Corn dolly
Corn dollies or corn mothers are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before mechanization.
Before Christianisation, in traditional pagan European culture it was believed that the spirit of the corn (in modern American English, "corn" would be "grain") lived amongst the crop, and that the harvest made it effectively homeless. James Frazer devotes chapters in The Golden Bough to "Corn-Mother and Corn-Maiden in Northern Europe" (chs. 45-48) and adduces European folkloric examples collected in great abundance by the folklorist Wilhelm Mannhardt. Among the customs attached to the last sheaf of the harvest were hollow shapes fashioned from the last sheaf of wheat or other cereal crops. The corn spirit would then spend the winter in this home until the "corn dolly" was ploughed into the first furrow of the new season. "Dolly" may be a corruption of "idol" or may have come directly from the Greek word eidolon (apparition); that which represents something else.
Podcasts:
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by Hedley
CARRY ON
by: HedleyCarry on
Well I've been beat down to the sound of laughter, but I'll be okay
And you can keep calling me your beautiful disaster, all damn day
See I hold your heart like a part of me baby
It's the only thing that's stopping me from falling down
Yeah, you're the harmony that keeps me sound
Chorus: so now if I stay or if I go
I'll always hold your heart of gold
For if I stray if I'm not strong
You'll be my strength to carry on
Be my strength to carry on
Be my strength to carry on
So burn me down and dance around the ashes, I'll be okay
'cause I go up like an airplane when it crashes, all damn day
See I hold your heart like a part of me baby
It's the only thing that's stopping me from falling down
Yeah you're the harmony that keeps me sound
Chorus
Never let me go
I'm no good lonely, without you
So you can keep calling me your beautiful disaster, I'll be okay
Chorus
Be my strength to carry on