Feldgeister

We're heading over to Germany this week for a collection of monsters under one name, the field-haunting Feldgeister! How many different variants of this monster are there? How can you ensure you have a great harvest alongside them? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

Autumn is coming and I am ever grateful for the change in the weather over here in the UK - as you all should know if you’ve been listening to my show, I am very anti-summer and the spooky season is my favourite. As a spooky podcaster too, it certainly should be - it’s the best time of year for a good ghost story. 

DESCRIPTION:

This week, we’re travelling over to one of my favourite places and one very near and dear to my heart, the beautiful Germany for a bunch of monsters this week all under one name, the Feldgeister.

Vielen danke and a big shout out to Lea, from Northern Germany, who suggested this one, I’d not heard of this one so I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to cover it!

So what is a Feldgeister - an interesting question actually, with a really big answer. Feldgeister are as they say on the tin, field spirits, ones that haunt the corn fields of Germany, but there are lots of different types of them. Typically, people think of animal spirits or the human spirits that all live under this umbrella term. I’m going to go through all of them separately for you, but they all have their own descriptions, physically and in what they do. Some are not very well described, others have loads, so I’ll try and give a good summary of each.

We’ll start with the carnivorous ones, with the most famous the Roggenwolf meaning rye wolf. These are often equated to werewolves, but would steal children and eat them in the shape of a wolf. Then there’s the Erbsenbar or pea bear, the Kornhund, Roggenhund or Heupudel, which are corn dog, rye dog or hay poodle. They would look for children in the fields and tickle them to death - sounds like a bad way to go. Lastly, the Kornkatze or Windkatze, a corn cat and wind cat who would steal children looking for cornflowers in the fields too. 

Now onto our herbivores, the Scheunesel or barn donkey, the Roggensau or Korneber, which is a rye sow or corn boar, which would steal human children or mount hikers' backs til they broke. The Kornstier is the corn bull which changes throughout the year to fertilise fruit trees, usually named after the month such as Aprilochse or Maiochse, which translates to April or May ox. 

We then have the Weizenvogel or wheatbirds and the Getreidehahn, the grain rooster who would wait for children to peck out their eyes. Lastly in our full animal section, we have the Haferbock and Habergeiß, which are male and female goat spirits, translating to oat buck and harvest buck. These creatures are most famous at Christmas time for fertilising fruit trees, but they’re also associated naturally with Krampus, another German folklore monster I’ve covered in another episode. 

They would only have three legs, and would cry to announce springtime, but any imitation of this would invoke terrible punishment, the spirit will hunt you til it eats you alive, or give up and hang itself on your door as a bloody coat. It would slap people for looking out of their windows at night and is considered the mount of the devil, bringing bad luck to crops and cattle alike for the harvest time ahead. They also kill kids, but can also steal and slap them too. 

The Haferbock and Habergeiß are kind of semi-humanoid, but there are two that are full blown hybrids, such as the Katzenmann or cat man, and the Bockmann, literally buck man, who also both steal children - see a theme here? 

Now to our humanoids, we’ll start with Haferkönig and Haferkönigin, the oat king and queen - they rule over all the other Felgeisters. Then we have the Kornkind, or corn children, who were born of the harvest. Then there’s the Windsbraut or the wind’s bride, who would steal the earnings of farmers, but could be disarmed by throwing a knife at them. They were sometimes considered sorceresses in their own right, but also sometimes demons so I’ll let you decide. 

We also have the Bilwis, which was male or female and demon and human all at once. They had flying hair, wore a little triangle hat and were clothed in white linen. They would roll through the fields as a giant destructive ball or whirlwind to steal grain, cause nightmares and illness or just ruin your hair. They could only be stopped by throwing a knife with three crosses on the blade and shouting ‘Da hast du es, Bilbze’ or there you have it Bilwis! You could also hang some of the grain heads in the chimney to banish it as it would die.

Lastly, the big two - Hafermann and Roggenmuhme. The Hafermann or oat man was a male corn demon who stole children and he would wear a large black hat and use an iron shillelagh or staff. He could also look into your windows at night and the person who saw him would be destined to die in a year. 

The Roggenmuhme was the rye aunt and is the most famous of the bunch, usually standing as her own monster. She was a female corn demon who was either fully black or white, with fiery fingers and shapeshifting powers. She also famously had massive bosoms, which were filled with tar and nipples made of iron, which were so large she would have to throw them over her shoulders to run - same girl, same. 

She would chase children with the speed of a horse with a large whip that caused lightning when snapped, and would force them to breastfeed. She would also replace children with changelings, more on them in another episode, or pound children with her iron butter churn. She is the mother of all the Roggenwolfe and is often accompanied by them in the hunt. 

The Roggenmuhme would look through the fields for food and eat the grain remaining and when the grain was bad, she would punish the farmer. However, it was seen as the sign of a good harvest to come if she was spotted marching through your field. 

These obviously all come about from farming. Throughout the year, grain and fruit harvests are left to grow and flourish, but when the harvest comes in the autumn, the last few grain heads and tree fruits are usually left as a sacrifice to agricultural spirits - this still happens to this day, but of course was more common during the Middle Ages. During the harvest, the spirits are known to run from the mowers and harvesters to the furthest point of the field, but those last few spirits are trapped in the remaining tribute stalks and haunt the fields, looking for victims. 

Yes, it does seem counterproductive - I have noticed this whilst researching this one - appease one spirit, annoy another, it’s a weird one, what can I tell ya.

Their victims across the board are typically children as I mentioned throughout all the specific monster types, but they’re not exclusionary, and will hunt anyone who lurks nearby. 

The only way to get rid of the spirit is to cut the last grain heads, and to fashion them into corn dolls and bring them back to the village in a ceremony to celebrate the end of the harvest - but during the weeks leading up to this, the spirits can cause some trouble. 

Any direct contact with any Felgeister will cause immense illness, sometimes causing death in itself, as well as the myths attached to the singular monsters I’ve listed. Although they may seem completely malevolent, the Felgeister are also seen as wind spirits who can all control lightning and rain too. 

ORIGIN:

Moving onto etymology, Feldgeister is of course from the German language, meaning field spirits, but another name for them is Korndamonen, meaning corn demons. They’re both very literal I’m afraid, but they are what they are - of course all of the specific monsters also have their own translations, but as I said, most of them are literal too. 

Their history is actually semi-recent, starting in the 1900’s, which is interesting as most of us know what was happening in Germany and across Europe at this time, especially in the early 20th century. Germany has plenty of land for farming, and before the First World War, it was a significant and popular means to an end. 

After the land was decimated by the war from 1914-1918 and its rationing, the German people were massively impacted by food shortages, which ended up having the general public relying on turnips and lead to mass malnutrition whilst they battled the awful economic impact of the Versailles agreement on the people.

Following the Second World War, which was 1939-1945, the government tried to encourage farming and implemented tariffs to protect farmers, which led to price drips, but these policies ultimately caused widespread debt among farmers by the late 1920s. So fruit, veg, grain and wheat was incredibly valuable and the harvest was a really important time for the German people throughout the 20th century. 

This, of course, leads into folklore and in 1929, the first depiction of a Feldgeist as a cat with hair-like wind for fur, called the Windkatze, which you might remember from earlier. They were said to look like domestic cats with a tornado-shaped tail and wind-sweeping fur seen throughout the harsh winter. Following up in 1935, the Roggenwolf was first mentioned and in 1942, the Heupudel was introduced.

There are rumours that they are in the Grimm stories, which date back to 1812, however, when I went through my copy of the Grimm Tales, I couldn’t find anything specific about them mentioned in there - however, that’s not to say that they didn’t exist BEFORE 1929 when the Windkatze was first written about. 

So what could have been happening in reality? Well unfortunately, we do know of a reason that grain can be linked to death, and that’s ergotism. Ergotism or St Anthony’s Fire is caused by the Claviceps purpurea fungus that grows on wet rye grain when it isn’t stored properly. It was rife during the Middle Ages, where it caused muscle spasms, fever, diarrhea, miscarriage, vomiting, gangrene and most importantly, hallucinations. Rye is one of the most popular grains from Germany, which is why rye bread is a cultural food over there, and is delicious by the way. It was actually commonly mistaken for witchcraft, so much so that in Salem, witches were blamed instead of their dodgy grain, leading to one of the most famous witch trials in history - so it does have supernatural tendrils too!

They do kind of act as a cautionary monster to avoid those dangerous cornfields in the harvest time. You wouldn’t want to get caught in a field whilst a giant mower is coming at you, and this would definitely apply to their main victim, children - who would play in fields like this, so it works as a deterrent much like a boogeyman too.

Now, I hate to disappoint, but maybe I’ll surprise you instead - usually I have a mythical comparison, or something similar I can point you to in other mythologies to these ones, but this time, I’ve come up with nothing that sits as well so these monsters are in a league of their own, which is pretty cool and almost unheard of in the history of this show so far.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, we don’t have anything for this one specifically I’m afraid but what I have done is filled this out with nature spirits turned bad and nature getting her revenge tropes, so I hope this appeases any craving for Feldgeister media.

For art, have a look at independent work this week, and specifically the separate variants of the Feldgeister for some really cool interpretations, especially of the Ruggenmuhme, Roggenwolf and Habergeiß.

In movies, we have; Gaia, The Happening, No Blade of Grass, After Earth, Batman and Robin, FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Avatar & The Hollow Child. 

For TV, we have; Edge of Darkness, American Gods, Zoo, Charmed, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Once Upon a Time, Batman: The Animated Series, Power Rangers & Hilda.

In video games, we have ones such as; Don’t Starve, City of Heroes, Elder Scrolls, Sin and Punishment: Star Successor, Home Safety Hotline, Final Fantasy, Albion, Asura’s Wrath, Kid Icarus: Uprising, League of Legends, Quest for Glory, The Legend of Zelda, Terraria, Leshy, Total War: Warhammer, The Witcher, Touhou Project, World of Warcraft, Cult of the Lamb & World of Mana.

My book recommendation this week is for Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles: Commentaries on German Folklore by Jurgen Hubert and Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann by various authors for a real good and thorough look into folklore from this part of Europe.

There is, if you are one of my German listeners or you read German well enough, a book specifically on Korndamonen called Die Korndämonen; beitrag zur germanischen sittenkunde or The grain demons; a contribution to Germanic moral studies which is an interesting read about these monsters specifically, but I couldn’t find an English translation I’m afraid.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

No, but I do believe that ergotism could possibly be blamed for this and completely explain this monster. Whilst I understand that the harvest throughout history and the world is extremely important, and the Germanic gods certainly may have looked for a bit of sacrificial grain, I do see this one more as the people might have been a bit mad? 

Also what do these spirits have against children, they really do seem to hate them. For the Roggenmuhme, I’m picturing a really tall, big lady with boobs over her shoulder chasing me and that’s enough to keep me away from Farmer Maggot’s field like Merry and Pippin in Lord of the Rings with their vegetable loot.

We all know that science has come a long way, and whilst this doesn’t explain the 1900’s origin, I guess we can also attribute this to starvation, malnutrition and potentially still a tiny bit of ergotism in some areas, I’m sure. 

However, I think this umbrella term of field and corn demons is pretty neat - I love that there are so many types of them that if you saw any animal you would just assume it was a Feldgeister in some parts, it’s great! But as I said previously, I also understand that harvest was essential and sacred among our earlier Germans, and even more so during the war-stricken and rationed countryside of the early 20th century. 

I think they’re a cool monster, and the fact that they’re super unique, but a whole load of variations of it - es ist sehr cool und interessant.

But what do you think? Do the Felgeister haunt the near harvested fields of Germany? Let me know on social media!

OUTRO: 

What an apt monster for this time of the year, I’m thrilled that I finally got to cover this one - big thank you again to Lea and I hope I did the Feldgeister proud and that I’m off the reaping list next time I come over to my beloved Deutschland.

Next time, we’re heading over to South Africa and Zulu mythology and looking at a water spirit, hybrid monster of legend. Be sure to pay your respects to the revered spirit, the Inkanyamba, next time on the show.

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got loads of social media for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, YouTube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, twitter is mythmonsterspod and BlueSky is mythmonsters. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk, and you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.