Medieval Harvest Queen

Harvest Queen festivities in England were believed to be derived from the old annual honouring of the Earth Mother at the harvest of her bounty. From being an actual goddess in pagan festivals, by medieval times Mother Earth had a slightly different but similarly revered place in celebrations and festivities. The Harvest Queen, originating from Ceres the goddess of agriculture and crops was, in medieval times, a young woman or an image or doll, chosen from the reapers to be dressed up and given a post of honour at the Harvest Home.

Harvest Home

Throughout medieval England it was a custom to observe the Harvest Home by selecting a Harvest Queen for these festivities. The girl chosen or doll-image would be decorated with grain from the fields, fruit from the trees and ribbons. On Thanksgiving Day she would be paraded through the villages, a remnant of the Roman ceremonies in honour of Ceres. In medieval Scotland, the last handful of corn cut from the harvest field was called the 'kirn' and the person who cut it was the winner of the kirn.

It would be dressed up and made into a kirn-baby or kirn-doll. In Berwickshire, reapers would compete to cut the last bunch of standing corn. Men would gather around it and throw their sickles in turn at the corn until someone managed to cut it through. The winner would give the last sheath of corn to the girl of his choice who would fashion it into a kirn-doll. The doll was then taken to the farmhouse where it would remain until the next harvest.

Medieval Harvest Celebrations

 In some parts of the Scottish Highlands, if it was a young person who cut the last handful of corn (the Maidheanbuain or Maiden) it was seen as an omen that he or she would be married before the next harvest. Paul Hentzner, a 16th Century German Traveller (born 1558) described a harvest celebration after travelling through England.

"As we were returning to our inn, we happened to meet some country people celebrating their Harvest Home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which, perhaps, they would signify Ceres; this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and maid servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn."

It was customary therefore throughout England for the last sheaf of grain to be used to make a corn dolly; they would transport it with great ceremony, music and shouting to the feast. People believed the corn-dolly or kirn-doll contained the spirit of a successful harvest so at the end of the festivities, they took the corn-doll to a farmhouse where it was stored or displayed until the next harvest supper.

Sources

Hentzner, Paul Travels in England 1598 Kidd Judith, Rees Rosemary, Tudor Ruth "Life in Medieval Times" (Heinemann Educational Publishers (2000))