Silas Scratch is a myth and legend created by Frank Heffley who appears in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School as the main antagonist and in the August 2012 issue of Boys' Life magazine. Silas Scratch was thought to be a crazed farmer living in Hardscrabble Farms until Frank reveals to Greg that Silas Scratch is a hoax that he made to keep people out of using a maintenance shed containing a bathroom with electricity.
Description[]
Silas Scratch was a farmer who worked at Hardscrabble Farms until the county kicked him off his land. There it was said that he lived in the forest and survived by eating slugs and berries. Then it was said that he went crazy and grew his fingernails really long.
Origin[]
Silas Scratch was an urban legend created by Frank when he went to Hardscrabble Farms. When Frank was there, the bathroom situation was even worse than when Greg was at the farm. There was only one outhouse the whole camp shared, and you would bathe in the river instead of showering. When Frank was in the woods collecting firewood one time, he found an empty maintenance shed that had a nice toilet and shower and electricity, which the farm banned. He wanted to keep the shed to himself, so he made up the story of Silas Scratch to other kids to keep kids away from the shed-which is now largely boarded up and covered in graffiti (possibly Frank's). Even though this happened roughly twenty years before Greg's time, the legend has held up and has gotten even more intense for campers which surprised Frank himself, later when he arrived as the emergency chaperone for Greg's group.
Trivia[]
- Given estimations made comparing him to Frank Heffley, Silas Scratch is most likely between 5' 9" (175.26 cm) and 5' 10" (177.8 cm) tall.
- However, this is only conjecture, as his height has never been definitively stated within the series.
- Silas Scratch is mentioned in a Diary of a Wimpy Kid segment in the August 2012 issue of Boys' Life magazine, albeit with a different appearance and backstory. Silas Scratch was made up in a ghost story by Greg and Rowley when they go camping in the woods next to their house to prove they can survive in the woods for a week to Greg's dad, Frank.
- His name "Silas" is Latin, meaning "forests; the forests" or "woods". "Scratch" is believed to have been derived from his long fingernails.
- In the Portuguese release of the book, his name is changed to "Adão Arranhão" to adapt to the language.
- This roughly translates to: Adam scratch
- He is the first antagonist to be completely imaginary. The second would be The Grout from Wrecking Ball.