[Sca-cooks] Corn dollies.

[Drew Shiel]

On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 11:39 AM, Aruvqan <aruvqan at gmail.com> wrote:

I have to think [and this is pulled right out of my arse, honestly] that
> corn dollies originated in handsfull of grasses and the straw found after
> harvest being twisted into little people to amuse small kids that are being
> tended by the sides of fields while the harvest is going on. Perhaps out of
> the scattered stalks of wheat or whatever grain being gleaned by the
> aunties and grannies asked with watching them.
>

I can tell you that this was the case in Ireland in the late 1940s/early
1950s, at least. My mother showed me how such 'dolls' were made, and a few
ways in which they were dressed in various leaves, and given hair from
finer grasses, and so on. She was raised on a farm in Co. Wicklow which was
small enough (and hilly enough) that they still had horse-drawn ploughs and
harvested grain with scythes.

Now whether that's something that continued through from earlier periods,
or was made up by some enterprising relative more recently, there is no
real way to tell, but my impression from the variety of looks the dolls
could be given is that it was at least a couple of generations old in her
time.

Le meas,
Aodh

-- 
http://about.me/drewshiel
"Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast; in the stream where
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