It’s an aspect of the museum that is important to understanding the region’s past.
“Our cornfield has awoken for another summer of showing off its beautiful, rare cornflowers,” explains Events Coordinator Rosie Barrett.
“It’s always a relief each August, because this field is an important part of the stories we tell about life on the North York Moors. It helps to transport us to a time when the country calendar was built around the harvest and the annual Mell Supper was the much-anticipated annual celebration within every village.”
Ryedale Folk Museum is also very fortunate to have a large number of corn dollies within the collection. In a wide range of designs, they give an insight into rural harvest customs, possibly dating back thousands of years. This year many of the Museum’s corn dollies are currently on display as part of an exhibition exploring the beliefs of the past.
“Our ancestors used magical thinking to attempt to control the harvest,” explains Rosie. “Nowadays, we have so many more ways to influence food production through scientific means, including better weather prediction and much faster methods of harvesting in between bouts of rain. But our ancestors were entirely at the mercy of the whims of nature. Rituals around the last sheaf were very likely practised for thousands of years.”
Each year, tradition held that a corn dolly be made with the last sheaf of corn at the end of harvest. “This dolly was kept inside to be ritualistically ploughed back into the soil when sowing recommenced the following year,” explains Rosie. “It’s generally accepted that this act was originally thought to promote fertility for the next planting season, but it is likely that the tradition continued long after the magical thinking had faded.”
Museum collections almost never contain the original dollies made with the last sheaf, since these were returned to the fields. Instead, Ryedale Folk Museum’s collection reflects modern makers using a range of traditional skills.
Once harvesting had become mechanised, the corn produced was no longer suitable for making dollies,” explains Rosie. “To make corn dollies, you actively have to seek out the right materials: long-stemmed, hollow wheat is ideal.” The longer the stem, the fewer joins are required.
“They take so much skill and talent,” says Rosie, “and all our corn dollies today are really impressive works of art. The craft of making corn dollies continues thanks to the efforts of individual crafters who worked hard to preserve this heritage.”
You can see corn dollies on display at Ryedale Folk Museum in the exhibition ‘Believe it or not?’ daily except Fridays until Sunday, November 17.
Find out more via the website: www.ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk/whats-on-2/
