Cornstalk

“ The spirit of the corn, fleeing before the reapers as they cut down the ripe grain, quits the reaped corn and takes refuge in the barn, where it appears in the last sheaf threshed, either to perish under the blows of the flail or to flee thence to the still unthreshed corn of a neighbouring farm. Thus the last corn to be threshed is called the Mother-Corn or the Old Woman. Sometimes the person who gives the last stroke with the flail is called the Old Woman, and is wrapt in the straw of the last sheaf, or has a bundle of straw fastened on his back. ”

“ The answer to Spink and Skabootch is, “Next week you will learn all about where the corn fairies get the nails to nail down the corn if you will keep your faces washed and your ears washed till next week.”
And the next time you stand watching a big cornfield in late summer or early fall, when the wind is running across the green and silver, listen with your littlest and newest ears. Maybe you will hear the corn fairies going pla-sizzy pla-sizzy-sizzy, softer than an eye wink, softer than a Nebraska baby’s thumb. ”

“ When night had fallen I cautiously left my place of concealment, dodged across the road into the woods and made for the river through the mile of corn. Such corn! It towered above me like a forest, shutting out all the starlight except what came from directly overhead. Many of the ears were a yard out of reach. One who has never seen an Alabama river-bottom cornfield has not exhausted nature's surprises; nor will he know what solitude is until he explores one in a moonless night. ”

“ One noble product of nature did not refuse to flourish there,—the tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, many-jointed, generous maize or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and defies the blaze of our shrivelling summer. What child but loves to wander in its forest-like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and with the lofty tassels tossing their heads high above him! There are two aspects of the cornfield which always impress my imagination: the first when it has reached its full growth, and its ordered ranks look like an army on the march with its plumed and bannered battalions ”

“ If one of the young female huskers finds a red ear of corn, it is typical of a brave admirer, and is regarded as a fitting present to some young warrior. But if the ear be crooked, and tapering to a point, no matter what colour, the whole circle is set in a roar, and wa ge min is the word shouted aloud. It is the symbol of a thief in the cornfield. It is considered as the image of an old man stooping as he enters the lot. ”

“ And men go behind and bind it into corn-sheaves, great big bundles of corn, and then the corn-sheaves are piled into corn shocks. Eight sheaves stand on end in two rows of four leaning on each other. In some parts of the country they only have three in each row. As soon as the shocks are made the Imp has some delightful games. He loves to lie flat on the stubbly ground, and wriggle his way into the tunnel between the sheaves of corn until he crawls out at the other end covered with little bits of straw and prickling all over. ”

“ To me it clearly seems to mean corn. I may mention, in support of this opinion, that in Cornwall an ill-saved harvest is said to be “ill kerned,” and that throughout Devonshire the forming of the grain in the ear is called the “kerning” or “corning.” I must add that throughout Northumberland, when the last cart of corn arrives at the stackyard gate, the driver leaves it standing there while he carries his whip to the mistress of the house, who must either drive in the load herself or give the man a glass of whisky to do it for her.
The mell-supper takes its name from the Norse “mele,” corn. ”

“ It was not till more than usual interest had been awakened in me concerning the wild life inhabiting the cornfield, that my eyes were daily turned in the direction of the uplands, where, every evening, the rooks disappear from sight on their way to the tall elms in a neighbouring valley.
Except during harvest, the cornfield is seldom visited by the country folk. It lies away from the main road, and the nearest approach to it is by a grass-grown lane leading from some ruined cottages to a farmstead in the middle of the estate. ”

“ 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.947 Similarly in Berry the young corn-spirit is sometimes supposed 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. ”

“ He must ease this longing for the sight of Celia and her people which had come to him of late to stay with him through seed-time and harvest, through the early spring when the corn was young, and later when it rose to heights unheard of, and later still through those bitter days of grasshoppers and chinch bugs and hot winds and other blightful things that haunt the Kansas cornfield to their ruin. ”

“ He doesn't wander up and down
And hoarsely call all day,
"O' clo'! O' clo'!" This old-clothes man
Has not a word to say.
He stands so stiff among the corn,
His one stiff arm stuck out,
And points a musket at the crows
That circle all about.
He doesn't tramp the dusty streets,
Nor travel, ankle-deep,
Through mush and slush, but quiet stands
Where baby corn-cobs sleep.
He's such a funny old-clothes man!
I wonder if it's hard
To stand amid the growing corn
All summer long on guard. ”

“ The merry queen of the harvest, worked in the tapestry, had no doubt been chosen after the usual Cornish fashion. The women reaped in Cornwall, while the men bound, and whoever reaped the last lock of corn was proclaimed queen. As all were ambitious of this honor, the women used to hide away an unreaped lock under a sheaf, and when all the field seemed cut they would run off to their hidden treasures, in hopes of being the lucky last. When a girl's sweetheart came into the field at the end of the day, he would try to take her sickle away to finish her work. ”

“ Day by day it has been a wonder how the corn has thriven and grown, with what vigour the stalks have thickened, enlarged in leaf, and deepened in green. Side by side in due rank and order they have risen, the blades have extended towards one another in loving embrace, until the whole has become a solid square field of corn, the murmur of which is like the distant wash of a languid sea over a pebbly beach. ”

“ A mile away they came to a cornfield, and in the field there was a thicket. Here they found a hiding-place, and, as wet as they were, they partook of a repast of green corn, and lying down on the grass, they slept soundly until the sun 271 was up. Waiting some time in a sunny place until their clothing had partly dried, the brothers started on their weary way. All day they travelled without being molested. In the evening, while travelling along a country road, they met a man leading two horses, one of which was saddled. ”

“ The ears are therefore not well filled with grains, and the general size of the ears do not seem in proportion to the large stalks. The white flint corn is planted here exclusively, and the same seed has been used from time immemorial, so that a change of the grain is perhaps now indicated for the improvement of the crop. Of course the corn ought to be planted separate from the cotton, and the rows being in closer proximity would secure a better result. ”

“ When they go into the field to work, the women tie a bit of string or some vine round their skirts just below the hips, to shorten them, often raising them nearly to the knees; then they walk off with their heavy hoes on their shoulders, as free, strong, and graceful as possible. The prettiest sight is the corn-shelling on Mondays, when the week's allowance, a peck a hand, is given out at the corn-house by the driver. They all assemble with their baskets, which are shallow and without handles, made by themselves of the palmetto and holding from half a peck to a bushel. ”

“ Frequently the corn was roasted on the 10 ear. Yet another method is thus described by the English captive, John Gyles, who lived as a captive with the St. John river Indians in 1689: “To dry the corn when in the milk, they gather it in large kettles and boil it on the ears till it is pretty hard, then shell it from the cob with clam shells and dry it on bark in the sun. When it is thoroughly dry a kernel is no bigger than a pea, and will keep years; and when it is boiled again it swells as large as when on the ear and tastes incomparably sweeter than other corn. ”

“ And they are all as greedy of corn food as ever, for behold! No sooner had the old Raven recovered than he espied one of the ears of corn half hidden under the mantle-covers of the trays. He leaped from his place laughing. They always laugh when they find anything, these ravens. Then he caught up the ear of corn and made off with it over the heads of the people and the tops of the houses, crying.
"Ha! ha! In this wise and in no other will ye find thy Seed Maidens." ”

“ It is for the girl who follows binding the corn that the reaper turns down the corn; he himself takes no more concern about it. If several have thus concealed uncut corn, the girl who is cunning enough to wait till all the rest have revealed their hidden corn and cut it is successful, for her corn is the last cut and out of it is made the "Maiden." It is supposed to be always the youngest maiden on the field who cuts the "Maiden." ”

“ I don't think I'm naturally vindictive, but when I see a man beating a horse I find myself wishing I was strong enough to snatch the whip from him and lay it well about his own shoulders. But come, boys, the fire is down to coals—just right for popping corn. Sammy, you know the way to the kitchen. Ask Lovina for the corn-popper and a dish, and, Roy, you'll find a paper bag full of corn in the cupboard yonder. Quick, now, and we'll have the dish piled by the time Susie and Mollie are back from meeting. ”

“ And when at evening the valley is deeply shadowed, the light seems to linger in benediction on the same cornfield, where the great oak-tree, no longer silhouetted darkly against a golden dawn, shines faintly, with a radiance borrowed from the west, against the pearl-blue curtain of the waning day. Except during the early morning or at dusk, the cornfield does not stand out conspicuously in the landscape. ”

“ All together they went to the cornfields, and the old men and the warriors sat in the shade at the edges of the forest and smoked and looked on in approval, [57] while the young men and maidens stripped the ears of corn and laughed and sang merrily over their labor. Whenever a youth or a maiden found a crooked ear, they all laughed even louder, and crept about the cornfields like weak old men bent almost double with age. ”

“ Where the ear is partially blind, or where without any external appearance of injury to the straw, the corn is light and shrivelled, I should be much inclined to suspect that the mischief arose from an insufficient impregnation. ”

“ In these customs, observed both on the harvest-field and on the threshing-floor, a passing stranger is regarded as a personification of the corn, in other words, as the corn-spirit; and a show is made of treating him like the corn by mowing, binding, and threshing him. If the reader still doubts whether European peasants can really regard a passing stranger in this light, the following custom should set his doubts at rest. ”