Chapter 42 The corn-spirit changing into an animal: The corn-spirit changing into a stallion or a mare

Sometimes the corn-spirit appears as a stallion or a mare.Between Kalve and Stuttgart the ear of corn bowing its head in the wind is said: "There the horse ran." A sheaf of oats is called an oat stallion.In Hertfordshire there is a ceremony of "calling the mare" whenever the harvest is over.The last bunch of ears of grain in the field are tied together and are called a mare.The reapers stand some distance in front of it and throw their scythes at it, and whoever thus cuts it down wins prizes, applause, and cheers.The man who cut it said "I've got it", "I've got it", "I've got it" three times out loud.The others also said three times aloud: "What have you got?"—"A mare! A mare! A mare!" "Whose mare is it?" (Three times in a row) "Zhang San." (proposes the name of the horseman) "Who are you going to give it to?" "To Li Si." (the name of the neighbor who has not yet cut all the grain) The corn-spirit in the form of a horse is sent from a farm where the corn has been harvested to a farm where the corn still stands in the ground, and it is believed that the corn-spirit will naturally hide there.In Shropshire the custom is the same.Finally, when all the grain in the field was harvested and it was impossible to transfer the mare to anyone, he had to "keep the mare for the winter".Sometimes this practice of pretending to give the mare to a neighbor who was left behind was also responded by the neighbor's acceptance of help."While we were eating supper," an old man told an inquirer, "a man came with a bridle and led her away." In one place it was customary to send a real mare, and the horse was ridden Those who went there were invariably met with rough reception for this unwelcome visit.

In the vicinity of Lille the conception of the corn-spirit as a horse is still evident.When the reapers were tired from work, they said, "Tired as a horse." In the field there was a sheaf of cut ears called "horse millet", and it was placed in the barn on a boxwood cross. Fork, and the farm ponies had to walk on it.The harvesters danced around the sheaf, shouted, "Look at the dead horse," and gave the sheaf to the youngest horse in the community.The youngest horse in the community, as Manhart says, obviously represents the corn-spirit of the coming year, the corn-spirit's foal, which eats the last corn and imbibes the spirit of the corn-spirit's old horse, for the old corn-spirit The spirit always took refuge in the last sheaf of corn, as usual.The one who thrashes the last sheaf is called the "horse thrasher."