The Pschiponza
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| Geographic Coordinates: 50° 29' 0.00" N, 18° 54' 0.00" E |
(From Polnish Upper Silesia, Tarnowitz District)
The Pschiponza is a noon specter, a tall female figure who floats above the hot grain fields during the heat of noon of the harvest time. At other times, she rushes women who stay outside during these times with their infants or fall asleep, plagues them with horrible dreams, and otherwise harasses them.
The Pschiponza was repeatedly noticed in the Georgenberg area (in the Tarnowitz district). She walks up and down on a field or a meadow, lifts her apron with her left hand, and frequently picks something up with her right hand and puts it into the apron. She has a red cloth on her head which has been folded three times, and her clothes are short and many-colored. Once she is done tormenting people who cross her path with a thousand questions — they are paralyzed or killed if they fail to answer even a single one — then she vanishes beneath a large rock like a shadow. The cattle fear the Noon Woman as well. If it sees her, they remain rigidly standing where they are and refuse to move from their spot.
See Drechsler, Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube II. 1906, p. 179f.
Taken from Paul and Hildegard Knötel, Oberschlesische Sagen. 1907, p. 46.
Source: Kühnau - Schlesische Sagen 2. Band: Elben-, Dämonen- und Teufelssagen, 213f.