Dare-valley - Dare Valley Wanderer

Dare Valley

Myths and Legends Part I

The Strawman

The "Strawman" superstition - the Harvest Festival tradition of children making and subsequently burning on a bonfire a "corn dolly" - likely originated in the southern Weald of Keyward, Myriad's breadbasket. The agricultural practice of hanging up straw man effigies called "scaregryphs" to frighten away maguars and grass dragons is common, but after the harvest they serve no purpose but to house rot, grummitfly larvae and other pests, and so are burnt.

The Keyward fairy tale of "The Strawman", wherein a courier is hired to deliver a cursed item for a mage, but is killed on the journey, only to rise again undead. The courier wanders the world in search of the mage to finish his task, and as his body parts rot away he replaces them with those of straw and cloth until nothing of the man remains.

Or, in some darker variations, the mage is in fact an Evermonk - a member of a vile sect of necromantic warlocks bent on immortality - and it is in fact he who arranges the murder, and the courier made a witless guinea pig in the Evermonk's experiment. In these tales The Strawman doesn't wonder in hopes of completing his contract but in search of vengeance).

This might be a tale told to children to stop them from messing with farmer's scaregryphs and encourage the end of season birnings, because you never know, that scaregryph in your field... it might be The Strawman!

As the tradition spread out to less rural areas it developed into the modern superstition, where a Strawman is made specifically for burning, and is often used for begging charity ("Gidding for the Strawman"). But beware, as the superstition goes, for if you make a Strawman dolly and fail to burn it by Harvest Festival night, it will come alive while you sleep and get you!

My friend has rescued three baby 🦔 hedgehogs after some kids scared away their mam

Cear Leon