.
63. Ib. p. 336.
64. Ib. p. 336; Baumkultus, p. 612.
65. W. Mannhardt, Die Korndämonen, p. 28.
66. W. Mannhardt, l.c.
67. Ib.; Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 87; Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 20, Bohn’s ed.; Chambers’s Book of Days, ii. 377 sq. Cp. Folk-lore Journal, vii. 50.
68. Brand, op. cit. ii. 21 sq.
69. Folk-lore Journal, vi. 268 sq.
70. From information supplied by Archie Leitch, gardener, Rowmore, Garelochhead.
71. Communicated by Mr. Macfarlane of Faslane, Gareloch.
72. Jamieson, Dictionary of the Scottish Language, s. v. “Maiden.”
73. W. Gregor, in Revue des Traditions populaires, iii. 533 (485 B); id., Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland, p. 182. An old Scottish name for the Maiden (autumnalis nymphula) was Rapegyrne. See Fordun, Scotichron. ii. 418, quoted in Jamieson’s Dict. of the Scottish Language, s. v. “Rapegyrne.”
74. W. Mannhardt, Die Korndämonen, p. 30; Folk-lore Journal, vii. 50.
75. W. Mannhardt, l.c.; Sommer, Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen, p. 160 sq.
76. See above, p. 83 sqq.
77. Above, pp. 333, 344.
78. Above, p. 307.
79. Above, p. 67 sqq.
80. Above, pp. 334, 335.
81. Above, pp. 334, 345.
82. See above, p. 335 sq.
83. Above, p. 340; cp. Kuhn, Westfälische Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen, ii. No. 516.
84. Above, pp. 336, 337, 345.
85. See above, p. 9 sqq.
86. Above, p. 341.
87. Above, p. 338.
88. Above, p. 334, cp. 335.
89. Above, pp. 334, 345.
90. Above, p. 344 sqq.; W. Mannhardt, Korndämonen, pp.7, 26. Amongst the Wends the last sheaf, made into a puppet and called the Old Man, is hung in the hall till next year’s Old Man is brought in. Schulenburg, Wendisches Volksthum, p. 147. In Inverness and Sutherland the Maiden is kept till the next harvest. Folk-lore Journal, vii. 50, 53 sq. Cp. Kuhn, Westfälische Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen, ii. Nos. 501, 517.
91. Acosta, Hist. of the Indies, v. c. 28, vol. ii. p. 374 (Hakluyt Society, 1880).
92. W. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. p. 342 sq. Mannhardt’s authority is a Spanish tract (Carla pastoral de exortacion e instruccion contra las idolatrias de los Indios del arçobispado de Lima) by Pedro de Villagomez, Archbishop of Lima, published at Lima in 1649, and communicated to Mannhardt by J. J. v. Tschudi.
93. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique, iii. 40 sqq.
94. H. M. Elliot, Supplemental Glossary of Terms used in the North Western Provinces, edited by J. Beames, i. 254.
95. Spenser St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East,² i. 187, 192 sqq.
96. E. B. Cross, “On the Karens,” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, iv. 309.
97. See above, p. 346.
98. Veth, Java, i. 524-526.
99. Homer, Od. v. 125 sqq.; Hesiod, Theog. 969 sqq.
100. See above, p. 343 sq.
101. It is possible that a ceremony performed in a Cyprian worship of Ariadne may have been of this nature. Plutarch, Theseus, 20, ἐν δὴ τῇ θυσία τοῦ Γορπιαίου μηνὸς ἱσταμένου δευτέρα κατακλινόμενόν τινα τῶν νεανίσκων φθέγγεσθαι καἰ ποιεῖν ἄπερ ὠδινοῦσαι γυναῖκες. We have already seen grounds for regarding Ariadne as a goddess or spirit of vegetation (above, p. 104). If, however, the reference is to the Syro-Macedonian calendar, in which Gorpiaeus corresponds to September (Daremberg et Saglio, i. 831), the ceremony could not have been a harvest celebration, but may have been a vintage one. Amongst the Minnitarees in North America, the Prince of Neuwied saw a tall strong woman pretend to bring up a stalk of maize out of her stomach; the object of the ceremony was to secure a good crop of maize in the following year. Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika, ii. 269.
102. W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, pp. 468 sq., 480 sqq.; id., Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 288 sq. ; id., Mythologische Forschungen, pp. 146 sqq., 340 sqq.; Van Hoëvell, Ambon en de Oeliasers, p. 62 sq.; Wilken, in Indische Gids, June 1884, pp. 958, 963 sq. Cp. Marco Polo, trans. Yule,² i. 212 sq.
103. See above, p. 335 sq.
104. Cp. Preller, Griech. Mythol.³ i. 628, note 3. In Greece the annual descent of Proserpine appears to have taken place at the Great Eleusinian Mysteries and at the Thesmophoria, that is, about the time of the autumn sowing. But in Sicily her descent seems to have been celebrated when the corn was fully ripe (Diodorus, v. 4), that is, in summer.
105. Homer, Hymn to Demeter, 401 sqq.; Preller, l.c.
106. In some places it was customary to kneel down before the last sheaf, in others to kiss it. W, Mannhardt, Korndämonen, 26; id., Mytholog. Forschungen, p. 339; Folk-lore Journal, vi. 270.
107. Above, p. 332 sq.
108. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, she is represented as controlling the growth of the corn. See above, p. 331.
109. See above, pp. 305 sqq., 309 sqq.
110. Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie der class. Alterthumswiss. v. 1011.
111. Above, p. 105 sq.