Farmer Ewan and The Corn DollyWhen the world was young and the soil still whispered the names of those who walked upon it, the old ones say there was a field at the far edge of a village—a place where the earth breathed slow and deep, and where the spirits of the land lingered like mist at dawn.On the last day of harvest, when the sun hung low and red as an ember, Farmer Ewan and the villagers came to cut the final sheaves. All season they had worked beneath the turning sky, and now only one small stand of wheat remained in the centre of the field—straight as spears, golden as firelight, untouched by blade or wind.Just as Ewan lifted his sickle, the air tightened. The birds fell silent. Even the dust motes seemed to hang still.Then came a voice—thin as a reed, old as the soil.“Spare the last of the wheat… for if you cut it, I shall have no place to dwell.”The villagers stepped back, for they knew the land sometimes spoke, but rarely in words. From the standing stalks stepped a figure no larger than a man’s hand. His hair rustled like dry husk, his limbs were woven from straw, and his eyes shone with the deep, patient knowing of the earth itself.A corn spirit—one of the ancient keepers of the harvest.He bowed, trembling like a leaf in a cold wind. “Each year I take shelter in the final sheaf. When it falls, winter casts me out to wander the barren months alone. I beg you—leave me this refuge.”The villagers murmured, for they had heard tales of such beings but never seen one. Yet Ewan, who had always treated the land as kin, knelt before the spirit.“You have guarded our fields since before our grandmothers’ grandmothers,” he said. “It is right that we guard you in turn.”He gathered the last wheat gently, as though lifting something sacred, and carried it to his hearth. There, by the glow of the fire, he wove a small cylindrical dwelling—tight, warm, and shaped with care.

When it was finished, he hung it above the fireplace, where winter’s breath could not reach.“This shall be your home until the thaw,” Ewan said. “When spring returns, you may walk the fields again and breathe life into the new harvest.”The spirit touched the woven walls, and the flames leapt higher, as if honouring the pact. “Farmer of good heart,” he whispered, “your kindness will be carried in the roots of the world.”All winter long, the farmhouse felt watched over. The fire burned steady. The nights seemed less sharp. And when the snows melted and the first green blades pierced the thawing earth, the spirit slipped from his winter home and vanished into the fields.That spring, the wheat rose tall as a man’s shoulder, heavy with promise. The harvest was richer than any the village had known.And so the tale is told still—around fires, in long winters, when the wind rattles the eaves. Each year, the villagers weave a home for the corn spirit and hang it above the hearth, honouring the old pact:Shelter for the spirit in winter, blessing for the people in summer.