What is a scarecrow, and is it meant to be scary? A scarecrow is an object made to resemble a human figure that is set up to scare birds. So yes, a scarecrow is meant to be frightening to birds but not to people.
How long have scarecrows been around, and what country first used them? Nowadays scarecrows can be found in books, movies, and fall decorations. Which books portray them as something to be feared? Which books do not? And what causes people to suffer from formidophobia, the fear of scarecrows?
Remember, each time a person with a phobia is confronted by what he or she fears, there are physical reactions. Dread, nausea, or breathlessness overcomes him. He sweats excessively and possibly loses the ability to think or speak clearly. Loss of control and excessive anger are also liable to occur. The individual could also experience a full-blown anxiety attack and detachment from reality.
Never make fun of someone who has a phobia. For this person, the terror is real. But you can make use of phobias by using them in your writing.
Any number of things could give someone a fear of scarecrows. A childhood prank (or a prank played on someone as an adult) could be the cause. Maybe someone dressed up as a scarecrow and chased after them with a knife, an ax, or some other sharp object.
Maybe they walked upon a murder taking place and the one committing the murder was dressed as a scarecrow.
A scary dream about an evil scarecrow could be the cause. What about a scary movie that has an evil scarecrow as one of the characters?
Halloween must be especially rough for those afflicted with formidophobia. The presence of scarecrows in Halloween decorations or even just in autumn decorations would cause fear each time one was seen.
Scary Books About Scarecrows
Any of the following scary books about scarecrows are not recommended for someone who has formidophobia. But if you don’t have this phobia and want to read some great scary stories about scarecrows, go for it.
By the way, I’ve not read any of the following books yet, so the descriptions are copied from Amazon.
A Murder of Scarecrows: A Short Story – A small eastern community becomes overrun by a growing army of scarecrows.
Dark Harvest – Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol’ Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death.
Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town. He’s willing to risk everything, including his life, to be a winner for once. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror—and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy.
Goosebumps: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight – Jodie and Mark usually love visiting their grandparents’ farm, but this summer is different. The single scarecrow has been replaced by twelve evil-looking ones. Then one night Jodie sees something odd: the scarecrows seem to be moving.
The Shadow at the Bottom of the World – “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World,” the title story, reimagines a kind of Bradbury-like small town that encounters the appearance of a kind of existential darkness, written with a sharp imagery like that of William S. Burroughs. In story after story in this collection, Ligotti does not merely present his readers with isolated incidents of supernatural horror – he challenges them to confront nightmares that are entwined in the very fabric of life itself.
You can listen to the short story “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World” below.
The Tatterdemon Omnibus – In 1691 the town of Crossfall taught the witch Thessaly how to die. They beat her, they shot her, they hung her – but nothing worked. When they finally tried to bury her alive, Thessaly set the field against them. The first man died as a gust of wind harrowed the meat from his bones. A root, flung like a dirty javelin, cut a second man down. Many more deaths followed. Preacher Fell impaled the witch upon her very own broom, but she dragged him down into the field to wait for three more centuries.
Three hundred years later Maddy Harker will murder her bullying husband Vic. She will bury him in the field as she buried her abusive father years before that, the very same field where the revenant spirit of Thessaly Cross lies waiting.
In three days, Vic will rise again – a thing of dirt, bone, and hatred.
Men will call him the Tatterdemon.
And hell – and Thessaly – will follow.
Books About Scarecrows That Aren’t Scary
Books about not-so-scary scarecrows abound in children’s books. If you know of any books for older kids or adults where the scarecrows wouldn’t cause someone sleepless nights or formidophobia, please let me know about them. Again, most of the descriptions are copied from Amazon.
Anyway, below is a list of five books for very young to older children about scarecrows.
The Shy Scarecrow – Scarecrows are meant to frighten the birds, but in this book, the scarecrow is so scared of the crows that he can’t do his job.
The Not-So-Scary Scarecrow – Jack the Scarecrow believes he has to be scary because he’s a scarecrow. Until one day he realizes that just because he is a scarecrow doesn’t mean he has to act like one. Read about Jack as he makes a few unlikely friendships and realizes that being kind is exactly how he likes to be….
The Scarecrow – All the animals know not to mess with old Scarecrow. But when a small, scared crow falls from midair, Scarecrow does the strangest thing.…
He saves the tiny baby crow.
The Scarecrow’s Hat – Chicken really admires Scarecrow’s hat. Scarecrow would gladly trade his hat for a walking stick to rest his tired arms. Chicken doesn’t have a walking stick to trade―but she knows someone who does.
The Wizard of Oz – Who can forget the Cowardly Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz?
Some Interesting Facts About Scarecrows
Scarecrows have been around for about 3,000 years. They were first used by Egyptians to protect their crops, but often instead of making them out of straw, they used live slaves.
During the Middle Ages, scarecrows were believed to have special powers. Besides scaring away birds, they were thought to protect crops from disease.
A Japanese village called Nagaro has under 50 residents but well over 300 scarecrows! (video below writing prompts)
Joe’s Scarecrow Village is a tourist attraction in Canada.
The first known use of the word “scarecrow” in English novels was in Robinson Crusoe in 1719. But the most famous fictional scarecrow is the one who is searching for a brain in The Wizard of Oz.
Writing Prompts:
Who knows? Maybe some scarecrows are alive. Create a scarecrow that at first is nice, but then something happens to him (or your scarecrow could be a her) that makes him want to exact revenge and terror on his neighborhood. What happened? And is he successful at inflicting revenge and raining terror upon everyone?
What would a town inhabited completely by scarecrows be like? What if all the scarecrows in Nagaro, Japan came to life? Or what about all the scarecrows in Joe’s Scarecrow Village in Canada?
Take one of the suggested reasons that a person could be afflicted with formidophobia and a write a story around it.
Recommended Articles:
Phobias That Could Thwart Writers
This is a great Halloween post, thanks for all those recommendations
It’s a phobia and I’m terrified of scarecrows