Whenever people began to clear forests and plow land for fields, pastures and new lands, they immediately came into contact with the spirits of the fields - field workers. The field man, who was also called the wheatgrass, midday, boundary or field line, looks like an old man in white with a beard of ears. Sometimes he has long legs or one human foot, and the other dog, horns and fiery hair. More often, however, he appears as an ordinary person, on horseback. The field worker protects the grain fields from harm, evil eye and damage. He drives people off the border and can choke the reapers. It blows and whistles in the field, causing the wind. Or it runs, raising a cloud of dust with its tail so that it is difficult to see it. He is also credited with the invention of alcoholic beverages.
Polevik can be seen on summer moonlit nights and on hot days, when the air is very hot. In the beliefs of the Yaroslavl and Tula provinces, he is fast, impetuous: now he is a rider, "a hefty fellow on a gray horse" who can run over someone who has fallen asleep on the border, then a coachman on a fast troika, sweeping through the village before the fire. The appearance of these creatures nearby is evidenced by "running lights", singing, clapping, whistling.
In the legends of some regions, in particular the Oryol region, Novgorod region, Tula province, the field workers look like goblin and are covered with shaggy hair, live underground, in burrows, but leave there at noon and before sunset. At this time, they are dangerous, they can instill on a person a disease in the form of some kind of fever - therefore, it is dangerous to sleep at this time. The field worker who appears at the borderlines, crossroads, roadsides, ditches and pits likes to "joke" on travelers: "leads", makes them wander, scares people, whistles, claps their hands, "flashes sparks", throws firebrands.
Obviously, this creature is associated with the wind, fire (sparks of flame), the movement of the Sun and the time of summer flourishing of the earth. He is a personified summer light and warmth, and therefore contributes to the growth of bread, but, on the other hand, can turn into a fire. The appearance of the field owner merges with the appearance of the midday spirit, then with the appearance of the boundary, guarding the boundaries, borders of the fields. According to legends, field workers are often found near boundary pits. You cannot sleep here also because the children of field workers (mezhevichki and meadows) run along the borders and catch birds for their parents to eat, and they can strangle those lying on the border. In the Yaroslavl region, it was believed that field workers love to appear at the pits, at the crossroads.
A land surveyor is an "underground master"; he influences not so much the field itself as the well-being of people. In the Vologda region, cattle were entrusted to the care of the "field owner-father", "the field mistress-mother." At the end of the harvest, the Yaroslavl people tied several unharvested ears of grain and left them with a bow to the "master" of the field. In many regions of Russia this ceremony was called "Curling the beard of Saints Ilya and Nicholas", on which the harvest and fertility also depended. Obviously, the ears in such rituals "beard" are not so much a person as the field itself.
And yet the image of the field owner did not take shape definitely in the beliefs of the Russian peasants. Perhaps because in the 19th century and up to the beginning of the 20th century, the peasants revered as a living being, giving the harvest, the land itself, the field; celebrated holidays, "name days" of the land, brought her gifts. Therefore, the image of a field worker - a "living field" - on the one hand, is blurred, like the image of a disturbing field, and on the other, it is pushed aside by other "masters" of fields and fertility - the Most Holy Theotokos, Saints Ilya and Nicholas.
The following story of a woman was recorded in the Novgorod region: “It was fifteen years ago, I was visiting my homeland, I stayed there the whole evening; about twelve o'clock I packed up and drove home, they gave me a worker Yegor as an escort, we were about six miles to go. It was in winter, on Christmastide. Before reaching the village about one and a half versts, we suddenly see that not far from us, in a small forest, a fire is spread out, and around this fire there are people - several people. We both look in that direction and suddenly we see that a ball the size of a head is rolling towards us from the forest, and it was our horse that stumbled over this ball and got confused. We see that this ball is crumbling into fiery sparks. The wraps around the shafts of the sleigh were gone, as if someone had cut them off on purpose. We were so scared, we cannot pronounce a word. Somehow one wrapping was tied with a sash,and the worker held the other shaft in his hands until they reached the field. At this point, the worker somehow tied another wrapper, and we reached the Bolshoi Yard, and then we crossed ourselves: glory to Thee, Lord! - our house is nearby. I believe that evil spirits were joking at us - the field workers were warming themselves with a smut at us and letting them go."
There is also such evidence. One Belozersk widow told her neighbor at the well: “I lived with Alena on Gorka. The cows were gone - I went to look for them. Suddenly such a wind blew from the field that my God! I looked around - I see: there was someone in white, and it was blowing, it was blowing, and even whistling. I forgot about the cows too - rather go home, and Alena explains to me: “If I saw it in white, it means that it was field. The spirit assigned to guard the fields of grain has a body as black as earth: his eyes are multi-colored; instead of hair, the head is covered with long green grass; there are no hats and clothes. They say that there are four field workers assigned to each village."
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In some areas, the field had not an owner, but a mistress - a field owner, a field mistress. She could not be seen at all, but heard. It was believed that she knows how to take the form of a stork that settles near people, so storks' nests are not ravaged so as not to anger her.
Before the first seasonal grazing, the peasants tried in every possible way to appease the field worker and ask him to monitor the crops and livestock. To do this, an old rooster was secretly stolen from the neighbors, they killed it and, along with a couple of chicken eggs, carried it to the far end of the field in a deep dark night, where no one is and no one will hear. There they said a request and left an offering, and then left. At the end of the season, a few uncut spikelets were left on the field for the field worker and thanked him for preserving the crop and livestock.
If you forget to carry out these two rituals, you could lose both the crop and the livestock - a field worker would drive her into a ravine and break her spine. When people are not in a quarrel with a field worker, then if the animal was lost, they could turn to him - ask him to find it, save it from injuries and take it back.
Pernatiev Yuri Sergeevich. Brownies, mermaids and other mysterious creatures