Note Footnote 4: — INTRODUCTION.

Now, if we regard Lytierses as the typical agriculturist, and his antagonist as the growth or vegetation genius, the fable seems to read thus: Between man and Nature there is a continual struggle; man is often victorious, but, if too presumptuous, a time comes when he must yield. In harvest customs continued to this day, a struggle with or for the last sheaf forms a common feature. The reapers of Western France tie the sheaf, adorned with flowers, to a post driven strongly into the ground, then they fetch the farmer and his wife and all the farm folk to help in dragging it loose, and when the fastenings break, it is borne off in triumph. So popular is this Fête de la Gerbe, that, during the Chouan war, the leaders had to allow their peasant soldiers to return to their villages to attend it, or they would have deserted in a body. It may not be irrelevant to add that in Brittany the great wrestling matches take place at the fête of the "new threshing floor," when all the neighbours are invited to unite in preparing it for the corn. In North Germany, where the peasants still believe that the last sheaf contains the growth-genius, they set it in honour on the festive board, and serve it double portions of cake and ale.4 Thus appeased, it becomes a friend to the cultivator. The harvest "man" or "tree" which used to be made by English reapers at the end of the harvest, and presented to master and mistress, obviously belonged to the same family.