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Viewed in the light of the Lityerses story and of European folk-custom, this disappearance of Bormus may be a reminiscence of the custom of binding the farmer himself in a corn-sheaf and throwing him into the water.
Such was the song called "Bormus" from its subject, a beautiful boy of that name, who, having gone to fetch water for the reapers, was, while drawing it, borne down by the nymphs of the stream. Such were the cries for the youth Hylas, swallowed up by the waters of a fountain, and the lament for Adonis, whose untimely death was celebrated by Sappho.
The similarity of the Bithynian Bormus to the Phrygian Lityerses helps to bear out the interpretation which has been given of the latter. Bormus, whose death or rather disappearance was annually mourned by the reapers in a plaintive song, was, like Lityerses, a king's son or at least the son of a wealthy and distinguished man.
In Bithynia a like mournful ditty, called Bormus or Borimus, was chanted by Mariandynian reapers. Bormus was said to have been a handsome youth, the son of King Upias or of a wealthy and distinguished man. One summer day, watching the reapers at work in his fields, he went to fetch them a drink of water and was never heard of more.
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