(M113) In Russia also the last sheaf is often shaped and dressed as a woman, and carried with dance and song to the farmhouse. Out of the last sheaf the Bulgarians make a doll which they call the Corn-queen or Corn-mother; it is dressed in a woman’s shirt, carried round the village, and then thrown into the river in order to secure plenty of rain and dew for the next year’s crop. Or it is burned and the ashes strewn on the fields, doubtless to fertilise them.(486) The name Queen, as applied to the last sheaf, has its analogies in central and northern Europe. Thus, in the Salzburg district of Austria, at the end of the harvest a great procession takes place, in which a Queen of the Corn-ears (_Ährenkönigin_) is drawn along in a little carriage by young fellows.(487) The custom of the Harvest Queen appears to have been common in England. Brand quotes from Hutchinson’s _History of Northumberland_ the following: “I have seen, in some places, an image apparelled in great finery, crowned with flowers, a sheaf of corn placed under her arm, and a scycle in her hand, carried out of the village in the morning of the conclusive reaping day, with music and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres.”(488) Again, the traveller Dr. E. D. Clarke tells us that “even in the town of Cambridge, and centre of our University, such curious remains of antient customs may be noticed, in different seasons of the year, which pass without observation. The custom of blowing horns upon the first of May (Old Style) is derived from a festival in honour of Diana. At the _Hawkie_, as it is called, or Harvest Home, I have seen a clown dressed in woman’s clothes, having his face painted, his head decorated with ears of corn, and bearing about him other symbols of Ceres, carried in a waggon, with great pomp and loud shouts, through the streets, the horses being covered with white sheets: and when I inquired the meaning of the ceremony, was answered by the people that they were drawing the Morgay (ΜΗΤΗΡ ΓΗ) or Harvest Queen.”(489) Milton must have been familiar with the custom of the Harvest Queen, for in _Paradise Lost_(490) he says:— “_Adam the while_ _Waiting desirous her return, had wove_ _Of choicest flow’rs a garland to adorn_ _Her tresses, and her rural labours crown,_ _As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen._”