Herbrechtingen, in Thüringen, the effigy of a ragged old woman is flung into the barn of the farmer who is last with his threshing. The man who throws it in cries, “There is the Cow for you.” If the threshers catch him they detain him over night and punish him by keeping him from the harvest-supper.(944) In these latter customs the confusion between the human and the animal shape of the corn-spirit meets us again. (M251) Further, the corn-spirit in bull form is sometimes believed to be killed at threshing. At Auxerre, in threshing the last bundle of corn, they call out twelve times, “We are killing the Bull.” In the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, where a butcher kills an ox on the field immediately after the close of the reaping, it is said of the man who gives the last stroke at threshing that “he has killed the Bull.”(945) At Chambéry the last sheaf is called the sheaf of the Young Ox, and a race takes place to it in which all the reapers join. When the last stroke is given at threshing they say that “the Ox is killed”; and immediately thereupon a real ox is slaughtered by the reaper who cut the last corn. The flesh of the ox is eaten by the threshers at supper.(946) (M252) 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. The meaning is that “the sheaf has given birth to a calf.”(948) In Puy-de-Dôme when a binder cannot keep up with the reaper whom he or she follows, they say “He (or she) is giving birth to the Calf.”(949) In some parts of Prussia, in similar circumstances, they call out to the woman, “The Bull is coming,” and imitate the bellowing of a bull.(950) In these cases the woman is conceived as the Corn-cow or old corn-spirit, while the supposed calf is the Corn-calf or young corn-spirit. In some parts of Austria a mythical calf (_Muhkälbchen_) is believed to be seen amongst the sprouting corn in spring and to push the children; when the corn waves in the wind they say, “The Calf is going about.” Clearly, as Mannhardt observes, this calf of the spring-time is the same animal which is afterwards believed to be killed at reaping.(951) § 8. The Corn-spirit as a Horse or Mare.