The Harvester Ghost Figurine - Thyra

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.

Thyra was first recorded beside an empty place laid at the Lammas table for those who had not lived to see the harvest brought home.

Though no guest occupied the chair, a few grains were found scattered upon its plate when the meal was cleared. Old records associate Thyra with remembrance at times of abundance, and with the warning that any feast which forgets the hands of the absent will leave its household poorer than before.

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