Feldgeister and Korndämonen

In 19th-century German-speaking countries, folktales about horrifying agricultural monsters became widespread. They picked up from even earlier local legends, streamlining beliefs into a general picture of Feldgeister – “field ghosts” and Korndämonen – “corn demons”. (First and second images).

These stories involve a range of beasts that are sometimes humanoid, other times beasts, and additionally a blend. But they had in common an association with domesticated grains and horror. For instance, there was the Troadhân —
“grain rooster” which would find children and peck out their eyes. The
Roggenmuhme — (image three)
“rye aunt” had gastly breasts filled with tar and tipped with iron, which she would swing over her shoulders. Of course she kidnapped children. The Roggenwolf — “rye wolf” fed on children as well (fourth image), and some peasants made a tradition out of deliberately saving the last of the harvest on the plant to appease the beast.

The term “rye” appears frequently in these epithets, and likely has some grounding in the fungal disease ergotism. Damp grain harvests frequently allowed for the fungus that caused ergotism to flourish, a disease that not only caused physical pain (including nausea, convulsions, and rapid heartbeat) but also could result in hallucinations from the Clavicepa purpurea fungus.