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Clojure Data Analysis
Cookbook

Over 110 recipes to help you dive into the world of

practical data analysis using Clojure

Eric Rochester

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Clojure Data Analysis Cookbook

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without
warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers
and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or
indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies
and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt
Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: March 2013

Production Reference: 1130313

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
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ISBN 978-1-78216-264-3

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by J.Blaminsky (milak6@wp.pl)

 Credits

Author Project Coordinator

Eric Rochester Anugya Khurana

Reviewers Proofreaders
Jan Borgelin Mario Cecere
Thomas A. Faulhaber, Jr. Sandra Hopper
Charles M. Norton
Miki Tebeka Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta

Acquisition Editor
Erol Staveley Graphics
Aditi Gajjar

Lead Technical Editor

Dayan Hyames Production Coordinator
Nilesh R. Mohite

Technical Editors
Nitee Shetty Cover Work
Nilesh R. Mohite
Dennis John
 About the Author

Eric Rochester enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with his wife and kids. When
he's not doing those things, he programs in a variety of languages and platforms, including
websites and systems in Python and libraries for linguistics and statistics in C#. Currently, he's
exploring functional programming languages, including Clojure and Haskell. He works at the
Scholars' Lab in the library at the University of Virginia, helping humanities professors and
graduate students realize their digitally informed research agendas.

I'd like to thank everyone. My technical reviewers—Jan Borgelin, Tom

Faulhaber, Charles Norton, and Miki Tebeka—proved invaluable. Also, thank
you to the editorial staff at Packt Publishing. This book is much stronger for
all of their feedbacks, and any remaining deficiencies are mine alone.

Thank you to Bethany Nowviskie and Wayne Graham. They've made the
Scholars' Lab a great place to work, with interesting projects, as well as
space to explore our own interests.

And especially I would like to thank Jackie and Melina. They've been
exceptionally patient and supportive while I worked on this project. Without
them, it wouldn't be worth it.
 About the Reviewers

Jan Borgelin is a technology geek with over 10 years of professional software development
experience. Having worked in diverse positions in the field of enterprise software, he currently
works as a CEO and Senior Consultant for BA Group Ltd., an IT consultancy based in Finland.
For the past 2 years, he has been more actively involved in functional programming and as
part of that has become interested in Clojure among other things.

I would like to thank my family and our employees for tolerating my

excitement about the book throughout the review process.

Thomas A. Faulhaber, Jr., is principal of Infolace (www.infolace.com), a San

Francisco-based consultancy. Infolace helps clients from startups to global brands turn raw
data into information and information into action. Throughout his career, he has developed
systems for high-performance TCP/IP, large-scale scientific visualization, energy trading, and
many more.

He has been a contributor to, and user of, Clojure and Incanter since their earliest days. The
power of Clojure and its ecosystem (of both code and people) is an important "magic bullet" in
Tom's practice.
Charles Norton has over 25 years of programming experience, ranging from factory
automation applications and firmware to network middleware, and is currently a programmer
and application specialist for a Greater Boston municipality. He maintains and develops a
collection of software applications that support finances, health insurance, and water utility
administration. These systems are implemented in several languages, including Clojure.

Miki Tebeka has been shipping software for more than 10 years. He has developed a
wide variety of products from assemblers and linkers to news trading systems to cloud
infrastructures. He currently works at Adconion where he shuffles through more than 6 billion
monthly events. In his free time, he is active in several open source communities.
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 Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Importing Data for Analysis 7
Introduction 7
Creating a new project 8
Reading CSV data into Incanter datasets 9
Reading JSON data into Incanter datasets 11
Reading data from Excel with Incanter 12
Reading data from JDBC databases 13
Reading XML data into Incanter datasets 16
Scraping data from tables in web pages 19
Scraping textual data from web pages 23
Reading RDF data 26
Reading RDF data with SPARQL 29
Aggregating data from different formats 34
Chapter 2: Cleaning and Validating Data 41
Introduction 41
Cleaning data with regular expressions 42
Maintaining consistency with synonym maps 44
Identifying and removing duplicate data 45
Normalizing numbers 48
Rescaling values 50
Normalizing dates and times 51
Lazily processing very large data sets 54
Sampling from very large data sets 56
Fixing spelling errors 57
Parsing custom data formats 61
Validating data with Valip 64
Table of Contents

Chapter 3: Managing Complexity with Concurrent Programming 67

Introduction 68
Managing program complexity with STM 69
Managing program complexity with agents 73
Getting better performance with commute 75
Combining agents and STM 77
Maintaining consistency with ensure 79
Introducing safe side effects into the STM 82
Maintaining data consistency with validators 84
Tracking processing with watchers 87
Debugging concurrent programs with watchers 90
Recovering from errors in agents 91
Managing input with sized queues 93
Chapter 4: Improving Performance with Parallel Programming 95
Introduction 95
Parallelizing processing with pmap 96
Parallelizing processing with Incanter 100
Partitioning Monte Carlo simulations for better pmap performance 102
Finding the optimal partition size with simulated annealing 106
Parallelizing with reducers 110
Generating online summary statistics with reducers 114
Harnessing your GPU with OpenCL and Calx 116
Using type hints 120
Benchmarking with Criterium 123
Chapter 5: Distributed Data Processing with Cascalog 127
Introduction 128
Distributed processing with Cascalog and Hadoop 129
Querying data with Cascalog 132
Distributing data with Apache HDFS 134
Parsing CSV files with Cascalog 137
Complex queries with Cascalog 139
Aggregating data with Cascalog 142
Defining new Cascalog operators 143
Composing Cascalog queries 146
Handling errors in Cascalog workflows 149
Transforming data with Cascalog 151
Executing Cascalog queries in the Cloud with Pallet 152
Chapter 6: Working with Incanter Datasets 159
Introduction 159
Loading Incanter's sample datasets 160
ii
 Table of Contents
Loading Clojure data structures into datasets 161
Viewing datasets interactively with view 163
Converting datasets to matrices 164
Using infix formulas in Incanter 166
Selecting columns with $ 168
Selecting rows with $ 170
Filtering datasets with $where 171
Grouping data with $group-by 174
Saving datasets to CSV and JSON 175
Projecting from multiple datasets with $join 177
Chapter 7: Preparing for and Performing Statistical Data Analysis
with Incanter 181
Introduction 182
Generating summary statistics with $rollup 182
Differencing variables to show changes 185
Scaling variables to simplify variable relationships 186
Working with time series data with
Incanter Zoo 189
Smoothing variables to decrease noise 192
Validating sample statistics with bootstrapping 194
Modeling linear relationships 197
Modeling non-linear relationships 200
Modeling multimodal Bayesian distributions 204
Finding data errors with Benford's law 207
Chapter 8: Working with Mathematica and R 211
Introduction 212
Setting up Mathematica to talk to Clojuratica for Mac OS X and Linux 212
Setting up Mathematica to talk to Clojuratica for Windows 216
Calling Mathematica functions from Clojuratica 218
Sending matrices to Mathematica from Clojuratica 219
Evaluating Mathematica scripts from Clojuratica 220
Creating functions from Mathematica 221
Processing functions in parallel in Mathematica 222
Setting up R to talk to Clojure 224
Calling R functions from Clojure 226
Passing vectors into R 227
Evaluating R files from Clojure 228
Plotting in R from Clojure 230

iii
Table of Contents

Chapter 9: Clustering, Classifying, and Working with Weka 233

Introduction 233
Loading CSV and ARFF files into Weka 234
Filtering and renaming columns in Weka datasets 236
Discovering groups of data using K-means clustering 239
Finding hierarchical clusters in Weka 245
Clustering with SOMs in Incanter 248
Classifying data with decision trees 250
Classifying data with the Naive Bayesian classifier 253
Classifying data with support vector machines 255
Finding associations in data with the Apriori algorithm 258
Chapter 10: Graphing in Incanter 261
Introduction 261
Creating scatter plots with Incanter 262
Creating bar charts with Incanter 264
Graphing non-numeric data in bar charts 266
Creating histograms with Incanter 268
Creating function plots with Incanter 270
Adding equations to Incanter charts 272
Adding lines to scatter charts 273
Customizing charts with JFreeChart 276
Saving Incanter graphs to PNG 278
Using PCA to graph multi-dimensional data 279
Creating dynamic charts with Incanter 282
Chapter 11: Creating Charts for the Web 285
Introduction 285
Serving data with Ring and Compojure 286
Creating HTML with Hiccup 290
Setting up to use ClojureScript 293
Creating scatter plots with NVD3 296
Creating bar charts with NVD3 302
Creating histograms with NVD3 305
Visualizing graphs with force-directed layouts 308
Creating interactive visualizations with D3 313
Index 317

iv
 Preface
Data's everywhere! And, as it has become more pervasive, our desire to use it has grown
just as quickly. A lot hides in data: potential sales, users' browsing patterns, demographic
information, and many, many more things. There are insights we could gain and decisions we
could make better, if only we could find out what's in our data.

This book will help with that.

The programming language Clojure will help us. Clojure was first released in 2007 by Rich
Hickey. It's a member of the lisp family of languages, and it has the strengths and flexibility
that they provide. It's also functional, so Clojure programs are easy to reason with. And, it
has amazing features for working concurrently and in parallel. All of these can help us as we
analyze data while keeping things simple and fast.

Clojure's usefulness for data analysis is further improved by a number of strong libraries.
Incanter provides a practical environment for working with data and performing statistical
analysis. Cascalog is an easy-to-use wrapper over Hadoop and Cascading. Finally, when
we're ready to publish our results, ClojureScript, an implementation of Clojure that generates
JavaScript, can help us to visualize our data in an effective and persuasive way.

Moreover, Clojure runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), so any libraries written for Java are
available too. This gives Clojure an incredible amount of breadth and power.

I hope that this book will give you the tools and techniques you need to get answers from
your data.
Preface

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Importing Data for Analysis, will cover how to read data from a variety of sources,
including CSV files, web pages, and linked semantic web data.

Chapter 2, Cleaning and Validating Data, will present strategies and implementations for
normalizing dates, fixing spelling, and working with large datasets. Getting data into a useable
shape is an important, but often overlooked, stage of data analysis.

Chapter 3, Managing Complexity with Concurrent Programming, will cover Clojure's

concurrency features and how we can use them to simplify our programs.

Chapter 4, Improving Performance with Parallel Programming, will cover using Clojure's
parallel processing capabilities to speed up processing data.

Chapter 5, Distributed Data Processing with Cascalog, will cover using Cascalog as a wrapper
over Hadoop and the Cascading library to process large amounts of data distributed over
multiple computers. The final recipe in this chapter will use Pallet to run a simple analysis on
Amazon's EC2 service.

Chapter 6, Working with Incanter Datasets, will cover the basics of working with Incanter
datasets. Datasets are the core data structure used by Incanter, and understanding them is
necessary to use Incanter effectively.

Chapter 7, Preparing for and Performing Statistical Data Analysis with Incanter, will cover
a variety of statistical processes and tests used in data analysis. Some of these are quite
simple, such as generating summary statistics. Others are more complex, such as performing
linear regressions and auditing data with Benford's Law.

Chapter 8, Working with Mathematica and R, will talk about setting up Clojure to talk to
Mathematica or R. These are powerful data analysis systems, and sometimes we might want
to use them. This chapter will show us how to get these systems to work together, as well as
some tasks we can do once they are communicating.

Chapter 9, Clustering, Classifying, and Working with Weka, will cover more advanced machine
learning techniques. In this chapter, we'll primarily use the Weka machine learning library, and
some recipes will discuss how to use it and the data structures its built on, while other recipes
will demonstrate machine learning algorithms.

Chapter 10, Graphing in Incanter, will show how to generate graphs and other visualizations
in Incanter. These can be important for exploring and learning about your data and also for
publishing and presenting your results.

Chapter 11, Creating Charts for the Web, will show how to set up a simple web application
to present findings from data analysis. It will include a number of recipes that leverage the
powerful D3 visualization library.

2
 Preface

What you need for this book

One piece of software required for this book is the Java Development Kit (JDK), which you can
get from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.
html. The JDK is necessary to run and develop on the Java platform.

The other major piece of software that you'll need is Leiningen 2, which you can download
and install from https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen. Leiningen 2 is a tool
for managing Clojure projects and their dependencies. It's quickly becoming the de facto
standard project tool in the Clojure community.

Throughout this book, we'll use a number of other Clojure and Java libraries, including Clojure
itself. Leiningen will take care of downloading these for us as we need them.

You'll also need a text editor or integrated development environment (IDE). If you already
have a text editor that you like, you can probably use it. See http://dev.clojure.org/
display/doc/Getting+Started for tips and plugins for using your particular favorite
environment. If you don't have a preference, I'd suggest looking at using Eclipse with
Counterclockwise. There are instructions for getting this set up at http://dev.clojure.
org/display/doc/Getting+Started+with+Eclipse+and+Counterclockwise.

That is all that's required. However, at various places throughout the book, some recipes will
access other software. The recipes in Chapter 8, Working with Mathematica and R, that relate
to Mathematica will require Mathematica, obviously, and those that relate to R, will require
that. However, these programs won't be used in the rest of the book, and whether you're
interested in these recipes might depend on whether you already have this software available.

Who this book is for

This book is for programmers or data scientists who are familiar with Clojure and want to use
it in their data analysis processes. This isn't a tutorial on Clojure—there are already a number
of excellent introductory books out there—so you'll need to be familiar with the language;
however, you don't need to be an expert at it.

Likewise, you don't need to be an expert on data analysis, although you should probably be
familiar with its tasks, processes, and techniques. While you might be able to glean enough
from these recipes to get started, to be truly effective, you'll want to get a more thorough
introduction to this field.

Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of
information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: " We just need to make sure that the clojure.
string/upper-case function is available."

3
Preface

A block of code is set as follows:

(defn fuzzy=
"This returns a fuzzy match."
[a b]
(let [dist (fuzzy-dist a b)]
(or (<= dist fuzzy-max-diff)
(<= (/ dist (min (count a) (count b)))
fuzzy-percent-diff))))

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or
items are set in bold:
[ring.middleware.file-info :only (wrap-file-info)]
[ring.middleware.stacktrace :only (wrap-stacktrace)]
[ring.util.response :only (redirect)]
[hiccup core element page]
[hiccup.middleware :only (wrap-base-url)]))

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$ lein cljsbuild auto
Compiling ClojureScript.
Compiling "resources/js/scripts.js" from "src-cljs"...
Successfully compiled "resources/js/script.js" in 4.707129 seconds.

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in
menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "errors are found in the page
Agents and Asynchronous Actions in the Clojure documentation ".

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this
book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop
titles that you really get the most out of.

4
 Preface

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5
 Importing Data for
1
Analysis
In this chapter, we will cover:

ff Creating a new project

ff Reading CSV data into Incanter datasets
ff Reading JSON data into Incanter datasets
ff Reading data from Excel with Incanter
ff Reading data from JDBC databases
ff Reading XML data into Incanter datasets
ff Scraping data from tables in web pages
ff Scraping textual data from web pages
ff Reading RDF data
ff Reading RDF data with SPARQL
ff Aggregating data from different formats

Introduction
There's not a lot of data analysis that we can do without data, so the first step in any project is
evaluating what data we have and what we need. And once we have some idea of what we'll
need, we have to figure out how to get it.
Importing Data for Analysis

Many of the recipes in this chapter and in this book use Incanter (http://incanter.org/)
to import the data and target Incanter datasets. Incanter is a library for doing statistical
analysis and graphics in Clojure, similar to R. Incanter may not be suitable for every task—later
we'll use the Weka library for clustering and machine learning—but it is still an important part
of our toolkit for doing data analysis in Clojure. This chapter has a collection of recipes for
gathering data and making it accessible to Clojure. For the very first recipe, we'll look at how
to start a new project. We'll start with very simple formats like comma-separated values (CSV)
and move into reading data from relational databases using JDBC. Then we'll examine more
complicated data sources, such as web scraping and linked data (RDF).

Creating a new project

Over the course of this book, we're going to use a number of third-party libraries and external
dependencies. We need a tool to download them and track them. We also need a tool to set
up the environment and start a read-eval-print-loop (REPL, or interactive interpreter), which
can access our code, or to execute our program.

We'll use Leiningen for that (http://leiningen.org/). This has become a standard
package automation and management system.

Getting ready
Visit the Leiningen site (http://leiningen.org/) and download the lein script. This will
download the Leiningen JAR file. The instructions are clear, and it's a simple process.

How to do it...
To generate a new project, use the lein new command, passing it the name of the project:
$ lein new getting-data
Generating a project called getting-data based on the 'default' template.
To see other templates (app, lein plugin, etc), try 'lein help new'.

Now, there will be a new subdirectory named getting-data. It will contain files with stubs
for the getting-data.core namespace and for tests.

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have
purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you
purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.
com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

8
 Chapter 1

How it works...
The new project directory also contains a file named project.clj. This file contains
metadata about the project: its name, version, and license. It also contains a list of
dependencies that our code will use. The specifications it uses allows it to search Maven
repositories and directories of Clojure libraries (Clojars, https://clojars.org/) to
download the project's dependencies.
(defproject getting-data "0.1.0-SNAPSHOT"
:description "FIXME: write description"
:url "http://example.com/FIXME"
:license {:name "Eclipse Public License"
:url "http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html"}
:dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.4.0"]])

In the Getting ready section of each recipe, we'll see what libraries we need to list in the
:dependencies section of this file.

Reading CSV data into Incanter datasets

One of the simplest data formats is comma-separated values (CSV). And it's everywhere. Excel
reads and writes CSV directly, as do most databases. And because it's really just plain text, it's
easy to generate or access it using any programming language.

Getting ready
First, let's make sure we have the correct libraries loaded. The project file of Leiningen
(https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen), the project.clj file, should
contain these dependencies (although you may be able to use more up-to-date versions):
:dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.4.0"]
[incanter/incanter-core "1.4.1"]
[incanter/incanter-io "1.4.1"]]

Also, in your REPL or in your file, include these lines:

(use 'incanter.core
'incanter.io)

Finally, I have a file named data/small-sample.csv that contains the following data:
Gomez,Addams,father
Morticia,Addams,mother
Pugsley,Addams,brother
Wednesday,Addams,sister
…

9
Importing Data for Analysis

You can download this file from http://www.ericrochester.com/clj-data-

analysis/data/small-sample.csv. There's a version with a header row at http://
www.ericrochester.com/clj-data-analysis/data/small-sample-header.csv.

How to do it…
1. Use the incanter.io/read-dataset function:
user=> (read-dataset "data/small-sample.csv")
[:col0 :col1 :col2]
["Gomez" "Addams" "father"]
["Morticia" "Addams" "mother"]
["Pugsley" "Addams" "brother"]
["Wednesday" "Addams" "sister"]
…

2. If we have a header row in the CSV file, then we include :header true in the call to
read-dataset:

user=> (read-dataset "data/small-sample-header.csv" :header true)

[:given-name :surname :relation]
["Gomez" "Addams" "father"]
["Morticia" "Addams" "mother"]
["Pugsley" "Addams" "brother"]

How it works…
Using Clojure and Incanter makes a lot of common tasks easy. This is a good example of that.

We've taken some external data, in this case from a CSV file, and loaded it into an Incanter
dataset. In Incanter, a dataset is a table, similar to a sheet in a spreadsheet or a database
table. Each column has one field of data, and each row has an observation of data. Some
columns will contain string data (all of the columns in this example did), some will contain
dates, some numeric data. Incanter tries to detect automatically when a column contains
numeric data and coverts it to a Java int or double. Incanter takes away a lot of the pain
of importing data.

There's more…
If we don't want to involve Incanter—when you don't want the added dependency, for
instance—data.csv is also simple (https://github.com/clojure/data.csv).
We'll use this library in later chapters, for example, in the recipe Lazily processing very
large datasets of Chapter 2, Cleaning and Validating Data.

10
 Chapter 1

See also
ff Chapter 6, Working with Incanter Datasets

Reading JSON data into Incanter datasets

Another data format that's becoming increasingly popular is JavaScript Object Notation
(JSON, http://json.org/). Like CSV, this is a plain-text format, so it's easy for programs
to work with. It provides more information about the data than CSV does, but at the cost of
being more verbose. It also allows the data to be structured in more complicated ways, such
as hierarchies or sequences of hierarchies.

Because JSON is a much fuller data model than CSV, we may need to transform the data.
In that case, we can pull out just the information we're interested in and flatten the nested
maps before we pass it to Incanter. In this recipe, however, we'll just work with fairly simple
data structures.

Getting ready
First, include these dependencies in the Leiningen project.clj file:
:dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.4.0"]
[incanter/incanter-core "1.4.1"]
[org.clojure/data.json "0.2.1"]]

Use these libraries in our REPL interpreter or in our program:

(use 'incanter.core
'clojure.data.json)

And have some data. For this, I have a file named data/small-sample.json that looks
like the following:
[{"given_name": "Gomez",
"surname": "Addams",
"relation": "father"},
{"given_name": "Morticia",
"surname": "Addams",
"relation": "mother"}, …
]

You can download this data file from http://www.ericrochester.com/clj-data-

analysis/data/small-sample.json.

11
Importing Data for Analysis

How to do it…
Once everything's in place, this is just a one-liner, which we can execute at the REPL
interpreter:
user=> (to-dataset (read-json (slurp "data/small-sample.json")))
[:given_name :surname :relation]
["Gomez" "Addams" "father"]
["Morticia" "Addams" "mother"]
["Pugsley" "Addams" "brother"]
…

How it works…
Like all Lisps, Clojure is usually read from inside out, from right to left. Let's break it down.
clojure.core/slurp reads in the contents of the file and returns it as a string. This is
obviously a bad idea for very large files, but for small ones it's handy. clojure.data.json/
read-json takes the data from slurp, parses it as JSON, and returns native Clojure data
structures. In this case, it returns a vector of maps. maps.incanter.core/to-dataset
takes a sequence of maps and returns an Incanter dataset. This will use the keys in the maps as
column names and will convert the data values into a matrix. Actually, to-dataset can accept
many different data structures. Try (doc to-dataset) in the REPL interpreter or see the
Incanter documentation at http://data-sorcery.org/contents/ for more information.

Reading data from Excel with Incanter

We've seen how Incanter makes a lot of common data-processing tasks very simple; reading
an Excel spreadsheet is another example of this.

Getting ready
First, make sure that our Leiningen project.clj file contains the right dependencies:
:dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.4.0"]
[incanter/incanter-core "1.4.1"]
[incanter/incanter-excel "1.4.1"]]

Also, make sure that we've loaded those packages into the REPL interpreter or script:
(use 'incanter.core
'incanter.excel)

12
Other documents randomly have
different content
 The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Golden
Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol.
2 of 2)
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol.

2 of 2)

Author: James George Frazer

Release date: November 12, 2012 [eBook #41359]

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN

BOUGH: A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION (VOL. 2 OF 2) ***
 The Golden Bough

A Study in Comparative Religion

By

James George Frazer, M.A.

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

In Two Volumes.

Vol. II.
New York and London

MacMillan and Co.

1894
Contents

Chapter III—(continued).
§ 10.—The corn-spirit as an animal.
§ 11.—Eating the god.
§ 12.—Killing the divine animal.
§ 13.—Transference of evil.
§ 14.—Expulsion of evils,
§ 15.—Scapegoats.
§ 16.—Killing the god in Mexico.
Chapter IV—The Golden Bough.
§ 1.—Between heaven and earth.
§ 2.—Balder.
§ 3.—The external soul in folk-tales.
§ 4.—The external soul in folk-custom.
§ 5.—Conclusion.
Note. Offerings of first-fruits.
Index.
Footnotes
[Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the
submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the
public domain.]

[pg 001]
Chapter III—(continued).
§ 10.—The corn-spirit as an animal.

In some of the examples cited above to establish the meaning of the

term “neck” as applied to the last sheaf, the corn-spirit appears in
animal form as a gander, a goat, a hare, a cat, and a fox. This
introduces us to a new aspect of the corn-spirit, which we must now
examine. By doing so we shall not only have fresh examples of
killing the god, but may hope also to clear up some points which
remain obscure in the myths and worship of Attis, Adonis, Osiris,
Dionysus, Demeter, and Virbius.

Amongst the many animals whose forms the corn-spirit is supposed

to take are the wolf, dog, hare, cock, goose, cat, goat, cow (ox,
bull), pig, and horse. In one or other of these forms the corn-spirit is
believed to be present in the corn, and to be caught or killed in the
last sheaf. As the corn is being cut the animal flees before the
reapers, and if a reaper is taken ill on the field, he is supposed to
have stumbled unwittingly on the corn-spirit, who has thus punished
the profane intruder. It is said “The Rye-wolf has got hold of him,”
“the Harvest-goat has given him a push.” The person who cuts the
last corn or binds the last sheaf gets the name of the animal, as the
Rye-wolf, [pg 002] the Rye-sow, the Oats-goat, etc., and retains the
name sometimes for a year. Also the animal is frequently
represented by a puppet made out of the last sheaf or of wood,
flowers, etc., which is carried home amid rejoicings on the last
harvest waggon. Even where the last sheaf is not made up in animal
shape, it is often called the Rye-wolf, the Hare, Goat, and so on.
Generally each kind of crop is supposed to have its special animal,
which is caught in the last sheaf, and called the Rye-wolf, the Barley-
wolf, the Oats-wolf, the Pea-wolf, or the Potato-wolf, according to the
crop; but sometimes the figure of the animal is only made up once
for all at getting in the last crop of the whole harvest. Sometimes the
animal is believed to be killed by the last stroke of the sickle or
scythe. But oftener it is thought to live so long as there is corn still
unthreshed, and to be caught in the last sheaf threshed. Hence the
man who gives the last stroke with the flail is told that he has got
the Corn-sow, the Threshing-dog, etc. When the threshing is
finished, a puppet is made in the form of the animal, and this is
carried by the thresher of the last sheaf to a neighbouring farm,
where the threshing is still going on. This again shows that the corn-
spirit is believed to live wherever the corn is still being threshed.
Sometimes the thresher of the last sheaf himself represents the
animal; and if the people of the next farm, who are still threshing,
catch him, they treat him like the animal he represents, by shutting
him up in the pig-sty, calling him with the cries commonly addressed
to pigs, and so forth.1

These general statements will now be illustrated by examples. We

begin with the corn-spirit conceived [pg 003] as a wolf or a dog.
This conception is common in France, Germany, and Slavonic
countries. Thus, when the wind sets the corn in wave-like motion,
the peasants often say, “The Wolf is going over, or through, the
corn,” “the Rye-wolf is rushing over the field,” “the Wolf is in the
corn,” “the mad Dog is in the corn,” “the big Dog is there.”2 When
children wish to go into the corn-fields to pluck ears or gather the
blue corn-flowers, they are warned not to do so, for “the big Dog
sits in the corn,” or “the Wolf sits in the corn, and will tear you in
pieces,” “the Wolf will eat you.” The wolf against whom the children
are warned is not a common wolf, for he is often spoken of as the
Corn-wolf, Rye-wolf, etc.; thus they say, “The Rye-wolf will come and
eat you up, children,” “the Rye-wolf will carry you off,” and so forth.3
Still he has all the outward appearance of a wolf. For in the
neighbourhood of Feilenhof (East Prussia), when a wolf was seen
running through a field, the peasants used to watch whether he
carried his tail in the air or dragged it on the ground. If he dragged it
on the ground, they went after him, and thanked him for bringing
them a blessing, and even set tit-bits before him. But if he carried
his tail high, they cursed him and tried to kill him. Here the wolf is
the corn-spirit, whose fertilising power is in his tail.4

Both dog and wolf appear as embodiments of the corn-spirit in

harvest-customs. Thus in some parts [pg 004] of Silesia the person
who binds the last sheaf is called the Wheat-dog or the Peas-pug.5
But it is in the harvest-customs of the north-east of France that the
idea of the Corn-dog comes out most clearly. Thus when a harvester,
through sickness, weariness, or laziness, cannot or will not keep up
with the reaper in front of him, they say, “The White Dog passed
near him,” “he has the White Bitch,” or “the White Bitch has bitten
him.”6 In the Vosges the Harvest-May is called the “Dog of the
harvest.”7 About Lons-le-Saulnier, in the Jura, the last sheaf is called
the Bitch. In the neighbourhood of Verdun the regular expression for
finishing the reaping is, “They are going to kill the Dog;” and at
Épinal they say, according to the crop, “We will kill the Wheat-dog,
or the Rye-dog, or the Potato-dog.”8 In Lorraine it is said of the man
who cuts the last corn, “He is killing the Dog of the harvest.”9 At
Dux, in the Tyrol, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is
said to “strike down the Dog;”10 and at Ahnebergen, near Stade, he
is called, according to the crop, Corn-pug, Rye-pug, Wheat-pug.11

So with the wolf. In Germany it is said that “The Wolf sits in the last
sheaf.”12 In some places they call out to the reaper, “Beware of the
Wolf;” or they say, “He is chasing the Wolf out of the corn.”13 The
last bunch of standing corn is called the Wolf, and the man who cuts
it “has the Wolf.” The last sheaf is also called the Wolf; and of the
woman who binds it they say, “The Wolf is biting her,” “she has the
[pg 005] Wolf,” “she must fetch the Wolf” (out of the corn).14
Moreover, she is herself called Wolf and has to bear the name for a
whole year; sometimes, according to the crop, she is called the Rye-
wolf or the Potato-wolf.15 In the island of Rügen they call out to the
woman who binds the last sheaf, “You're Wolf;” and when she
comes home she bites the lady of the house and the stewardess, for
which she receives a large piece of meat. The same woman may be
Rye-wolf, Wheat-wolf, and Oats-wolf, if she happens to bind the last
sheaf of rye, wheat, and oats.16 At Buir, in the district of Cologne, it
was formerly the custom to give to the last sheaf the shape of a
wolf. It was kept in the barn till all the corn was threshed. Then it
was brought to the farmer, and he had to sprinkle it with beer or
brandy.17 In many places the sheaf called the Wolf is made up in
human form and dressed in clothes. This indicates a confusion
between the conceptions of the corn-spirit as theriomorphic (in
animal form) and as anthropomorphic (in human form).18 Generally
the Wolf is brought home on the last waggon, with joyful cries.19

Again, the Wolf is supposed to hide himself amongst the cut corn in
the granary, until he is driven out of the last bundle by the strokes of
the flail. Hence at Wanzleben, near Magdeburg, after the threshing
the peasants go in procession, leading by a chain a man, who is
enveloped in the threshed out straw and is called the Wolf.20 He
represents the corn-spirit who has been caught escaping from the
threshed corn. In Trier it is believed that the Corn-wolf [pg 006] is
killed at threshing. The men thresh the last sheaf till it is reduced to
chopped straw. In this way they think that the Corn-wolf who was
lurking in the last sheaf, has been certainly killed.21

In France also the Corn-wolf appears at harvest. Thus they call out
to the reaper of the last corn, “You will catch the Wolf.” Near
Chambéry they form a ring round the last standing corn, and cry,
“The Wolf is in there.” In Finisterre, when the reaping draws near an
end, the harvesters cry, “There is the Wolf; we will catch him.” Each
takes a swath to reap, and he who finishes first calls out, “I've
caught the Wolf.”22 In Guyenne, when the last corn has been reaped,
they lead a wether all round the field. It is called “the Wolf of the
field.” Its horns are decked with a wreath of flowers and corn-ears,
and its neck and body are also encircled with garlands and ribbons.
All the reapers march, singing, behind it. Then it is killed on the
field. In this part of France the last sheaf is called the coujoulage,
which, in the patois, means a wether. Hence the killing of the wether
represents the death of the corn-spirit, considered as present in the
last sheaf; but two different conceptions of the corn-spirit—as a wolf
and as a wether—are mixed up together.23

Sometimes it appears to be thought that the Wolf, caught in the last

corn, lives during the winter in the farmhouse, ready to renew his
activity as corn-spirit in the spring. Hence at midwinter, when the
lengthening days begin to herald the approach of spring, the Wolf
makes his appearance once more. In Poland a man, with a wolf's
skin thrown over his head, is led about at Christmas; or a stuffed
wolf is carried about by [pg 007] persons who collect money.24 There
are facts which point to an old custom of leading about a man
enveloped in leaves and called the Wolf, while his conductors
collected money.25

Another form which the corn-spirit often assumes is that of a cock.

In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn-fields,
because the Corn-cock sits there, and will peck their eyes out.26 In
North Germany they say that “the Cock sits in the last sheaf;” and at
cutting the last corn the reapers cry, “Now we will chase out the
Cock.” When it is cut they say, “We have caught the Cock.” Then a
cock is made of flowers, fastened on a pole, and carried home by
the reapers, singing as they go.27 At Braller, in Transylvania, when
the reapers come to the last patch of corn, they cry, “Here we shall
catch the Cock.”28 At Fürstenwalde, when the last sheaf is about to
be bound, the master lets loose a cock, which he has brought in a
basket, and lets it run over the field. All the harvesters chase it till
they catch it. Elsewhere the harvesters all try to seize the last corn
cut; he who succeeds in grasping it must crow, and is called Cock.29
The last sheaf is called Cock, Cock-sheaf, Harvest-cock, Harvest-hen,
Autumn-hen. A distinction is made between a Wheat-cock, Bean-
cock, etc., according to the crop.30 At Wünschensuhl, in Thüringen,
the last sheaf is made into the shape of a cock, and called Harvest-
cock.31 A figure of a cock, [pg 008] made of wood, pasteboard, or
ears of corn, is borne in front of the harvest-waggon, especially in
Westphalia, where the cock carries in his beak fruits of the earth of
all kinds. Sometimes the image of the cock is fastened to the top of
a May-tree on the last harvest-waggon. Elsewhere a live cock, or a
figure of one, is attached to a harvest-crown and carried on a pole.
In Galicia and elsewhere this live cock is fastened to the garland of
corn-ears or flowers, which the leader of the women-reapers carries
on her head as she marches in front of the harvest procession.32 In
Silesia a live cock is presented to the master on a plate. The harvest
supper is called Harvest-cock, Stubble-cock, etc., and a chief dish at
it, at least in some places, is a cock.33 If a waggoner upsets a
harvest-waggon, it is said that “he has spilt the Harvest-cock,” and
he loses the cock—that is, the harvest supper.34 The harvest-
waggon, with the figure of the cock on it, is driven round the
farmhouse before it is taken to the barn. Then the cock is nailed
over, or at the side of the house door, or on the gable, and remains
there till next harvest.35 In East Friesland the person who gives the
last stroke at threshing is called the Clucking-hen, and grain is
strewed before him as if he were a hen.36

Again, the corn-spirit is killed in the form of [pg 009] a cock. In parts
of Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Picardy, the reapers place a live
cock in the corn which is to be cut last, and chase it over the field,
or bury it up to the neck in the ground; afterwards they strike off its
head with a sickle or scythe.37 In many parts of Westphalia, when
the harvesters bring the wooden cock to the farmer, he gives them a
live cock, which they kill with whips or sticks, or behead with an old
sword, or throw it into the barn to the girls, or give it to the mistress
to cook. If the Harvest-cock has not been spilt—that is, if no waggon
has been upset—the harvesters have the right of killing the farmyard
cock by throwing stones at it or beheading it. Where this custom has
fallen into disuse, it is still common for the farmer's wife to make
cockie-leekie for the harvesters, and to show them the head of the
cock which has been killed for the soup.38 In the neighbourhood of
Klausenburg, Transylvania, a cock is buried on the harvest-field in
the earth, so that only its head appears. A young man then takes a
scythe and cuts off the cock's head at a single stroke. If he fails to
do this, he is called the Red Cock for a whole year, and people fear
that next year's crop will be bad.39 In the neighbourhood of
Udvarhely, Transylvania, a live cock is bound up in the last sheaf and
killed with a spit. It is then skinned. The flesh is thrown away, but
the skin and feathers are kept till next year; and in spring the grain
from the last sheaf is mixed with the feathers of the cock and
scattered on the field which is to be tilled.40 Nothing could set in a
clearer [pg 010] light the identification of the cock with the spirit of
the corn. By being tied up in the last sheaf and killed, the cock is
identified with the corn, and its death with the cutting of the corn.
By keeping its feathers till spring, then mixing them with the seed-
corn taken from the very sheaf in which the bird had been bound,
and scattering the feathers together with the seed over the field, the
identity of the bird with the corn is again emphasised, and its
quickening and fertilising power, as the corn-spirit, is intimated in the
plainest manner. Thus the corn-spirit, in the form of a cock, is killed
at harvest, but rises to fresh life and activity in spring. Again, the
equivalence of the cock to the corn is expressed, hardly less plainly,
in the custom of burying the bird in the ground, and cutting off its
head (like the ears of corn) with the scythe.

Another common embodiment of the corn-spirit is the hare.41 In

some parts of Ayrshire the cutting of the last corn is called “cutting
the Hare;”42 and in Germany a name for the last sheaf is the Hare.43
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.44 At Birk in Transylvania, when the
reapers come to the last patch, they cry out, “We have the Hare.”45
At Aurich, as we have seen,46 an expression for cutting the last corn
is “to cut off the Hare's tail.” “He is killing the Hare” is [pg 011]
commonly said of the man who cuts the last corn in Germany,
Sweden, Holland, France, and Italy.47 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.48
Again, the corn-spirit sometimes takes the form of a cat.49 Near Kiel
children are warned not to go into the corn-fields because “the Cat
sits there.” In the Eisenach Oberland they are told “the Corn-cat will
come and fetch you,” “the Corn-cat goes in the corn.” In some parts
of Silesia at mowing the last corn they say, “the Cat is caught;” and
at threshing, the man who gives the last stroke is called the Cat. In
the neighbourhood of Lyons the last sheaf and the harvest supper
are both called the Cat. About Vesoul when they cut the last corn
they say, “We have the Cat by the tail.” At Briançon, in Dauphiné, at
the beginning of reaping, a cat is decked out with ribbons, flowers,
and ears of corn. It is called the Cat of the ball-skin (le chat de peau
de balle). If a reaper is wounded at his work, they make the cat lick
the wound. At the close of the reaping the cat is again decked out
with ribbons and ears of corn; then there is dancing and merriment.
When the dance is over, the cat is solemnly stripped of its ornaments
by the girls. At Grüneberg in Silesia the reaper who cuts the last
corn is called the Tom-cat. He is enveloped in rye-stalks and green
withes, and is furnished with a long plaited tail. Sometimes as a
companion he has a man similarly dressed, who is called the
(female) Cat. Their duty is to run after people whom they see and
beat them with a long stick. Near Amiens the [pg 012] expression
for finishing the harvest is, “They are going to kill the Cat;” and
when the last corn is cut a cat is killed in the farmyard. At threshing,
in some parts of France, a live cat is placed under the last bundle of
corn to be threshed, and is struck dead with the flails. Then on
Sunday it is roasted and eaten as a holiday dish.

Further, the corn-spirit often appears in the form of a goat. In the

province of Prussia, when the corn bends before the wind, they say,
“The Goats are chasing each other,” “the wind is driving the Goats
through the corn,” “the Goats are browsing there,” and they expect a
very good harvest. Again they say, “the Oats-goat is sitting in the
oats-field,” “the Corn-goat is sitting in the rye-field.”50 Children are
warned not to go into the corn-fields to pluck the blue cornflowers,
or amongst the beans to pluck pods, because the Rye-goat, the
Corn-goat, the Oats-goat, or the Bean-goat is sitting or lying there,
and will carry them away or kill them.51 When a harvester is taken
sick or lags behind his fellows at their work, they call out, “The
Harvest-goat has pushed him,” “he has been pushed by the Corn-
goat.”52 In the neighbourhood of Braunsberg (East Prussia) at
binding the oats every harvester makes haste “lest the Corn-goat
push him.” At Oefoten in Norway each harvester has his allotted
patch to reap. When a harvester in the middle has not finished
reaping his piece after his neighbours have finished theirs, they say
of him, “He remains on the island.” And if the laggard is a man, they
imitate the cry with which they call a he-goat; if a woman, the cry
with which they call a she-goat.53 Near Straubing [pg 013] in Lower
Bavaria, it is said of the man who cuts the last corn that “he has the
Corn-goat or the Wheat-goat, or the Oats-goat,” according to the
crop. Moreover, two horns are set up on the last heap of corn, and it
is called “the horned Goat.” At Kreutzburg, East Prussia, they call out
to the woman who is binding the last sheaf, “The Goat is sitting in
the sheaf.”54 At Gablingen in Swabia, when the last field of oats upon
a farm is being reaped, the reapers carve a goat out of wood. Ears
of oats are inserted in its nostrils and mouth, and it is adorned with
garlands of flowers. It is set upon the field and called the Oats-goat.
When the reaping approaches an end, each reaper hastens to finish
his piece first; he who is the last to finish gets the Oats-goat.55
Again, the last sheaf is itself called the Goat. Thus, in the valley of
the Wiesent, Bavaria, the last sheaf bound on the field is called the
Goat, and they have a proverb, “The field must bear a goat.”56 At
Spachbrücken in Hesse, the last handful of corn which is cut is called
the Goat, and the man who cuts it is much ridiculed.57 Sometimes
the last sheaf is made up in the form of a goat,58 and they say, “The
Goat is sitting in it.” Again, the person who cuts or binds the last
sheaf is called the Goat. Thus, in parts of Mecklenburg they call out
to the woman who binds the last sheaf, “You are the Harvest-goat.”
In the neighbourhood of Uelzen in Hanover, the harvest festival
begins with “the bringing of the Harvest-goat;” that is, the woman
who bound the last sheaf is wrapt in straw, crowned with a harvest-
wreath, and brought in a wheelbarrow [pg 014] to the village, where
a round dance takes place. About Lüneburg, also, the woman who
binds the last corn is decked with a crown of corn-ears and is called
the Corn-goat.59 In the Canton St. Gall, Switzerland, the person who
cuts the last handful of corn on the field, or drives the last harvest-
waggon to the barn, is called the Corn-goat or the Rye-goat, or
simply the Goat.60 In the Canton Thurgau he is called Corn-goat; like
a goat he has a bell hung round his neck, is led in triumph, and
drenched with liquor. In parts of Styria, also, the man who cuts the
last corn is called Corn-goat, Oats-goat, etc. As a rule, the man who
thus gets the name of Corn-goat has to bear it a whole year till the
next harvest.61

According to one view, the corn-spirit, who has been caught in the
form of a goat or otherwise, lives in the farmhouse or barn over
winter. Thus, each farm has its own embodiment of the corn-spirit.
But, according to another view, the corn-spirit is the genius or deity,
not of the corn of one farm only, but of all the corn. Hence when the
corn on one farm is all cut, he flees to another where there is still
corn left standing. This idea is brought out in a harvest-custom
which was formerly observed in Skye. The farmer who first finished
reaping sent a man or woman with a sheaf to a neighbouring farmer
who had not finished; the latter in his turn, when he had finished,
sent on the sheaf to his neighbour who was still reaping; and so the
sheaf made the round of the farms till all the corn was cut. The
sheaf was called the goabbir bhacagh, that is, the Cripple Goat.62
The corn-spirit was probably thus represented as lame because he
had been [pg 015] crippled by the cutting of the corn. We have seen
that sometimes the old woman who brings home the last sheaf must
limp on one foot.63 In the Böhmer Wald mountains, between
Bohemia and Bavaria, when two peasants are driving home their
corn together, they race against each other to see who shall get
home first. The village boys mark the loser in the race, and at night
they come and erect on the roof of his house the Oats-goat, which is
a colossal figure of a goat made of straw.64
But sometimes the corn-spirit, in the form of a goat, is believed to
be slain on the harvest-field by the sickle or scythe. Thus, in the
neighbourhood of Bernkastel, on the Moselle, the reapers determine
by lot the order in which they shall follow each other. The first is
called the fore-reaper, the last the tail-bearer. If a reaper overtakes
the man in front he reaps past him, bending round so as to leave the
slower reaper in a patch by himself. This patch is called the Goat;
and the man for whom “the Goat is cut” in this way, is laughed and
jeered at by his fellows for the rest of the day. When the tail-bearer
cuts the last ears of corn, it is said “He is cutting the Goat's neck
off.”65 In the neighbourhood of Grenoble, before the end of the
reaping, a live goat is adorned with flowers and ribbons and allowed
to run about the field. The reapers chase it and try to catch it. When
it is caught, the farmer's wife holds it fast while the farmer cuts off
its head. The goat's flesh serves to furnish the harvest supper. A
piece of the flesh is pickled and kept till the next harvest, when
another goat is killed. Then all the harvesters eat [pg 016] 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.66 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.67
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,68—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.69 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 [pg 017] 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.70 At Oberinntal in Tyrol the last thresher is called Goat.71 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.72 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.73 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 [pg 018] catch him they blacken his face
and tie the Goat on his back.74 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.75 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 Oats-goat
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.76 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.77

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.78 The goat-skin thus
suspended [pg 019] on the field from sowing time to harvest
represents the corn-spirit superintending the growth of the corn.

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;”79 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.80 So near Chambéry when a reaper
wounds himself with his sickle, it is said that he has “the wound of
the Ox.”81 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 Alte). In some parts of
Bohemia the last sheaf is made up in human form and called the
Buffalo-bull.82 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.83 In the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland, the last
sheaf, if it is a large one, is called the Cow.84 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 corn-ears and a more liberal allowance of
drink than the rest. [pg 020] But he is teased and laughed at; so no
one likes to be the Cow.85 The Cow was sometimes represented by
the figure of a woman made out of ears of corn and corn-flowers. It
was carried to the farmhouse by the man who had cut the last
handful of corn. The children ran after him and the neighbours
turned out to laugh at him, till the farmer took the Cow from him.86
Here again the confusion between the human and the animal form
of the corn-spirit is apparent. In various parts of Switzerland the
reaper who cuts the last ears of corn is called Wheat-cow, Corn-cow,
Oats-cow, or Corn-steer, and is the butt of many a joke.87 In some
parts of East Prussia, when a few ears of corn have been left
standing by inadvertence on the last swath, the foremost reaper
seizes them and cries, “Bull! Bull!”88 On the other hand, in the
district of Rosenheim, in Upper Bavaria, when a farmer is later in
getting in his harvest than his neighbours, they set up on his land a
Straw-bull, as it is called. This is a gigantic figure of a bull made of
stubble on a framework of wood and adorned with flowers and
leaves. A label is attached to it containing doggerel verses in ridicule
of the man on whose land the Straw-bull is placed.89

Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a bull or ox is killed on the

harvest-field at the close of the reaping. At Pouilly near Dijon, when
the last ears of corn are about to be cut, an ox adorned with
ribbons, flowers, and ears of corn is led all round the field, followed
by the whole troop of reapers dancing. Then a man [pg 021]
disguised as the Devil cuts the last ears of corn and immediately kills
the ox. Part of the flesh of the animal is eaten at the harvest supper;
part is pickled and kept till the first day of sowing in spring. At Pont
à Mousson and elsewhere on the evening of the last day of reaping
a calf adorned with flowers and ears of corn is led three times round
the farmyard, being allured by a bait or driven by men with sticks, or
conducted by the farmer's wife with a rope. The calf selected for this
ceremony is the calf which was born first on the farm in the spring
of the year. It is followed by all the reapers with their implements.
Then it is allowed to run free; the reapers chase it, and whoever
catches it is called King of the Calf. Lastly, it is solemnly killed; at
Lunéville the man who acts as butcher is the Jewish merchant of the
village.90

Sometimes again the corn-spirit hides himself amongst the cut corn
in the barn to reappear in bull or cow form at threshing. Thus at
Wurmlingen in Thüringen the man who gives the last stroke at
threshing is called the Cow, or rather the Barley-cow, Oats-cow,
Peas-cow, etc., according to the crop. He is entirely enveloped in
straw; his head is surmounted by sticks in imitation of horns, and
two lads lead him by ropes to the well to drink. On the way thither
he must low like a cow, and for a long time afterwards he goes by
the name of the Cow.91 At Obermedlingen in Swabia, when the
threshing draws near an end, each man is careful to avoid giving the
last stroke. He who does give it “gets the Cow,” which is a straw
figure dressed in an old ragged petticoat, hood, and [pg 022]
stockings. It is tied on his back with a straw-rope; his face is
blackened, he is tied with straw-ropes to a wheelbarrow, and
wheeled round the village.92 Here, again, we are met with that
confusion between the anthropomorphic and theriomorphic
conception of the corn-spirit, which has been already signalised. In
Canton Schaffhausen the man who threshes the last corn is called
the Cow; in Canton Thurgau, the Corn-bull; in Canton Zurich, the
Thresher-cow. In the last-mentioned district he is wrapt in straw and
bound to one of the trees in the orchard.93 At Arad in Hungary the
man who gives the last stroke at threshing is enveloped in straw and
a cow's hide with the horns attached to it.94 At Pessnitz, in the
district of Dresden, the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is
called Bull. He must make a straw-man and set it up before a
neighbour's window.95 Here, apparently, as in so many cases, the
corn-spirit is passed on to a neighbour who has not finished
threshing. So at Herbrechtingen in Thüringen the effigy of a ragged
old woman is flung into the barn of the farmer who is last with his
threshing. The man who throws it in cries, “There is the Cow for
you.” If the threshers catch him they detain him over night and
punish him by keeping him from the harvest supper.96 In these latter
customs the confusion between the anthropomorphic and
theriomorphic conception of the corn-spirit meets us again. Further,
the corn-spirit in bull form is sometimes believed to be killed at
threshing. At Auxerre in threshing the last bundle of corn they call
out twelve times, “We are killing the Bull.” In [pg 023] the
neighbourhood of Bordeaux, where a butcher kills an ox on the field
immediately after the close of the reaping, it is said of the man who
gives the last stroke at threshing that “he has killed the Bull.”97 At
Chambéry the last sheaf is called the sheaf of the Young Ox and a
race takes place to it, in which all the reapers join. When the last
stroke is given at threshing they say that “the Ox is killed;” and
immediately thereupon a real ox is slaughtered by the reaper who
cut the last corn. The flesh of the ox is eaten by the threshers at
supper.98

We have seen that sometimes the young corn-spirit, whose task it is

to quicken the corn of the coming year, is believed to be born as a
Corn-baby on the harvest-field.99 Similarly in Berry the young corn-
spirit is sometimes believed to be born on the field in calf form. For
when a binder has not rope enough to bind all the corn in sheaves,
he puts aside the wheat that remains over and imitates the lowing of
a cow. The meaning is that “the sheaf has given birth to a calf.”100 In
Puy-de-Dôme when a binder cannot keep up with the reaper whom
he or she follows, they say “He or she is giving birth to the Calf.”101
In some parts of Prussia, in similar circumstances, they call out to
the woman, “The Bull is coming,” and imitate the bellowing of a
bull.102 In these cases the woman is conceived as the Corn-cow or
old corn-spirit, while the supposed calf is the Corn-calf or young
corn-spirit. In some parts of Austria a mythical calf (Muhkälbchen) is
believed to be seen amongst the sprouting corn in spring and to
push the [pg 024] children; when the corn waves in the wind they
say, “The Calf is going about.” Clearly, as Mannhardt observes, this
calf of the spring-time is the same animal which is afterwards
believed to be killed at reaping.103

Sometimes the corn-spirit appears in the shape of a horse or mare.

Between Kalw and Stuttgart, when the corn bends before the wind,
they say, “There runs the Horse.”104 In Hertfordshire, at the end of
the reaping, there is or was a ceremony called “crying the Mare.”
The last blades of corn left standing on the field are tied together
and called the Mare. The reapers stand at a distance and throw their
sickles at it; he who cuts it through “has the prize, with acclamations
and good cheer.” After it is cut the reapers cry thrice with a loud
voice, “I have her!” Others answer thrice, “What have you?”—“A
Mare! a Mare! a Mare!”—“Whose is she?” is next asked thrice. “A.
B.'s,” naming the owner thrice. “Whither will you send her?”—“To C.
D.,” naming some neighbour who has not all his corn reaped.105 In
this custom the corn-spirit in the form of a mare is passed on from a
farm where the corn is all cut to another farm where it is still
standing, and where therefore the corn-spirit may be supposed
naturally to take refuge. In Shropshire the custom is similar. “Crying,
calling, or shouting the mare is a ceremony performed by the men of
that farm which is the first in any parish or district to finish the
harvest. The object of it is to make known their own prowess, and to
taunt the laggards by a pretended offer of the ‘owd mar’ [old mare]
to help out their ‘chem’ [team]. All the men assemble (the wooden
harvest-bottle being of course [pg 025] one of the company) in the
stackyard, or, better, on the highest ground on the farm, and there
shout the following dialogue, preceding it by a grand ‘Hip, hip, hip,
hurrah!’

“ ‘I 'ave 'er, I 'ave 'er, I 'ave 'er!’

“ ‘Whad 'ast thee, whad 'ast thee, whad 'ast thee?’

“ ‘A mar'! a mar'! a mar'!’

“ ‘Whose is 'er, whose is 'er, whose is 'er?’

“ ‘Maister A.'s, Maister A.'s, Maister A.'s!’ (naming the farmer whose
harvest is finished).

“ ‘W'eer sha't the' send 'er? w'eer sha't the' send 'er? w'eer sha't the'
send 'er?’

“ ‘To Maister B.'s, to Maister B.'s, to Maister B.'s’ (naming one whose
harvest is not finished).”

The farmer who finishes his harvest last, and who therefore cannot
send the Mare to any one else, is said “to keep her all winter.” The
mocking offer of the Mare was sometimes responded to by a
mocking acceptance of her help. Thus an old man told an inquirer,
“While we wun at supper, a mon cumm'd wi' a autar [halter] to fatch
her away.” But at one place (Longnor, near Leebotwood), down to
about 1850, the Mare used really to be sent. “The head man of the
farmer who had finished harvest first was mounted on the best
horse of the team—the leader—both horse and man being adorned
with ribbons, streamers, etc. Thus arrayed, a boy on foot led the
pair in triumph to the neighbouring farmhouses. Sometimes the man
who took the ‘mare’ received, as well as plenty of harvest-ale, some
rather rough, though good-humoured, treatment, coming back
minus his decorations, and so on.”106 In the neighbourhood of Lille
the idea of the corn-spirit [pg 026] in horse form is clearly
preserved. When a harvester grows weary at his work, it is said, “He
has the fatigue of the Horse.” The first sheaf, called the “Cross of the
Horse,” is placed on a cross of box-wood in the barn, and the
youngest horse on the farm must tread on it. The reapers dance
round the last blades of corn, crying, “See the remains of the Horse.”
The sheaf made out of these last blades is given to the youngest
horse of the parish (commune) to eat. This youngest horse of the
parish clearly represents, as Mannhardt says, the corn-spirit of the
following year, the Corn-foal, which absorbs the spirit of the old
Corn-horse by eating the last corn cut; for, as usual, the old corn-
spirit takes his final refuge in the last sheaf. The thresher of the last
sheaf is said to “beat the Horse.”107 Again, a trace of the horse-
shaped corn-spirit is reported from Berry. The harvesters there are
accustomed to take a noon-day sleep in the field. This is called
“seeing the Horse.” The leader or “King” of the harvesters gives the
signal for going to sleep. If he delays giving the signal, one of the
harvesters will begin to neigh like a horse, the rest imitate him, and
then they all go “to see the Horse.”108

The last animal embodiment of the corn-spirit which we shall notice

is the pig (boar or sow). In Thüringen, when the wind sets the
young corn in motion, they sometimes say, “The Boar is rushing
through the corn.”109 Amongst the Esthonians of the island of Oesel
the last sheaf is called the Rye-boar, and the man who gets it is
saluted with a cry of, [pg 027] “You have the Rye-boar on your
back!” In reply he strikes up a song, in which he prays for plenty.110
At Kohlerwinkel, near Augsburg, at the close of the harvest, the last
bunch of standing corn is cut down, stalk by stalk, by all the reapers
in turn. He who cuts the last stalk “gets the Sow,” and is laughed
at.111 In other Swabian villages also the man who cuts the last corn
“has the Sow,” or “has the Rye-sow.”112 In the Traunstein district,
Upper Bavaria, the man who cuts the last handful of rye or wheat
“has the Sow,” and is called Sow-driver.113 At Friedingen, in Swabia,
the thresher who gives the last stroke is called Sow—Barley-sow,
Corn-sow, etc., according to the crop. At Onstmettingen the man
who gives the last stroke at threshing “has the Sow;” he is often
bound up in a sheaf and dragged by a rope along the ground.114
And, generally, in Swabia the man who gives the last stroke with the
flail is called Sow. He may, however, rid himself of this invidious
distinction by passing on to a neighbour the straw-rope, which is the
badge of his position as Sow. So he goes to a house and throws the
straw-rope into it, crying, “There, I bring you the Sow.” All the
inmates give chase; and if they catch him they beat him, shut him
up for several hours in the pig-sty, and oblige him to take the “Sow”
away again.115 In various parts of Upper Bavaria the man who gives
the last stroke at threshing must “carry the Pig”—that is, either a
straw effigy of a pig or merely a bundle of straw-ropes. This he [pg
028] carries to a neighbouring farm where the threshing is not
finished, and throws it into the barn. If the threshers catch him they
handle him roughly, beating him, blackening or dirtying his face,
throwing him into filth, binding the Sow on his back, etc.; if the
bearer of the Sow is a woman they cut off her hair. At the harvest
supper or dinner the man who “carried the Pig” gets one or more
dumplings made in the form of pigs; sometimes he gets a large
dumpling and a number of small ones, all in pig form, the large one
being called the sow and the small ones the sucking-pigs.
Sometimes he has the right to be the first to put his hand into the
dish and take out as many small dumplings (“sucking-pigs”) as he
can, while the other threshers strike at his hand with spoons or
sticks. When the dumplings are served up by the maid-servant, all
the people at table cry, “Süz, süz, süz!” being the cry used in calling
pigs. Sometimes after dinner the man who “carried the Pig” has his
face blackened, and is set on a cart and drawn round the village by
his fellows, followed by a crowd crying, “Süz, süz, süz!” as if they
were calling swine. Sometimes, after being wheeled round the
village, he is flung on the dunghill.116

Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a pig plays his part at sowing-
time as well as at harvest. At Neuautz, in Courland, when barley is
sown for the first time in the year, the farmer's wife boils the chine
of a pig along with the tail, and brings it to the sower on the field.
He eats of it, but cuts off the tail and sticks it in the field; it is
believed that the ears of corn will then grow as long as the tail.117
Here the pig is the corn-spirit, [pg 029] whose fertilising power is
sometimes supposed to lie especially in his tail.118 As a pig he is put
in the ground at sowing-time, and as a pig he reappears amongst
the ripe corn at harvest. For amongst the neighbouring Esthonians,
as we have seen,119 the last sheaf is called the Rye-boar. Somewhat
similar customs are observed in Germany. In the Salza district, near
Meiningen, a certain bone in the pig is called “the Jew on the
winnowing-fan” (der Jud' auf der Wanne). The flesh of this bone is
boiled on Shrove Tuesday, but the bone is put amongst the ashes,
which the neighbours exchange as presents on St. Peter's Day (22d
February), and then mix with the seed-corn.120 In the whole of
Hessen, Meiningen, etc., people eat pea-soup with dried pig-ribs on
Ash Wednesday or Candlemas. The ribs are then collected and hung
in the room till sowing-time, when they are inserted in the sown field
or in the seed-bag amongst the flax seed. This is thought to be an
infallible specific against earth-fleas and moles, and to cause the flax
to grow well and tall.121 In many parts of White Russia people eat a
roast lamb or sucking-pig at Easter, and then throw the bones
backwards upon the fields, to preserve the corn from hail.122

But the conception of the corn-spirit as embodied in pig form is

nowhere more clearly expressed than in the Scandinavian custom of
the Yule Boar. In Sweden and Denmark at Yule (Christmas) it is the
custom to bake a loaf in the form of a boar-pig. This is called [pg
030] the Yule Boar. The corn of the last sheaf is often used to make
it. All through Yule the Yule Boar stands on the table. Often it is kept
till the sowing-time in spring, when part of it is mixed with the seed-
corn and part given to the ploughmen and plough-horses or plough-
oxen to eat, in the expectation of a good harvest.123 In this custom
the corn-spirit, immanent in the last sheaf, appears at midwinter in
the form of a boar made from the corn of the last sheaf; and his
quickening influence on the corn is shown by mixing part of the Yule
Boar with the seed-corn, and giving part of it to the ploughman and
his cattle to eat. Similarly we saw that the Corn-wolf makes his
appearance at midwinter, the time when the year begins to verge
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