Cunning is the Fox

This Week’s Prompt: 131. Phosphorescence of decaying wood—called in New England “fox-fire”.

The Resulting Story: FORTHCOMING

The term ‘fox-fire’ derives not from the animal ‘fox’, but rather from the word ‘faux’. A ‘fox-fire’ thus is normally a fake fire, a foolish fire. A will-o-wisp. We’ve discussed these at length here—and at the end, there is a specific Lovecraft story it calls to mind. But in the meantime, I want to discuss foxes. Because while the fox-fire is not literally referencing fox fires, the concept of illusions and deception with foxes leads to interesting spirits.

Fox spirits are most famous in East Asia and South East Asia. Early references point to foxes as the mounts of ghosts and the most clever of animals, favored by the Sovereign of Heaven. Foxes beyond this remain clever shapeshifters, taking on human appearances often. In China, stories refer to ordinary foxes who take up classical disciplines and studies, and thus enhance their own powers greatly.  There is a second method, that is found in China and Japan. It is said that foxes that live to 800 years may take the form of men and women—and that if they live to be 1000 years old they will ascend to heaven and trouble men no longer. To achieve this great age, foxes take the form of women to steal the vital force of men (the reason that only men are targeted in this version relates to the nature of a fox as a yin animal). There are stories of foxes that prey on women as shapeshifted lovers—for instance, there is the story of Lord Kumazawa, who was seeking improper relations with a maid. For this purpose, he would bring her outside of the castle to a shed. This arrangement was discovered by an old fox, who took the form of Kumazawa to assault the maid. She cries out for help, but none hear her—and those that do cannot believe her, for the Lord Kumazawa is clearly with his wife. The experience, like most ones with spirit foxes and women, leaves her in agony.

Fox women often lure travelers on the roadside in, offering meals and bed and favors. But upon waking, the traveler finds themselves in a graveyard. They find  the food excrement and dead leaves, and the entire experience dreadful. In a Korean tale, the traveler is warned ahead of time by the sound of a grinding sword. In his flight, he ends up in the tower of a magician—who is the son of the fox. After the son captures him, the man plans to escape again. He tricks the son of a fox into giving him a vase of water—which he uses to weaken the wall and escape again. And then, the poor man falls into the den of a tiger and falls unconscious. The tiger, thinking he is dead, cuts his face to feed the cubs and leaves to hunt. The traveler awakens, kills the cubs, and heads up a tree. The foxes following him, enter the den. The three perish in their fight, and the man returns to plunder their homes for wealth.

Another instance is supposedly the origin of the word kitsune. A man married a woman, who was beautiful and a wonderful wife. One day, she gave birth to a son—and on that same day, the man’s dog gave birth to a pup. The pup snarled and barked at the woman. The man ignored her requests to kill the pup, and the harassment continued until she was driven off. The woman took the form of a fox and fled—and the man called out, ki tsu ne “come and sleep”. The man, you see, loved her even if she was a fox, and because she returned to him then, she was called a kitsune. A fanciful origin of the phrase, and a bit out of step with a kitsune’s normal nature.

Of course, not all such encounters are…profitable. In one instance, a pair of sons where harvesting a farm field when their father assaulted them with words and blows. When they came home and complained to their mother and father of this treatment, the father was alarmed and confused. He determined it was a specter assaulting them, and sent them with an axe to kill the spirit. The specter, however, stayed silent.

The father grew worried that something had happened and went out to see his sons—who mistook him for the specter and killed him.  The specter flies back to the house, and turns into the father. And so the family lives for many years, until a priest mentions the influence the father is having. The Specter turns into a giant fox, and attacks him—but is caught and killed. The sons go on to die of despair.

We of course cannot neglect one of the most infamous fox brides–Lady Tamamo-no-Mae. This fox spirit ran amok in China, India, and Japan–in each country she became the concubine. In each, she won the emperor’s heart and drove him to cruelty and neglect of the land. These invariable resulted in a revolt, and driving her out of the land–sometimes merely by human forces, sometimes by exorcists as well. Eventually, she is caught on the plains of Nasu and killed–and in one version, her spirit enters into a nearby stone, creating a poisonous rock.

Catching these shapeshifters is of course, therefore, a priority—and there are a few methods. Dogs, for instance, recognize their old enemy. Buddhist mirrors and Taoist charms exist for such a purpose. There are also methods using a pillar or tree as old as the fox themselves. These are all found in China, but in Japan we can find additional signs—they give off a faint light no matter the time of day, they are followed by a vaporous fox shape, a fox will have a long face and tail, a fox will drop their form to eat a fried rat, a fox’s true form is revealed in water, and lastly—a fox has great trouble pronouncing certain words like moshi. Supposedly this is why you greet someone on the phone with moshi moshi.

These methods are key to avoiding tragedies—like the common fox prank of appearing as persons, revealing themselves to an observer, and then running to watch as the person they appeared as is assaulted and tested for their vulpine nature! That said, being kind to foxes can also yield riches—assuming such stories are to be believed, and art not in fact writers defending themselves from fox-vengeance.

These can also be key in observing fox possession. We have discussed animal possession before—here when we talked about cat possession.  Fox possession works on a similar matter, driving the person to expend energy, laughing and weeping and more until they were worn out. In some incidents, victims spoke in foreign languages (classical Chinese often). The spirit makes its residence in a small tumor within the person, the removal of which cures them.  Like other fox encounters, these occur often near graveyards—and have on occasion a positive side. The possessed are noted as being healers of all manner of diseases.

Foxes can themselves be possessed, or rather, owned. Fox-owning families are protected by a tribe of seventy-five spirit foxes. These spirits protect their lands and fields, and possess those who try to do them harm. The possessed are forced to speak out their crimes and repay the family. The families that permanently owned foxes intermarry with others, keeping to themselves. Inquiring about one’s status overtly can cause offense, so the exact identities are always unsure. Holding a needle in hand can often keep a fox at bay.

We have not touched upon another source of stories about the Fox in Japan—the Ainu. My resources here are scarcer, but no less interesting. Among the Ainu, we appear to have a division between red fox and black fox. The red fox in many ways resembles the Japanese fox stories, but the Black Fox is…different. It is normally benevolent, has a role as guardian with its superhuman perception, and communicates with a cry.  Their sight and speech is enhanced by their habitat far above most of the landscape. 

That said, there is one fox recorded in an Ainu chant that—despite being of this holy group—possesses power over storms and tries to kill a culture hero with one such storm its cry summons. For its efforts it is shot by the hero, and its body is divided after it is given some reverence—the spirit then turning to warn other foxes to avoid the same cause of mischief. I’ve linked the article in question in the bibliography.

Now, what does this have to do with our prompt, beyond me refusing to recognize ‘fox fire’ as ‘faux fire’? Well, the note about phosphorous glow brings to mind the story A Color Out of Space, a story in which an alien light saps the life around a farm and slowly destroys the family around it. This isn’t directly related to the fox spirits, but the common theme of illumination and illusion—shapeshifting, making graveyard appear as a mansion, and so on—with also vampirism, possession, and death seemed…connectable.

The main difference of course being that the Color does not speak or engage in conversation—while the foxes most certainly do. They aren’t human, but they aren’t…the same sort of strange. Making a Kitsune into a horror creature isn’t difficult however—the story of the specter and the father alone gives me chills. So come back next time, to see what we have in mind!

Bibliography

Johnson, T. W. “Far Eastern Fox Lore.” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 33, no. 1, 1974, pp. 35–68. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1177503. Accessed 4 Aug. 2021.

Strong, Sarah M. “The Most Revered of Foxes: Knowledge of Animals and Animal Power in an Ainu Kamui Yukar.” Asian Ethnology, vol. 68, no. 1, 2009, pp. 27–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25614520. Accessed 4 Aug. 2021.

Witches’ Hollow and Devils Den

This Week’s Prompt: 130. N.E. region call’d “Witches’ Hollow”—along course of a river. Rumours of witches’ sabbaths and Indian powwows on a broad mound rising out of the level where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark grove or daemon-temple. Legends hard to account for. Holmes—Guardian Angel.

The Resulting Research:

Witchcraft in New England of course has a proud tradition in folklore—particularly after the Salem witch trials. There is a genre of tales about such witch trials, both as very late in the history of witch hunts and the guilt of the times over such an unenlightened beginning. When the cultural push came for American literature separate from the European kind, witch trials became a common subject of discussion. And the colonial connection between the witches sabbath (which we discussed here) and the Indian “powwow” is not surprising—we can find other notions of secret magic possessed by native peoples elsewhere, even if they are not as nefarious.  For instance, the book Pow Wows or the Long Lost Friend by John George Hoffman uses the term ‘pow wow’ for its magical rights, claims secret Roma knowledge in the testimonials, while remaining a definitively Christian work in world view.

Tracking witch craft beliefs in New England itself isn’t hard. There are stories in Rhode Island of witchcraft detecting cakes and charms. There are stories in Marblehead of necromantic merchants who live on old hills. But harder to find are stories of witches sabbaths and gatherings.

We are told that witches in New England attended such gatherings with a special ointment provided by the devil, and they flew there instead of walked. The Devil himself is involved in every aspect of witchcraft—some attributes here, however, are more unique then elsewhere. A witch cannot say the Lord’s prayer (a theme we see in Britain, where acknowledging the power of the Lord undoes witchcraft).

In Salem, the center of the witch craze, we find references to certain neighborhoods as infected with witch craft—a telling line refers to 40 men in Andover who could conjure the devil. The actual location of the Salem witch’s sabbath was supposedly an orchard, where a perverse Eucharist took place. We’ve discussed Salem at length here, and expansion on them isn’t really needed.

One story of interest that is connected is the arrest of Reverend George Bourghs. The officers of the law, when pursuing him, decided to take an unfamiliar route so that they might take him off guard. However, when they settled into the forest to ambush him, a great and terrible storm came in. Convinced now that he was sending forth the powers of hell to overcome them, the officers panicked. After a particularly bad thunder bolt, all fell silent and terror seized the animals. Then the animals turned and fled, as if compelled and lashed by unseen hands. This was taken in as evidence that the Reverend was in fact guilty.

Moving away from Salem, a place of prominence is the Devil’s Den in Pennsylvania. This cavern has two entrances, kept open through winter and summer by the constant passage of wicked spirits. The interior is apparently opalescent above by torch light. Located near Gettysburg, the stones are believed to be haunted by the spirits of traitor and Union dead—sounds of the battle are still reported. Other folklore accounts claim that the sounds of skirmishes with Native Americans can be heard—although the proof of such a battle remains ambiguous. Still, the Devils Den in New Hampshire provide plenty of underworld guests.

There is also Devil’s Den in Massachusetts. This cavern was once a quarry, and has a strange collection of folklore around it. It was, like the above, believed to belong to the devil. It was a common hide out for adventurous and trickster boys, who hid from farmers here. In order to enter safely, however, one had to go to a nearby stone—the Devil’s pulpit—and say some very irreligious things. This stone was the devils own preaching spot for his infernal band (a continuation of the devil conducting inversions of proper Christian practices). The imitation of the blasphemy might spare the boy some of the effects o the cave…but even then it was unwise to travel into the den alone. Written upon the entrance of the den was supposedly a name that killed anyone who dared enter the caverns alone. The den’s rocks sometimes bore the footprints of the devil and his parties might be heard from the cavern.

Now, like a few prior prompts, this one references a specific book—one I admit I did not have the time or patience to read in full. Still, I found an adequate summary and found the scene of most relevance in question—the scene where the Witches Hollow is observed in a feverish state, and the ghosts of the dead and the strange. There is a cross that burns with green fire but is never consumed, a parade of the character’s ancestors—from a number of lines and locations, from India to New England Puritans. The story itself is of little import—it touches on the notion of conflicting ‘natures’ in blood, and resolving this dual-feeling that…well, I think someone could write a good story on the feeling of conflicting identity, I am not going to read an entire 18^th century novel on the matter.

The visual, however, touches on another angle I haven’t discussed. The lonely hill that serves as a center of strance activities, with a sort of natural temple emerging from the plant life, reminds me strongly of the Green Chapel where the Green Knight meets Gawain. It is describe such:

And now, from just beyond a jutting hill,

Came hideous sounds, as of a giant mill

That hisses, roars, and sputters, clicks and clacks;–

It was the Green Knight sharpening his axe!

And Gawayne, coming past the corner, found him,

With ghastly mouldering skulls and bones strewn round him,

In joyous fury urging the keen steel

Against the surface of his grinding wheel.

The place was a wild hollow, circled round

With barren hills, and on the bottom ground

Stood the Green Chapel, moss-grown, solitary;–

In sooth, it seemed the devil’s mortuary!

The overgrow of vegetation in place of stone strikes me as one of the recurring tropes of these places. They are covered in sounds and strange fogs, to hide their presence. The Green Chapel is of course far more gruesome—the bones and hisses and skulls paint a grimmer image than the description from Guardian Angel.

For a story, this gives us a scene more than a place. It gives some themes as well—a place with a mystic history, regardless of culture. It is a place where magic can be worked—and in a horror story, such a place is unlikely to be friendly. It is at best a sublime place—a place both wonderful and terrible, where horror and beauty intermingle.  It is at worst a small opening into hell itself, where the world distorts into something darker and more wild, where rot and decay and the smell of ruined stone are rampant.

Either way, it is by many accounts, a place that attracts travelers. Whether they be miscreant boys, or travelers lured close by lights and sound, or a place where an eavesdropper hides from pursuit, and learns the secret schemes of devils. Many of them are located near hills or in the depths of the earth—places far from ‘civilized’ society, in places that would be haunted by fairies in earlier times.  Our story must involve this place, and no doubt a trip there—but what beyond that? Do we follow it like the character in a Hawthorne story, lured here by promises or by some internal need to escape the bounds of society? Does Dionysus call us to revelry, or to the ruins of a haunted hill?

Francisco Goya – Aquelarre (Basque/Spanish Witches’ Sabbath) a.k.a. The Great He-Goat

A monster could be added of course, or a witch. If we are dealing with a witch gathering however, I think…hm. I think the notion of just eavesdropping has been done too often. I think instead seeking out such a place intentionally is more interesting. Making deals with outside forces for one’s own benefit—and in bad faith, as is common the case—can make for a more poignant story.

I don’t think there is much to gain by connecting the location to Native American shamanistic traditions, but the meaning of that connection to Lovecraft is at least worth touching on. Native Americans occupy not only the role of perceived devil worshippers—taking the place in colonial imagination of pagans from times before Christianity—but also share the role of communal guilt.

I consider the ghost stories of Rhode Island an example of this feeling of guilt in the folklore—the number of places haunted by Native Americans, the pines that are living reminders of innocent souls killed. There is this lingering…feeling in the folklore that I would compare to the Salem Witch Trials literary roll—a guilt, to a degree, without action. A recognition of wrongness, although not always a redress of the source of the wrongness.

While this hill then is on the one hand a place of demonic and anti-social activity, it is also a place of guilt. It is a place defined as the temple of those who once lived on the land, and rightfully should, and was then taken up by those in society who dared reach beyond it. It is a place of murder. Where the past of land died, and where the future was strangled in its crib.

I don’t have a full story formed from these themes, but I think there is something to be mined here—more tragic perhaps than horrific.

I should now say, as I once did for Marblehead and other stories, that I have been beaten to the punch regarding this prompt. Luckily, this time it was by a man over a hundred years old, August Derelth. I lacked time to read the entire story but found a good review of it here.

Bibliography

Drake, Samuel Adams. A Book of New England Legends and Folklore in Prose and Poetry.Boston, Little Brown and company, 1901.

Orians, G. Harrison. “New England Witchcraft in Fiction.” American Literature, vol. 2, no. 1, 1930, pp. 54–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2919930. Accessed 21 July 2021.

Baqi and the Golden Fruit

This Week’s Prompt: 126. Castaways on island eat unknown vegetation and become strangely transformed

The Prior Research:Fruit of the Sea

The Sea Dane would tell this sailor’s tale, both in the humble halls he washed ashore in, and in the ruby lit halls of Dahut. He had heard it himself at a port of call in Iberia, from a sailor named Baqi. Baqi had traveled many seas, from the city of Caesars to the west coast of Africa to the seas about Arabia. He had many tales of strange ports and stranger things he had seen—but this story was the strangest.

Baqi and his crew were sailing towards the Pillars of Hercules, the great white cliffs that rose into the heavens. They had brought a fine hall from the coasts, to markets in the Mediterranean. Spices and ivory and gold from the coast of Africa—but as they sailed, a terrible storm rose from the great sea in the west. The ship was sturdy, but the darkness and wind overcame them, unseen stones cutting the hull to pieces, and casting them into the waves.

They awoke on an island with shores of golden sand and emerald trees. Of the crew, maybe a dozen survived. The wreckage that floated ashore was naught but drift wood and some rations for their journey. Baqi and his men gave thanks for surviving the storm—they prepared to burn the driftwood for warmth at night, and salvage what they could, bury those who had perished. And Baqi took his first mate, Alaric, to see what life might persist on this island.

They traveled sometime, before they found the center of the island. A lake, clear and placid, surrounded by large trees. And upon the trees grew a strange fruit, like an olive perhaps but as big as a man’s head.

“Do you think we can eat those?” Alaric said, scratch is head. Baqi frowned and considered.

“Who’s to say? It might be a dreadful poison.” He said turning to the lake and looking down at the fish that swam in it’s depths. “We have fish, though, and some supplies. We have wood a plenty.” He gestured around him. “We’ll wait to eat the strange plants until we have no better option.”

And so the crew set up shelter on the shores of that lake—the water pure and fresh and sweet, and the driftwood burned easy. The wind was calming and soothing in the night, as the moon came over head—except when it shifted direction. Then it made a terrible rustling, like a great cloud of locusts was going to rise from the branches and consume them all. It made it hard to sleep.

*

They ran out of provisions before they finished cutting trees for their ship. The great fire they lit on the shore lured none to harbor—although perhaps it was simply not seen. Only once did the nightwatchmen spy a ship passing over the horizon, and even that was from a great distance—and the sounds at night made many question his health.

The crew split in two on the matter—one group went out, armed with what weapons they had to repel pirates to hunt boar or other animals of the island. The others would draw lots, and see who would try the new fruit. Boar or berry might claim one or two, but might sustain them longer.

Thus, Alaric  climbed a great tree and cut free one of the sweet fruits and Baqui went out into the forest with spear in hand. It was on this venture, moving far from the lake, that Baqui found strange sights. He found piles of stones, aligned as if great walls—but within their borders, he found naught but more trees. Before he lingered long on that outcropping, he and his men spotted a small deer—and the chase resumed.

When they returned, they found the rest of the crew seated in a circle, observing the young man who drew the shortest lot. There was a fruit in front of him, with a sliver cut from it by his knife—the flesh of the fruit seemed to be a shinning white like an apple’s interior.

“It’s sweet…savory too. Like cattle made of honey.” He said, cutting another slice and eating it. Alaric looked over at the arriving hunters, with their own catch—a pair of small deer they had found. Baqi chuckled.

“Well, if it tastes better and is easier to find…how much has he eaten?” He asked his first mate.

“This is the second fruit—nothing strange has come over him yet.” Alaric said. “We’ve watched closely—not even the slightest sign…”

“Then it seems safe enough for now.” Baqi said—although later he regrated his eagerness. “We can hunt and build, but this will make good reserves. Plant some of the seeds, and perhaps we will be rich from them when we return to friendly and familiar shores.”

*

They did find, in time, that there was good timber for building boats—but there was little eagerness to leave the quaint island. For the lake and fruit kept them fulfilled, and each found their own entertainment. It was like a paradise, and they told themselves surely the wind was still foul and the waves still treacherous. They had best give it a season or so before trying the waters.

Alas, Baqi mourned that time—when the gates were open for any to leave. And he recalled to the Sea Dane, the night they were closed forever. For one night, not even two weeks past when the first fruit was eaten, a man woke the whole camp. He had seen a shape moving past the fire. It looked much like a man, but without a head and with long limbs. The sailor was convinced that they were not alone on the island—that this was the source of the rustling sounds at night and other strange things.

Now, it is no secret that sailors are superstitious folk. Any who rely on the vagaries of wind and wave are prone to beliefs in all manner of fortunes. So they made plans that night—they stayed together, and appointed their bravest, including Baqi, to keep an eye out for the strange shape the next day.

That night, the wind rattled the leaves worse than before, filling the night with hoarse laughter. Baqi, days staying on the island, was still unused to the sounds of the nightly winds. He stood about with his fire, watching the darkness for any strange sights or shadows.  Any wild dogs or deer, as he privately thought the shapes must have been.

And then the arm darted across the tree line.

He and the men instantly rose up, and moved quickly, silently as they could—the shape was large, like a bear but walking on all fours. It fled from them, quick as a deer—but they were used to hunting deer. At last, they chased it to the shore of the sea. AS they drew close it turned—two golden eyes like a great lions shown in the moon light. Baqi felt a primal terror come over him as those eyes stayed fix as the head rotated away—and the beast leapt into the sea.

*

They built walls of wood to keep the beast at bay. They made wind chimes and trap wires—for they did not know what the beast desired, but it seemed fearsome and ill tempered. They sharpened spears for their defense, and laid  pointed sticks around the places they planted new fruit trees, hoping to keep the creatures away from their prized plants.

They did this in vain.

*

They did not wait until night to descend upon the camp of the sailors—oily scaled skin and eyes like a lion. They came with a roar that sounded of death and put fear into every man’s heart, sending them fleeing from the walls they crudely made—carrying only a dozen or so of the golden fruits. They came and a mist of darkness swallowed the land behind them, as if the sea rose up.

The sailors fled up the island, behind the stone walls Baqi found long ago—where it seemed the strange beasts were loathe to go.  They lit torches, and as night fell they stationed guards to see that the strange beasts did not overwhelm them.

“We cannot hold for long.” Baqi said as he walked in front of the flames. “At any moment, they might come upon us—and they are far more numerous then us. Still—we have trees in these walls, ones that might be of use. We can build a raft in the night, and flee before they come upon us stronger.”

“Flee? While they hold our gold?” Alaric said, standing up. “No, no, they cannot be allowed to keep it. We have arms—stones and slings we can make, and strike them down from this fortress, recoup our losses, and take back that grove!”

His response was met with cheers of the others among the grovesmen, although the hunters remained unsure.

“We have tools for hunting deer, Alaric, not for killing beasts bigger than a man.” Baqi countered. “We have a few spears and knives—”

“We have courage and will—and fire!” He said, gesturing at the bonfire. “And those can more than startle and scare away monsters of the night! If we aim true and with care, we can do so without our gold igniting!”

“Who cares for the fruit, our lives are on the line!” Baqi shouted. And when Alaric looked at him with rage, Baqi saw his eyes had taken on a gold shine.  He did not remember what Alaric said, with those leonid eyes. But he felt them call to his blood—to the fruit he had consumed.

And then he knew he must flee in the night, or he too would be consumed.

“Do what you will.” Baqi said, stepping back, cutting through the haze of Alaric’s speech. “And I do what I.”

*

Baqi confessed he didn’t stay for the fight—he gathered those who were sane, and as the others heated spears and stones to make tools of war, they built something like a ship. Some drifted away from their work—eyes taking on a bronze or gold hue whenever they left.

As Baqi set the raft to shore, he turned to his fellows.

“If any of us are gripped by that madness, we must tie him to the raft and hope for the best.”  He said solemnly. And then he inhaled sharply and sighed, and confided to the Sea Dane—he was the first to lose himself to that golden sound. It was like a great bell resonating in his ears. It was a thirst that couldn’t be slaked, a fire in his stomach that threatened to boil through his skin. His comrades restrained him, bound him to the crude mast.

At last, they came to friendly shores. And there, he told the Sea Dane, he began to recover—but the fire never really ended, and still he dreams of those stone walls and strange beasts.

---

I decided to tie this story in with the prior one (here) slightly, as a framing device. The story concept I think could be fleshed out much more, and I probably took on a longer narrative then needed. Next time! We return to the birds!

Under the Sea

This Week’s Prompt: 125. Man abandon’d by ship—swimming in sea—pickt up hours later with strange story of undersea region he has visited—mad??

The Resulting Story: The Sea Dane

This week’s prompt returns us to familiar waters for the Undead Author Society: Strange and terrifying sights beneath the sea. We’ve touched on undersea creatrues, regions, and even peoples before. We talked about the most famous, Atlantis, here. We discussed undersea bishops and mermaids here.

Now, this recalled to my mind another flooded ancient city of Northern Europe—specifically, Ys. When I first heard the story of Ys, I was traveling in Ireland. The tour guide told a version that said Ys was sunk by druids to protect it—and if anyone found the golden keys to the city, they would inherit its power and it would rise again.  The key was under an unmarked grave in Ireland, and hadn’t been found yet!

The version I was able to find more documentation of is slightly different. Ys is found off the coast of Brittany. The King of Is or Ys is Gradlon, with his daughter Dahut. The city is built on reclaimed land, with the golden keys to the dykes holding it fast during the day. Gradlon’s daughter Dahut takes the keys, in most versions, and opens the dykes to flood the city. The reason she does so varies—in many versions, she is impressing a flatterer or lover, and drunkenly mistakes the dykes for her palace. In others, a man with a red cane and beard has come to the city and stolen the keys to flood the city. As the city floods, a saint or holy man comes and tells the King to flee—offering his horse to escape with. As he flees, his daughter jumps on the horses back, and the horse stops. And only be throwing her off does he escape.

Some versions suggest she in turn became a mermaid, bringing us to a full circle of our story from the Netherlands. To this day, at low tide, the ruins of the city can still be somewhat seen. The ruins are again attributed to Roman builders at times, at others to ancient sources. At least one suggests the devil danced on the dykes, mocking the king with his keys. A source I couldn’t confirm (it is in French) has Dahut build the city with korrigan aid and command sea serpents to serve every citizen of the city, building wealth with raids and oceanic diving. This wealth made them cruel, and soon they drove beggars and others out of their homes and streets. And so they were buried by the sea. It is said, in some versions, that that Is or Ys will rise again, and the first to hear its bell toll will become king.

A comparable Welsh tale modifies things somewhat. The drunkard is now the steward, and there are references to an overflowing well instead of the sea that creates a lake around the city. Still, the King escapes and is the sole survivor.

Bomere pool was likewise formed from a flood. The village that once stood there turned back to idolatry and the worship of Norse gods, only mocking the Christian faith. When the priest warned them of God’s wrath, fish bones were sewn to his cassock and children pelted him with stones. This did little to dissuade the priest, and his endurance won over a few back to the faith. However, in December the rains began to fall.

The priest, walking one day, saw that the dykes were about to burst. He ran down to warn the feasting pagan people, but was dismissed for his kill-joy croaking. One might expect, when the flood came on Christmas Eve, he and his followers would be safe on their hill. But no—the waters hit them first, rising over the altar, and washing away the entire village. You can still, they say, hear the ringing of the Sanctus bell over the pool.

A variant of this story exists, however. It was placed back in the Roman Empire’s reign. In this version, the warning comes from a Roman soldier, sent by God to the town. However, only the daughter of the governor will listen to him. The rest of the town beat him and mock him, as they did the priest in the other story. The soldier would have married the Governor’s daughter, but it was not to be. On Easter, devastation came to the city—a flood so massive it wipe the city out entirely. It is said the Sun rejoiced and the cattle prayed to God in thanksgiving. The solider was spared, but his love was not. He can be seen when the church bells ring, rowing a boat looking for his lady love to this day.

Amusingly to me, one version of the story sets an even pettier reason for the flood—that a farmer was harvesting grain on Sunday.

There are stories in Shropeshire where greed is the ultimate cause: Ellesmere was once a great meadow, with a well of pure water in the center.  People came from all around for the drink, until a churlish man purchased the land and demanded payment for the water. The next day, his wife found the meadow turned into a vast, worthless pool. And the price the man had to pay was kept high, for his poor conduct. 

Donegal Bay has a number of tales of sunken and undersea cities as well. A castle, with fields of cattle, is said to be visible in the morning—and that its inhabitants dress in old and strange clothing. When a marquis went to reclaim some land, he found the sight and ceased all work on the project—if it was due to the beauty of the city or something else we don’t know.

Another nearby castle emerged for reasons that are by now familiar. The local chief was holding a feast and advised by a saint to invite the poor as well as the rich into his hall. When he refused, the saint cursed him and the waters flowed up from the well and over the city, drowning it—in another case, the wicked chief held the saint prisoner and the well water rose up to over take them.

Another Donegal Bay story tells of a visit to the undersea, but not how it came to be. A man was riding at sunset towards a lake, when he found himself on a mirrored surface. He continued until he came to an underground room, and was asked by many hosts there to eat and drink. However, for once, our hero remembers his folklore and flees—seizing a bottle as proof. He emerged onto shore and was so frightened by what he had experienced he died within the year—but he had proof.

Another hero did not listen, however, when he pursued his sheep into an undersea kingdom. Here he married a red headed woman and lived a happy life—before deciding after three days to return and tell his family. Sadly, he learned that time is different under the sea—and he had been gone three thousand years.

Moving away from the British Isles, we can find underwater kingdoms farther abroad in Nubia. Here we have the Aman Naltah, river inhabitants who live in castles beneath the Nile. They will regularly, reportedly, drag persons down into their world and gift them with divining powers upon returning them. They also cause halluncinations or amnesia by dragging people beneath the river, aid in exorcisms, and so on. But they are not the only inhabitants of the Nile.

There is also the Aman Doger. These creatures also inhabit the Nile, but are much more tangibile. They have donkey like legs, log tails, big ears, and burning vertical eyes that are the only visible sign of them during sun rise and sunset. They do attack people, particularly women, to acquire gold for their taxes in their home country or to gain food. Robbery is not their only trick—they will lure people to the shore by calling their name, and then suck breath and blood from their nostrils, draining their strength. Being nocturnal and terrifying creatures, they prey on children of course. And most terrible of all, they will break vehicles and steal dates.

The more fascinating part for our purposes is the purported origin of the creatures. In one instance, a travelling sufi was rejected by pagan peoples. He cursed them to a terrible form as punishment, in a way familiar to the above. In some cases, this was the fate of all the original inhabitants of Nubia. Another, more modern-set origin says that when the British colonized Sudan, one tribe would not pay their taxes and rebelled. Sadly, they lacked gold and guns—so they made use of their sorcery to become river beings. Tragically, their sorecery was their undoing—they lost not only their wits and appearance, but became forever hungry and in need of wealth to pay their new overlords beneath the waves.

At least one story has such a spell lifted by a sword being cast through the Aman Doger, who afterwards retursn to Sudan to take up work as a merchant. It should be noted that, as a bewitched tribe, the sorcerers of the region have power over them. And as monstrous creatures, the appropriate verses of the Koran will disperse them.

Further from the Isles still is a tale from Micronesia. The handsome son of the chief of the Lugenfanu on Losap was on a boat to Truk when they came to a group of whales. However, these whales were actually girls in disguise and one of them, taking a fancy to the boy, knocked him overboard. The men on the boat did not notice, and so he was left swimming.

At least one text refers to them as dolphins, which is more reasonable and thus less fun.

He preformed some diviniation magic to learn which direction was preferable for him to travel. When it favors none, he asks if diving down would be best—and the magic says it is. So he dives down beneath the waves. There he found a clean and wonderful island, with a large pool in the middle, deep and wide. He hid in nearby bushes to see if anyone would come to the pool and bath. And soon the whales came, and each leaped into the pool from the salt water and removed their skin, revealing themselves to be beautiful girls.

Now, this story being an animal bride story (in a way), the boy finds the skin of the prettiest and steals it, for he is intent on making the prettiest of these whale women his wife. Unlike many such thieves, however, he quickly reveals he has the skin and that he hid it so the two of them could talk. After learning his story, she invites him home—sorry that she was the whale to knock him overboard.

At the home, her sisters arrive. The woman hides the boy, promising to keep him safe. The whale girl in turn ask why they can smell a foreign human in their home—with some agreeing to be his friend if he is a boy, others saying they will hate them regardless of boy or girl, and others promising to beat and murder him.  At least the first time—the second time they ask, they agree to be friends or even marry him.

So they all marry him, and agree that one will stay with him at all times while they are about. And in this time, the boy teaches them cooking for they did not know how to cook meals and hade been eating raw fruits. AT last, the prettiest girl’s turn comes again and the boy asks to be taken home again. The sisters are deeply unhappy, but they hold a feast to send him off and teach him how to revive dead whales, should they awash on his shore.

The undersea realms are thus places of many wonderous magics, where one can drift without being entirely aware. It is not surprising that shipwrecked sailors might dream of them—we have comparable cities in stories of the Flat Earth, where lineages of magicians have dwelt beneath the sea.

Our story would then follow the mad sailors story, their descent downward into this realm of magic and wonder, and their eventual return to the surface. Would it be a land of fish men, sorcerers, fae, or even the dead? What world will he return to? What treasure or proof will he steal? Come and see next time!

Bibliography

Doan, James. “The Legend of the Sunken City in Welsh and Breton Tradition” Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 1 (1981), pp. 77-83. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.

Kennedy, John G. “Aman Doger: Nubian Monster of the Nile.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 83, no. 330, 1970, pp. 438–445. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/539665. Accessed 2 Feb. 2021.

Jackson, Georgina F. Shropshire Folklore. Edited by Charlotte Sophia. Burne, 1883.

Meder, Theo. The Flying Dutchman and Other Folktales from the Netherlands. Libraries Unlimited, 2008.

Meehan, Helen. “Underwater Worlds of the Donegal Bay Area.” Béaloideas, vol. 71, 2003, pp. 1–12. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20520823. Accessed 2 Feb. 2021.

Mitchell, Roger E. “The Folktales of Micronesia.” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 32, 1973, pp. 1–276. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1177461. Accessed 2 Feb. 2021.

On Display

This Weeks Prompt: 123. Dried-up man living for centuries in cataleptic state in ancient tomb.

The Resulting Story: A Night At The Museum

The prompt here is one of the rare ones that genuinely frightens me—the thought of being buried alive has always unnerved me, and more than once I have looked up what to do if you were buried alive and needed to escape. And here we have something…even more terrifying. Not only being buried, but trapped in an ancient tomb as a mumfiied state.

We can consider this a sort of inversion of our sleeping figures we discussed here, or perhaps an extreme extension of sleep paralysis. Here we have a man alive in this state—a state induced by supernatural means, as obviously a cataleptic state does not stop the need for food or water—as time passes away in an ancient tomb.

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Catalepsy is a state in which one has a wax like rigidity—limbs stay where moved, but can be moved—and a numbness to pain. While some body functions are slowed, such as breathing, the sort described here takes things to an entirely new level. The theme of catalyepsy leading to being buried alive is a recurring one in the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher and the Premature Burial both address these.

The horror of the situation is apparent, but the scale of time makes it strange. The shock of awakening, unable to move, and the slow and inescapable decay of the mind. But centuries are vast and terrible oceans of time—it is hard to convey their passage in a few thousand words. The alternative is that such a man, living in his state, is discovered and manages to somehow awaken.

St. Dionysius of Zakynthos

The pharsing dried up does separate this state from the more common states of eternal rest or life, where a person has explicitly not decayed. I think, for instance, of walking saints of Greece. These saints are entombed, but they remain there—and they supposedly are free to wander the earth for quiet some time. There are other states that are comparable—the state of a princess in Balkan stories of vampires resembles a cataleptic state. She remains apparently both dead and alive, but rises from her tomb to feed on those left to guard her. It is only the advice of another vampire or a saint that spares the hero of her predations.

Indeed, perhaps the fate of this individual is to be at first mistaken for a corpse, put on display like many others. Then he could be revived from his slumber, freed of his state somehow—if not in the physical, perhaps in the unseen realm. Dreaming or projecting his consciousness outward, using the same secrets that preserved him for millenia—trapping someone else in his body. This would fall into the grotesque acts of hypnosis that we have seen earlier this year.

A slightly amusing work might look at the obsession with illness, fainting, and general…death appearance that the Victorians had and play with that here, given our gentleman resembles a corpse or death itself in a far crueler way. 

I couldn’t find a good Creative Common images of the Buddhist Mummy

I’m reminded of something….else as well, a bit outside of folklore. There was a story on a number of websites of the discovery that a Buddhist statue actually contained a monk who had self mummified in an effort to become a living buddha.  A special diet was undertaken to make this process easier—food was eaten to strip fat and moisture, toxic liquids were drank in order to repel insects, and so on. But a number of post mortem practices were preformed on the meditating monk—the replacement of organs with paper, for instance. Some Buddhists believe that the meditating monks are not dead but are, like our own subject, in a deep state of consciousness.

This concept has a bit more pop culture pull then might be expected, as a similar concept appears in Dark Soul’s Monumental, beings who have become meditating guardians and statues like stone. These beings spend their time pushing back against a terrifying, existential creature of fog and lost perception—the Old One, a Lovecraftian entity as old as mankind itself.

A similar fate befalls the immortals in Death’s Master, who after gaining immortality lose all drive and will—and slowly become so stagnate that they are overcome by coral as their city sinks into the sea. One such man is returned in Night’s Daughter to a much stranger disposition on life. Another man becomes one with the stones, for very similar reasons—having lost all drive and passion for the world, he slowly mummifies in a cavern atop a large column rock. His name I’m afraid escapes me, although I remember he was in love with Simmu. I believe he was in Night’s Master.

Peder Winstrup, the Swedish Mummy in question.

While looking into that story, the story of another preserved pair of bodies in Sweden. Here, illness preserved the bishop’s body, along with the cold of winter at the time of his burial. However, more fascinating was that he was not alone in his coffin—underneath his body was a still born child. Why such a burial was preformed is unknown as of writing—perhaps it was in hopes that the child would reach heaven with the bishop, as they died unbaptized. Perhaps it was to hide the child’s existence.

There is a story that appears to have sprung from this prompt: Out of Aeons features a very life like mummy and a metal cylinder being brought to a museum in the 1800s. After being placed in a museum, it attracts attention as relating to a little known myth about a man going to see the gods and becoming a statue. This leads in time to attempts at a robbery, which ends…poorly.  You can read the story in full here.

There is another pulp story that this calls to mind, which is the story The Hour of the Dragon where a mummified ancient sorcerer is revived for a plot to overthrow the king of Hyboreia, Conan.  Conan triumphs in the end, with unexpected allies saving him both from execution and the supernatural might of tyrant from the past. You can read the story here. While seemingly only tangentially related, Mr. Lovecraft and Mr. Howard were correspondents. In fact, references between the two bodies of work have only grown. And it does play into the genre tropes discussed—associations with mystical power and the inevitable danger of such a body reanimating. Granted, there is a world of difference between a monk and bishop and a wizard out of time. But given our nature as a horror blog, perhaps the distance between those two poles of knowledge can be lessened somewhat.

I think the story’s basic beats—the discovery of a mummy, the attempted robbery from a museum before something terrible happens, and then the discovery of its true nature—are fairly strong. I think of course that merely rewriting the story is a bit…much. Zooming in on the robbery will keep the story focused, I think, and while something of the surprise at a body becoming animate is lost, not much of that remains anyway. This does make the story something of a bizzare mummy’s curse story. The Mummy’s curse is often laid on those who disturb its tomb, where as here it seems the robbers are the ones to fall victim. Perhaps including a bit more of that to the beginning, the mysterious deaths surrounding the mummy might even be a motive to rob it.  A curator, realizing that such a thing is cursed and bringing doom upon those around it, might wish such an image “tragically lost” from the museum’s collection, for instance—or perhaps the employer of the theft wishes ill upon its recipient and hopes to pass the curse onto them.

What do you think? What long preserved corpses would resurrect?

St. Andrew’s Day

This Week’s Prompt: 105. Vampire visits man in ancestral abode—is his own father.

The Prior Research:Romanian Vampires

This story in part brought to you by our patrons on Pateron

Robert Dellsworth nearly dozing when he heard the knocking at his door. A man of his middling thirties, overworked from his office in town, he was slow to answer. Donning whatever clothes were nearby, at three in the morning, he finally made his way to the door. The infernal knocking door.

“Coming, coming! What in God’s name—” Robert began, before the sight cut through his thoughts. His father stood at the doorstep, for the first time in twenty-three years. There was silence on the November air.

“Can I come in?” Geoffrey Dellsworth said softly. In a daze, Robert stepped aside, gesturing for the man to come in. The wind whipped behind him, closing the door.

“I’m sorry, but you…you resemble an old relation of mine. But that can’t be. Please, why are you waking me up at such a late hour?” Robert said, the fire in the chimney crackling to life as his father knelt near it.

“It is no mere resemblance, Rob.” The man said, sighing as he stood and looked around the old Dellsworth entrance. “You removed my portrait.”

“Again, that can’t be. I know, certainly, that you can’t be him.” Robert said, his voice shaking. “He is long dead—or best be. When my mother died, he was no where to be seen, and never once did I hear of his inheritance or advice for two thirds my life. It would be nonsense to come back now. No, no, please sir, do not maintain this charade.”

“Hm. You seem unwell. Perhaps we should sit, and discuss this over tea?” Geoffrey said, walking into the kitchen. “You know my favorite I hope?”

The whistle of the tea kettle did little to the silence. Robert studied the man, his father. He had grown a longer beard, but his face was the same—as if wandering free from a dream. His eyes the same warm brown hue, details he’d forgotten but seemed to fit. A small scar on his cheek. A spot above his eyebrow.

“You can’t be him. But if you are Geoffrey Dellsworth, why are you here? Why now? Why not ten years ago? Twenty?” Robert said, voice straining. “Do you know what happened when you left? The rumors that went round me and mother? What it did to her?”

“It was better than staying around long.” Geoffrey said, another flicker of wind striking the ground, scattering dust. “It was better, I had hoped, for you for me to be gone some. I hope you have not made things too good for yourself.”

“Too good? Oh don’t worry about that now. Not now.” Robert hissed. “I’ve made things plenty good without you. I had to leave town for studies, I had to work long hours and burn what little inheritance I had. But I’ve made things plenty good.”

“Have you now?” Geoffrey asked with raised eyebrow.

“Go around and ask someone else at three in the morning what the Dellsworth name is!” Robert said standing. “Go and ask any of the business men I financed, the charities I’ve run, the poet’s I’ve given patronage, the people I’ve fought for in court. Go and ask them if it’s the specter of your sordid past that looms over this house! I’ve fought for that, making things too good for me!”

Geoffrey was silent. His ears seemed to prick up, and a slow sigh escaped his lips.

“So. Why. Why now?” Robert said, slumping back in the chair. “What do you want? Money? A place to hide from some new family you’ve made overseas? What?”

“No, Robert, nothing like that.” Geoffrey said, shaking his head. “No, no. I’ve come for you. For your own sake.”

“Oh that’s—”

“You’ve said your piece. Now I will say mine.” Geoffrey cut in. “I wish I could say I regret leaving your mother all those years ago. But I knew it wouldn’t be for the best. I am…not an easy man to get along with, even in the best of cases. That isn’t why though.”

A wind blew again…but this time, something flicked up by his father’s side. It was a strange shape, but gone in an instant.

“No, no that isn’t why.” Geoffrey repeated, clicking his tongue against teeth—teeth that looked all the sharper. “My long shadow is more than a shadow Robert—It’s true, what they said. I killed my wife in Ellingston. And my daughter, and my son, and my brother, and my cousin, and my niece, and my nephew. And I knew, if I stayed too long, I might do the same to you.”

“…Is that…” Robert stood and pointed at the shape, gone in a moment. Geoffrey’s back seemed hunched, his head longer and his teeth like needles for a moment—and then it was gone.

“So I left, without warning, hoping to spare you that fate. But I knew as well that one day I would have to come back. You’ve got the same blood. That is how it is with us.  We live our lives, as best we can. But the old blood, the hungry blood, it wakes up eventually. If we are lucky, like I was, it wakes when we die. But not always. It wakes, it feeds, it sleeps, it wakes. And it will wake in you.”

“…You’re a vampire.” Robert said, staring at Geoffery. “Is that it? You left because…what, because you thought you’d attack my mother? Attack me?”

“I left because I knew I would. I could feel it. Growing, more and more demanding. You’ll get used to it, you’ll learn to keep it under control and leave when you must.” Geoffery said, nodding. “That’s why I came back. You need to leave, soon. Walk the world. Learn how to handle yourself. I had hoped…but I hear others breathing here.”

Robert’s face went pale and his blood became ice. His wife and two children were upstairs—they were heavy sleepers, as was he usually. But the last few nights he had trouble sleeping, waking often and early.

“You’ll hurt them if you stay.” Geoffrey said calmly. “Worse than I could hurt you—you’ll kill them if you stay. For their sake, Rob, you should leave.”

“There’s got to be another way to…even if what you say is true, there’s another way to deal with this than running off, ruining everything I’ve had. I’ve already done better than you once, I’ll fix this mess to.” Robert said, voice shaking.

“You can try.” Geoffrey said standing. “You can fight, you can struggle—but you’ll only make it worse. Wolves must feed on sheep—and that is what you and I are, Rob. Wolves and worse. It hasn’t come yet—I can see in your eyes, its still sleeping. It’s there, the old blood never fails. Never has.”

“You think-you think you can just come in here and tell me what I’ll be? Get out of my house!” Robert said standing up. “Get you and your so-called advice out of my house! I have worked to hard and long to scrub your stain out of the family name to believe this, any of this!”

Geoffrey nodded and stood, adjusting his coat slightly.

“Well. It will come soon. And when it does, I will be waiting in Ellington. We can drink to ease the pain.” He said, with a toothy grin. “Enjoy your fight—every inch of ground you’ll end up giving. Every twitch, every glance, every drop of blood. It’ll be worth it, I’m sure.”

Without a word, he vanished like dissipating mist.

Robert was alone again. Shaking to pour a cup of tea—a bit splashed onto his hand. He hissed and impulsively brought it to his mouth. Had his teeth always been that sharp?

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This story took a number of revisions to get right, both in character and in structure. It ended up getting into some potentially heavy subjects—but that seems to be the nature of horror stories about family and folklore. I’m fond of it and unlike most of my stories I don’t think it needs much expansion—refinement, rewording, and so on but no really extra scenes or the like.

Next week, we’ll be returning to the classic night terror, and discussing why you can’t sleep at night! See you then!

I’d be remiss not to mention that we discussed the fate of a very different vampire—a blood drinking dragon who could appear as a man—here on my Patreon, for 5 dollar patrons. You can get monthly research and stories, for five or one dollar each starting today!

 

 

Waterfalls

Police violence and systematic racism has resulted in the death and imprisonment of countless innocents, the destruction of properties and futures, and produced irrevocable damage. Protests have continued for a month and show no signs of slowing. You can find links to donate at the end of the research, in place of our normal Patreon link.

This Weeks Prompt: 115. Ancient castle within sound of weird waterfall—sound ceases for a time under strange conditions.

The Resulting Story: FORTH COMING

Waterfalls are the source of a number of strange spirits and stories, often based on what is just behind them.  Given the description of an ancient castle, we will begin our examination of the spirits here with a few European creatures. The first ones I found in my searches were located in Northern Europe, especially Iceland. A mighty troll in Arrow-Oddr’s Saga from Iceland, named Ogmunder, has a mother who is all the fiercer (a hold over or comparable example to Grendel’s mother). She is described as fanged and with long claws and a mighty tail, each holding a sword. Her shout was enough to kill five men, and before her slaughter ended, she slew sixty men.  This grotesque transformation is defeated by the hero, using a magic Irish shirt and dwarven arrows, but for our purposes its important to note the power of sound and that Ogmunder’s mother dwelt under a water fall.

The Fossegrim are a type of spirit, more alluring then the trolls, that live beneath waterfalls in the North of Europe. These spirits perhaps fit the description Howard wanted even more—they play a fiddle beneath the waterfall, with wind and water as the source of their sound. They can play so well that furniture and trees will dance to the tune. If one makes an offering to the spirit of sufficient quality, they will teach this talent for music to the supplicant, such that the student can play so well the trees will dance. If the offering, a he-goat or some mutton stolen from a neighbor, is not sufficient they will only the pupil how to tune the instrument. That might be better in any case—the instruction of a Fossegrim involves pressing the fingers to the strings so tightly that they begin to bleed.

A more dangerous creature in Norway, however, is the Nok. The Nok is a greedy water spirit, demanding human sacrifice every year. It can transform into any number of valuables, and those who touch it in this form fall under its power. At least one lived under a water fall, and caused the death of many persons until at last a priest arrived. Journeying into the river with four stout men, the priest managed to seize the Nok and drive him into a nearby stone mound—and the creature has bothered none ever since.

Moving away from one island, we’ll cross to a place where it is wealth that hides behind the waterfall. In Bohol, during the war between the Americans and Filipinos (narrator’s statement, not my own), a tree was found growing in front of a water fall—an indescribable language covered the tree, and behind the waterfall dwelled a wealthy spirit.  This spirit gave a poor girl money and jewelry, under the condition she told no one where she got it. Her mother however eventually forced her to reveal the origins of the wealth—and soon it was entirely gone.  When the Americans went to find the treasure themselves, it was impossible—the weather turned against them, even if it was sunny out. This follows a tradition of lost treasures in the Philipines.

In Sagada, we have another story of waterfalls—one that is a bit more comical. Here a man and a woman, who are waterfalls, dwelled for sometime. They irrigated Sagada, pleasing the people and rice fields of the area—but not the inhabitants of Tetep-an. They were a jealous people, and so would go to the water falls and drop pots and cigarettes and other things into the waters.  The waterfalls tired of this, and the wife asked to move—the husband waterfall agreed, and they moved to a secluded place called Todey. However, this didn’t please the wife. Here she could not be seen! What was even the point! So again they moved back. And again, the Tetep-an dumped trash in them, until the lady waterfall was again asking to move. Now, the husband was tired of moving and did not want to break their new lease—yet the wife persuaded him with several blows with a heavy club. The pair then moved to Tadian, where they remain admired for miles around to this day. From afar, you can still see Mr. Waterfall’s hunchback from the last bout with his wife.

In Japan, there is a story that I haven’t been able to find an English text for. This story is centered around the Joren falls of Izu. A wood cutter was sleeping near the falls when he awoke to find spiderwebs around his legs. Confused, he placed them on a nearby tree—and the tree was torn into the waterfall. The spider spirit there, a jorōgumo, had meant to ensare him. The man told the village of this, and most people sensibly avoided the place. One day, a foreign wood cutter came and chopped axe near the falls—only to lose hold of the axe and drop it into the watery basin. AS he left, despondent, a beautiful woman with dark black hair appeared and returned it to him. She warned him, however, to never tell anyone of what he’d seen. The man kept the secret for a time, but eventually it wore on him. He got drunk at a banquet, and revealed it to the whole crowd.

The man went to sleep…and never awoke. In another, more nightmarish version, he was pulled outside by an unseen string—and was found floating near the falls. This is the bad ending. Another tale from the same area has the man fall in love with and visit the beautiful black haired woman—but each visit he grows weaker and weaker. A nearby priest realized he was taken in by the spider woman, and proved so by reciting some sutras to keep her strings away. Nonetheless, the man went to ask the local tengu, as lord of the spirits of the mountain, for the woman’s hand in marriage. The tengu denied him, but the man went back to his spidery lover and was never seen again.

Our final story set comes from Niagra Falls and it is a set I’m…suspicious of. The first one tells a story about a cave behind Niagra falls. The Seneca were suffering greatly—first crop failure, then an epidemic.  One day a young Seneca girl was bathing in the waterfall, when a large rattlesnake attacked her and she stumbled into the rapids, down into the cataracts. The water swirled her into the Cave of the Winds. Here she found the Good Spirit of Thunder of lightining who created mists and clouds. The spirit told her the Evil Spirit of famine and starvation also lived here, and commanded a great water snake. This snake was poisoning the water that the Seneca were drinking. The spirit told the girl that they must move away from the falls to survive. The Good Spirit would follow, and strike down the Evil Spirit and the Water Snake if they followed. And when the tribe arrived at their new home, they found the dead water snake behind them and the evil spirit hanging from a pole.

Then there is the story of the Maiden of the Mist. I have two sources for this, both primarily online. The first is frankly a conversion story—it claims the Iroquis regularly sent people over the falls in canoes as offferings to a water spirit. A French explorer and missionary protests the sacrifice of the Chief’s maiden daughter, but is ignored. The maiden is sent down over the falls—and to the shock of all, the Chief in grief followed her in a canoe. The two then became spirits so pure that the roar of the falls was like music to them. The maiden became the Maiden of the Mist while the Chief became the ruler of the cataract.

There is then the story of the Maiden of the Mist presented on the Niagra falls website. This one says a suicidal widow drove her canoe over the edge, praying to Heno the Thunder Spirit, who dwells in the falls, that her courage would not fail and that she would pass quickly. As she went over, however, Heno caught her in his arms and took her to live with him and his sons. She eventually married one of them, and lived beneath the falls, having a young son. She wanted, however, to see her people again.

Heno then tells her, one day, that a great serpent had descended down to poison her people’s water and devour them until they are wiped out. The Maiden requests one hour with her people to warn them, which Heno grants. The serpent, seeing the people were gone, tried to pursue them upstream. Heno, hearing it hiss, killed the serpent. The body of the serpent, vast as it was, redirected the falls and caused the water to rain directly into the god’s home. So he and his family ascended up to the sky—there Heno thunders like he once roared in the falls.

These stories…well, they feel off to me. The idea of a thunder god beneath the falls and a watery serpent makes sense, but on the other hand a maiden sacrifice to a poisonous water snake is close enough to Continental folk stories that I’m suspicious of it.

Regardless, for our story, what do we have? Well, we have the idea of sacrifices to the water. The noise of a water fall, either a roar or musical tone, stopping seems to indicate displeasure. And certainly, a silent waterfall would be unnerving. The nature of music in Lovecraft—as something that the outer gods communicate with—might lend an otherworldly-ness to the affair. But we don’t need to go that far. The waterfall contains a few elements at its base here: a treasure (either a spirit or a literal treasure) that is a secret from most, a sacrifice that is made to the waters, and the danger of its loss if someone learns the truth. Placed near a castle, perhaps we should expand to a family secret or rite, at the base of the water or in the cave hidden behind it. Perhaps also keep the strange and otherworldly spirit that lives there, just out of site.

Biblography

 Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology: comprising the principal popular traditions and superstitions of Scandinavia, north Germany, and the Netherlands, 3 vols. London: Lumley, 1851–52, OCLC 656592812, Volume 2 Scandinavian Popular Traditions and Superstitions,

Kelly, Piers. “Excavating a Hidden Bell Story from the Philippines: A Revised Narrative of Cultural-Linguistic Loss and Recuperation.” Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 2016, pp. 86–113. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jfolkrese.53.2.04. Accessed 20 July 2020.

Puhvel, Martin. “The Mighty She-Trolls of Icelandic Saga and Folktale.” Folklore, vol. 98, no. 2, 1987, pp. 175–179. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1259977. Accessed 20 July 2020.

Scott, William Henry. “Sagada Legends.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 74, no. 291, 1961, pp. 57–62. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/538199. Accessed 20 July 2020.

“Jorōgumo.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 May 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jor%C5%8Dgumo.

“The Original Legend of the Maid of the Mist.” Niagara Falls Reporter, Niagara Falls Reporter, 13 Dec. 2014, http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/Stories/2014/DEC16/MaidLegend.html.

Welker, Glenn. “Niagara Falls.” Indigenous People’s Literature, 8 Feb. 1996, http://www.indigenouspeople.net/niagara.htm.

Welker, Glenn. “The Sacrifice at Niagara Falls.” Indigenous People’s Literature, 8 Feb. 1996, http://www.indigenouspeople.net/sacrific.htm.

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Marshlights

This Week’s Prompt: 114. Death lights dancing over a salt marsh.

The Prior Research:Death Lights on the Marshland

My mother told me this story, which her grandmother told her. The fens on the other side of the wood, down the hills from us, have never been lived in. Everyone asks, when they get old enough to ask questions but still young enough to expect answers, why we avoid the fens. Surely, going through the old marsh would be faster than around. Especially in the Summer, when it was dried out.

They would tell us then of George, Geffoery and Gerald—three hunters that were out in the woods near the fens. They were well off men, the kind who could afford to spend their summer chasing a stag through the woods. It was a lucky day, despite the fog. Gerald had consulted an almanac for the weather before, and George had asked a local woman how the winds would be. So they set out into the fogged wood, with their hounds and their guns, looking for a stag or dear or bunny.

Yet they found nothing as they searched—not even a sparrow was in the woods for the day. The dogs were confused, barking and chasing shadows. Still, the three persisted in the woods, and out onto the empty fen. And it was there, among the grasses, that the dogs started barking—and soon gave chase into the high grasses and bleakness.

The three hunters turned to run another, and raced after their hounds. They had not seen such eager dogs on the dry fens.  There was little that lived there, except rabbits and birds. But they followed the dogs, chasing and shouting after them encouragingly until at last they saw a deer running ahead, their hounds darting behind it. The creature’s horns were the most beautiful ivory white, like someone took down the moon and put it around its head like a halo.

The white-eared deer ran in circles round the fen, round and round. Round and round. But they could not catch the starling beauty, and night was fast upon them.  So the three paused, alone on the fen that night, and turned to one another.

“I will go home—the stag is fine, but we have lost her.” George said, lighting his lantern.

“No, no I can hear the dogs barking—we are not far yet from the stag. And think of those horns!” Gerald said, shaking his head and lighting his. “I will chase it, if I have help. The fen is not so big that we could get lost.”

“Ah, I will help then.” Geoff said, taking up his lantern. “We can follow the strange thing across the fogs and mists until morning—then we must retire. I cannot spend two days hunting one deer, no matter how wondrous.”

And so, they parted ways, on the misty marshland—two chasing the strange deer, one wiser and heading home. But it mattered little—for through out the night, the mist grew in every way. The sky grew heavy with clouds as Gerald looked for a way home. The rain began to rumble as George and Geoffery found their prey. And at last, the fen flooded—faster and with greater vigor than it had ever in the past. And all three men were swallowed, their dogs too, leaving only their flickering lanterns to float on the waters. On misty nights in the fens, you can see the three men still sometimes—Gerald trying to climb the hill to the forest for safety, Geoffery and George still racing in the marshland, the sound of dogs still barking.

And that was the story I was told about the fen. As a child, I at first could never dream of someone walking in such a haunted place. But as I became a teen, and less likely to believe my elders, I wandered into the woods and marsh on mist-filled nights. It was a rite of passage, marking the end of pre-teens, to go and see the lights. Or rather, the lack there of.

No one I knew saw the lights, the deer, or anything of the sort. Some saw fire flies, some saw rabbits. But it was an empty fen. So, when it was my time, I had little to fear. I was coming back from a trip the next town over, and with some ceremony I said I’d take a short cut through the foggy fens. There was some laughing at my dramatics as I headed out, tipsy and confident, to see cross over back home again.

It was a full moon that night. There was nothing but the sound of grasshoppers and the small flicker of fire flies. And the sound, the squishing sticking sound, of mud sticking to my steps. I stumbled home, torch in hand and coughing from the effort of walking in something like a straight line. It was then, on the edge of the fen, that I saw it.

It was bigger than I thought it ought to be. It was big for a deer, like a moose more than a little scared thing. An elk I guess, red as blood and with sickly glowing horns. Now I’ve not seen many a stag or elk. I don’t hunt, I stay from the woods usually, and their skittish things. But I know horn. And those were so smooth. Looked like someone froze milk into a steel mold.

It stomped a foot at me, spooking me back a bit. I know people who get punch happy with some liquid courage, but that isn’t for me. Thing was tall as me, and horns looked dangerous. I stumbled back, held my hand up as it watched me. Kept my hands where it could see me as I shuffled and tripped over a rock. I heard a thud of bounding legs, and for half a second expect the thing to trample me in a moment of weakness. Yeah, I know elk or deer or moose or whatever, big horned things don’t eat meat. But still, out of it like that, I swore it would take an arm off. I mean, you know horses think fingers are carrots, right? What do I know.

Hands around my head I shouted, and felt a shadow over me—like walking through a cold patch. When I opened my eyes, I turned about to see what I’d been missing.  I stared down into the mists, where the horns still shone, dancing away as it bounded. I knew then and there I could chase it if I wanted—and maybe, if I was quick, I’d catch it. And they were amazing horns.

But I saw them then. Two at first, then three, then four—then a dozen or more, dancing lights, flickering in and out of view. They chased after, dancing from place to place. Only one stood steady, far away—small like a star.  I stumbled and tripped and chased that stationary solitary star.  Up I followed it, up and up to the hill and then the forest—and there it stopped, and fell back into the mists, sinking away.

The woods was long shadows and sharp winds, leaves rustling and snaking across the ground. Dark and empty except the street lights filtering from home. Sometimes the fog was thick, and the light seemed dim—maybe that was the lights I saw, that I imagined where men and dogs in my drunken haze. When I made it home, I didn’t understand what I’d seen—I scribbled on a scrap of paper what I remembered, so I could tell Josh all about it. It was crazy, I thought.

The next day, when we were all together again, everyone asked how I’d made it—did I see anything? How’d I get around the fen? Josh thought he saw my torch going off on the edge of the water when they got there.  A bit after I left the rain started coming down, cold enough to shock even a drunk like me to my senses.

It was then that I remembered the bright red dear with the dreadfully pallid horns, like someone stole the moon. Though I laughed with them over the idea of haunts and hunters, I will never set foot in those fens again.

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This week’s story fell a bit victim to deadlines. I decided to go with more a ghost story and feel like the narrative could have been expanded some—layered, so that you, the reader, were diving into these various folktales about lights on the fens. It could create a sort of patchwork feeling, but unfortunately I ran out of time to expand on the idea. Aw well, that’s what Patreon is for!

Next week, waterfalls and castles!  

Lives Well Lived

Before getting to this week’s story, I wanted to take a moment to address the recent events in the news. Police violence and systematic racism has resulted in the death and imprisonment of countless innocents, the destruction of properties and futures, and produced irrevocable damage. At the Undead Author Society, I try to mostly focus on folklore and horror stories, mentioning politics only when they intersect with the material. But it feels wrong not to say this clearly: Black Lives Matter. You can find links to donate at the end of the research, in place of our normal Patreon link.

This Week’s Prompt: 113. Biological-hereditary memories of other worlds and universes. Butler—God Known and Unk. p. 59.

The Resulting Story: The Lives of Sam Dedric

I do love when I get a precise page number from H.P. Lovecraft, it can narrow these quotations down immensely. The section in question by Butler posits that the memories of an entire species might be traced backwards from a single member—and that the memories may lead to apparently unrelated places. In the same way two leaves on a tree appear to have no relation, if we remove the branches and trunk, so too could worlds and creatures appear utterly distant without the fossils and time between them.

This notion ties into ideas that some in Lovecraft’s circle, and Lovecraft himself, professed interest in. In particular, the interest in past lives and memories of earlier forms of humanity owe a great deal to Theosophoy. The Lovecraft story this most reminded me of was one that was, in part, written by a Theosophist, Through the Gates of the Silver Key. In this story, Randolph Carter makes contact with a being outside of time and learns the entity and he are the same—the entity is the Supreme Archtype, of which Randolph is a mere facet. In recognition of Randolph’s accomplishments in earlier stories (I suspect particularly The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath). Randolph asks to visit another world that he has dreamed of recently, and the entity grants this wish, sending him into the body of an alien wizard. However, Randolph forgets his symbols and rituals that would allow him to return to normal. Instead,  he ends up trapped in the body of an alien wizard, detesting each other. Eventually, he does find a way to maintain power over the body and arrives back on earth to acquire the sigils and rituals, and disgusies himself as an Indian man to attend his own funeral. The results of the story I won’t spoil, but it is…interesting to say the least.

The idea here and in general lead me to a text I had in my collection for a long time but never actually sat down to read—a collection of stories about the past lives of the Buddha. I wasn’t able, of course, to read the book in it’s entirety in the week or so I had—I managed about a third of all the text. The concept of the text is that the Buddha is instructing others on life lessons, based on experiecenes he had in prior lives. These lives range from being born a merchant to a prince to an elephant and so forth. And some tell rather incredible stories.

A favorite of mine has a man who seems determined to not learn the value of money. He begins rich, and is on the verge of being rich enough to leave home when his mother sends him to a monastery. There, he spends a year listening to the master teach, but comes home none the wiser. His mother again tries to stop him from leaving—but the man strikes her dead and leaves on a trade vessel the next day. On his journeying, he comes across many wonders at sea. He comes across a series of fabulous palaces, inhabited with supernaturally beautiful maidens, and delights in their company until they fade away after a week or so. He arrives at last at the Ussada Hell, a place that to his deluded mine appears to be a great city. Walking through it’s streets, ignorant to the torment, he comes to a man city with a great wheel of blades cutting into his head. The man, the king of the city, also slew his mother and is relieved to see our merchant friend. The merchant mistakes the blades for a splendid crown—and demands an exchange. The king is happy to do so, even after warning the merchant. It is only when he dons the crown that the Merchant learns the truth and is struck with horror. He then meets the past life of the Buddha, who happened to be in town—and in a set of stanzas, the punishment is made clear to the man, who bemoans his folly.

Another story tells of a wise man who knew the seas well in his youth—yet the spray of salt made him blind. None the less, his hands remained perfect for knowing the nature of things—and so he could ascertain the history of a horse from a touch or an elephant from gracing his hand along it.  Eventually, he grew tired of his work for a king—which paid very little, and in fact was unfufilling. So a group of merchants hired him to guide them on their journey—for he alone was wise to all the seas. Over his protests, the blind man went with the merhcants. And a good thing too! For the merchants quickly found themselves ina  sea where the fish had the bodies of men and razor snouts, and lept out of the water to slay men who sailed near them.  The wise man knew that this ocean had diamonds on the floor—and if the told the merchants of this, they would sink the ship to get to the gems. So he advised they lighten their load, while tossing his own net behind and trawling up diamonds for himself. Soon they came to another ocean, one that blazed like the sun. The merchants were afraid, but the wise man gave them the correct advice and they again passed through—and the merchant grew richer, for this ocean had gold. Next was a sea of milk, full of silver, and a sea of grass full of emeralds. At last, however, they come to a sea they cannot cross—for here the sea churns into a whirlpool, the waves rising like walls around an endless abyss. The wise man steps forward then and, with an “Act of Truth”, transports them back home to where they began. Richer for the journey, it seems.

Leaving the oceans for a moment, we can find lives of the Buddha among the nobility in a few fantastic stories. In one, a man establishes a tradition of almsgiving , and for this his next life he becomes the king of the gods. For five generations, his children do the same—they become in turn the sun, the moon, the stars, the heavens, and so forth. At last, the sixth son ins greedy—and in fact tears down the almsgiving house and gains a reputation for being a nuisance. So the five incarnations descend, and take the form of beggars. They then go about testing their descendant, and find him wanting—and

Another story of family issues in incarnation deals with a man name Kamsa. This man is told that his sister’s son will in time destroy him, and so he seeks to lock her away—but alas, her maid servant allows a prince to visit her, and a child is conceived. The brother promises to kill him if he is a son, and the mother too—and so the gods ensure that the child is switched with the maid servants daughter. And so the ten sons are born to the maid servant, each with prostigous gifts. They became a nuisance, bringands the lot of them, and soon the king attempts to have them humbled and defeated by summoning a pair of wrestlers. The ten sons easily over power the wrestlers, and kill them—and the king, with a chakram. One wrestler, however, calls out that he will be reborn a “goblin” of the woods and devour the man who killed him.

The group of ten then go out to conquer all of India, running into difficulty only with a city that was inhabited by “goblins”. One “goblin” would take the form of an ass and wait near the city—seeing an invading army, he would bray. The “goblins” would then lift the city out to sea, and wait for the enemy to retreat before returning it. The ten brothers, in frustration, finally captured the donkey after determining from a teacher that it was the source. The donkey gave instructions for how to prevent the cities escape, and it was captured.

The brothers then divided the kingdom into 10 parts—one member declined his share and gave it to his sister. Here however the story gets…confusing for me to follow. We are told that people lived 10,000 years during this time—and certaintly, that is a common trait of previous epochs—but there is a reference to them dying and passing their throne down to their descendants, who engage in a cruel test of a wise man and kill him. And then are themselves killed by their parents.

In the end, the goblin of the woods and a hunter finish off the last of the sons, and only the daughter remains ruler of the world.

A later, sweeter story invokes past lives a bit differently. A brahmin’s son died young, and was reborn as one of the gods. The man went and paid tribute to his son every day at the graveyard. The son sees his mourning, and descends down—dressed nobly, but his identity obscured. He tells the brahmin that he has lost his chariot. The brahmin offers to make whatever chariot he needs, but the son asks for a chariot with the moon and sun as wheels—a request the Brahmin rejects as ridiculous, for such a thing can never be made. The son then admonishes his father, for wanting something impossible—to see a ghost or to have an immortal son. He reveals his identity and tells his father to make this an alms day.

Another peculiar story tells of how a man’s past life provided him with a weakness for the future. Two asectics lived in a village. A robber in town decided to hide in the house of an ascetic—the guards pursuing him determines that the ascetic is actually the robber in disguise. At the king’s command, he was to be staked in a cemetery. However, all the stakes that attempt to pierce the man break. Thinking over his past lives, the ascetic concludes that there was once a time he pierced a fly with an ebony stick and thus calls for a stake of ebony to pierce himself with. His fellow asectic comes to meet him, seeing him impaled. He is worried greatly, but the first ascetic tells him he has no ill will to him. None the less, the second ascetic remains at his side—even as the gore of the impaling stains his golden skin black.

Eventually, the king comes by to see that the ascetic is punished—and finds the second ascetic, who proves the first’s innocence. The king tried to have the stake removed, but it can’t be done. Instead, the stake is cut on either end, leaving the first ascetic with a peg in his chest.  This man latter goes forth to cure poisons with recitations, driving out snake venoms when they come into men and more. Here the past life memory not only explains circumstance, but is bodily marked.

These stories work best with past lives reconciling or reckoning with past affairs, past deeds, and guilt. A story of our kind deals with perhaps more extreme notions—the ideas of forgotten roots, forgotten parts of the human species or human family. Memories of lives before this one, ages before this one, worlds separated—worlds perhaps as fantastic as flying cities, palaces of jewels, seas of fire! A story I think would reckon with what these memories lead to. Do they reveal secret treasures? Lost knowledge? Lost people? Ideas and dreams forgotten in the haze?

Let us see, next week!

BIBLOGRAPHY

Butler, Samuel. God the known and God the unknown. London : A. C. Fifield, 1909. Accessed: https://archive.org/details/godknowngodunkno00butliala/page/60/mode/2up June 18, 2020.

Cowell, E.B. The Jataka or stories of the Buddha’s former births. Cambridge University Press, 1895-1913.

Links: Please Consider donating to one of the following causes

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Ruins in Alabama

This Week’s Prompt: 111. Ancient ruin in Alabama swamp—voodoo.

The Resulting Story:  Bath Bombs and Abandoned Houses

This research in part brought to you by our patrons on Pateron

Here we have a number of topics that I want to try and plumb. We have first an ancient ruin in Alabama—which to me means something made by the First Nations of Alabama, including the Alabama tribe. Then there is the notion of voodoo brought up again—a topic which I will try and discuss where relevant to Alabama, but which I have done considerably more research on in Louisiana. And then we will attempt to synthesize the two forces with other folklore of Alabama, in order to produce a framework for a horror story next week. Needless to say, this may be more grounded then the horror of the Isle of Curses.

My first stop in research, after reframing around Alabama, was a work titled Popular Beliefs and Practices from Alabama. The notion of voodoo put in my mind to go the Supernatural section. I found only had one reference to voodoo by name—that one could chant the word “modi” at a child, to sap their strength—but a number of supposed practices that seemed similar to popular conceptions of voodoo (and perhaps were called such by Mr. Lovecraft—for more of Mr. Lovecraft’s own reasons for invoking voodoo, see my article here).

For instance, to reverse a hex, one might stick pins in an image of the hexer. One can keep the devil at bay by putting on shoes in the right order. Those born with a caul can see what the author calls “hants”, which seem to merely be a local term for ghosts or “haunts”. Or one can lay jars of nails and urine down to prevent hexes, or grains to keep the devil at bay—these last two remind me of many traditional wards against devils, fae, and night hags. Likewise, with horseshoes or wearing clothes inside out. I admit, scattering red ants to keep away witches is a unique and interesting idea.

The fire place seems to also be a source of witchcraft in the text—letting fires run long help keeps witches away, and if you wish to find the witch, there is a rather simple ritual to work. Remove each brick of the fire place, repeating the names of suspected witches. When you are done, bury water among the ashes and wait. The first of the named who calls you is clearly the witch.  Placing water bottles in the fireplace or green trees on the chimney keep them at bay as well.  The other ritual for removing witches is to take a piece of wood that’s been heated (a fire place connection again) and connect it to a picture of the witch, and then shoot it with a silver bullet.

The section on the magic is arguably more horrific—a number of rituals make use of black cat’s bones, acquired by murdering the cat and boiling it to get access to the bones. In one case, by running the bones through your teeth, you can find a bone to turn invisible. You can also wear these bones, to gain either good fortune or the powers of a magician. By killing a salamander or lizard in a bucket with the image of a person you can give them a rash, and if you manage to bury a snapshot of the person, they will perish. One could take a crow, cut them open, remove their innards, sew them back up to detect a witch. Anyone who, seeing the body on the road, looked at it curiously was a witch.

Curiously, the only animal use that is not abused is if you suckle on a sow—you might learn to see the wind that way. What this means isn’t elaborated on in the notes. I presume to see the wind is to see the world invisible. One creature I found…interesting was a large insect responsible for sleep—by beating its wings, it set out fairies, who in turn beat their small on the brows of those who ought to rest. I wonder if such fae creatures are allergic to coffee…None the less, a giant insect that is responsible for all sleep in the world, living in the woods, is a tad horrific and wonderous.

Moving on from these practices, we can look into stories of the Alabama people. These stories were collected long after contact with the first settlers of course, and bear clear signs of that (references to fire arms and bullets and so on). The nature of the collection means I’m not entirely certain of their veracity. One of the more interesting stories was of the Bear People. A bear stopped a man traveling in the woods, and asked how many people lived in his village. The man told him. The bear said he would kill everyone who lived in the village if they did not put up a white skin, or in one version, move across to the other side of a river. One story suggests the cause of this violence was a man killing a large white bear that was the chief of the bear people—another seems to make it arbitrary. Some people listen to the man, while others do not. The bears come, and murder all who did not listen, despite their fire arms—a veritable horror scene of bears upon bears, cubs and elders.

Another story details the origin of deer. The first dear was a fawn. It was at first guarded by wild cats…but the wild cats ate it. Then it was guarded by a wolf. And the wolf ate it. Then it was guarded by Panther…and the Panther ate it.  And each time it was revived, until finally, it is guarded by “Bird-that-sits-on-deer”, which eats ticks and flies off from the deer every now and then. At last, as the deer grows big, the bird flies off for winter. When it returns, the deer is gone.

The people then gather to find it, and eventually the wise members of the community determine it is in the south. Then they form many ranks to hunt the deer, and summoned it with a cauldron and song. The deer’s approach shook the earth like a railroad. The men stood ready with arrows, with ghosts behind them, and behind them panthers, and behind them wolves, and behind them at last the wild cats. As the great deer approached, the wildcats fled. The arrows and ghosts proved useless, but the panthers and wolves killed it, with the wildcats ripping out its throat.  Each hair that falls from the beast as humans cut it to pieces becomes a deer, and runs off.  The image of this…wave of deer is also almost terrifying. A great progenitor beast that releases miniature versions of its kin out into the world.

There is a large reptile that is worth mentioning—despite the description, the foot note says it appears as a scorpion with a red mouth. The creature lives in a tree, and is disturbed when a group of hunters start a fire in its hollow, looking for a bear. It chases down the hunters, one by one—and one by one, they grow weaker and are devoured. One man survived by diving into the river, where the lizard could not see him. He later returned with some Shawnee to kill the creature—and they made the land boggy to trap it, killed it with axes, and then put tobacco in its mouth to prevent its return.

There are other stories, but the collection seems to dwell on animal fables that are not…relevant in my opinion for horror stories. We also have stories from voodoo—the most interesting to me was the notion of the zombi, as a man robbed of their wits or soul, and forced to preform labor for another. The victims were often believed to be the homeless or those who deviated from society, although research on the matter can quiet obviously be difficult to acquire. Most of my research was also focused on Louisiana not Alabama, and thus the applicability is…questionable. Still, the banality of having a zombi to man your shop was and has been interesting to me. As more than one person has observed, the fear of the zombi in the New World is that even death is not an escape from subjugation, and the notions I found in the article of entire secret plantations of zombis were horrifying.

With that in mind, what can we make of this? What ancient ruin can we find, that has some voodoo connection?

The obvious answer to Lovecraft I suspect would be to invent a city or settlement of the Alabama or other First Nations of the area (I did not have time to dig into each historically, the Alabama had towns as did many other groups in the Southeast). Or to make some almost pre-human settlement, where dark magics were prevalent. But that seems…hm. Uncomfortable to approach. A more recent ruin, like the plantations that were so fearful of voodoo might be better, but runs into the problem that we had earlier from two weeks ago. Perhaps a ruined house that was were adherents of these traditions lived…we might elide the issue of race in this story by making them white but…hm. Well. It is a puzzle, one I’m sure we can solve. I feel this is a story that is easily grounded. One notion I have is to place this story in the civil war, with a ruin found by Union troops in Alabama—but that would require more investigation into that part of the war.

What do you think could be done here?

Bibliography

Swanton, John R. Myths and Tales of Southeastern Indians. Washington, US government print office, 1929.

Browne, Ray B. Popular Beliefs and Practices from Alabama. University of California, Berkley press, 1958

Ackermann, Hans-W.; Gauthier, Jeanine . “The Ways and Nature of the Zombi”, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 104, No. 414 (American Folklore Society, Autumn, 1991), pp. 466-494

 

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