Starweaver's Online Book Of Shadows: Corn Dolly
Corn Dolly A corn dolly can be as simple as three ears of corn hung together (you see them all over around harvest time at stores and garden shops of various kinds). Other people who have access to ripened wheats or other grains will create various types of braided corn dollies. It doesn't matter what kind you use. I tend to use the three ears of corn because I like them. At the end of the harvest (Mabon) the corn dolly is honored as the Queen of the Harvest, the last taking of the field in the old times.

I hang my corn dolly beside my front door from Mabon until just before Samhain when she's taken down and brought into the house. I wrap the dolly up and place her in a box in a closet where she resides (sleeps) through the winter. Campanelli suggests that the corn from the Imbolc dolly be scattered in the fields prior to the following Yule or used to feed the birds. Since we don't have fields and the birds around here are too small to eat the corn (large grain rots around here when we put it out) I have reused my dolly for two years now. However, all good things come to an end and this will probably the the last Imbolc for this dolly. I'll have to come up with a suitable method of honoring the earth and the dolly come fall.

At any rate, at Imbolc the corn dolly is a sign of the impending fertility of spring. As the Corn bride beside your front door or in a basket lined with satins (the bridal bed).

Bright Blessings, Sierra SilverOwl

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