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Thursday 29 September 2022

Cornflower Wraith


This is a monster in Slavic folklore. There are many varieties of this female spirit found who appears in the field. There is a similar entity called Lady Midday who appears during the day when the weather is fine. Sometimes from a small whirling wind she manifests in a field of ripe crops for harvest. Her appearance varies, as she can look like a beautiful woman, an old crone or a small girl child. Travelling via a dust devil, Lady Midday carries a sharp weapon, usually holding a scythe or sickle but sometimes shears. She's associated with heat strokes, the midday star, illness and ruining crops. She uses a frying pan to damage growing rye. She's believed to attack people whoever crosses her path. 

Then the Cornflower Wraith is probably related to Lady Midday or even the same spirit? Often the Cornflower Wraith looks like a beautiful woman wearing an azure dress and a crown of cornflowers in her hair. Her other name is Chaburnica, which is a Polish name and also Habernitsa, a Russian name for her. Nicknames in English is Cornflower Wraith mostly, and also Cornflower Witch and Lady Cornflower. She could punish people by inflicting headaches, back pains and broken bones even. Workers in the field suffered by the Cornflower Wraith so to avoid her, they would take a midday rest.   

It's believed that she's Lady Midday, the sister of Zorya, a Slavic dawn goddess. In many Slavic legends, she's a figure of corn, plants and rye. The Lady Midday is found in the folklore of some parts of Germany, as a female field demon like Roggenmuhme or "rye aunt", a hideous looking entity that takes children who visit a field to pick flowers and replaces them with changelings. Sometimes she's in the form of a wolf, and the mother of the rye wolves. She devours the grain, and believed to be blamed for failed harvests.  

She Wolf Night        

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