A reaper is a farming tool or person that reaps (cuts and gathers) crops at harvest, when they are ripe.

Hand reaping is done by various means, including plucking the ears of grains directly by hand, cutting the grain stalks with a sickle, cutting them with a scythe, or with a later type of scythe called a cradle. Reaping is usually distinguished from mowing, which uses similar implements, but is the traditional term for cutting grass for hay, rather than reaping crops.

The reaped grain stalks are gathered into sheaves (bunches), tied with string or with a twist of straw. Several sheaves (singular sheaf) are then leant against each other with the ears off the ground to dry out, forming a stook. After drying, the sheaves are gathered from the field and stacked, being placed with the ears inwards, then covered with thatch or a tarpaulin; this is called a stack or rick. In the British Isles a rick of sheaves is traditionally called a corn rick, to distinguish it from a hay rick ("corn" in British English means "grain", not "maize", which is not grown for grain there). Ricks are made in an area inaccessible to livestock, called a rick-yard or stack-yard. The corn-rick is later broken down and the sheaves threshed to separate the grain from the straw.

The soul – in many traditional spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions – is the incorporeal and immortal essence of a person, living thing, or object. Some religions teach that all biological organisms have souls, and others further still that even non-biological entities (such as rivers and mountains) possess souls. This latter belief is called animism.Anima mundi and the Dharmic Ātman are concepts of a "world soul." Some religious thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, attribute souls to all organisms but teach that only human souls are immortal.

Soul can function as a synonym for spirit, mind or self; scientific works, in particular, often consider 'soul' as a synonym for 'mind'^{[citation needed]}.

The Modern English word soul derived from Old English sáwol, sáwel, first attested to in the 8th century poem Beowulf v. 2820 and in the Vespasian Psalter 77.50, and is cognate with other Germanic and Baltic terms for the same idea, including Gothic saiwala, Old High German sêula, sêla, Old Saxon sêola, Old Low Franconian sêla, sîla, Old Norse sála as well as Lithuanian siela. Further etymology of the Germanic word is uncertain. A more recent suggestion connects it with a root for "binding", Germanic *sailian (OE sēlian, OHG seilen), related to the notion of being "bound" in death, and the practice of ritually binding or restraining the corpse of the deceased in the grave to prevent his or her return as a ghost.