The Significance of the Wolf
Perhaps
one of the most intriguing elements of old Orcadian harvest traditions
is the use of the manufactured straw dog - or "the bikko" to give it its correct name.
The origin of the bikko tradition is now long
lost but from the Old Norse name given to the effigy it would be
reasonable to assume that the custom is either Norse in origin or
was an early Orcadian custom adopted and adapted by the Norse settlers.
As you will see later, the evidence indicates
the former.
So bearing this in mind we should be able to look
outside Orkney in order to gain some idea to the bikko's original
form and meaning.
The first thing we must realise is that the country
the early settlers left to make their way westwards was very different
to Orkney - their final destination.
The scenery was different, the climate different
and the wildlife very different. As can be seen clearly in the folklore
section of this site, over the years the settlers and their
offspring adapted their own myths and traditions to suit their new
home.
The bikko may have been one such adaptation.
As you will see later, the personification of
the crop spirit as a wolf is a reasonably widespread custom across
northern Europe - a place where wolves once roamed freely.
Orkney had no wolves so after a few generations,
the idea of a wolf would have been alien to the offspring of the
Norse settlers. Was the wolf gradually forgotten, replaced in the
imagination of the new Orcadians by the more familiar figure of
a dog?
So in order to learn more of Orkney's straw dog,
we shall first look to the widespread belief across Europe that
in one form or another the spirit of the growing crops took the
form of a wolf.
In the fields of France and northern Germany,
for example, the spirit of the crops was definitely regarded as
a wolf and referred to when the wind rippled in waves across the
ripening fields. When this happened it was said, "the wolf
is going through".
Along the same lines, if a living wolf were seen
in the crop fields, the peasants would watch to see whether his
tail hung low or was carried high. The animal's tail hanging down
was a sure sign that the creature was a manifestation of the crop
spirit and was therefore saluted by the watching workers.
At harvest time, this wolf spirit was thought
to move through the fields of grain directly ahead of the line of
reapers, narrowly avoiding their killing strokes. In the event of
an accident where a reaper fell or perhaps cut himself with his
scythe it was declared that the "wolf got him".
An even closer parallel to the Orcadian bikko
can be found in the French custom of calling the last sheaf the
"wolf sheaf". The French reaper who cut this last sheaf
(thus symbolically killing the wolf spirit) was referred to as "the
wolf" until the following spring. In Orkney, as we have seen
elsewhere, the last man to harvest was presented with the straw
"wolf" - could this have some way marked him as being
the Orcadian equivalent of "the wolf".
Different areas had different customs regarding
the "wolf sheaf" with some areas burning it while others
took it home and kept it until it was destroyed in spring.
Other lupine connections to the last sheaf are
found elsewhere across the Old World and may hark back to an even
earlier tradition where the wolf/dog originally represented the
Teutonic god Odin (Woden). In Gross Trebow in Germany, the last
sheaf (also referred to as "the wolf") was left to stand
"for the Wolf, as fodder for his horse."
The idea of a wolf having a horse immediately
looks nonsensical until we consider the fact that in this case,
the "Wolf" may be a corruption of "Wodan" (Norse:
Odin). This idea is more or less confirmed when we consider the
traditions particularly prevalent in Denmark and Sweden in which
the last sheaf of the harvest was definitely reserved for Odin's
horse. An old Germanic Last-Sheaf charm recorded in 1593 says:
"Wodan give your horse now
fodder. This year thistle and thorn - the next year better grain."
Other variants of the last sheaf's name also point
to an Odin connection - Wode, der Wod, Wod's Fodder, and Wold being
just a few.
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