Site icon Author Abigail Owen

Halloween Monsters: Scarecrow

Blue Violet Publishing LLC

As a fantasy and paranormal romance author, I am fascinated by folklore, fairytales, myths, monsters, and Halloween!

For several years, I’ve been on a fact-finding mission focused on the history of traditional Halloween “monsters” including their origins and evolution in folklore, literature, and pop culture.

Today, let’s take a look at the SCARECROW.

Scarecrows have a surprisingly rich history, and what makes them especially interesting is how they evolved from symbols of protection and agricultural survival into figures of fear, superstition, and horror.

Their connections to Halloween, folklore, and literature are fascinating because scarecrows occupy an unusual space: they’re human-shaped but not human, protectors that can look like monsters, and lifeless objects that seem just a little too capable of coming alive.

Historically, scarecrows have existed in various forms for thousands of years, although not all ancient crop-protection devices resembled the familiar straw-stuffed figure. According to my quick research, scarecrow histories often connect the practice to Priapus, a fertility and garden-protection deity whose images were placed in gardens and orchards. His grotesque appearance was meant to deter intruders, including birds.

In medieval Europe, human crop guards, including children, were employed to frighten birds away. Over time, stationary figures made from old clothing, wooden frames, and straw became a practical alternative in some farming communities. (I could totally see Tom Sawyer coming up with something like that. LOL.)

A scarecrow wasn’t always intended to look like a person. The goal was to create something birds or other animals would interpret as dangerous, unfamiliar, or disruptive.

Here’s the surprising part: Scarecrows weren’t originally Halloween figures. Their connection to the holiday developed much later.

Halloween’s roots include the Celtic festival of Samhain, marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter. It was associated with supernatural beings and the thinning boundary between the living and the dead.

Scarecrows entered Halloween imagery through several overlapping associations:

Which brings us to literature and pop culture!

The scarecrow was created as a protector of crops, used to frighten birds, but humans eventually began frightening themselves with it, and that reflects in the stories we told.

One of the earlier examples is Nathaniel Hawethorne’s Feathertop. In this story, a witch named Mother Rigby creates a scarecrow with a pumpkin head and brings him to life. He passes as a gentleman until a magical mirror reveals his true nature.

I have to wonder if Hawethorne might have been loosely inspired by the pumpkin head form Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Irving wrote, “Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him.” Then the next morning, villagers discover Ichabod’s abandoned hat beside a shattered pumpkin. The implication was that the entire thing might have been a trick played on Ichabod by Brom Bones. Disney with it’s animated short added the carved face of a jack-o-lantern and the flames.

As we move into the 20th century, we get more stories and lore added to the list. In modern storytelling, scarecrows have increasingly become threatening figures. The Scarecrow first appeared in DC Comics in 1941. Jonathan Crane uses fear and psychological manipulation as weapons, making the name especially appropriate. The 1981 television horror film Dark Night of the Scarecrow helped establish the scarecrow costume as an image of vengeance and rural horror.

Of course, scarecrows aren’t always images of terror. Sometimes they keep that protector lore. L. Frank Baum’s Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz is not a figure to fear but a sympathetic character.

However, as we add in the literature and pop culture to the overlapping associations already connected with scarecrows, I think it’s obvious how, in the twentieth century, scarecrows became increasingly familiar as seasonal decorations and, eventually, figures in haunted attractions and horror entertainment. The groundwork had already been laid.

What makes scarecrows so effective in frightening stories is that they occupy the uncanny space between person and object. The audience knows they shouldn’t move, speak, or think.

And the moment one does, the ordinary rules of the world are out the window. How delicious!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Looking for some scarecrow-related paranormal romance and fantasy books to consume? Check these out (fair warning, several of these are deliciously spicy or monster romance!)…

Interested in the history and evolution of other traditional Halloween “monsters” in folklore, literature, and pop culture? Check out my other posts…

TRADITIONAL HALLOWEEN “MONSTERS”

RESOURCES

Please note that I am NOT a historian, literature professor, or expert on these subjects.
I am just having fun spending a few hours researching them to share what I find with you.

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