American Myths and Legends

Volume 1

American Myths & Legends

Fort Marion

Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida

See page 339

Copyright,

by

J. B. Lippincott Company

Published October,

Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company Philadelphia, U. S. A.

to DR. JOSEPH H. HUNT

Preface

Preface

THE greeting to my first book has encouraged me to continue the collection of our legends. Americans have an interest in their own traditions, at least such as concern the land during the centuries of white occupancy—a fact disclosed by the appearance, within half a dozen years, of many stories, poems, and essays that have for their subjects these transmitted but unverified histories. Where the legend becomes parable or myth, and widens beyond any local source or application, it is a subject for scientific rather than popular treatment; because it may then give a clue to tribal emigrations, race origins, world faiths, and social history.

In these days we hear scorn for the rumors of haunted houses and haunted men that figure in so many rustic traditions, and for the transformations and supernatural appearances that pertain, not only among the records of early settlers whose religious faith was deep, but to our Indians; yet the belief in the immortality of the spirit which is betokened in these stories is more illuminative, as to certain phases of thought, than are volumes given to the recounting of merely material happenings instructive as to mankind's moral advancement.

I plead guilty to a bit of autorial conceit in the preface to my "Myths and Legends of Our Own Land," in that I claimed for it "some measure of completeness." I am older and wiser now. The first collection was not complete, or the second would not be here.

Table of Contents

Contents Vol. I.

Illustrations

Illustrations Vol. I.

The Smoking Pine

The Smoking Pine

ON the bank of the brook that bears the name of Vaughn, at Hallowell, Maine, stands the smoking pine. When the stream, then known as Bombahook, was first seen of white men the wigwams of many Indians stood near this water and the red people were friendly with the invaders. They asked only to be let alone. They wished to live beside the stream. But whether they were led into conflict with the whites, or whether they succumbed to the diseases and vices sown among them by the English,—and deadlier they were than the weapons of their armies,—the Indians began ere long to peak away in body and lose the hold they had on life when they were free of all horizons. Their chief, Asonimo, realized, before many years had passed, that the place which his brothers had held in the land was no longer secure; that although the white people might still smile and withhold their hands from wrath, the woods in which his fathers had chased the deer and the fields where the squaws had raised corn and fruits were not much longer to be called his own. So he gathered his people and told them that the Great Spirit had spoken their fate: it was to be destruction. Yet he warned them how useless it would be to strive against their doom. The Great Spirit had willed it; so let it be. They could at least spend their declining days in peace with the new-comers and secure life and some of the comforts of life for their children. And he called the English that were near and bade the red men light the peace-pipe and smoke it with the settlers as a token that nevermore should strife befall between them. And said he: "When I am gone a pine shall come from the earth above my body, and from that pine the smoke shall rise, for a sign of friendship that must always be between you." It was but a little later that Asonimo was struck dead by a thunderbolt near the spot where this council had been held. The fate ordained by the god had begun its work.

He was put into the earth; and surely, as he had spoken, there grew from his grave, by and by, a pine that seemed to carry in its tough branches the stoutness of the life that had been ended there. In early summer, when his people went back to that spot, great was their surprise to see that the tree had grown to full height, and lo ! as he had told, the smoke of peace floated from its branches and spread, mist-like, on the breeze. It was a sign they dared not disobey. They ceased their murmurings against the new-comers in the land and went their way toward the setting sun—in sorrow, but in wonder.

Various Grindstone Hill

Various Grindstone Hill

NEAR the west branch of the Penobscot stands a tall hill, in the form of a grindstone on edge and half sunk in the ground. The oddity of Grindstone Hill has given rise to many queer tales, and none of those concerning its origin agree with one another. The Indian story is this:

Long before the white men crossed the blue water to vex the red people a little yellow moon used to float through the heavens in the wake of the bigger one that is still shining. Melgasoway, a boy who was like other boys in that he would rather practise with his bow and arrows and worry the dogs and go fishing and swimming and kill snakes and climb trees and tear his breech-clout and pick berries than gather firewood and do errands, was sent by his mother to fetch a pumpkin out of a cornfield, for supper. No doubt Melgasoway intended to gather the fruit and dutifully return with it; but he saw a rabbit, and he chased it so long that when the sun set he found himself miles from home and pretty tired and hungry. The big moon set soon after the sun, so that the boy would not have been back until morning had it not been for the little moon's light. As this orb lifted into view he stood still and laughed aloud; for, seen through interlacing branches, it was wondrous like a pumpkin. Melgasoway did not dare to go back without what he had been sent for, but the cornfield was a mile or so out of his way, his mother was old and near-sighted, and this moon might pass for a pumpkin if only he could bring it down. As it came swinging above him he drew his arrow to the head and shot. The shaft passed out of his sight and he thought he had missed his mark; but after a little the moon began to quiver, then it pitched out of the sky and tumbled toward the earth. Now, it had been supposed that this little moon was just above the tree-tops and was no larger than a pumpkin. Great was the astonishment of Melgasoway when it grew and grew in his sight until he saw that he would be crushed if he stayed there any longer. And he didn't. He bounded off to his spanking at home, yelling with dismay, for while the falling mass was still at some distance from the earth he saw that hundreds of devils were clinging to it; yellow devils with long tails and claws. Melgasoway took his whipping with positive enjoyment; for he expected worse, now that he had destroyed a moon and released a company of imps into the woods. Yet he told his people what he had done, and they, who had met the devils already in the neighborhood and had discovered the moon stuck in the swamp, with its light out, praised him for his daring and made him medicine-man. So Melgasoway lived to the end of his days in honor in sight of the hill he had brought down from the sky.

As for the Yankee version, that the hill was put where it is by a wizard in order to accommodate the mowers at opposite ends of a hay-field when they might need to sharpen their scythes, and that it used to turn by means of a water-wheel in the west branch; and the Irish version, that the hill is the wheel of a barrow on which a stout fellow was trundling a monument back to the north pole where his ancestors had placed it, but which had been brought down to Maine on an iceberg—they may be dismissed as inventions of a day of sensational journalism.

The French habitant, who comes down to chop wood and goes back to Canada at the end of the lumbering season, eagerly clutching all but four or five of the American dollars he has earned, knows Grindstone Hill and tells his version of how it came there. His story slightly suggests the Indians. It is that during the war which ended French rule in Canada a number of Frenchmen were marching across Maine to re-enforce Montcalm's garrison in Quebec. It was August, and the heat and thunder-storms were trying to the temper of the men. One afternoon, when it was raining especially hard and there was not one in the dripping, draggled party who had not sworn all he knew how to swear and wished that he was fluent in English so that he could swear better, that being the tongue in which past-masters of the art exploit themselves, the captain, one Antoine LeBlanc, roared out, with a compound oath in two languages that nearly loosened his molars, that he wished it would rain grindstones and harrow-teeth and have done with it. Hardly had he uttered this dreadful wish and coupled it with an invocation to the Devil ere a dense shadow fell upon the spot and a fearful rushing sound was heard; then, plunging through the clouds, came this father of all grindstones, and, tumbling on the company, buried them two thousand feet deep in mud—all but the man who survived to tell what happened, and this he would not have done but for being so frightened at the oaths that his legs were weak and he could not keep up with his comrades.

A Prophet of War

A Prophet of War

NELL HILTON'S ghost will appear on the big rock of Hilton's Neck, Jonesboro, Maine, wave its hands, and give the Passamaquoddy war-whoop at dawn on the 1st of March of any year in which this country shall engage in war. She foretold the French and Indian troubles and the Revolution before her death, and after it she prophesied our break with England in 1812, with Mexico, and the Civil War. Nell Hilton was a Puritan girl who, in 1740, wearying of the coldness and strictness of life in Plymouth, prevailed on her father to move to the Passamaquoddy country that they might enjoy a little liberty. She proposed to have her own share of it, anyhow, for her father, returning to his cabin in Jonesboro on a certain evening, found her in the embrace of a big Indian and submitting with smiles to his kisses. After killing and scalping this visitor he learned that the girl had just engaged herself to him as his future wife. In disgust Hilton told her that if she was so fond of Indians she could go and live with them; and she did.

The Puritans would sell no powder to the natives, while the French in Canada would sell no rum; hence the savages had to travel constantly, selling their skins in the south for ammunition with which to get more skins, and selling those skins in the north for strong waters in which to pickle their own skins from the inside. Nell's services were in demand at the frontier as bargain-maker and interpreter, for she spoke French and Indian as well as English, and taught in the rude schools of Maine and New Brunswick. Though she never married, she gained power over the natives, who regarded her as a queen and invited her to all their councils. In 1746, when the English drove the Acadians from Nova Scotia, she foretold the war that was to follow, and advised the Indians to remain true to the French, who had exhibited more regard for their physical if not their moral hankerings than had been shown by the English. In 1775 she reappeared among her neighbors in Jonesboro to urge them to prepare for war, outlining the history of the Revolution from Lexington skirmish to Yorktown surrender. Two years later she was captured by Tories and carried to St. John for trial as a Yankee spy, and though every one who knew her testified to her charities and virtues, she was declared guilty and hanged. It was on the gallows that she promised to be true to the American people and to revisit them on her death-day anniversary whenever they were to prepare for war. There, on her rock of prophesy, the people always saw and heard her when strife was imminent.

A Shot in the Moonlight

A Shot in the Moonlight

ON the Stroudwater road, leading out of Portland, Maine, stood the Horse Tavern, a mere watering-place in the woods, but a landmark, for it occupied the site of a cabin put up there in 1740 by Joe Wyer, known more generally as The Scout. Wyer dressed in leather, with a powder-horn and a knife slung from his shoulder, and this hut was his lonely shelter when he was not hunting Indians. In the summer of 1746 word reached him from Horse Beef Falls, ten miles away, that his sister had been killed by the savages and her daughter carried into captivity. He was on the trail within the minute. The girl had evidently been confident of rescue, for she had struck her heel into the earth occasionally, to leave a mark; had broken off twigs and leaves, and on one rock where she had rested had scattered some beads from a bracelet that The Scout had given to her on a birthday.

Wyer's trained eye was quick to see and understand these tokens. He followed fast. Once, as he slipped on a ledge, he caught a branch, tearing its foliage. The noise was heard, for presently an Indian came slinking back upon the trail, peering cautiously about. Wyer dropped behind a bush and held his breath. The Indian listened long, then straightened and went back, evidently believing that the sound had been made by a deer, and unsuspecting longer that an avenger might be on his track. The Indian soon overtook a comrade of his own race who had been walking onward with the girl. She had small reason to fear harm, for she guessed that she would be sold to the French in Canada, and to make the march a long and slow one she was affecting lameness. When the two savages stopped at nightfall they bound her wrists and ankles but allowed her to sit beside their fire while they prepared some venison and berries for her supper. After smoking for awhile, one of the Indians rolled himself in his blanket and instantly went to sleep, leaving the other to watch beside his prisoner.

Luckily a wind was stirring the forest, and the slow steps of Wyer were not heard amid the sway, creak, and crackle of the branches. Waiting patiently in the shadows until the Indian had turned his head, he crept behind the captive and cut her bonds. She was frontier bred, and not a start or murmur of surprise betrayed her glad emotion. Wyer approached closer and in the faintest of whispers asked if any other Indians were of the party. She shook her head. The guard, who an instant before had been seated stolidly on the earth with his eyes seemingly fixed on vacancy, noticed the motion and leaped up, knife in hand. Almost at the instant Wyer's rifle spoke and the man fell, dead.

The sleeping Indian, wakened by the report, sprang to his feet with senses all alert, and, hoping to get the girl away from her rescuers, he grasped her wrist and urged her into the darkness. She broke and ran.

"Double on him," cried Wyer, who was hastily reloading his gun. And she did so. In a little break where the moonlight came down he could see the two running toward him, exactly aligned. Evidently the Indian had now given up the thought of saving the girl alive, and was bent upon her death and that of her friend. The Scout could not fire without imperilling the girl, though the savage was gaining on her and had pulled out his axe. The risk must be taken, though it might be death in either case. The Indian was a head taller than his captive, but both were in quick motion, and it was dark and confused under the trees. Groaning a prayer, Wyer threw the piece to his shoulder. He saw the axe lift and glint in the moon. Another report. A lock of hair flew up—cut from his niece's head by the bullet that pierced through the Indian's brain. The girl was saved. As they set off on the homeward way they heard wolves quarrelling over the corpses.

The Rescue of Molly Finney

The Rescue of Molly Finney

IN 1756 Thomas Mains had cleared some acres in what is now Freeport, Maine, and had put up a comfortable log house; but he was not to enjoy his possession long. The Indians came to the place in the night, slew him and one of his children, wounded his wife, and carried into captivity his sister-in-law, the pretty, pert, and lively Molly Finney. One of the red raiders had been shot, and on the six-weeks' march to Quebec, where the band was to collect the bounty offered by the French for English and Yankee scalps and where they expected to sell their captive, the girl was compelled to serve as nurse to the wounded man. It is thought that she put more salt and tobacco than emollients into the dressings, for the patient would spring from his couch with the most awful howls and threaten her with beatings; but the others always interfered, for they were forced to admire her pluck and pride, albeit they told her that if the injured one died on the journey they would surely make an end of her at the same time. On reaching Quebec she was sold to a man named Lemoine, who treated her fairly, except that he gave her no more liberty than she needed for the sweeping of dust from the walks, under his eye—and into it, when she could. She was a good cook and manager, hence she presently reached a place in the kitchen, and was there seen by one Master Beauvais, a soft-hearted, none too stout-headed neighbor, who found frequent reason for calls on the Lemoines, and who presently began open court to the red-cheeked wench.

Old Lemoine did not like this. An elderly wife of acid temper had suspected him of pinching the cheek of their house-maid; but, be that as it might, the old fellow had paid hard cash for Molly, and the servant question was as much of a problem then as it has often been since. He was not going to let his prize escape; and biding the time when she might be trusted abroad on errands, he kept close watch upon her and locked her into her room every night. This precaution was to her ultimate advantage. One morning she answered a knock at the front door and was confronted by a young, well-appearing Yankee sea-captain whose ship had recently come to port for trading; for hostilities were over and the colonists were eager to make money again. Before she could ask his errand—a commonplace one made up for the occasion—he had thrust a note into her hand with a sign of caution. This paper she read in her room. It told her that friends in Maine had commissioned the bearer to smuggle her away from Quebec as quickly and secretly as possible. He had learned, through diplomatic inquiry, where she was, and how closely guarded, so he would await her reply at seven o'clock next morning. At that hour she was industriously sweeping the walk, and one of the things that was swept almost into the hands of Captain McLellan as he strolled past was a folded letter, which that worthy read as soon as he had rounded the corner; for old Lemoine was glaring upon them both from the doorway. It revealed the plan of the house, showed the position of Molly's room, and appointed eleven o'clock that night as the time for the escape. Prompt at the hour the sailor was under her window. He tossed a rope to her, which she made fast to her bed and descended into his arms. In a quarter of an hour the two were aboard the "Hepzibah Strong," which was off for her home port, Falmouth, at daybreak. And after the journey, of course they were married.

When Daddy Lemoine unlocked Molly's door in the morning he knocked and called, but there was no response. He entered. Gone! Ha! a note! What was that? "Woman's will is the Lord's will. Good-day, M. Lemoine." A rope, too, the minx! An elopement: that's what it was. That sneaking scamp Beauvais, with his soft voice and smooth ways! Lemoine seized his cane,—and a good, stout timber it was. He went around to neighbor Beauvais, and before that worthy could offer any protest or explanation he had given him a dreadful basting.

Dead Man's Ledge

Dead Man's Ledge

DEAD MAN'S LEDGE, near Gull's Head, on the Maine coast, has borne that name since the finding of a body there—the body of a man clinging to the kelp and swinging grotesquely in the surges. His ship had been pounded to splinters the night before. People on the Head have claimed that they could hear the man wailing whenever a storm was coming up. Recking little of this superstition, old John Brown and his wife Bess set up a ship-shape cabin near the ledge and eked out a living by gardening, jobbing, fishing, and gathering stores and timber such as washed in along the shore. A sturdy soul was Brown, and although they called him a wrecker, he never in his life had shown a false beacon or kept property claimed by any other. Solace of his age was his foster-daughter, Nell, a precious bit of flotsam that in her infancy had come to land from a stranded bark, while a fourth inmate of the place—that is, for several years—was Antonio, a strong, quiet, dark-faced Spaniard who sometimes helped Brown in his work on the boats but was allowed to ramble much as he chose, often wandering alone for hours together on the rocks, muttering to himself, his eyes, that could gleam lovingly, flashing in a dangerous fashion. For another had come to the crowded little house: a young Southerner, Edward Irving, whom old Brown had rescued off shore from a capsized yacht. Irving was a student, a fellow of taste, manner, and reading, and Antonio saw with misgiving the dawn of an interest on Nell's part in this visitor who had so much to tell her of the life of the field and the sea that she had never known, and to whose interpretations she owed a new love for the grandeur and beauty of nature.

Antonio shadowed them in their walks, and his way of moodiness and silence increased upon him. One evening he proposed that Irving should go with him to a rock beyond Dead Man's Ledge, where some curious purple shells were to be found, and with a promise to return presently the two sailed off together. The ledge was but three feet out of water, and the tide was coming in—the tide that in a few hours would bury the rock under two fathoms of sea. Knowing that the time was short, Irving bent so earnestly to the search that he had no eyes for anything else; he did not see Antonio wander in pretended aimlessness back to the boat; he did not see his black scowl as he clambered in and cast off. The rattle of the sail as it was hauled into place aroused him. The incoming waves were wetting his feet. Antonio uttered a gibing laugh as he caught his eye, and, throwing down the helm, swung about and danced off on a freshening wind. Irving called to him to stop his pranks and take him aboard. The Spaniard showed his teeth in a tigerish snarl, shouted a curse at him, and bade him die as a dog; then turning his back he let out the sail and cut away.

Irving was for a time unable to believe that Antonio was not joking; but as the boat receded in the twilight and the water rose about him it came upon him that he had been abandoned there to certain death. Antonio, then, was his enemy. Why? The girl! Heaven! Why had he been so blind? The vast and whitening waters now lapped to his knees. The moon was rising. Its light was the last he should ever look upon. He realized the hopelessness of his situation. His last breath he would give to prayer, to begging pardon for his sins and blessings on the girl who had smiled happiness into his heart so short a time before. With the utterance of her name a new life seemed to enter him. He called, "Nell!" Then despite his distress he half smiled at his folly. He was miles beyond her hearing. But what was that—that black thing, going by in the moon track? A boat? No. A shark? Possibly; yet it floated too lightly to be alive. It was a floating spar. If only he could reach it, he might be saved. Death was certain if he stayed. He would chance his strength against wind and tide. Throwing off his shoes and jacket he plunged into the waves, and after an exhausting struggle he reached the timber, threw himself upon it at full length, and prayed more earnestly than before.

How long he drifted he could not tell. It seemed days. As he lay clinging to the piece of wreckage a far, faint halloo came to his ears. He replied with a shout. The call was repeated from time to time, a little louder at each repetition, and each time answered. At last a rushing sound was heard and a boat came flying up. "Luff, there, Nell. Steady. Here he is. God's name, lad, how came ye in this fix? Gi' a hand. Easy, now. There ye are. Where's 'Tonio? Where's the boat? Nell, ye see you couldn't have heard Mister Edward call your name, bat you were right in guessing he was in danger. Women are mostly—well, I don't mind your kissing him, considering. Don't cry. He's only chilled a bit. We'll have him before the fire in half an hour, and this old sail will cover him meantime. But the boat!"

The old man's rage and astonishment were boundless when he learned of Antonio's treachery; but he and his household buried their animosity next day, when some neighbors came to report that they had found a body on Dead Man's Ledge. It was Antonio, drowned.

Maine's Woodland Terrors

A Logging-Camp in the Maine Woods

Maine's Woodland Terrors

IT is feared that some of the creatures which infest the woods of Aroostook, Piscataquis, and Penobscot counties, especially in the lumbering season, have had their mischievous qualities magnified in local myths for the silencing of fretful children and the stimulation of generosity on the part of green choppers. It is the new-comer in a lumber-camp who is expected to supply the occasional quart of whiskey that shall pacify Razor-shins, and to do a little more than his share of the breakfast-getting, errand-running, and so on, in order to quiet the hostility of the will-am-alones. Like the duppies and rolling calves of the West Indies, these creatures are not seen as often as they were, for they have a fixed hostility to schools, never venturing within ten miles of one.

The will-am-alone is a quick little animal, like a squirrel, that rolls in its fingers poison-lichens into balls and drops them into the ears and on the eyelids of sleeping men in camp, causing them to have strange dreams and headaches and to see unusual objects in the snow. It is the hardest drinkers in the camp who are said to be most easily and most often affected by the poison. The liquor in prohibition States is always plentiful and bad, and in combination with the pellets of the will-am-alones is nearly fatal.

More odd than this animal is the side-hill winder, a rabbit-like creature so called because he winds about steep hills in only one direction; and in order that his back may be kept level, the down-hill legs are longer than the up-hill pair. He is seldom caught; but the way to kill him is to head him off with dogs when he is corkscrewing up a mountain. As the winder turns, his long legs come on the up-hill side and tip him over, an easy prey. His fat is a cure for dis- eases caused by the will-am-alone, but to eat his flesh is to die a hard and sudden death.

Much to be dreaded is the ding-ball, a panther whose last tail-joint is ball shaped and bare of flesh. With this weapon it cracks its victim's skull. There is no record of a survival from the blow of a ding-ball. In older traditions it sang with a human voice, thus luring the incautious from their cabins to have their sconces broken in the dark. It is fond of human flesh, and will sing all night for a meal of Indians.

An unpleasant person is Razor-shins, a deathless red man who works for such as are kind to him, but mutilates that larger number of the ignorant who neglect to pay tribute. Keep Razor-shins supplied with fire-water,—a jug at every full moon,—and he will now and then fell a tree for you with his sharp shin-bones, if nobody is around, or will clear up a bit of road. But fail in this, and you must be prepared to give up your scalp, which he can slice from your head with a single kick, or he will clip off your ears and leave cuts on you that will look like sabre-strokes. When a green hand arrives in a lumber-camp it is his duty to slake the thirst of Razor-shins. He puts a jug of virulent Bangor whiskey at the door. The best proof that the Indian gets it is shown in the odor of breathed alcohol that pervades the premises all night and the emptiness of the jug in the morning.