The Harvester Ghost Figurine - Tove

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.

Tove was first recorded near the stooked barley after a night of strong wind, when several sheaves were expected to have been scattered across the field.

By dawn, every bundle had been found upright and turned neatly against the weather. Old records associate Tove with the quiet keeping of gathered harvests, and with the belief that what is stored with care will endure the winter more kindly than what is taken for granted.

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