The Harvester Ghost Figurine - Ebbe

The Harvesters appear only after the first grain has been cut.

Old Lammas records speak of pale figures emerging at dusk from the newly shorn fields, where the standing wheat had concealed them throughout the growing season. They are seldom witnessed before the final cart has departed. By then, only stubble, scattered husks and the long shadows of the harvest remain.

Earlier custodians believed the Harvesters kept account of all that had been gathered and all that had been left behind. They were treated neither as omens nor intruders, but as quiet witnesses to the turning year: spirits of labour completed, stores replenished and the first promise that winter might yet be endured.

Their appearance marks the opening of the harvest season at Lammas. They remain only briefly, vanishing as the fields are cleared and the late-summer nights begin to lengthen.

Ebbe was first recorded beside a scythe laid flat in the stubble after a young reaper refused the customary midday rest.

When the workers returned, the blade could not be lifted until bread and water had been shared among them all. Old records associate Ebbe with the keeping of rightful rest during harvest, and with the warning that no field is well gathered when those who labour upon it are treated as less precious than the grain.

Ebbe the ghost figurine is just short of 9 cm in height.