Folk Tunes and Corn Dollies in Merry Olde England

English folk tunes sung during harvest time and other field labors took various forms including ballads with charming melodies and lively tunes of ribald verse. The final cutting of grain after weeks of arduous work was commonly assigned to the youngest girl present. “O’ tis the merry time,” wrote cavalier poet Matthew Stevenson (c. 1654-1684), “wherein honest neighbours make good cheer and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth.” In some parts of Scotland the last sheaf was called the Cailleach (Old Wife), on the Isle of Skye the Boabbir Bhacagh (Crippled Goat), and the “Gander’s Neck” in western England. Cutting the last sheaf was considered unlucky in some folk traditions, perhaps a relic of pagan memory since the dwindling patch of standing grain was seen as a sanctuary for the field’s fertility spirit sometimes represented by a hare, bustard or crane, or other creature seeking refuge among the stalks. For this reason, workers might simply toss their sickles at the hallowed last stand in half-hearted effort to complete the harvest and begin celebrating.

Wheat Wreath, Columbia Heritage Collection

Solomki Straw Art Overlay, Columbia Heritage Collection

Harvesters typically adorned a young girl with a wreath of woven stalks and wildflowers and carried her in a jubilant procession led by a boy carrying the hallowed last sheaf. A “Kirn Baby” deftly woven of straw—the “Harvest Queen,” “Harvest Maiden,” or “Harvest Child,” depending on regional tradition, and honored sheaf typically served as table centerpieces for the annual Harvest-Home feast. Afterward the effigies of these “dollies,” which could also be made from barley, oats, and rye, were hung in the farmhouse or barn as a talisman to provide safe haven for the spirit of fertility until threshed for release with the seeding of spring crops. Scottish classicist and folklorist Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) identified such mother-maiden traditions that continued into modern times as personifications of the ancient Demeter and Persephone myth without the elements that typically perpetuate such beliefs—a priestly class, designated holy places, or rites of propitiation. In parts of Scotland, Silesia, and Saxony, the maiden was chosen as the Wheat-Bride, Oat-Bride, or Rye-Bride according to the crop, and was joined by a respective Grain-Bridegroom to represent the productive powers of vegetation. The pair was honored at the local harvest celebration to which they came gaily dressed and tended by friends to imitate a festive marriage procession.

Old World traditions honoring the grain’s vitality by weaving “Kirn Babies” (“Corn Dollies”) of artfully twisted shapes have endured since medieval times and has been revived for exhibition at rural county fairs and craft displays. Popular traditional designs include the Cambridge Umbrella, Norfolk Lantern, Durham Chandelier, Devon Cross, Worchester Fan, and Irish Countryman’s Favor. The related agrarian folk art of solomki still popular in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine involves the meticulous design of grain straw marquetry overlay on wooden boxes bowls, plates, and other objects.

Among the most magnificent and monumental examples of golden straw weaving and wickerwork are three sets of Orthodox Holy Gates appropriately located in a restored nineteenth century church which serves as the Belarus Museum of Folk Art in Raubichi near Minsk. Dating from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, these exquisitely crafted panels served as centerpieces for Orthodox cathedral iconostases which formed the high wall of framed icons that divided the sanctuary from the nave where worshippers assembled. Skillfully drawn gold-colored thread fashioned from wheat stalks was also for exquisite decoration of white silk religious fabrics. Among these treasures’ earliest extant examples are The Good Shepherd and Jesus and the Samaritan altarpieces (c. 1650) that were deftly embroidered by nuns of the seventeenth century Order of Celestial Annunciades in Nozeroy, France, and preserved in the city’s Collegiate Church of St. Antoine.

Harvest Folklore — Mysteries from the East

In Eastern Europe, cutting the last sheaf (Russian dozhinochnym, Ukrainian didukh) was often accompanied by an elder’s petitional prayer so widows and orphans, rich and poor, would all be blessed with a plentiful harvest. (The Russian word for harvest, urozhaí, and Ukrainian zhnýva, derive from a shared root meaning “to cut.”) Fieldworkers festooned the sheaf with flowers and ribbons and honored members of the landlord’s family carried it home with bread and salt in a joyous procession accompanied by the singing of ritual harvest songs. Workers also fashioned colorful wreaths to be worn by unmarried youth. The host ceremoniously placed the sheaf on a peg in the ritual corner of the house (krásni úgol/pokuttia) which held icons, censer, and candles. A festive harvest dinner followed and the sheaf, known in some traditions as the “Grandfather Sheaf,” remained in the sacred niche until Christmas Eve. At that time some grain from the sheaf was used to make traditional kutya cereal dessert while other kernels were ritually scattered outside for the fertility of the fields and blessing upon the household.

In Slavic folklore, decrepit Baba Yagá might be a maternal effigy fashioned from straw that was also identified in some traditions with the summertime Pleiades star cluster. The constellation’s bright appearance portended favorable harvests. Baba Yagá appears ambiguously in agrarian folklore as both guardian of crops and as ogress who could withhold humanity’s bounty from the earth. For this reason the “Old Woman” existed in the fearsome twilight between nature and culture, said to dwell in the unfenced borderlands separating field and forest. Parents warned their children not to wander through the countryside or trample crops lest they be taken by Baba Yagá, though such beings existed as much as pedagogical fictions to prevent wanderers from damaging the grain.

The Russian rural landscape might also be inhabited by frightful polevoi (“field spirits”)—the rural “demons” of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s fictional fourth century Lesniks. These misshapen, clumsy beings tended to appear at midday and bore the color of an area’s soil with hair of wild grass. A polevyk’s appearance usually foreshadowed misfortune. These beings were similar to the more diabolical leshii (“forest spirits”) and vodianoi (“water spirits”). Slavic millers of grain appeased the latter by regular streamside offerings of bread and salt—origin of the Russian word for hospitality.

Turkey Red Wheat Harvest 2017

This past week marked the beginning of our Palouse Heritage harvest as our first crop of organic Turkey Red bread wheat was cut at our partner Brad Bailie’s Lenwood Farms near Connell, Washington. We have been raising this legendary hard red bread grain for the past two years in order to carefully increase our seed stock, and finally this year we had enough for several acres of organic production at Brad’s farm since we needed space at our Palouse Colony Farm for the flavorful soft red variety English Redhead, also known as Red Walla Walla, which historically was used for pastries, biscuits, and other flatbreads as well as for crafting nutritious Old World Hefeweizen cloudy brews.

Harvesting Organic Turkey Red Wheat; Scene of the Great Yellow Jacket Harvest Battle

Turkey Red is the legendary grain long raised by our German ancestors in Eastern Europe where bread wheats had grown since time immemorial from the Great Hungarian Plain to the steppes of Russia and Ukraine. Prior to the introduction of Turkey Red to the Midwest in the 1870s, a winter variety sown in the fall, and its genetic spring-seeded cousin, Red Fife, an Eastern European relative that came to North American via Scotland, all wheat breads in early America and Canada were made from soft white flour sometimes mixture with low gluten milled rye, barley, or oats, or “thirded” combinations of these grains. The resulting baked goods were rather dense but still flavorful and served as the “staff of life” for countless families in eastern American and on the western frontier. Our elders here in the Northwest told us that their crops of Turkey Red as recent as the 1950s were too precious to sell like modern hybridized grains for national and world markets. Instead they held back sufficient quantities of Turkey Red to be milled at area flour mills in Colfax, St. John, and at tiny Pataha south of the Snake River near Pomeroy where historic Houser Mill has been substantially restored by the Van Vogt family with a portion of the main floor refurbished as a restaurant and museum.

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"Our elders here in the Northwest told us that their crops of Turkey Red as recent as the 1950s were too precious to sell like modern hybridized grains for national and world markets."

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Unexpected happenings often occur when commencing harvest and this year’s first round provided a couple interesting moments. After going a few dozen yards on our first round in Brad’s combine, I stepped behind the machine to blow on the ground and see if too much grain was being blown behind. Even the most advanced combine in this day of high tech threshing and electronic monitoring betrays some grain loss, but Brad’s John Deere was running very clean. I jumped back on and paused when entering the cab so we could check for any cracked grain going into the bulk tank where the grain is stored before unloading into a truck or in our case, large fabric totes capable of holding a ton. We had no sooner reached our arms back to retrieve a handful of grain that a wild onslaught of very angry yellow-jackets burst forth swirling around our heads! In an instant we received their stinging message of most likely disturbing a nest in the process of putting running augers and dumping grain into the bin, so we retreated back into the safety of the cab.

Marsh Hawk Stubble Nest

On the next pass around the field I noticed an enormous bird fly from the uncut grain we were approaching as the combine reel flailed along like a rapidly moving ferris-wheel. Brad immediately stopped the machine and said he it was one of several marsh hawks with whom he had shared his property. Brad is an advocate of natural growing systems and seeks to preserve native species, so was concerned that the hawk’s next was likely in the path of the combine’s next round. We descended the ladder and slowly approached the area in the uncut wheat from which the bird had taken flight. Sure enough there we found a trampled area about two feet in diameter with two white eggs resting in the center. Late July seems somewhat late for a hatch, but not being experts on marsh hawk habits we thought the eggs were likely still vital or they would not still be tended. So we returned to the machine and cut in a wide circle all around the next to keep it protected, and hoped no coyotes would find their way to the small golden sanctuary.

Later in the day I took a sample of the Turkey Red to the Connell Grain Growers substantial grain handling facility in Kennewick in order to get it tested for protein and moisture. The place is a massive complex located along the Columbia River and a several tractor-trailers filled with wheat were waiting in line to dump their loads in the elevator grates for storage in the adjacent concrete and metal silos. I was ably assisted by Kara Shibley, Angie Garcia, and Jose Carrea-Moya who shared my interest in heritage grains though our conversation was regularly interrupted by intercom calls and other office traffic attesting the incredible pace of harvest work inside such offices as well as out in the fields. The result came back in moments most satisfactorily, so we did it again with another sample and the numbers were identical—low 9.1% moisture, and very strong 13.5% protein—fully two percent higher than the average of modern hard red wheats then coming to the elevator. With that good news it was back to work and preparations to harvest our stands of soft red English Squarehead (aka Red Russian), Purple Egyptian hulless barley, and other grains scarcely seen in the region for over a century. The flavorful and nutritious adventure continues!

Jose Correa-Moya Testing Turkey Red Wheat for Moisture and Protein; CHS Elevator; Pasco, Washington