Also kern-. [f. KIRN sb.2 + BABY sb. 2, ‘doll, puppet’] A rude semblance of a human figure made out of the last handful of corn cut on the harvest-field, and dressed as a female, which formerly played a part in the ceremonial of the kirn or harvest-home, and was afterwards often hung up on the farmer’s kitchen wall until the next harvest, when its place was taken by a new one. Also called kirn-doll or -dolly, maiden or kirn-maiden, harvest-queen, and, in books, after a mistaken suggestion of Brand (quot. 1777), corn-baby.
In the most usual form, the cluster of ears formed the head of the figure, while part of the stalks were plaited into two arms, and the rest expanded as a body in skirts, the whole being decorated with ribbons or gaily dressed in doll’s clothes.
1777. Brand, Pop. Antiq., xxxi. 307. Kern Baby … the northern Word is plainly a Corruption of Corn Baby or Image, as is the Kern or Churn Supper of Corn Supper.
1787. Grose, Prov. Gloss., Kern-baby, an image dressed up with corn, carried before the reapers to their mell-supper, or harvest home.
1813. Ellis, Brand’s Antiq., I. 422, note. An old woman … informed me that, not half a century ago, they used every where [in Northumberland] to dress up something, similar to the figure above described, at the end of Harvest, which was called a Harvest Doll, or Kern Baby.
1826. in Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1166.
1846. Richardson, Borderer’s Table-bk., VII. 375. The corn-baby or kirn-dolly.
1866. W. Henderson, Folk Lore N. Counties, 66. When the sickle is laid down and the last sheaf set on end … an image is at once hoisted on a pole … crowned with wheat ears and dressed up in gay finery, a white frock and coloured ribbons being its conventional attire. The whole group [of reapers] circle round this harvest queen or Kernbaby, curtseying to her, and dancing and singing.
1868. Atkinson, Cleveland Gloss., Kern baby, an image, or possibly only a small sheaf of the newly cut corn, gaily dressed up and decorated with clothes, ribbons, flowers, &c.
