Chapter 37 The corn-spirit transforms into an animal: The corn-spirit transforms into a rooster

Another form in which the corn-spirit is often conceived is that of a rooster.In Austria, adults warn children not to walk around in the valley, saying that the grain rooster is in the field and will peck out the children's eyes.In northern Germany it is said that "the rooster lives in the last sheaf," and when the last sheaf is cut the reaper cries, "We're going to drive the cock out now." "We've got the rooster," after the corn has been bound, and at Brarell in Transylvania, when the last morsel has been cut, the reaper cries, "Here we're going to catch the rooster." The rooster is gone." At Fustenwald, when the last sheaf of corn was to be tied, the master let the rooster he had brought out of the basket and let it run away in the field.The shepherds who were present followed after him until he was caught.In other places, the reapers are all scrambling to cut the last handful of corn in the field. Whoever grabs it will have to crow like a rooster, and people call him a rooster.According to the custom of the Wende people, the farmer hides a rooster in the last sheaf of grain sheaved in the field. When collecting the sheaf at the end, whoever touches the sheaf of grain and catches the rooster will own the rooster. , and the crop harvest of that year ended here, and it was named "catch the rooster", and the host proposed to entertain the harvesters with beer, called "cock beer".The last sheaf of corn is called the "cock," "cock sheaf," "harvest cock," "harvest hen," "autumn hen," and, depending on the grain, wheat cock, bean cock, and so on.In Unchengsur in Thuringia, the last sheaf of grain cut from the fields is shaped like a rooster and is called a "harvest rooster".Especially in Westphalia, there are wooden or cardboard roosters hanging on the front of the cart carrying grain sheaves, with various agricultural products in its beak, and decorated with ears of grain and flowers.Sometimes this rooster image is tied to the top of the "May tree" and pulled by a cart carrying grain.In other places, a live rooster or a human-made rooster image is tied to the "harvest crown" and carried on a pole.At Gallicini and other places, a live rooster is tied to a garland of ears of corn or flowers, and the leader of the women reapers walks in front of the procession with his head on his head.In Silesia a live rooster is presented to the master on a plate.People call the harvest dinner "harvest rooster", "stubble rooster" and so on.A main course at dinner has to be a rooster, at least some places do.If the driver overturns the corn cart, he is said to have "overturned the harvest cock," and he loses the cock, that is, the harvest dinner.The cart carrying the harvested crops must carry the harvest rooster around the farm house before entering the barn, and then the rooster is nailed to the door frame or next to the door frame, or nailed to the gable wall, and it will be hung for the next year’s harvest.In East Frisia the threshing-thresher with the last stroke is called a "clucking hen," and he is treated like a hen by throwing some grain in front of him.

In addition, the corn-spirit was killed in the form of a rooster.In parts of Germany and places such as Hungary, Poland, and Picardy [a region in northern France], corn harvesters place a live rooster in the last corn to cut, chase it in the field, or bury it up to its neck In the ground, the chicken's head is then chipped off with a sickle or scythe.In many parts of Westphalia, when the reapers gave the farmer a wooden rooster, the farmer returned a live rooster.They beat the cock to death with a whip or stick, or decapitated it with an old knife, or threw the cock into the barn for the girls or mistresses to cook.If the "harvest rooster" is not overturned—that is, without a grain wagon overturning—the reapers have the right to kill the live rooster on the farm: by bricking it, or beheading it .Although this custom is no longer fashionable in some places, the wife of the farmer will usually make leek and chicken soup for the harvest workers and show the workers the head of the rooster making the soup.In the vicinity of Clausenburg in Transylvania, to harvest the grain a rooster was buried alive in the ground, with its head exposed, and a young man chipped off the head with a swing of a long-handled scythe.If he fails to do so, then within a year people will call him "Red Rooster" and worry that the crops will not grow well in the coming year.Near Udvaheli in Transylvania, a live rooster is tied to the last sheaf of grain in the field, killed with a spit on a barbecue, skinned and preserved for the next year, while the chicken is Throw it away immediately.In the spring of the second year, the grains from the last sheaf are shattered together with the rooster's feathers and scattered on the field to be plowed.This practice clearly shows that the rooster is the corn-spirit.The rooster was killed by being tied to the last sheaf of corn in the field. In this practice the rooster signified the corn-spirit, and the killing of the rooster signified the reaping of the corn.Save the rooster feathers and scatter them next spring with the seed from the sheaf, proving once again that the cock and the corn-spirit are the same thing.The rooster, as the personification of the corn-spirit, has the power to cause the corn to grow, expressed here in the most obvious way.Therefore, the corn-spirit was killed at the harvest in the form of a rooster, and reappeared in a new life in the spring to perform activities. He buried the rooster in the ground, and cut off his head with a sickle, just like cutting ears of corn. This custom is very clear. It expresses the concept that the rooster is equivalent to the grain.