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.1 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. 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,'-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. 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. At Oberinntal in Tyrol the last thresher is called Goat. 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. 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." 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. 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.2 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 Oatsgoat 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.' 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.'

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. The goat-skin thus suspended

on the field from sowing time to harvest represents the corn-spirit superintending the growth of the corn.

2

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;"1 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. So near Chambéry when a reaper wounds himself with his sickle, it is said that he has "the wound of the Ox." 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 Alle). In some parts of Bohemia the last sheaf is made up in human form and called the Buffalo-bull. 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. In the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland, the last sheaf, if it is a large one, is called the Cow. 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 cornears and a more liberal allowance of drink than the rest.