Chapter 44 A Brief Discussion on the Concept of the Corn-spirit Transformed into an Animal Figure

Norse folklore imagines the corn-spirit transformed into an animal figure, and that is as far as we have seen.These customs clearly demonstrate the sacramental nature of the Harvest Supper.It is believed that the corn-spirit took the form of an animal; the reapers killed the animal and shared its flesh.Cocks, hares, cats, goats, and cows are thus eaten in communion form by the reapers.Pigs are the communion food of the plowmen in spring.And make bread or gnocchi in the image of the god, and eat it as a sacrament instead of the real god's meat; as the harvester eats pig-shaped gnocchi, and in spring the plowman and his cattle eat boar-shaped wheat. Pie (Christmas Boar).

The reader may have noticed that the corn-spirit of human form and the corn-spirit of animal form are completely identical.This consistency can be briefly discussed here.When the grain is swaying in the wind, people may say that the grain mother walks in the valley, or the grain wolf walks in the wind.Children are not allowed to run about in the cornfields because the corn mother is there, or because the corn wolf and so on are there.In the last-cut corn, or the last-threshed sheaf, there is either the Corn-mother, or the Corn-wolf, etc.The last sheaf is either called Corn Mother or Corn Wolf, etc., and is made in the shape of a woman or a wolf, etc.The one who cuts, binds, and thrashes the last sheaf is called either an old woman, or a wolf, etc., according to the name of the last sheaf itself.In some places a sheaf of corn is taken in human form, called a maiden, mother corn, etc., and kept from this harvest to the next, for the constant protection of the corn-spirit; goat meat preserved from one harvest to another for the same purpose.In some places, the grains taken from the mother of the five grains are mixed with the grain seeds in the next spring to ensure a high harvest of grains; Also for the same purpose.Take part of the grain mother or grain girl at Christmas to the cows, or to the horses when plowing the fields; a piece of Christmas pig meat is given to the horses or cattle plowing the fields in spring.Finally, the death of the corn-spirit is represented by the real or false killing of its human or animal representative, and the worshiper either eats the real flesh and blood of the god's representative in the form of communion, or eats the bread made in his shape. .

The corn-spirit was also imagined changing into other animal forms such as fox, deer, deer, sheep, bear, donkey, mouse, quail, stork, swan, and kite.If we ask why the corn-spirit is imagined to be transformed into an animal, and there are so many different animals? We can answer: In the eyes of primitive man, the appearance of some kind of beast and some kind of bird in the corn may be enough to represent the animal and the corn. and if we recall that in olden days, when fields were not fenced, and animals of all kinds must have roamed freely about them, we need not be surprised that corn-spirits are even taken for animals as large as horses and oxen. .It is now impossible to see horses and cattle running into English crop fields, except on very rare occasions.The above explanation is especially suitable for this very common case, where the hallucinated animal of the corn-spirit is supposed to hide in the last corn of the field.For at harvest time many wild animals, such as rabbits and partridges, as the harvest progressed, were generally driven into the last corn in the field, and fled when the last corn was cut.As a rule this happened, and the reapers and others were often round the last corn, with sticks or guns, with which they killed the animals as they rushed out of the last corn which had taken refuge.Magical transformations of shape seemed entirely plausible to primitive man, who found nothing more natural than the spirit of the corn being driven out of his old home where the grains were ripe, and fleeing in the form of an animal, when As the last corn in the field fell under the reapers' scythe, the animal was seen darting out of the last valley.Therefore, saying that the corn-spirit is an animal is similar to saying that the corn-spirit is a passer-by.The sudden appearance of a stranger beside a corn-field or threshing-floor is, to primitive man, a corn-spirit who has escaped from the cut or threshed corn.In the same way an animal that suddenly escapes from the cut corn may be said to be the corn-spirit who has escaped from his ruined home.The two equivalent statements are very similar to each other, and any explanation will hardly erase the equivalence relationship between the two.If anyone wants to find some other principle to explain the equivalence of the corn-spirit to the animal, he must show that his theory also explains the equivalence of the corn-spirit to the stranger.