Section 4. The Corn-spirit as a Hare.
ANOTHER common embodiment of the corn-spirit is the hare. In
Galloway the reaping of the last standing corn is called "cutting
the Hare." The mode of cutting it is as follows. When the rest of the
corn has been reaped, a handful is left standing to form the Hare.
It is divided into three parts and plaited, and the ears are tied in a
knot. The reapers then retire a few yards and each throws his or
her sickle in turn at the Hare to cut it down. It must be cut below
the knot, and the reapers continue to throw their sickles at it, one
after the other, until one of them succeeds in severing the stalks
below the knot. The Hare is then carried home and given to a
maidservant in the kitchen, who places it over the kitchen-door
on the inside. Sometimes the Hare used to be thus kept till the next
harvest. In the parish of Minnigaff, when the Hare was cut, the
unmarried reapers ran home with all speed, and the one who
arrived first was the first to be married. In Germany also one of the
names for the last sheaf is the Hare. Thus in some parts of Anhalt,
when the corn has been reaped and only a few stalks are left
standing, they say, "The Hare will soon come," or the reapers cry
to each other, "Look how the Hare comes jumping out." In East
Prussia they say that the Hare sits in the last patch of standing
corn, and must be chased out by the last reaper. The reapers
hurry with their work, each being anxious not to have "to chase
out the Hare"; for the man who does so, that is, who cuts the last
corn, is much laughed at. At Aurich, as we have seen, an
expression for cutting the last corn is "to cut off the Hare's tail."
"He is killing the Hare" is commonly said of the man who cuts the
last corn in Germany, Sweden, Holland, France, and Italy. In
Norway the man who is thus said to "kill the Hare" must give
"hare's blood," in the form of brandy, to his fellows to drink. In
Lesbos, when the reapers are at work in two neighbouring fields,
each party tries to finish first in order to drive the Hare into their
neighbour's field; the reapers who succeed in doing so believe
that next year the crop will be better. A small sheaf of corn is
made up and kept beside the holy picture till next harvest. 1