Sir James George Frazer (18541941). The Golden Bough. 1922. was
adopted and transfigured by the priests in the stately ritual of
the temple. In the modern, but doubtless ancient, Arab custom of
burying the Old Man, namely, a sheaf of wheat, in the harvest-
field and praying that he may return from the dead, we see the
germ out of which the worship of the corn-god Osiris was
probably developed. The details of his myth fit in well with
this interpretation of the god. He was said to be the offspring
of Sky and Earth. What more appropriate parentage could be
invented for the corn which springs from the ground that has
been fertilised by the water of heaven? It is true that the land
of Egypt owed its fertility directly to the Nile and not to
showers; but the inhabitants must have known or guessed that the
great river in its turn was fed by the rains which fell in the
far interior. Again, the legend that Osiris was the first to
teach men the use of corn would be most naturally told of the
corn-god himself. Further,