HAG

A water-spirit often incarnate in a the greater shearwater.

and in the deep-water hagfish.

Anglo-Saxon, haegtesse (fem.), a witch. Related words are haegl,

hail and haegl-faru, hailstorm, relating to her supposed ability to control
the weather.

This creature is the well-known black annis of southern England which

was said to live with sloughs, marshes and stagnant streams. The hag is best
known to mariners in the bird form, a gull-like animal whose upper parts are
all dark brown, with a narrow white band at the base of the tail. These birds
are only met by deep-sea fishermen who term them "hags" or "haglins". They
are probably given this name because their dark bodies are thought to draw
rain clouds and for their unappealing habit of eating the offal which
fishermen throw overboard.

The hagfish is an even less appealing incarnation of this sea spirit being
a miniature version of the sea-serpent. Technically called "Myxine glutinosa"
but more often named the "slime-eel", this sea-animal is a cyclostome rather
than a fish, its closest well-known relative being the lamprey eel. The
creature is rarely seen since it burrows in the mud at extreme depths,
occasionally emerging to scavenge dead fish. Typically, it penetrates them
with rasping teeth, and cleans out the flesh leaving the skin intact. It is
considered the lowest ranking craniate vertebrate, ranging to no more than
three feet in length. The upperside is coloured a mottled purple-black, the
underside is a dirty white or yellow. The eyes and ears are rudimentary and
to make up for this the head is surmounted by eigth tentacle-like feelers.
The round mouth harbours a three-sides "tongue" completely covered with
horny teeth. Myxine is an escape artist being able to knot its body and pull
itself through finely meshed netting. It is also witch-like in its capacity to
elude capture by secreting a huge mass of slime which makes it very difficult
to handle. Most interesting of is the fact that it suffers no harm from
extensive cutting, scratching or abrasion, having an immune system that
prevents all infection.

HAGGARD, OLD HAG

 A mortal earth spirit corresponding with the Anglo-Saxon
witch.

The Middle English hagge is the Teutonic spirit hexxe, both being
descendants of the Germanic haggediscs, better known as Odin's personal
guard, the valkyra". Notice that these are the hags of Dis, the Celtic
death-god, whose name is prefixed in words such as disaster, despair, etc.
The witch-master used to be entitled the haggard (high hag). The hag was
sometimes described as "a malicious female wood's elf" but others regarded
her as a human witch. She was often identified with the night mare elf hence
the expression, hag-ridden. "Hag" confers with the word "haw", a haw
being the fruit of the pick-trees or hawthorns. Haw also described a
hedge, the kind that hags preferred to guard their woods-cabins. The
original Anglo-Saxon form for "hawthorn" was "hagathorn", and its
association with witchcraft is remembered. Locally the Greater Shearwater
is known as the hag.

During the Beltane, which is the month of May, it is still considered

unlucky to pick the blossoms of the plant that traditionally housed the spirits
of the hags. "Pick flower, pick sickness", said Helen Creighton.

In Lunenburg county, where one might expect to find the hexxen still
active, Creighton noted that witch was the usual designation, although she
did say that the latter word identified a male or a female practitioner. "We
seldom use the word "hex" (indicating the craft of the hexxen) in Nova
Scotia." In nineteen sixty-eight, Creighton candidly stated: "I have met and
talked with a number of people who, in their communities, are thought to be
witches. People were wary of them and hoped not to offend them, but
otherwise they looked and were treated like everyone else."

One hag had an acquaintance in Lunenburg who "used to go to her house

two or three times a week." In those days it was believed that "those who
studied the black books had to go out troubling (tormenting someone in the
community. "I knew this woman who was a witch. She would be there in her
house but her soul would be wandering. Well I was at her house one evening
with two or three other men and her husband wasn't at home. While we was
setting there she went to the stove to make a fire. "My gosh," she said,
"I've got an awful pain in my side", and she put her hand to her side and we all
though she had a real pain. Half an hour afterwards her husband drove up
and come in the house. He said to her, "I drove over you (your familiar) just
beyond Sherses' place". The very time he said (he had run her down that
was) the time she had the pain."

At Blandford a respondent said that May Day was "witch day". At

Upper La Have a woman suggested a means of identifying local hags: "Take
the first egg laid by a hen on Good Friday morning and put it in the bosom of
your dress, and then go to church. (All the witches) will have a milk stool on
their heads or some other symbol (of the craft). They will know you have
the egg so you mustn't let them get near you to crush it, because if they
do, they will have power over you."

When Will R. Bird toured East Port Medway he was told that: “Here and
in Lunenburg county you’ll find right new houses built with two chimneys. One
to use, and one for witches to go out. I’ll warrant you could find a dozen
houses that still has witch brroms hung up in the kitchen. They’re made of
so many switches of hazel, and so many of birch, all tied up in cxertain ways
and they used to sell for three dollars. I knowed a man that made them all
his life, and earned a tidy bit by it. He could cure cows of givin’ bad milk too.
Used to draw a picture of the witch on a barn door and shoot it with a silver
bulllet...There was a new schoolmarm went in there to teach one year, and
made all manner of fun over witch brooms till she got the old feller mad. So
he says to her, “I’ll show you what’s what. When you come out of school
tomorrow noon and cross brook bridge you’ll blat like a sheep.” The woman
laughed at this but the next day after crossing the bridge she found that she
could utter nothing but “baa!” Standard medicine could do nothing to remedy
the situation, until. the old witch-doctor agreed to “lift the spell.” In doing
so he touched her on the head and gave her a white “pill.” Afterwards her
first words were, Then it’s the truth. I can talk again. Help me pack my
trunk.” Afterwards the ol;d man was heard to say that he was “glad he had
found that peppermint in his coat pocket, else he wouldn’t have known what
to try.” 1

HAAF

A mortal sea-spirit incarnate in the harbour seal.

Dialectic English, from Scandinavian models, notably the Sw. haf, and
the Dan. hav, the sea. A term used to describe the European lager seal as

1Bird, Will R., This Nova Scotia (1950) pp. 169-170.

well as a verb decribing fishing off the Orkneys and the Shetland Islands,
north of Scotland. Corresponds with the English words half, hale and
hearty.

The seals of Iceland were sometimes referred to as the haf-kyn (half

kin), a sentiment echoed in Dr. Hibbert's account: "With respect to the sea-
trows, it is the belief of Shetlanders that they inhabit a region of their own
at the bottom of the sea. They here respire a peculiar atmosphere and live
in habitations constructed of the choicest submarine productions. When
they visit the upper world on occasions of business or curiosity, they are
obliged to enter the skin of some animal capable of respiring in the water.
One of the shapes they assume is that of what is commonly called a merman
or mermaid, human from the waist upwards, terminating below in the tail of a
fish. But their most favourite vehicle is the skin of the larger seal or haaf-
fish, for as this animal is amphibious they can land on some rock, and there
cast off their sea-dress and assume their own shape and amuse themselves
as they will in the upper world. They must, however, take especial; care of
their skins, as each has but one, and if it should be lost. the owner can never
re-descend but must become an inhabitant of the supramarine (land) world."
The "larger seal" is probably the common harbour seal as opposed to the
more numerous grey seals.

HEDLEY KOW

An mortal earth spirit reincarnate as a cow or a human with

cow-like features.

Dialectic English, Anglo-Saxon, heofod, chief + cuu, from Danish and

Swedish, confers with the Gaelic bo, a cow. The chief cow, reminiscent of
the Gaelic goddess Boann or Boyne, literally, the fiery cow. The English
word holy is related to heofod, thus the exclamation "Holy cow!" expressing
either surprise or intimidation. Notice that "cuu" originated as an expression
of the sound "moo", a noise often taken as a means of secret recognition
among bog, or cow-people. Related to the local expression holy cow!

These were the mythic elfs known in Scandinavia as the huldrafolk.

Their leader was the goddess Huldra (sometimes called Frigga), who
corresponded with Boann. Her kind usually kept to the back-country but
sometimes sought the company of mortals to enjoy dancing on the village
green. Although they were circumspect the cow folk had the tails of the
animals who were their taibhs, and these were sometimes seen trailing
beneath the flowing white gowns of their females. They were also
distinguished by their hollowed backs and the beautiful melodies which they
sang from the mountain-sides. The hedley kow possessed the elf-king's
tune, "which several of the good fiddlers knew right well, but never venture
to play, for as soon as it begins both young and old, and even inanimate
objects, are impelled to dance and the player cannot stop unless he can play
the air backwards, or that someone comes behind him and cuts the strings
of his fiddle." Young men were warned against the females, who had
"stringed instruments that ravish the heart."

NS, BM, p. 137: cow licking window bad luck. Stir cream with knife,
cow will give bloody milk.

HOBOMOCO, HOBBAMOCHO

The Hel-spirit as represented in Indian mythology.

Wabenaki, It is said that “The Indians of New England paid their principal
homage to Hobbomocho. They imagined he was an evil spirit, and did them
mischief, and so out of fear they worshipped him, to keep him in good
humour. (Rev. Henry White, 1841).Interstingly, Old Hob, is not unknown in
English mythology and as he was equated with the Devil so was this creature.
In our region the Devil was characterized as ghe was elsewhere. He was a
shape-changer, varying in form from a boar through a bear to a deer; he
frequently left giant foot or hand-prints in stone. He lent his name, in
anglicized form to numerous rocks, caves, glens and hidey-holes throughout
the region. The whites, confusing this spirit with their own Devil assumed
that the aboriginals were Devil-worshippers, but the Indians knew nothing of
Christian mythology until they were informed of it by the newcomers. The
local aboriginals were at first loathe to worship the One God since he was
represented as a god of love, truth, justice and understanding, and obviously
not to be feared.

HOHOHMEQ

A mortal earth spirit of the Abenaki, characterized by his

uncanny laugh.
 The Maliseet "chuckling ghost", is certainly related to the Goodfellow
and to the pucks and pooks of the English countryside. It has been suggested
that their kind are not intentionally violent, doing men down following their job
description rather than out of malevolence. Robin Goodfellow is known to
have led men a circuitous route through the swamps as they came home
"from making merry with their sweethearts." He sometimes met them as a
walking fire, which had a hypnotic effect upon them, and they followed,
"walking up and down until daylight" when he vanished with a hearty, "Ho, ho,
ho!" Confers with the Anglo-Saxon haughmand.

The late Dr. Peter Paul, a former chief of the old Lower Woodstock
reservation in New Brunswick, suggested that their spirit did not act out of a
sense of merriment and glee: "Whenever it was heard, someone on the
reservation would die..." The voice of the hohoh man was described as
"weird, not very loud, but it carried far at that time of night particularly over
frozen ground. Stuart Trueman, who heard an imitation of the call,
described it as "a croaking, unnerving noise. It sounded like nothing human -
definitely not the kind of omen that would bvode any good." Dr. Paul noted
that the sound was invariably heard three or four days before a death and
said that he had once heard it himself: "It was in the semi-dark (just after
sunset). We always carried our water from a field, and had to walk seventy-
five yards. There was a little wet snow and it was freezing on the ground.
When I went to get a pail of water at the spring, taking a path through a field
of turnips, I heard it - a strange sound - a very weird sound, almost guttural,
like a duck being choked." At that he heard he was joinmed by Jim Sapper
and two young boys of the village who had also heard this "funny laugh". That
same night, Paul went to the outhouse between the hours of one and two
a.m. and saw the shade of an elderly woman. When he returned to his own
home he was met by kin-folk who told him that his grandmother had just died.

In later 1930's excavators were digging out a the cellar-hole of an

abandoned house when they came across the bones of a man. A pathologist
at Saint johnestablished the fact that these bones had lain in polace for at
least eighty years. Older poeople suspected that they may have been the
remains of Noel Lalar, a former moose-hunting guide. He had been a
reprobate, living "in sin" with an unmarried woman, drinking heavily and
playing cards. No one knows if foul play was a part of his death but the
church had refused to bury him in consecrated ground, which explains why he
was buried close to the foundation of his former home. The Indians were
convinced that a death-spirit projected itself through these bones producing
the ominous sounds, and most agreed that his remains should be transferred
to hallowed ground. "They gave the bones a proper burial," noted Dr. Peter
Paul. "And no one on the reservation has heard a chuckle since."

HOODOO

A mortal earth spirit known by his uncanny laugh.

Anglo-Saxon, gehaadod, hooded, in a monastic order, obscured from view;

an invisible entity. Hoodie, the European hooded crow; their carrion crow;
the European black-hooded gull, all considered creatures of ill-omen. Related
to the English word doom. Maritime dialect (whoo-doo), from the English
words hi, ho, hoo, heo, who, heugh or houve, or howdy, combined with
doo or doodie. Hoo is an exclamation, a cry of excitement of elation. The
related word heugh describes a crag, cliff, or glen with overhanging sides;
also a shaft in a coalpit or a hollow in a quarry, and any living therein. Doo
was once used to describe a doe, and this skin was used for doodie-bags,
the bag-pipes carried by doodies or doodlers. The doodle bag carried
without pipes had the same function as the duffer's bag or duffle-bag,
which seaman referred to as their ditty-bag. All were used to transport
loot, thus the doodie, the duffer and the diter were all known as thieves,
cheats and cunning fools. A hoodoo is currently defined as an unlucky human
or elf. This mythic creature corresponds with the imp or familiar of the
witch, the droch chromhalaichean, the jonah, fred and the jinxer.

The elfish hoodoos are known as hoihoimannen (hoo-hoo men) in

Germany. They are illusive shape-changers, but frequently appear as two
and a half feet men wearing large hats that obscure their faces; they carry
whips and wear red capes. These forest spirits are like pucks and bogles,
having a great interest in leading travellers from their intended path. To
forward this hobby, they have the ability to generate rain, hail or snow-
storms, mocking their victims with a cry of "Hoy! Hoy Hey! Hua!" Those
stupid enough to mock this cry lose their lives. The French version of this
elf is the houpoux (halloer), or loupeux, who resembles the English hooter and
the Maritime whooper.

This creature is a participant in the Asgardreia, or Wild Hunt, which

fololws Woden at the Yuletide. The passing of the Raging Host, Woden's
Wrath, or his Hounds was supposedly heard in the thunderstorms racing out
of the north, an omen of pestilence, misfortune and war. "It was thought
that any so sacrrilegious as to join in the wild halloo in mockery would be
immediately snatched up and whirled away with the vanishing host, while
those echoing the halloo in good faith would be rewarded with the sudden gift
of a horse's leg hurled at them from above. This, carefully kept to the
morrow, would be changed into a lump of gold." Nicholas Wodan is himself a
"hoo-hoo" man or "hoodoo", whose destiny is set by his ancient opposition to
the wishes of the Scepen, the Allfather, or creator-god. Because of his
miscegenation with the giants, he had perpetual bad luck and his race became
mortal. Woden is destined to die at the end of time, killed in the jaws of the
Fenris wolf.

This spirit corresponds with the land-based jinxer and is also called the
jonah, johnny-bad-luck or old jack. Individuals have sometimes been described
as jonahed, jinxed or hoodooed, which means that witchcraft, or the black
arts, have been used to replace the second soul or guardian spirit of an
individual with a malignant spirit often termed an imp. Since the bad luck of
individuals has been noticed to spill over onto their possessions personal
effects, cars and sea-going ships have all been observed to take on the dark
cloud that hovers over their owner.

In times not-so-distant past it was considered that men were born with
a guiding internal, or first soul; but also had, as their birthright a second
soul, gifted on them by the pagan gods as a protector. Among seamen, this
invisible cowalker was termed the fetch, but land-dwellers called him the
runner. Whatever his name this invisible follower had the capacity to run
into the past to obtain foresight which might benefit his host. He could also
examine the past and bring back hindsight; or turn his telescopic gaze on the
present in the interest of getting farsight. Those who were "gifted" were
said capable of projecting their internal soul upon the external double, thus
enabling themselves to see through his eyes. While in this state, their bodies
fell into a trance state, which only ended when the internal soul returned.
Most men were hardly aware of the machinations of their cowalker and
experienced the espionage from the past and future as vague hunches, which
they usually failed to act upon. Men who were natural leaders were guessed
to have highly useful doubles, which could briefly incarnate themselves as a
full physical twin or as the individual's totem bird or animal.

During the months just after birth men were in danger of having their
cowalker stolen and replaced by a changeling-soul, or imp. This explains why
rustics made every effort to avoid exposing their children to the tragedy
obeing "overlooked" by the "evil-eye" of a neighbour. If this happened, the
individual became a jinxer, jonah or hoodoo, easily influenced by any of the
witch fraternity, and devoid of conscience. Worse still, the malignant imp
spread a dark cloud of iniquity and bad luck over its host and anything, or
anyone, with whom it came in contact. Hoodooed men brought bad luck on
the fishing grounds and were even blamed for the loss of ships on which they
travelled. The names of those who inadvertently carried a taint of evil was
well known in the smaller communities of yester-year, and these men were
avoided on the highway and chased away from shipyards and mills, where
their presence was known to presage loss by fire, lightning, flood or
windstorm.

It was also a tenant of belief that men had spirits similar to those of
trees; hence the old habit of planting a birth-tree, to which the spirits of
men migrated after death. In creating figureheads, our carvers sought the
wood from the birth-trees of innocent children, since it was believed that
these would become protective-spirits of the ships to which the figurehead
was attached. Unfortunately, good, or at least non-malignant tree-spirits,
could be driven from a ship, with invariable catastrophic results. Sometimes,
this was accomplished through witchcraft, where a practitioner substituted
a changeling-imp for the spirit of the ship. On the other hand, the witch
sometimes called upon a virulent sea-spirit to destroy the craft and whwn
that happened the taboos of sea-travel had to be carefully followed to
benefit from the figurehead-spirit while avoiding the nets of rapacious sea-
spirits. The main prohibition was against turning the boat "widdershins" or in
an anti-clockwise direction. If this happened some sailors claimed that the
"shoaler waters of the ocean" rose beneath the keel, wrecking the ship. In
certain quarters, it was said that sea-monsters clutched and crushed any
ship that made this mistake; while in other places, it was suggested that the
ship was pulled down by the weight of the souls of drowned sailors.

Some losses at sea were due to inadvertent mistakes in the

construction of the vessel. The rowan and hackmatack wood-spirits were
known to be antagonistic to one another, so if these two woods were
incorpoartated into a ship it was automatically hoodooed. A haunted tree
provided very dangerous wood, particularly if it was once a hanging tree, or
stood above the grave of a murderer or some very evil, or unhappy,
individual. Homes and craft constructed from the salvage of vessels lost at
sea invariably proved to be unlucky.
 It is also a matter of record that the "little people", the old gods, the
sea-giants, and others of their ilk resented the light use of any name which
they considered their perogative. Thus the schooner "Devil" ended in very
deep water in spite of the fact that she was a trim sailing vessel, seemingly
with the very best prospects. She was launched in England in 1872 and
placed under charter to the firm of Punton and Munn, who were based at
Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. She was registered Preston England and one
hundred and forty-eight tons and carried a crew of six operating under
Captain Tullock.

Wherever she was seen this new ship was counted as the best in
craftsmanship, her hull being so finely finished men could not see the seams
betweeen the planking. She was painted a startling black as far as the
waterline and from there down her hull was blood red. At her bow was a very
stiking figure, a creature with horns, tail and cloven hooves. The Devil does
not exist in Hebrew theology, but when missionary/translators wished to
transcribe the Bible in English they needed a name to describe the supreme
protaganist of the Almighty God. The Anglo-Saxon "deoful" was selected
being descriptive of a minor imp "full of Deos, or Teos, or Tues." Now Twes,
or Tues, or Tyr, is the old European god of war, a very bloodthirsty sun/fire-
god. He is remembered in the second day of our week, and was always
unwelcome in the camps of all but his supporters.

This sinister ship was hard to staff, for God-fearing sailors thought
she was ill-named and probably hoodooed. She carried an abnormally large
spread of canvas and proved an expectionally fine sailer. Her accomodations
were above those of most other ships in her class, but the first taint of ill-
repute became fixed to her. Nevertheless, on an early run from Labrador to
Liverpool, the "Devil" managed a crossing in six days and eight hours, a
record not approached by any sailing ship for many decades after. In port,
old sailors shook their heads saying that this new craft must surely have had
supernatural help. On longer voyages the captain and crew fought through
entire voyages and knifings aboard ship were not an uncommon hazard of the
passage.

The name became intolerable to Christians on both sides of the ocean

and at last the British Admiralty instructed the deletion of her uncanny
name. When the nameboard "Newsboy" went up on her side she truly became
a "jonah", for the devil-may-care spirit of the crew was seen to fade and on
her first ship into the Mediterranean, the newly-named craft went down in
the deepest waters of that salt sea.

While this might be thought of as "loss by misadventure", the

"Favourite" was a ship supposedly sunk by witchcraft. In 1803 therre were
no more than 5,000 people in all of Pictou County, Nova Scotia but 1,000
more were expected to ship out from Scotland in that year and some of
these had booked on the "Favourite" which was berthed at Kirkcaldy and
mastered by Captain Ballantyne. At the collection port of Ullapool one of the
poposed emigrants was tending his cows at dockside when he spotted a
rabbit-like animal slinking from cow to cow, sucking milk from their teats. He
took up his muzzle-loader and attempted to fire on the creature but found
his vision strangely distorted so that he could not take aim. Guessing that
he might be dealing with a witch, he shaved slivers from a silver coin and
repacked them with the shot. This time he had better success in tacking aim
and when he fired, the thing limped off leaving a trail of blood on the summer
beach.

Inquiries were made the next day and an old lady, long suspected of
witchcraft, was reported confined to bed with a gun-shot wound. When the
man who fired the shot called upon the "witch" she refued to see him, but
later declared that if he sailed on the Favourite it would be lost to the sea.
Notwithstanding, the hoodooed ship set out and arrived at Pictou township,
August 3rd, 1803 having made the crossing in five weeks and three days, a
record at that time. All the passengers were landed and the cargo removed.
The curse was all but forgotten when the ship suddenly sank below perfectly
calm waters. Mariners who mulled over this situation decided that the
"hoodoo" had acted as intended but the passengers had survived because of
the fast crossing of the Atlantic.

HORRIBLE

A mortal earth spirit periodically reincarnate in men.

Dialectic English from the Old French orrible, from the Latin horris,
to shudder. A spirit that raises excitement, dread, and a sense of
foreboding. Confers with horrid and horrific. The adjective horrid carries
a greater sense of innate repulsiveness than horrible, while horrific is a
bookish description, a synonym for horrifying.
 The horribles were active in Prince Edward Island until the First World
War, and have been described as "costumed clowners (disguisers or
mummers) who would parade on New Year's Day." (Pratt, p. 75). Pratt's
respondents said that the adults dressed for the occasion in "wierd masks or
blackened faces" and appeared informally, and later publically, in the New
Year's day parade. At Summerside, the horribles marched (appropriately
enough) from the Soldier's Monument to Gallows Hill, the whole assembly of
"sleighs, wagons, horses and clowns being termed the horribles parade."

HORNED SERPENT

A mortal sea spirit, having a horned horse-like head and a

body like an eel.

Anglo-Saxon, horn, see entry below + Anglo-Norman, serpent, any

long cylindrically-shaped, limbless (or nearly limbless) reptile. Correponds
exactly with the jipjakamaq of local Indian lore as well as with the British
horn-eel. See horse-eels, below.

HORSE-EEL

Mortal water-spirit having a horse-like head and the body of

an eel.

Anglo-Saxon, hros, horse + el, strange. Piast, peiste, payshtha,

allphiast or ullfish are the traditional names given similar Irish sea-serpents
that live in land-locked lakes. None of these words are derived from the Old
Irish tongue, or Gaelic, but originate instead with the Norse language, "pieste"
having the sense of "smelt-like or scaled" and "ull" or "all" referring to Ullr or
Ollr, the winter-god and alter-ego of Odin. These "water-demons" were seen
to have horse-like heads, hence the common English name. None of this
species is restricted to water and one seen on land was described as "much
larger than a horse with a long neck and sheep-like head. It had a tail and
four legs, the hind ones the biggest." Estimates of length were eight to ten
deet, while it was thought that the animal stood perhaps two-and-a-half feet
tall. It was noticed that this horse-eel moved with a rolling gait, not unlike
that of a walrus or seal.

Helen Creighton reported one of this kind at Cranberry Lake, near

Sydney, Cape Breton: "It is an inland lake, about a mile in length and always
full of water. One evening about thirty years ago (1927) a man was standing
by the lake looking for cows when he was astonished to see something on the
surface that looked like a horse's head. Then the neck appeared. In a
moment the animal or sea serpent went under water...He judged it to be
about twelve feet in length..." Again, Creighton noted that a man had gone to
this same lake in 1949 intending to wash his car, but had fled when a horse-
eel emerged from the waters. More than a little annoyed this gentleman
gathered a group of friends and some dynamite intending to blast the animal
into the hereafter. By the time they were thoroughly organized it was winter
and they gave up the operation after some abortive attempts to decide
where it might be under the ice.

Pictou Island lies in the Northumberland Strait, nine miles offshore

from Pictou Township and a few miles north of the Dawson sighting. Here,
bent grasses over an area of marshland on the south shore of the island
convinced a group of locals that some large marine animal had come ashore.
A few of the men suggested that the bent cat-tails and other plants gave
the impression that a horse had been moving through the area, but there
were no horses on the island. It was concluded that "it must be a monster
from the sea that's made the crawlings to our pond." A group of brave but
foolish lads went looking for this visitor and much to their horror came face
to face with "the grand-daddy of all snakes". They quickly retreated to a
hunting camp at the edge of the swamp and barred the door. After an
uneasy night of listening for rustling sounds in the grasses the men arose
from sleep, scattered gasoline and set fire to the reeds. When the oily
smoke had dispersed they went searching the area for remains but found
nothing that would suggest any large animal had ever been close at hand.

HOUGHMAGAN, HAUGHMAND, HOGGEMAN, HOGMAN

A mortal earth spirit periodically reincarnate in men at the

time of Houghmanday.

Middle-English, hough, an underground retreat, corresponding with

howe, a hollow dwelling place, as well as with the common English words huge
and ho. It is also a cowalker with the hook and the Anglo-Saxon word hock,
which describes the heel sinew or hamstring of animals, and closely
resembles their word hogge, the yearling on any mammalian species of
animal. "Houghmagan" is seen written as "hoggman" or "hogman" and his
holiday in England used to be Houghmanday, Hockday or Hookday, which
fell on the second Tuesday after Easter. Questioned about, it our ancestors
said that it was a holiday set up to commemorate the overthrow of the
Danes in England. The Hocktide actually consisted to two days,
Hockmonday and Hocktuesday. On the first day, the women of the village
used to take positions on either side of a well travelled road, and on signal
pull tight a rope streetched across it. If this was craftily managed a passing
man was tripped, captured and ransomed to his friends. On the second day
this procedure was taken up by the men. There is suspicion that these
"guests" were once bound and were formerly forced to play the part of the
May King and Queen. In Scotland hogga is still used to describe a hill pasture
and in Germany the hoggfolk were identified as the elfs of antiquity, literally
"the hill-people" those who lived in the elfvehooggs (elf-hills). In old Scotia,
the hoggeman was the duan na calluinn of Gaelic parts, appearing on the eve
of the old New Year in an animal hide. We can only guess at the ancient
rituals, but their remnants in Atlantic Canada are more strongly attached to
the month of November than to the spring season. Compare with
groundhog

Hallowe'en night in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, may still see the spirit of
the hogman although we doubt that this beast man prowls the countryside as
was once the case. In the middle years of this century, children knew the
words used in extortion, and used to make house calls, crying out "Hogmany!
hogmanany!" In the earliest years when young "hogges" were involved in
disguising food and ale were expected of the householder, but when this
became a children's festival a few pennies were thrown at the door or
candies were distributed. The significance of Hogmanay is made clear when
one examines folk-practises in the Isle of Man, one of the former fortresses
of the Celtic language. Here the Manx mummers "went the rounds" (like good
devils) on Hallowe'en singing a Hogmanay song which began, "Let us in!
Tonight is New Year's Night, the Hogunnaa!" In Gaelic-speaking regions fires
were extinguished on this night and communal new fire created as a source
for individual hearths. Animals were sometimes paraded through the smoke
from the fire so that the evil spirits of disease or witchcraft might be driven
from them into the flames. In primitive versions of this ritual, evil-spirits
were loaded upon the shoulders of the person, or persons, selected to be
burnt, in the interest of revitalizing men, the crops and the land.

HOWDIE
 A mortal earth spirit, a witch or the familiar of a witch.

Anglo-Saxon, hol, a hollow or den; Middle English, hough, an

underground retreat. See houghmagan, the male equivalent of this spirit.
The word is also see as howdy or houdy and as hoodoo, sometimes
combined with wife, as houdy-wife or hoodoo-wife. Confers with the
Anglo-Saxon hold, faithful, friendly, kind, and has the connotations seen in
the word household. Among the English a holder was a tender of cattle.
The howdie of medieval times was a mid-wife, alternately described as human
or as one of the fay-kind.

Midwifery was one of the chief crafts of the fay. the sidh, the
baobhean and witches. At the trial of the English witch known as Bessie
Dunlop, she recalled a visit from the "Queen of Elfhame, a stout woman who
sat down on the form beside her and asked a drink at her, which she gave.
This woman told her that the bairn in her would die, but that her husband
would surely mend of his illness." The howdies were consulted as diviniers
but were also herabalists, who administered belladonna to pregnant women to
prevent the muscular action of the womb when miscarriage threatened.
While the howdie had a better reputation than the witch, they shared powers
and Gillian Tindall has noted that, "greed or partiality" had a tendancy to
blacken her craft. This writer has said that, "Practical and ritual witchcraft
often had little in common, which is why one cannot generalize about what
"witches" did, as if they all belonged to one secret society." Nevertheless,
legally, and in popular opinion, these white-witches were as suspect as people
who indulged in more complicated fertility rites.

Whatever their individual merits, or demerits, the howdies were

considered hoodooed, which is to say robbed of, or willingly parted, from
their guardian spirit or cowalker. Creighton interviewed a Nova Scotian
woman who claimed that children were particulary suceptible to the effects
of witchcraft: "There was a spell put on me as a little girl. It was never
taken off so anyone can witch me." This implied that the guardian was still
resident but ineffective. These people were passive hoodoos, or bad-luck
people, the rent-payers to hell, more often called jinxers or jonahs. The
active howdies or hoodoos supposedly sought power in this world and
surrendered their guardians of their own free will: "To be a witch you had to
curse your father and mother and read the black art books...(Seabright,
Nova Scotia). Those were the essentials of the rites in which the witch
exchanged her "external soul" for a "familiar". The true familiar was
regarded as a imp or small "d" devil usually in the form of a domestic pet.
The Church regarded these animals as a gift from the Prince of Darkness
himself, and certainly they were highly regarded being handed down from one
family member to another. They lived much longer than ordinary animals and
were sometimes unattractive. One of our howdies had "a deformed thing
with many feet, black of colour, rough with hair, about the bigness of a cat."
Others preferred crows which had a proper reputation and were easy to
tame. Ferrets and rodents were kept and toads were fairly popular.

HUMMER

A spirit of the air embodied in a persistent acoustical

display.

Anglo-Saxon, hum, a sound reminiscent of the letter “m” extended.

The geologist Clyde M. Bauer (1966) said it was like, “the ringing of telegraph
wires or the hum of bees, beginning softy in the distance, growing rapidly
plainer until directly overhead, then fading rapidly in the opposite direction.”
The sound has also been compared with that of a giant pipe organ in the sky
and with the echoing of distant bells, The sounds are sometimes heard in
lowland areas near the sea, most distiinctly in the early morning orf a
cloudless, windless day.

C.W. Floyd, correponding with “Fate” magazine in 1961 said that the
humming spirit at Bellmore, New York was most noticable indoors “it does
have the sound of a motor, or ven may be likened to the buzzing of bees, or
the noise of escapeing gas, or air... the hum can linger for hours at a very
low pitch... It starts and stops abruptly...At times when the hum is quite
clear I have been aware of a hot prickly feeling down my spine...It may last
for several minutes...Also at times of humming, an odor of gas or fetid
green plants is very strong. The odor can make on feel sick... In summer I
thought that the green trees and shrubs might cause the odor but it is
present in the winter...”

HURLEYWAYN

A mortal spirit of the air, often observed embodied in

whirlwinds, tornados and hurricanes.

Middle English, hurlen, a gust of wind + wain, a wagon, a four-wheeled

vehicle of transport. Hurlen confers with with the Friesian word hurel, the
English hurl, and our word hurry. A fairy of the hedges and wayside.
Confluent with hurley-burley, which derives from hurly, a confusion and
hurricane, a violent windstorm; also similar to whirlwind, formerly
hurlewind, hurlpool, a whirlpool and the obsolete hurley-hacket, the old
sport of sliding down hill in a wooden trough or on a sledge. Capitalized, wain
is used to identify Wuotan's Wain, better known as the constellation of
Ursa Major or the Great Bear.

The hurleywayn was a spirit of the air, the species ruled by Balkin, lord
of the northern mountains: "...he was shaped like a satyr and fed upon air,
having wife and children to the number of tweleve thousand, which were the
brood of the northern fairies (i.e. trow) inhabiting Southerland and Catenes
(Scotland)...these were the companies of spirits that hold continual wars
with the fiery spirits in the mountain Heckla, that vomits fire in Islandia
(Iceland). That there speech is ancient Irish, and their dwellings the caverns
of the rocks and mountains, which relation is recorded in the antiquities of
Pomonia (on the main island of the Orkneys)...when the battle is upon the
mountain of Heckla, the spirits of the air are then worsted, and great
mournings and doleful noises are heard in Iceland, and Russia and Norway, for
many days after. (Reginald Scot. 1665)

After these glory-days, the hurleywayn became a resident of hedges

and wayside. This creature was usually invisble and lived within local
whirlwinds, which men used to acknowledge with a tip of the hat and friendly
words. It was adept at stealing kisses from pretty maidens and had the
disconcerting habit of materializing as a little old man, who threw himself in
the path of any vehicle which happened along the road. Stuart Truman has
informally tagged these spirits as "Little Old Men of the Sea" and some may
have roots in this kingdom, but most are adherents of the storm-spirits.

One of these was the little man in Ghost Hollow, on Wood Island off the
larger island of Grand Manan, " a little fellow with an old-fashioned flat-
topped hat. He comes out, especially on a foggy night, and runs alongside
your car and sometimes throws himself in front of it." Another of these
took the middle of the road in Millerton. A Dorchester resident slammed on
the brakes when a man seemed to materialize out of the fog. The car hit the
hurleywayn and went on through him as if he had been a hologram. Not all
encounters have taken place in the distant past. In nineteen seventy-two, a
family was travelling home from Prince Edward Island to Fredericton when
they saw what appeared to be a young man emerge from the bushes, three
or four miles south of the Princess Margaret Bridge, and wave frantically as
if trying to stop them to attend an accident. They had to swerve wildly to
miss hitting him, but when they looked back along the highway there was no
one on the black-top. A year later the same family repeated the trip at
exactly the same time of year and once again their phantom rushed out on
the highways bringing them to a swerving halt. Years before that, Mr.
Harold Young of Taymouth, New Brunswick, was driving in a buggy with his
wife along the Nasshwaaak River along the hill that descends on
MacPherson's Brook. He was surprised to see a small man keeping pace with
the front wheel not very far away. Thinking to signal him to hop aboard
Young tapped him on the shoulder with his buggy whip, which passed entirely
through. There have been more unusual encounters: When John Bond
descended the hill towards Palmer's Landing where he intended to meet the
paddlewheeler, he first came uponahurleywayn. In a hospitalble mood, Bond
roared, "Damn it man, no need to walk, come aboard!" As the stranger set
his foot on the step-up he could not help but notice that he lacked a head.
He whipped his horse into an inhospitable gallop down the hill. The only known
casulty among these "hurricane-men" was a little fellow at Tetagouche Falls
in the north of the province. It was his diversion to leap out of the brush at
horses or walking people, laughing at either as they raced into the distance.
One night, however, he fell beneath the horses hooves. His screams equalled
that of a woods-whooper and he was never seen afterwards.

The most formidable hurleywain is seen when the ocean is upset by

“wind-spirits.” Hurricanes were once thought of as an imposition of forces
from the outside world, and we have had a number of them. The Saxby Gale
was in a class by itself. It was named after Lieutenant S.M. Saxby of the
British Navy, a man who was an amateur meteorologist. He proposed the not
entirely original theory that the earth’s tides were likely to be very high when
the sun, moon, and earth were in conjunction, or lined up so that their
gravitational effects are cumulative. Saxby was sufficiently alarmed that he
wrote the “London Standard,” warning that an unusually violent storm might
accompany this phenomenon, which was due to take place on or about
October 5, 1869. Noticing that the Bay of Fundy was a region of high tides,
he used the newspaper as a means of warning mariners in advance of the
expected destruction.

Saxby’s prediction, made in 1868, might have gone unnoticed but it

was reprinted in the “Halifax Morning Chronicle.” Possibly as a result the
Admiralty warned the local dockyard to button down. Halifax was, thus, well
prepared for the storm, but received nothing more than a few sea swells.
The Atlantic shore of Canada was off the track of this storm, which formed
in the Gulf of Maine and swept down the middle of the Bay of Fundy. “The
Saint John Daily News,” reprinted a part of Saxby’s warning from the Halifax
paper, and some places took notice, the wharves in Saint John and Portland
being cleared of goods, and the stores moving their stock to upper floors.
At that, they were unprepared for this manitou.

On the evening of October 4, at 5 p.m., an easterly wind began to blow

from the anti-cyclone which was forming. There was rain and then a
cloudburst. The harbour of Saint John immediately became unsafe for
vessels, and the “S.V. Coonan.” was thrown up against reeds Point wharf and
reduced to timbers. By 9 p.m. it was reported that the night had become
“as dark as Erebus, and the Empress Wharf shifted en mass. Some
additional vessels went down and the suspension bridge below the Reversing
Falls was blown away. Shingles, chimneys and tree branches were scattered
on the wind until a lull came when the tide went out at 10:30 p.m.

While things were bad enough at Saint John it was now seen that other
communities along the Bay were harder hit. Railway tracks were damaged
throughout the region and it was found that Sussex was the only place still in
telegraphic communications with Saint John. The Saint Croix River area was
a mess: Newspaper man James Vroom counted thirty buildings trashed by
the great storm at St. Stephen. The Universalist Church at Milltown was in
sticks and the Episcopalian Church in Saint Stephen no longer had a tower.
Nearby St. Andrews was flooded at high tide, its vessels wrecked its wharves
damaged. Neighbouring Eastport, Maine had forty ruined buildings and 67
vessels driven ashore. The “eye” of this localized hurricane passed right up
the River valley and exited the world of men in York County on the morning of
October 5.

The reports from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, were similar, and the fleet at
Briar Island was totally wiped out. There was damage to houses and vessels
in the Annapolis Valley and the Grand Pre marshes, at the head of the Bay,
were flooded. A schooner carrying apples was found driven into a field at
Canning. There were tides in the Minas that broke the Acadian dykes and
carried away the land as the waters receded from the head of Minas Basin.

The “Borderer” wrote that while the Tantramar Marshes had been
“proverbial for its high winds,” there had never been “such a destructive
storm.” “It was intensely warm on Monday (Oct. 4); the weather looked
unsettled, and in the afternoon huge black clouds darkened the sky and were
driven north by a stiff wind. these increased to a gale which blew with great
fury. In the morning the Marshes “were covered with a sea of waters, which
carried away barns, fences, haystacks and cattle, all piling up around the
edge of the upland, a collection of trees and debris of all kinds...Out of five
barns on the Botford Marsh only one weathered the storm...In the rear of E.
Cogswell’s a dozen stacks of hay and a large barn roof have been
deposited...the sleepers and rails have been lifted from the railway and
twisted over the marsh while water covered the Station House floor to a
depth of six inches. We have been cut off from all communications but are
apprehensive we shall hear of more serious results than what we witnessed
here.”

That night the Petitcodiac River’s tidal bore was at its worst, the
wave-crest rising to nine feet. Coming up the river is was said to have been
heard by folks a mile distant from the river. At that, the howling of the
wind modified what might have been heard, and the darkness made it
impossible to witness the effects of its rampage. A new bridge, thrown up
across the Petitcodiac south of Moncton was carried off, and the toll-gate
keeper narrowly escaped drowning. The bore roared into Moncton and a
number of people had to retreat to their second floor, where they had to
remain, no boats being on hand to carry them to high land. The Harris
wharf, in that town, was covered by ten feet of water. Above Moncton a
woman driving a horse across a bridge lost her life, while most of the O’Brien
family died trying to pilot a raft across to Boundary Creek.

As the storm moved off it struck Hartt’s Mill near Fredericton levelling
almost every house. It then ravaged Fredericton, Newcastle, Chatham and
the Miramichi River before blowing itself out. There was a fair bit of damage
in New Hampshire and New York State, and reports of loss as far south as
Albany. If this was a conventional hurricane it must have originated in the
Caribbean, and missed the southern States by a wide margin before taking a
crack at the coast of northeastern America.

Most of our storm-manitous come in the spring or fall but there was a
notable visitation of wind and sea-spirits on February 2, 1976. On that day
the “Groundhog Day Gale,” ripped its way north on a route similar to that of
the Saxby Gale.Again the storm grew with the incoming tide and the usually
placid upper bays became maelstroms that outdid the Old Sough. No boats
were in the water because this was the off-season at Alma wharf, but the
nearby breakwater, made of gigantic rocks was completely disassembled.
Remember that moving water has 800 times the density of an equal volume
of air, and the wind did considerable damage that day. Had the tide been
higher when the storm what at its height all of the costal towns would have
suffered as they did in the Saxby Gale, but the tide turned and the storm
slackened leaving pulverized wharfs and sea-spray damage to tree as much
as twenty miles inland. At Sussex, my wife and I struggled out in this storm
to get flashlight batteries, before we realized its potential. We barely
managed to claw our way back from the front street, leaning at 45 degrees
to the wind. The storm was accompanied by some strange electrical
displays, including balls of lightning which traced the rail road tracks and
periodically exploded. On the low marshlands at Millstream, a little to the
north, numerous mini-tornadoes raised water spouts, and one of these
touching one edge of a large barn, caused it to implode, terrorizing horses
and cattle, and their owners.

These dramatic visitations of weather have also been seen on the

other side of the Isthmus of Chignecto. Like the Saxby Gale the “The Yankee
Storm” blew in over Prince Edward Island with some advance notice. It was
called the “Yankee Gale” or “Storm” from the number of Gloucseter
fishermen who happened to be on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence Banks
(northeast of Prince edward Island) at the time of the calamity. By late
afternoon the ships fishing the seas between P.E.I. and the Magdalen Islands
found themselves in a warm thick haze, which was not thick enough to
obscure cloud formations of extraordinary colours and shapes. This was
taken as a sign for concern but men were reassured when the Gulf of St.
Lawrence became as calm as a millpond. Some fishermen felt apprehensive
about the fact that not a single fish was taken by the hundreds of fishing
vessels in the region but no one made a dash for port.

As night came on a heavy swell arose out of the east, a peculiar

situation since it was not wind-driven. Distant sounds could be heard over
the water with a clarity that was not normal and as the sun rose it was seen
that refraction played havoc with sight, objects on land and ships at sea
appearing to float many feet above the surface of the water. More alarming
was the thousands of sea-gulls which were seen moving toward the land.
This was Friday, October 4th, and it is a tenant of belief in our region that
“Fridays weather is either the fairest or foulest of the month.” Assuming
the worst some of the fishing boats made for port while others headed for
deep water and put out their sea-anchors.

When night came it was impenetrably black and by eight o’clock a

breeze began from the north-east quarter. By midnight a vicious anticyclone
was ripping in against Prince Edward Island and there was no letup that night,
or the next day or night. The break came at Sunday noon, but it came too
late for hundreds of fishermen and their boats. When the storm was at its
worst, Islanders reported seeing ships dashed ashore by mountain-high
waves and said that the sound of breakers was like that of cannon-fire. At
Rustico, the residents stood by helplessly as a dismasted schooner was flung
300 feet from the tide line. Within a mile of this wreck, three other vessels
were thrown into pastures that skirted the shore.

When the storm had done its worst the people of Rustico found thirty-
six bodies, most lashed to ship’s rigging, all half-buried in sand. A few men
with the fleet actually managed to leap to the sand before their vessels fell
down to be crushed like egg shells. From all the wreckage spread over Prince
Edward Island only fifty had enough integrity to be identified by name. Most
of the fishing craft existed as sticks of unrelated wood cast up on the
shore. At Savage Harbour the lost craft were estimated to number thirty
six schooners. Sixteen vessels lay broken between Richmond Bay and Cape
North. There was never any true accounting of the hundreds of vessels lost
in the Gale, but the locals and the Yankees were not the only losers as many
European nameplates were found cast ashore. Of all the ships abroad at
that time only twenty-two were salvageable after riding out the storm and all
of these had fatalities. The gale of 1851 was so fierce that hardly any
bodies were recovered with clothing intact. Like the Saxby Gale, this storm
was driven by a peculiar spirit as its effects were only felt near Prince
Edward Island.

Prior to the storm nothing unusual transpired although October 3rd,

1851 was an exceptionally warm day for the time of year. The day opened
bright and sunny and blue, but by afternoon a halo “of peculiar brightness”
was seen surrounding the sun. This is still sometimes taken as a sign of
storm within forty-eight hours

Again, on September 19, 1846 a storm swept the Grand Banks with
unprecedented ferocity. The losses from it will never be known as few
records were kept at that time, but Newfoundland was hardest hit. At
Marblehead the deaths were more easily tallied than those from remote
outposts, and here we know that forty-three men failed to return from
fishing. The shared character of all Atlantic storms is their power and
changeability. Halifax has been known to pass through most of the winter
with no more than light snowfalls, and suddenly find itself buried in two feet
of the white stuff. Storms predicted to pass out to sea have sometimes
shown a last minute interest in the land driving surprised fishermen before
them in an unexpected rebirth. It has been estimated that Sable Island alone
has claimed five thousand lives since the white men came to America. At
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the population has never been much more than two
thousand, partly due to the fact that it has lost four thousand fishermen to
the sea since the 18th century. In Hindu theology, Mount Meru, in the
Himalayas was the ultimate power-point. The Japanese had Fujiyama, the
mountain goddess who dominated their landscape and theology; and the
ancient Greeks, Mount Olympus. On Mount Siani, the God of the Jews gave
Moses the tablets of The Law. Where men stood on lesser ground, they still
sought out the greatest nearby rise, even if it was nothing more than a
small island in a stream, to light their holy fires and conduct the rites of
their religions. Among the Penobscots, one spirited mountain was Mount
Kathadin, now standing within Acadia Park, Maine. Another was the Island of
Grand Manan where Glooscap found the means to overcome death. Isle Haut,
or “High Island,” in the Bay of Fundy near its division into Minas Basin and
Chignecto Bay, was a third, and a fourth would be Cape Blomodin, overlooking
the Minas, where Glooscap kept a camp and guarded an entrance to the
underworld.

HUSELOP

The creator-god of the Maliseets.

ILL-THIEF

A mortal earth spirit, the Devil incarnate.

English from the Old Norse illr, of bad intent + Anglo-Saxon, thoef,
originally one who squats or crouches, confering with the obselete word
thieveless, one without purpose, cold, bleak, listless, forbidding. A robber
or the Devil, or some devil of a pagan religion. See entry under Devil.
JACK

A mortal water-spirit often found incarnate as a crow-like

bird.

Also known as the Jackdaw. Jack is a familiar English nickname for

John and confers with Jacob, Jackey, Jake, all of which match the Gaelic
Ioin or Ian. A jack was a man of the folk, thus jack-tar, a common sailor
and the local jack-boat or jack-ass, descriptive of a schooner having very
full an ungracious lines, an unpretentious or common boat. Jack was a name
frequently applied to servants, thus sailors of low rank were also called
jacks-afloat or jacks-at-sea. Websters dictionary defines Jack and Jill,
or Gill as "the proper name for any common lad and lass." A jack-blunt
was any person of "uncultured speech and uncivilized directness." A jack-
of-all-trades was one forced into and out of various livelihoods, through "ill
manners, conceit or stupidity." See main john, johnny-bad-luck, janney
and jonah, all of which confer.

Jackdaw combines this familiar name with a variant on the Anglo-saox

daeg, or day; the Middle-English daw, or dawn. The verb dawen meant to
raise, waken or revive through a loud noise. Thus jackdaw, the very
common corvine bird of Europe, similar to, but smaller than, our American
crow. It is not dissimilar to the American grackle, to whom the name has
also become attached. The creature nests in buildings and has been noted
for pilfering small articles. An intelligent animal it can be trained to imitate
the human voice. By extention, a daw is also a light-fingered querrilous
person.

The jack-schooners or jack-boats of Maritime Canada were termed

two-spar boats in the Newfoundland ports. All were said to be 40 to 50 feet
"from stemhead to taffrail." They were "gaff-rigged on both masts and
usually carried a longish bowsprit."2 One of the products they brought back
from the West Indies jakey, or Jamacia ginger, a product packaged in four
inch high, squat grey earthenware jars fitted with pottery lids; the latter tied
in place with the leaves of a local plant. To preserve the ginger during the
long journey north, it was placed in alcohol. This liquid was supposed to be

2Poteet,
Lewis J., South Shore Phrase Book, p. 62. From "The National
Fisherman," March 24, 1982.
decanted and the ginger washed and allowed to dry before being used. During
the prohibition era, some Maritimers threw away the ginger and consumed
the alcohol, ocassionally with fatal result, since the liquor contained many
impurities. Long after this practise ended the term "jakey" continued as a
descriptive for any unusual source of drinking alchol. Preferred prohibition
drinks of this century included melted and strained shoe polish as well as
"blackbirds and canaries" (pure vanilla extract and lemon extract
respectively). But at Sussex, New Brunswick, this last drink was commonly
called "jakey". In Poteet's book dealing with the dialectic English of Lunenburg
County, Nova Scotia, he notes that kicking up jack, identified "a rowdy but
not an infamous party." In that region jakey was also well-known being
described by this author as "a fruit-flavoiured alcoholic drink based on a
substance meant for food preparation." Pratt gives jack blunt as the
characterization for "a plain-spoken person", which is to say one used to
speakinhg his mind.

The spirit which carries the expanded title Jack O' Lantern was
never restricted to the swamplands of Atlantic Canada, his precursor being
the British Jack O'Lanthorn. This is the disengaged cowalker of a man
separated from him by a traumatic death and forced to wander hoping for an
eventual reunion or reassimilation into the fay-kingdom. Also known as Will
O'The Wisp (which see), Hob Wi' Lanthorn, Kit Wi' Canstick (candlestick) or
Joan-In-The-Wad this spirit was distinguished by the hypnotic light which it
carried. An interviewee at Mahone Bay told Creighton that "If you see the
Jack o'Lantern you have to follow it, and the only way you can get back
(from fay-land) is by turning your coat inside out." This act is also proof
against witchcraft, it being noted that evil-spirits (and peasant-class
humans) alwys wore their hide-coats with the fur turned inward. Reversing a
coat showed allegiance with the dark forces. Nancy Arrowsmith emphasizes
the fact that, "These flames are not elves, but lights carried by elves.
These spirits are animated by the souls of men, women and children. As
such, they come closer to being "ghosts" (in the modern sense of the word)
than any other elves."

Carole Spray has noted that "marsh fire" is commonly observed in in

Atlantic Canada: "...the Acadians refer to it as "feu follet" (literally, the
dancing fool) and it was believed that a sorcerer could change his body into a
"feu follet" and follow people around...The Malecite Indian called the fire-balls
"Esk-wid-eh-wid" and they are believed to be forerunners of death."3

JACK O'LANTERN

A sea-spirit always seen carrying a lantern.

Middle English, John of the Lanthorn. See entry immediately above.

A sub-species of this spirit. The Anglo-Norman lmatern is derived from the
French lanterne, and originally identified any light which was located so that
it was protected from the effects of the wind. Thus niches were cut into
French cemetary stones to carry the "dead lights" which were lit to provide
company for the daed.

JANNEY

A mortal water-spirit reincarnate in men and women

particularly at the the time of the Yule.

English proper name, probably from the French Jeanne, the Old French
Genes, and the Latin Joanna. Possibly derived from the Roman god Janus,
"the keeper of doors", a two-headed spirit, that regarded both the past and
the future. A jean was, formerly, a small silver, nearly worthless coin
minted in Genoa, Italy and widely used in England in the 14th and 15th
centuries. Also the name given a twill-woven cotton cloth worn by poverty-
stricken folk. Jean-of-apes, a silly, bold, vulgar girl "of the people",
corresponding with the male jack-of-apes or jackanapes. The name has
variants in Jean, Joan and Janet and is the female equivalent of Jack (see
entry immediately above).

The Newfoundland janney correponds exactly with the belsnicker, the

horrible, and the callithumpian of the other Atlantic Provinces. Barney Moss
says that the business of mumming or janneying was "widely practised in the
outports of Newfoundland." Also, in local dialect, a joan is a log used as a
shock-absorber between a boat and a float or wharf.

JILL

A female water-spirit, the equivalent of the male Jack.

3Spray, Carole, Will O' The Wisp, p. 16.

 Also seen locally as jillic, jillock, gillock, jillpoke, joan. Defined in the
Prince Edwrad Island Dictionary of English as "A small quantity of liquid,
usually alcohol," or as "A container for such liquid." In the past, the name
also suited women "of coarse cut and habits."

In the language of lumbering a jillpoke was an awkward unpredictable

individual, or a bad-luck-jenny (see bad-luck-johnny). Alternately, it was
thought of as a spirit personified in the "key-log", at the centre of a log-jam
on a New Brunswick river.

JINKER

A sea-spirit regarded as the source of all bad luck on the

water.

Middle English jink, sometimes corrupted to jinx, corresponding with

tink, perhaps from the Anglo-Saxon, tin, the metal. An obsolete word, to
move quickly as in dancing, to frolic, to play tricks, to cheat. Jinker, an
individual involved with any of the above. Tinker, an imitative word meant to
reflect the metallic sound of working with tin products. Today, tin is
obtainjed by smelting the ore called casserite but the metal has anciently
existed as tinstone, a native mineral first mined in Cornwall England. The
metal does not readily oxidize and was found useful in coating iron and
copper, especially where this metal was to be used in ship-building.

The early tinkers were intent on protecting their monopoly and

discouraged unexpected visitors by spreading the rumour that they were
wonder-workers. This seems to have been the case with most metal-
workers of that day for there is a suspicion that the dwarfs of Scandinavia
may have been "a people of small stature but great in craft and ingenuity,
who took ocassion to represent themseleves as beings who worked magic,
creating crystals and purifying metals from the bowels of the earth." The
Cornish tin-miners had no underground mines, although they did use natural
caverns as storage places. The tin ore they had was obtained amidst sand
and pebbles dug up from the mores or taken from stream beds. These were
crushed by hand on large flat stones and the rough ore smelted in primitive
furnaces to get at the metal. It has been estimated that this industry was
in place some time before the Christian era.
 Having this wealth to guard, the Cornishmen set false lights for
unknown vessels, which usually came to a bad end on their rocky shores. The
native population soon found an extra industry in retrieving flotsam and
jetsam, and this continued until fairly recent times, the "pirates of
Penzance" taking over this business from their ancestors.

Jink is our local word jouk, "to dodge, duck, hide, or avoid; to trick
deceive or cheat; to tease or bully; to bounce (a child) on the knee." It is
probably closely related to jullic, jillock or gillock, a small quantity of
alcohol, which in turn confers with the proper names Jill, Joan, John and
Jack (which, see). In our parlance a jinker or tinker was an individual
involved with marine salvage operations, sometimes creating the wrecks on
his own initiative. Today the two words are understood more metaphorically
as the metal remains of ships lost at sea. By extension, reference is
sometimes made to illegal acts, thus tinkers may be thought of as
undersized fish or lobsters. These words are also used, along with junkers
and scraps, to indicate catches of little value. The Razor-billed Auk is also
termed a tinker or noddy.

JIPIJKAMAQ

A mortal sea spirit usually seen as an eel-like creature with

the head of a horse.

Abenaki, Micmac dialect, jipijkam (m), jipijkamiskwa (f). Literally, the

horned-serpent people. Similar to the horse-eels, nucks, sea-serpents, mer-
people, and the travelling forms of the Fomors and Vanirs of European myth.
Shape-changers also seen as humanoids living in villages beneath the sea.
Also termed the “underground panther-people.” Individuals were sometimes
referred to as “the great lynx.” Sometimes the ocean-going formn has been
described as “horned, bearded, four-legged, having a long tail with spikes
growing from the back and the tail.”

The Micmac "sea-worms" are collectively known as the jipijakamaq,

those who "live as humans in the world beneath water." They were described
as "snake-like, having one red horn and one yellow, both objects of great
power." Like the caps of the merrows, these objects were focal points in
shape-shifting, and were coveted by human magicians who wished to alter
their form or project an animal body upon friends or enemies. The backbone
of the horned-serpent was also sought as far west as British Columbia.
There it was said that a brave killed Solchukoluk, and took a signle vertebrae,
which invested him with great power. He passed it to his descendants, one
of whom, willed it to Napoleon Bonaparte of France. The talisman was thus
entrusted to French seamen and finally found its way toi the emmperor, who
accepted it and thereafter experienced a number of great battles.
Unfortunately it was left at home on his Rusiian campaign and was lost
before his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

The jipijkamaq were a powerful tribe being capable of swimming through

rock as if it were water. When they did this the ground trembled with
earthquakes and uncanny grating sounds issued from the earth. Long-lived,
but not immortal, the serpent people sometimes carved deep ruts as they
"swam" through rock and soil. When they rested it was often in the form of
individual hillocks, thimble-like mountains which remained dormant for many
centuries before erupting into activity. Aside from this, they had the
capacity to appear as absolutely normal men and women and in this form
sometimes married and bred with humans. In alomost all of these respects,
the jipijakamac were exactly like the Celtic Fomors.

The most powerful magic-brokers among the Indians thought

themselves capable of assuming this form and many said they could control
the horned serpents using the flute-like "alder whistle". Employing such
beasts or adopting them as familiars was a dangerous process, and people
who married the Jipjakamac were frequently converted to their species
through sexual acts. Men and women who survived this intercourse of
spirits, often had their children abducted to the deep sea. Those who wished
to join the ranks of the sea-people could do so through a simple act of magic.
Finding the land-trail of a Jipjakimac of the opposite sex, a human had simply
to lie outstretched within its track for a short period before conversion took
place. Unfortunately, this shape-shifting was irreversible unless some
powerful magician set up counter-charms.

Because the horned-serpent people dwelt apart from men, and had no
interest in fashion, their clothing tended to be somewhat arachaic. In one of
the old tales, a Micmac man was apprised of their identity by the fact that
the girls he spied upon were "dressed in costumes of an older time." They
were playing ball at the side of the sea, and when he was spotted, all dived
back into the water. The young man was disappointed at their unfriendliness
and decided to conceal himself to await their return.
 Being a magician, he reduced himself in size and hid himself beneath
the single down-curled leaf of a jack-in-the-pulpit. After a time, the girls
regained their courage and recommenced their game. Hoping to take one of
them as a wife, the lad sprung out of hiding, but was too slow to make a
conquest. A second time, he hid within a hollow reed, and on this ocassion
managed to grasp the had of a very pretty "water-fairy" before she could
return to the lake. This woman begged for her release, explaining she was
married, but promised to bring a sister to him as a bride. He allowed her to
go, and she kept her promise.

When a child was born to the newly-married couple, the wife begged her
husband to travel with her into the land beneath water so that she could
show the newborn to her mother and father. As the man followed his wife
into water he was fearful of the strange countryside, but as they went
deeper, the land began to look "much as it did in the upper world." They came
at last "to a large village in the midst of wooded country odf great beauty."
The husband found that his mate's father was a chief of the lodge, and he
and his child were warmly welcomed. Things in the underwater world seemed
perfectly normal except for the fact that "the chief and his wife had the
form of a fish below the waist and of human beings above." Also, "the father
was the ruler of many kinds of fish living in the village." The family passed a
pleasant holiday in this remote world, but on the return trip they were
pursued by a huge shark. So that her husband and child would be saved, the
mer-woman baited the blood-thirsty animal away from them. "The man did
as directed, and so reached the shore. With the child he sat there for a long
time. But his wife did not appear. At last he knew she had been captured by
the shark, and so went sorrowfully home."4

In R. Montgomery Martin’s A History of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton

(1827), we read: “The Indians have a story that a huge animal raised its
head out of the water of the Middle Barrasoi of Aspy Bay, near Cape North,
and so terrified them, that it was long before any would venture thither
again.”

JOHNNY BAD LUCK

A sea-spirit that often attached itself to men with

4Clark, Ella Elizabeth, Indian Legends of Canada, Toronto (1991), pp.

118-119.
catastrophic results.

Anglo-Saxon, baeddel, hermaphroditic, effeminite; loc, an enclosure,

possibly from the Old Norse, luuki, a hole in the ground, from Loki, the god
of underground fire. Johnny, a diminuation of John (see Main John and Jack).
Also note the Anglo-Saxon, luccan, to fasten, or lock and the Middle English
lukken, which corresponds with liege. Related English words include Luke,
luck, looker, and lucre. The English family name Locke is of similar origin.
The English equivalent of our Indian Summer is named St. Luke's Summer
when it occurs at mid-October. Otherwise it is Allhallow Summer (about Nov.
1) or Mart summer (Nov. 11). In the local dialect of Maritime Canada, johnny
makes reference to any black bird, and is similar to jonah (which, see). An
individual plagued by consistent failure.

Loki was the Old Norse contriver of discord and mischief, a one-time
member of Odin's Aesir. He was an adroit, cunning sex and shape-changer,
the father (and mother) of a number of uncanny monsters. He contrived the
death of Baldur, Odin's favourite son, and was hunted down by his former
friend Thor, and afterwards chained within the earth. There, he supposedly
lies beneath the fangs of a snake, which drips poison in his face, and his
reactions to this torture are felt as earthquakes at the earth's surface.
Loki fathered Hel, the Fenris wolf and Iorgungandr, the world worm but in
horse-form he was impregnated by a stallion and gave birth to Odin's famed
eight-legged steed. It may be significant that Glooscap's twin brother
Malsum was also said to be an hermaphroditic giant.

As noted elsewhere, Jones is the Welsh equivalent of John or

Johnny, and the Old Man of the Sea, or mid-oceanic god, is sometimes
personalized as Davy Jones. Thus, Bad Luck Johnny as this sex-
changinging Loki-like sea-spirit and bad-luck-johnnies were thought of as his
adherents among men. See Joner for a more complete explanation of this
creature.

JOUK

Another name for the sea-spirit commonly known as the jack,

joner or johnny.

Anglo-Norman, jough, from the Old French jouquier, the French,

jucher, to sleep on a perch or the branch of a tree, to roost, to slumber in a
bower. Laterally, to dodge, duck, hide or skulk about. Also to bow as a
courtesy to one's betters, to fawn over, or cringe in the presence of a
superior. A place of retreat or shelter. "A common fellow." See jinker.

Also seen spelled juke this word is defined by T.K. Pratt as averb, "To
dodge, duck, avoid, hide; trick deceive or cheat." A trickster after the
fashion of Loki or the local Indian god Malsum. See joner.

JONER

A spirit which attached itself to certain men making them

the focii of evil, ill-will and ucommonly bad luck.

Anglo-Norman, Jona, a variant of the personal name John. The

Hebrew equivalent Yonah indicates a dove. It will be recalled that this was
also the name of a Biblical prophet, who commanded by God to go to Ninevah
and convert the population, disobeyed and fled by ship in the opposite
direction. During a tempest, the prophet suggested that the mariners cast
him overboard to rid themselves of the curse of God. When they did the
seas became calm, but Jonah was further punished by by being swallowed by
a whale. Within this beast, sometimes described as a leviathan, or sea-
serpent, Jonah lay entrapped for three days and nights, finally being
vomitted up on the shore. After this experience he id as he was instructed.
Thus, some say the Jonah is "any person dogged by bad luck while on the
sea." See also hoodoo, Main John, jack, jill, jouk, johnny-bad-luck, fetch.

The joner or jonah also has pagan roots, the name being the
equivalent of the Gaelic Iain or Eoin and the Welsh Owain, a personalized
form of Jones. All are similar to the Gaelic ian, a bird, particulary a sea-
bird. In Cymric, or Welsh, legend Owain ab Dyffd (Owen of the cantrell of
David) is described as the earliest discoverer of the lands in the western sea
(America), a man whose luck was so patently bad his name is little
remembered. As Davy Jones (see earlier entry under this heading) Owain
can be attached to the earliest pagan gods of the sea, in particular Llyr, as
well as his Gaelic counterpart Ler, and the even better-known Norse god Hler,
who the Anglo-Saxons called Aegor.

It was once considered that all men and women were gifted by the gods
from whom they happened to trace descent. Thus some people had their
birth-right from Kari or Myrrdyn or some other god of the air. Men who were
"born to the land," were more often seen as the offspring of Loki or Lugh, or
one of the numerous fire- or land-gods. "People of the sea" often took the
name of a important sea-deity, thus we still find men whose family name is
Morgan (sea-white, after the goddess Mhorrgan). We see also, Macclure (the
son of Ler); and the Germanic Himmler (the son of Hler). Similar
attachments are suggested in the family names Murdoch (sea-warrior) and
Murray (sea-man) and in personal names such as Morag (sea-queen) and
Muireall, or Muriel (sea-silver).

In Gaelic lands, Mhorrigan was considered to be the goddess who

determined the fates of men and the gods through their birthright. Her
Norse equivalent was Norn, their goddess of destiny. In the prose Eddas we
are informed that the people called the nornir were of the alfar (elfs) who
dwelt within, or near, Urdar fountain (the ocean) beneath the great world-
tree named Yggdrasil. Out of the halls of the Nornir "came the maids that
shape the lives of man-kind. Not of one race are they, some of the nornir
being of the Aesir-kin (god-kin); some of the alf-kin, some too the daughters
of Dualin (the svartalfar, or dark elfs). There are many nornir, enough so
that one comes to each child at birth, to shape its life...which they do very
unequally. For some have a good and full life but some little wealth and
praise; some a long life, others short. The good nornir (i.e. the liosalfar, or
light elfs) come to the well descended and shape a fortunate life; but as to
those who have great misfortune, that is caused by the coming of a
malignant spirit."

The alfar were said to assist prominent persons in an easy birth, and
men and women meant for a huge destiny were sometimes given more than
one guardian-spirit (later referred to as a "guardian-angel"). At the very
least, this invisible alter-ego of men became an external-soul, bestowing
"gifts for good or evil" as a birth-right, occasionally foretelling the future of
the being with which it happened to become associated. Among sea-men this
little associate was often referred to as a fetch (see entry under this
name), from its habit of fetching information from future times. Truly
gifted individuals could put the fetch to amazing use, being able to send it
into the past to seek history and sending it into the distance to report on
events happening in real time. These individuals were able to project their
primary soul upon the fetch and thus make observations through its eyes.
Commplace men were never able to interact in this way with their guardian,
and the information they got from it was perceived as vague hints or
forebodings of danger.
 Gifted men and women were sometimes identified at birth by a
characteristic look which they shared with the sea people. A widow's peak,
(sometimes called a devil's peak) was the growth of a V of hair between the
eyes and this was considered a genetic trait. The old sea-giants often
posessed a single eye with a harbouring eyebrow, thus the growth of what
seemed a single eyebrow on a small child was considered a mark of
attachment to the old gods. The presence of extra fingers or toes was
thought to be a marker, expecially if they happened to be slightly webbed.
Scaley, fish-like skin was a similar indicator, as was birth with the head of
the child still contained within the amniotic sac, or "sac of waters." The
latter happening was thought to indicate the birth of a person with special
psychic gifts and children with a caul were advised to guard them at all costs
since they were the resting place of the external soul. Children born with
eyes of differing colours were thought "gifted" provided that the two colours
eventually merged into one.

At the time of birth, the fetch was considered a weak-spirit, easily

displaced by an evil creature from the land of the dark elfs. Thus, for the
first seven months after birth, some rustics guarded their children from the
"evil-eyes" of their witch-neighbours supposing the child's guardian might be
stolen. Special care was taken of cauls, which were sometimes placed under
the hearth stone until the baby matured. Adults typically carried the caul on
their person, it being thought to completely protect the individual against
death from drowning. Since water is antagonistic to fire and the caul
represented the powers of the ocean-gods, it was also noticed to be an
infallible amulet against fire or lightning in any ship or building in which a caul-
bearer happened to be resident. For these reasons master-mariners sought
the company of these lucky men aboard their ships while the witch fraternity
attempted to gain the cauls for their own protection.

It should not be thought that these were entirely Old World ideas,
rather these were (and may still be) the common beliefs of Maritime sea-side
folk. The joner, joaner or jonah is, surprisingly, absent from the Dictionary
of Prince Edward Island English, but does appear in Poteet's South Shore
Phrase Book. He defines "Joner" as "A Cape Sable expression for a Jonah, a
jinxed (unlucky) car or boat." Helen Creighton recorded another use: "No
grey socks or mittens were allowed on fishing boats at Eastern Passage or
Devil's Island; grey socks were considered a Jonah." It should be noted that
black was also a tabooed colour among men at sea. It was long supposed
that "like attracts like" thus waving a white cloth at the sea was likely to
raise the wave spirits, while moving grey or black objects in the sky might
enliven similarly coloured storm/wind-spirits. The folklorists miss the point
that the joner was often a spirit-haunted human, whose vehicle(s) suffered
from disaster by association.

Helen Creighton was a personal believer in guardian spirits (see her

introduction to Bluenose Magic) and noted the spiritual relationship between
organic and inorganic matter when she interviewed a Port Greville fisherman:
"Some ships were considered bad luck ships (as were) the men who skippered
them." Elaborating, she found another respondent at Tiverton, who said:
"Some vessels don't seem to make money though they've been tried by the
best skippers known. There seems to be no reason for it. but I've seen it
many times."5

Of course, there are reasons for everything in the old pagan theology,
and a joner in the shipyard during the construction process might be
suspect. Joe Neil MacNeil mentioned the fact that workers were very
frightened at the idea of having the "droch-chromhalaichean" (roughly, the
rent-payers to hell) arrive unexpectedly at their place of business. "They
used to talk about unlucky people coming around while they were working. If
they were working with (sharp-edged) tools of any kind. whether it was a mill
or whatever...things would begin to go (dangerously) wrong." In the end they
would be forced to approach the joner and forcefully recommend that he
"journey over." It was even considered unlucky to meet these "unlucky ones"
on the road, particularly at the beginning of a journey to town or the local
market. In these situations, men would often reverse the direction of their
wagon and refuse to do anything for the remainder of the day. If it chanced
that a ship progressed to launching in spite of the interest and attentions of
a joner it often floundered on coming down the ways or went to the bottom
on its maiden voyage.

This was not the only possibility for the loss of a vessel to mythic
powers of the sea. No boat builder would offend the rules of his craft by
incorporating rowan wood into a ship where juniper, or hackmatack, had also
been used. The spirits of these woods were seen to be at odds and the
cause of trouble at sea. Then too, workmen had to be selective in taking
building-wood, avoiding hanging trees and those that shielded graves of the

5Creighton, Helen, Bluenose Magic, both quotes, p. 125.

unquiet dead. If men happened to incorporate an uhappy spirit into a ship,
this was perceived by spirits of the sea, who soon gave it rest on the
bottom. Not so long ago, the figurehead was considered an embodiment of
the spirit of the ship as a whole, and its material had to be carefully chosen
and cured before it was carved into a life-like coloured figure. In the great
shipbuilding centres of Flanders the wood selected for this purpose was that
believed possessed by the souls of innocent children. In those days, birth-
trees were planted for each new child and when he or she died it was claimed
that the soul migrated into the growing wood. These spirits were not driven
out at the cutting of the tree, but only passed on when it rotted into the
earth. In the interval these spirits took over the matter of foretelling
disaster through dreams they instilled in the captain. Again, it was rumoured
that this spirit nursed sailors through illness and even helped them at work.
In parts of Europe these invisible protectors were entitled the
"klabautermanniken" and every care was taken to see that they remained
happily aboard ship. They were, of course, very content in the presence of
the caul-carriers, but distressed at the presence of women and/or joners. If
the figurehead elf left, it was said that the ship was certain to sink. This
spirit sometimes roamed the quarterdeck, that portion of the ship extending
from the stern to the mainmast, traditionally the preserve of officers. Even
today an officer boarding the ship will salute the seemingly empty
quarterdeck. In the days when Roman Catholicism was more in vogue, a
crucifix was hung from the quarterdeck rail, possibly to suggest the
presence of a converted pagan spirit, now recognized as a "guardian angel."

The trouble with joners was the malicious nature of their replacement
spirits which could put even the most noble figurehead to route. It was
never possible to steal a fetch without replacing it with a changeling imp.
Those who "overlooked" children with this in mind left behind a minor
malignant spirit, which might belong to a tribe at war with the spirits of the
sea. In this case, ships often floundered when possessed by these
substitutes, which passed to the ship from a joner.

In 1947, Helen Creighton interviewed Mrs. J. at Eagle Head, Queens

County, Nova Scotia. This woman explained that she had been robbed of her
birthright as a small child: "There was a spell put on me when I was a little
girl. It was never taken off, so anybody can witch me." On at least two
ocassions, this lady found herself fighting off the psychic incursions of local
witches, but her own uncanny second-soul gave her some advantage and she
was able to mount magical counter-attacks, one of which resulted in the
death of a protaganist: "I took the pig's heart and filled it full of newpins and
puit it in the oven and baked itslowly for three days. Igot news that this man
(who was a practising witch) was then just barely alive. I kept it there for
three more days longer and on the sixth he was a corpse. I just had the heat
on good enough to make him suffer, but after he died I burned the heart in
the stove." Asked if she had no feelings of guilt over the matter, Mrs. J.
quickly returned, "He deserved to die. It says in the Bible, "thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live." Bear in mind that the joners are remorseless since
imps are without conscience.

The joners were not blamed for their condition but they were certainly
never as welcome as the those born under "the cap of luck" (the caul-
bearers) and were often marked by their encounter with the dark forces.
Some were seen to be cross-eyed, while others were noted to have "a frozen
limb" or a facial tick, physical health being seen as a measure of the
usefulness and vigor of the fetch.

Most of the people who lived under a dark cloud full of disasters were
aware of their problem and were sometimes able to relish the irony of their
position. Joe Neil MacNeil tells the tale of a man whose first wife died leaving
her daughter to contend with a step-mother. Soon after the wedding the
new lady of the house was on her way to the market when she met her step-
daughter walking in the opposite direction. Aware of the old saw, that the
the first person met on a journey might bring "luck or not", she addressed
the younger woman: "Well, I shall expect a good trip, or blame you if things
go badly since you are the first I have met this morning!" The girl smiled
wryly: "You may expect very little, since I am not considered one luckily
met!" "How's that?" questioned the other. "It was certainly true with my
father, for I was the one he first met on the road on his way to fetch you!"

Elsewhere it has been mentioned that the jack is a variety of joner and
that he is frequently incarnate in the jackdaw, or black-bird, often seen as a
crow or raven. While it is often said that shearwaters and gulls are not to be
feared being "the souls of old sailors", black birds are symbols of a darkening
sky and voracious sea-dieties such as the Mhorgann and Rann. Their imps
lust after the souls of dead men, which explains the local fear which seamen
have of black birds winging over the ocean. Thus, at various communities
along the coast, Creighton was informed that "Fishermen don't like a crow to
cross their path." These birds may be thought to represent the incarnate
spirit of a joner, or a witch, the latter being a species of this order. At
Moser's River a man advised the folklorist that, a fisherman "will turn his
boat right round so it won't cross his bow." It was always thought better to
turn back to the wharf after such an encounter, but the last gentleman
suggested spitting into the ocean in propitiation of the gods of the weather
at sea.

KAHKAHGOOS

The spirit of the crow.

Wabenaki, Micmac. The Passamaquoddy is kahkahgooch. “The crow

is represented as always peeping, spying, bewgging, pilfering, and tale-
bearing. The Passamaquoddies have peculiar superstiti0ons as regards
killing the crow. See corby.

KAQTUKWAQ

A mortal spirit of the air, usually seen as a huge bird.

Abenaki, Micmac dialect, kaqtukwaq, the thunder-people, the word has

an animate case ending and is always plural. These differ from the shape-
changing kulus, individual magicians who take a occasionally take similar, in
the fact that their alteration of form was not completely predictable or
controllable. They have been characterized as, "Persons who live as most
people do...But their power-shapes are those of great birds, and when they
fly and beat with their wings, the people down below on Earth World have
storms. Kaqtukwaq are akin to the Thunderbirds of Northern Woodlands and
Plains cosmology; they are often portrayed as helpful to the People."
Parsons, 1923.

These creatures are not the "kulus", individaula human magicians who
assumed an eagle-shape to carry out their own ends. Spirits of the air, the
kaqtukwaq lived mostly after the fashion of ordinary Micmac tribesmen, "but
their Power shapes are those of huge birds, and when they fly and beat their
wings, the people down below on Earth World have storms." This is
surprisingly akin to descriptions of the Norse storm-giants; further, the
kaqtukwaq are found on the western coast, in the plains and the Great Lakes
region.
 One description is reminiscent of a war-plane and pilot: An Ojibway
elder who had some knowledge of the thunderbird men, said that his
ancestors had seen white men making an attempt to attract the birds.
Knowing that the thunderbirds were the enemies of the great land-serpents
(the horned serpent-people), they assembled a decoy, "a great serpent that
was hollow inside." The thunderbirds were interested, and dropped from the
heavens upon this dummy, the heavens erupting "in showers of lightning."
They failed to fly away but were pulled into the hollow interior and stored.
"When the white men had enough they took of the heads and put them into
pots," finally decanting juices that were a source of electricity. This power-
juice was transferred to a waiting flying-machine of different design. The
strangers then took to the air and shot down several other thunderbirds
from the sky with a ray of light."

This is indeed suggestive, as is the contention that Kluscap called upon

the Thunderbird people to transport various species of animals to earth
from Star World. In the end he found them to dangerous to leave among men
and shattered them with his power belt. Nevertheless, like Thor, the big
birds were usually friends of men: "As birds they flew up to the skies,
making a great deal of noise with lightning..." When Micmac hunters became
lost in their campground eight of the "thunderers" turned out to give
assistance and as they were about to depart, the grandmother of the tribe
came to see them off. "Don't you be too fast, too loud, remember that you
are the ones who make the big lightning." Each human climbed onto the back
of one of the shape-changers and were quickly flown to their own wigwams.

The thunderers were very like Kluscap himself. When they wished to
eat they called up their clouds and gathered lightning, and by clapping their
hands discharged bolts of energy against animals they wished to kill. The
"wasoqotesh", or light-energy, was seen to be potent against huge stones
and tall trees, but the thunderers had difficulty focusing their weapons upon
the god-like Kluscap because of his personal magic. It was rumoured that
the bird-people knew the taste of human blood, and preferred it to that of
other animals. Unfortunately for them, they were not often able to kill one
of the People, as the spirits of the Micmac were protected by the shadow of
the Great Master.

KEESOOKBOK MINEOTA

A water-spirit, who the French called “La Grand Source.”

 Wabenaki, keesookbok, a summer spring, a warm spring as opposed
to, utkuboh, a winter, or cold, spring. It was said that springs of the summer
kind often had green margains even amidst the snows of winter. This spring
was located on the inturn of Rocky Point, at the entrance to the harbour of
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

In times long past a chief came to visit a friend on this island, bringing
with him a son named Sunfells and a daughter called Mineota. The trio visited
happily in a summer encampment with their friends and each day the young
man went off into the woods seeking game. The island shaman, who was
their host, warned all the newcomers against crossing a nearby stream after
dark, explaining that it was the residence of a water-manitou, who hated the
light but was likely to vent his temper against men once darkness had fallen.
The son promised his father he would avoid this place, but coming back after
dark could not resist taking the quick route to the fires of home. The
splashing of water awakened the evil water spirit who immediately drowned
the youngster. Seeking retribution his father hid by the river bank and on a
subsequent evening tried to bring down the spririt with an arrow. When the
manitou was grazed, rather than killed, he unleashed flood waters upon the
land. Realizing his complicity in the trouble of the islanders, the chief
consulted his shaman friend to see what might be done. The medicine man
brought back word from Glooscap that a sacrifice of his daughter was
needed to placate the water-god. The lady in question flung herselff into the
flood and soon the waters sunk to their normal level. Glooscap appeared
before the grieving father, noting that the girl’s spirit could not be returned
to the land, but said that her sacrifice would be remembered in a standing-
stone he would erect on the river bank. Many miracles were wrought by the
spririt of Mineota acting through this stone, but in 1663 the French
government sennt Captain Doublet to establish a fishing station on Prince
Edward Island. They came upon the stone, and overnight it disappeared as
Glooscap had said it would in the presence of white men.

By magic the Stone of Mineta was reduced in size and hidden within the
waters of the spring which came to be called La Grand Source. There, safe
from the prying eyes of the whites, the stone retained its magical-powers of
regeneration and healing, being brouight to the surface by a diver when it
was needed. In the 1700s, Marie Grenville and her mother came to the island
seeking her father, a privateer who had come ti L’isle Royale to recover
treasure he had buried there. He was not found as he was captured in these
waters and transported to London to be hanged. The mother and daughter
remained encamped near La Grand Sopurce, and Madame Grenville apparently
recovered the treasure for it was said that she always carried a pouch filled
with gold coins. The couple were shunned by the French colonists, it being
noted that the older woman controlled the weather and sold favourable winds
to fishermen. They got along much better with the Indians, Marie eventually
becoming one of the wives of the Micmac chief Kaktoogwasee. In winter, the
Micmacs always retreat4ed to the mainland, but the women remained
encamped on Isle Royale. On spring, the chief returned to find the campsite
empty and the women dead on the beach. In desparation, the chief had the
Stone of Mineta brought up from the spring, drew the required magical circle
around it and his dead wife, and called upon the life-source to restore her.
When her left hand was placed upon the stone she breathed again, but the
stone itself crumbled to dust as Glooscap had promised if it was used to help
any white. Shortly after a disgruntled tribesman killed the chief with a arrow
through the heart and the grieving Mineta went insane with lonliness.
Shunmned by her former Indian friends she was finally taken by the French
colonists, who tried her for witchcraft and burned her alive upon Rocky Point
itself.

KELPY

A sea-spirit seen reincarnate within or upon water as a

creature very like the classical centaur.

Also kelpie, from the Gaelic cailpeach, a heifer, steer or colt,

confers with colpa, a young cow or horse. This creature resembles the
English colepexy, whose name is similarly derived. Also like the English
grant, the shopiltee, the galoshan and the tangy (the last three have separte
entries. Cailp, or kelp, was also applied to the oarweed in which these
creatures lived. The kelp plant, of the species Laminaria, was formerly
gathered by the Scots, and wholesaled as a component of glass, soap, iodine
and fertilizer. T.K. Pratt says that kelp is locally termed "the poor man's
weather glass," since the brown algae held on land becomes sticky at
beginning of a rainy season.

The kelpy, tangy, shoopiltie, bellcoat, or chaffinch is one of the water-

horses. The first two designations were used in northern England and
Scotland, the shoopiltie was native to the Shetland islands and the last two
were common in England. Keightley said that "there is no being in the Irish
rivers answering to the nis or kelpie". While they thanked their guardian
spirits for lacking this "treacherous water demon", the Irish possessed the
equally violent phooka, "wicked, black-looking, bad things, that came in the
form of wild colts, with chains hanging about them. They did great hurt to
the benighted travellers. The shoopiltie was especially violent, a Shetland
pony in shape equipped with a huge penis and testicles and accused of
mugging, abduction, robbery and rape.

The kelpy is the only species known in the lakes, river and salt waters
of the Atlantic Provinces. The creature is named for the intertidal kelp, or
oarweed, beds which were his preferred hiding place. The kelpy is known to
have generated mysterious lights over water and to have groaned to keep
men from their deaths by drowning. If these warnings were ignored, the
kelpy concluded that suicide was intended and helped the victim to that end.
Kelpy Cove in southeastern Cape Breton is named after this formidible sea
creature. Shirley Lind of Joggins, Nova Scotia, told the tale of a Minudie
Village man who used a kelpie as a familiar: The young man had a girlfriend in
Sackville, New Brunswick, thirty-five miles distant. His friends disbelieved
his frequent excuse that he could not travel with them as he went to see her
each night. This seemed impossible as it was before the days of an
automobile and he had no horse. A wild black stallion was seen travelling in
both directions alonmg the village road and these same young men decided to
rope him. One night they managed this and took him to a blacksmith shop
where he was shod. The next morning the young man failed to show up in
time for work so his friends enquired about his health and found him at his
mother's house sick in bed. Suspecting he was faking illness, the boys
stripped away his bedclothes and found horseshoes nailed to his hands and
feet.

This is very like Helen Creighton's tale of the two travelling men who
paid to stay at an inn on Nova Scotia's south shore. They had just managed
sleep when they were awakened by the sounds of heavy footsteps passing
around their bed. Lighting a lamp, they discovered a mare in the room with
them, and soon roused the klandlord for an explanation. He was unable to
explain this strange event and could not identify the horse as belonging to
anyone in the village. At this, the two salesmen decided to claim the animal
and awakened the local blacksmith to see the animal fitted with shoes. In the
morning they found in the blacksmith's stall, instead of the mare, a young
kelpy-woman with iron shoes nailed to her bare hands and feet.

One authority reports: "In Hampshire they give the name of Colt-Pixy
to a supposed spirit, which in the shape of a horse "wickers" (neighs) and
misleads horses (and their owners) into bogs, etc."

NS, Inverness Co., Fraser, p. 87: two meetings.

KILLMOULIS

An earth spirit bound to mills.

Middle English killen, to strike; akin to cwellen, to qwell , to kill +

moulin, directly from French, from Latin, molinum, a mill. Confers with
mould.

The killmoulis was the spirit who haunted mills. He is characterized as

a brownie or bodach with an enormous nose and no mouth (Hence, we
suppose, the expression: "Stuff it up your nose?") This brownie could be a
helpful worker but his sense of fun tended to over-ride his contributions, so
that he often killed the mill. Mills were formerly considered haunted by
malignant creatures, since people were frequently stricken with the
"dancing-sickness" after eating rye products. This elf-king's tune response
to eating bread was formerly credited to evil spirits such as the killmoulis,
but the perpetual dancing is now blamed on ergot. Ergot is a fungal disease
of rye, and other grain crops, in which the grains are replced by black or
purple club-like bodies. In cases where this material was ground with
ordinary rye, several poisonous compounds were introduced into bread
producing the disease called ergotism. This had as symptoms the severe
contractions of the muscles of the arms, legs, and the uterus, contraction
of the terminal arteries, hallucinations and other unpleasant effects,
terminating in a coma and death. The active cause of ergot poisoning is no
longer thought to be a cohabiting killmoulis, but ergotinine, a crystalline
alkaloid extract from ergot which is haemostatic.

KINAP, KENAP

A human imbued with supernatural physical abilities after

possession by an external spirit.
 Abenaki, Micmac dia., plural kinapaq. Men whose physical strength or
perceptions are superhuman. They are named after Kji-kinap (the Great-
power). The kinap are sometimes born to power but some develop their
abilities through force of will and training. "They can outrun the wind. They
dive deeper, hold their breath longer and let it out as storms; they tear
trees in half and carry a ton of moose meat on their backs. When they
dance their feet sink deep into the earth with each stamp of a foot. Some
of these were the nikani-kjijitekewinu, those who no in advance, while other
possessed the "second-sight". Even blind kinaps could predict the future and
could see distant happenings although they might not see events close at
hand.

Peter Toney (1894) said that a group of Micmacs out torching fish
were almost totally annihilated by a group of Kenebec braves. As a result,
the Nova Scotians put together a war-party to march into Maine: “The party
was led by the kenap whose name wasKaktoogo , “The Thunderer.” Being a
mighty puoin as well as a warrior, he could render himself invisible and
invulnerable and thus they fell before him.”

Another of this kind Sak Piel Saqmaw, also known as James Peter Paul
a one time resident of Schubenacadie. When he was an elderly man, walking
with the assistance of a cane he came upon boys who were playing at pulling
apart the two sides of a widely branched tree. “He put his cane down and
puit his hands one on each side of the crotch and then he ripped that whole
big tree in half.” Later at Pictou Landing men were straining at the task of
moving a whole house down the road on rollers. When they saw James Paul
arrive, the Indians immediately moved away.. Paul went up to the house,
“and touched it with his cane. He just touched it and then said, “Now.”
(After that) The house just moved along for the men as easy as anything.”

Nowlan, p. 43: chief who refused to die.

KING TIPPER

A spirit incarnate in men at the Yule and in springtime.

Also seen as King Tipper, Old Tippie, or Old Tipp. Dialectic

English, from the Middle English tipen, to overthrow or overturn, from
the Low German tippen, to tap lightly) . A polite form for the spirit
variously known as tib-cat, tippy-cat, tippy-bob, tabbie, tippie, tippler
or tittie. This creature was personalized as Old Tittie, Saint Tittie,
Saint Tit, Queen Tit, and King Tippler. The word confers with the
obsolete English tittie, a young and annoying sister and with tittle. to
whisper tattle or gossip". It may derive from the Anglo-Saxon titt, a teat or
nipple. Saint Tit had a festival-day in parts of Atlantic Canada, the day being
vaguely sited within the Yultide. Promises made on this day were as valid as
any agreement made "on the tenth of Never." "Titty" and "Suckim" were
favourite names for witch-familiars and in earlier times tib-cat defined a
woman of loose morals, while a tip was a dram of alcohol. A tippler
affected an alcoholic gait, while a tippy-bob was a person who dressed
inappropriately for a place or occasion. Tipt was formerly a word used to
identify a "sloshed" person, but tippling was understood to involve constant
inebriation falling short of complete intoxication.

In our past, bootleggers used to offer a "teddy or a tippy of

(moon)shine", the beverage served up in a long-necked twelve to sixteen inch
green bottle. According to Pratt, "Guys used to stand on the streets in
Summerside (Prince Edward Island) calling "teddies and quarts" meaning they
had them fopr sale...You'd get a gallon for six dollars, you'd get a teddie for a
dollar and a half, thirteen ounces...it was in old green beer bottles but was
only teddy when filled with shine." In Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, tibby is
a name given a hag or witch.

The business of tipping, or tippling, was never confined to a single

season, being enacted at Easter to establish the King Tipper (from Germ.
tippen, to tap lightly, as in toasting with drinks.) of villages in Lunenburg
County, Nova Scotia. Toasting was originally a part of this rite, it being
considered that the god-spirit was highest in the man who stood upright
through the greatest consumption of ale.

Drinking may have gone on behind the scenes of our local tipping
contests, but outwardly they were decent enough to attract Christian
ministers as participants. In the Celtic tales, a Breton giants bragged that
he was imortal unless someone happened to crush his soul-egg, "which is in a
pigeon, in the belly of a hare, in the belly of a wolf, in the belly of my brother,
who lives a thousand leagues away." Of course, the hero did smash the egg!
Some similar theory of opposing external souls has to be suppossed in the
Nova Scotian egg-tipping contests. Opponents travelled about with bags
filled with eggs, but usually reserved one thick-shelled specimen for duels.
Challenges were issued with the words, "How are you for a tip?" The pair
then "got cracking", the winner taking all the remaining eggs of his opponent.
The final victor gained all the eggs left to be had, and the distinction of being
named King Tipper.

It is noteworthy that battles betweeen Uller and Odin sometimes took

place at Easter, Ostara (or Eastere) being a name for Odin's wife Frigga.
Odin himself was the original Humpty Dumpty,being quite mortal and
breakable, and even entitled the great Ygg (Egg). We think it must also be
recalled that Odin's Aesir were originally opposed by the Vanir, or sea-giants,
who fought them to a draw. It may also be significant that the giants alone
possessed the secret of making alcoholic beverages, and that this was taken
from them by Odin and his kind. Eventually, the newcomers killed all but one
member of the giant race, but he retreated to the extreme north and raised
the race of frost-giants, who continued to fight with the land-gods.

These strange local traditions may very well celebrate an ancient

battle between water and fire, winter and summer, or death and
ressurection, for the German goddess Ostara is "considered a spirit of the
erath, or more correctly a symbol of Nature's ressurection after the long
flood of winter. This goddess was so dearly loved of the old Teutons that
even after Christianity had been introduced they retained so pleasant a
recollection of her, that they refused to have her degraded to the rank of a
demon, and transfered her name to their great Christian feast. It had long
been a custom to celebrate this day by the exchange of presents of coloured
eggs for the egg is the type of the beginning of life. The early Christains
continued to observe this rule, declaring, however, that it was also
symbolical of The Ressurection. In various parts of Germany stone altars
may still be seen, which are known as the Ostarastane, because they were
dedicated to the goddess. They are yet crowned with flowers (ca 1890) by
the young people who danced gaily around them by the light of great
bonfires- a species of popular gamnes practised until the middle of this
century, in spite of the priest's denunciations and of the repeatedly
published edicts against them."6

Speaking of this very peculiar Lunenburg ceremony, folklorist Helen

Creighton noticed that the eggs were often spoken of as laid by a hare
although "Originally the hare seems to have been a bird, which the ancient

6Guerber, H.A., The Norsemen, pp. 55-56.

Teutonic goddess Ostara transformed into a quadruped. For this reason the
hare is able to lay eggs on her festival at Easter time." Here we have to add
that Odin was Ygg and that the latter name is incorporated into the Old Norse
word "yggle" (eagle, an egg-laying animal). The eagle was more than a symbol
of Odin, being considered his totem animal. It was observed that Odin took
this form whenever he stood on the top-most branch of "yggdrasil" (Ygg's
horse, more commonly called the world-tree).
In pursuing the custom, local men always added a spruce bow to their
cap, evergreens being the common means of honouring the old pagan gods,
whose spirits rested in tall trees. In addition, contestants carried cabbage
leaves or carrots "for the rabbit who laid the eggs," a probable refernce to
Odin's continuing reproductive powers in spite of hius displacement by the
Christian God.

At Upper Kingsburg, in Nova Scotia Creighton found that eggs laid

three days apart were taken up on the theory that they had the strongest
shells. Often the tippling started on Good Friday and continuing through the
week-end, extending in some places into Easter Monday. Two or three dozen
eggs were usually carried by contestants and in some places the aim was to
smash the opponents egg at both the top and the bottom. Fifty years ago,
when these practises still went on, eggs sold at 10 cents a dozen, but
farmer sold his thick-shelled eggs at 25 cents each. Some egg-terrorists
blew out the contents of the shell and refilled the egg with a plastic-like
resin. Some people coloured their eggs with onion skin (yellow) or the dyes
decanted from red tissue paper etc. Substitutions. Fights over eggs. We
have seen brief references to similar activities among the Germans of
Ontario. At London it was said that competitors made the practise more
interesting by draining the shells and refilling them with sticky maple syrup.
It is an interesting side-note that those who consummed eggs once thought
that as they assimilated the spirit of the egg, so too the shell assumed some
of their spirit. Thus, eggshells were always carefully buried after eating, "to
prevent enemies from making magic with them..."

KIPPY

An water-spirit similar to the black cat.

Anglo-Saxon, cype, a basket for catching fish; a sharp or pointed stick

for catching fish; disorder, confusion, excitement. Kippen, frisky or lively.
Kip, a pointed hill like those favoured by the elfs; a bed for the night, a loding
house, particularly in a brothel. All similar to the Icelandic kippa, to cast out
a lure and then snatch it away. Kitty is a variant as is kittle, difficult or
ticklish.

In the Maritime Provinces, formerly, a well-dressed or attractive man

or woman; currently, a woman who is "a real dresser." Notice also kittardy,
as defined by the Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English: "A half-witted
or simple-minded person." We have also heard kittle, a gossip. All similar to
kitty, dilsey, trappy. tippy. kittardy, and kitten in their general meaning. Still
in use are cat, a quart container filled with gin and kitten, describing a half-
pint or pint container of the same liquid. It may be guessed that these
individuals were formerly the principals in pagan festivals. See tibby for a
more complete description.

KISIKU KLOQEJ

The foremost star-man, incarnate in the North Star.

Abenaki, Micmac dia., literally Old Man Star, the Pole Star; alternately
known as Mouhinchich, the Great Bear. The three closest stars were called
the Little Bears and were supposed to be pursuing hunters, "but they have
not yet be able to overtake it." LeClerq,(ca. 1680). The Old Man Star was
named "The one who seldom blinks" and ten neighbouring stars were declared
"the Bear's Den." This pole star was noticed to be immobile in the night-sky.
Since other stars wheeled abouty it in subservience it was assumed the
focus of some Great Spirit, possibly that of the ancient creator god.

According to the Abenaki myths all stars once had names and were as
animated as men or animals, the Milky Way being described as "The Spirit-
Road". Ruth Whitehead goes even further noting that "all animals were (at)
first stars living up in the sky." According to the myths they were brought
to earth by the thunderbird men at the request of Glooscap. The stars were
shape-changers and some men were considered to have been stars, or were
destined to become stars through reincarnation. Micmac belief parallels Old
Norse mythology, for Odin was said to be, or at least have his permanent
residence in the Pole Star, which was referred to as "Odin's Wain (wagon)."
The hunters who pursue the creator-god star have parallels in the fierce
Norse "wolves" that dog the stars, the sun and the moon of the Europe.
Occasionally, these spirits close on either the sun or the moon and there is
an eclipse, but to this point, both have survived although the following
monsters lust for the end of time. In the final battle the colossal Fenris wolf
is destined to slay Allfather Odin, its wide jaws finally crushing out "all the
space between heaven and earth."

There are inklings of space visitations in the tales of the star-men.

Alden Nowlan told one of these in Nine Micmac Legends (1933): When the Old
Ones still occupied their camps, two beautiful young sisters were overtaken
at night in the woods. As they slept, they dreamed of two young men and
when they awakened they found the pair before them in the real world.
Evbentually they married and camped with these two men, but they were
both intrigued and bothered by the fact that the men had prohibited them
from lifting an perfectly round flat stone that lay a few yards from their
wigwam. Eventually curiosity had its way and they did overturn the stone.
"What they saw made them start back and cry out with fear. For the stone
was like a trapdoor (in the sky)... Far below they saw the village of their
childhood surrounded by the forest in which they had fallen asleep." They
knew immediately that they had been abducted into World Above Sky and
complained to their husbands. The space-travellers were not unreasonable
and suggested they would return the girls to Earth World. This process
involved singing them down the world-tree which was known as a dangerous
process. The men advised that the women should kep their eyes shut
against vertigo until the heard the sound of squirrels chattering on the face
of their own planet. One did as instructed, but the other did not and plunged
to earth as a fireball.

The star-men were sometimes referred to as "spiders" since it was

suspected that they built webs in the sky and lowered themselves from the
stars on long life-lines. Like the girl who fell to earth, many of them had
accidents and their bodies, igniting with the friction of air, were seen as
meteor-traces The gates in the sky were well known, the chief being
identified as the evening star, which showed an inertness in its lack of a
twinkle. Other flat lights in the sky were also seen as trapdoors and these
have been identified as the other planets.

KITPOOSEAGUNOW

The son of Kukwu and a mortal Algonquin woman.

Wabenaki, Micmac dialect, “the one born after the mother’s death.”
One of the giant kin, Kitpooseagunow was placed on a raft destined for the
underworld when his father decided he could not care for him. The twelve
year old succeeded in passing through Ghost World, and emerged on the Bay
of Fundy reborn as a powerful maguician. His mortal blood made him yearn
to clear the world of all evil. As he progressed against various enemies he
grew in stature to twelve feet, and became somewhat conceited. He had not
heard of Glooscap. but when the two met they engaged one another in
magical and physical feats. The giant had to admit Glooscap’s superiority,
but like his father before him, became a friend to the culture-hero.

KNOCKY-BOOH

An earth spirit corresponding with the German poltergeist.

Also seen as knowie-booh and knockie-boogey. From the Anglo-

Saxon verb cnocian, perhaps imitative in origin, intended to represent the
sound of a blow, or blows, being struck + booh, an interjection meant to
create fear or surprise." The first source of this word is possibly the Gaelic
cnoc (pronounced knock), a rounded hill while the latter word may relate to
their bo, cow. The cnocs were modest rounded hills used as the sites of
fire-festivals; they may be compared with laws, which were flat-topped hills
where law-making and judiciary activities took place. Cnocs were also
traditionally the dwelling places of the mythic side-hill people who the Gaels
called the sidhean. Refered to locally as knocky-balls, an obvious phoentic
variant.

The klausbauf is considered a very devillish individual of this kind, with

"horns, long fingers and a long nose" and the nether parts of a goat or some
other male animal, and they may well be house-bucks, but it is difficult to be
certain for they are normally invisible. The human forerunner is not one of
this tribe, since he only knocks to announce the death of his human
counterpart.

Other Germanic spirits in this class include the knicker-knocker,

knockerling, pulter klaus (pulter Nicholas, or Wuotan), the ekerken, klopferle
and poppele. Those that reside in mines include the tommy knocker, or
bodach of the mine, and the Welsh coblynau. The knockers may warn of
death (in a general rather than a particular fashion) when they give three
loud, distinct raps. Although they may be independent entities some are
considered to be overactive cowalkers of the living or revanters of the dead.
 There are more local reports centering on this spirit than any other,
and while the most obvious characteristic of the knocky-booh is "poltering"
or knocking from within the walls, or floors, of a house, these invisible spirits
often reveal their presence in an offbeat manner: In Scottish Cape Breton
the perception is often that of a shrill bagpipe sound invariably followed by
news of a death in the community. Helen Creighton interviwed people who
heard them as galloping horses, phantom walkers, or simply as the sound of
objects being dropped without echo or the usual reverbrations. In a few
instances beautiful music was heard or the tinkling of cow bells but the
sound was more likely to be that of assembled human voices or even a
protracted scream.

Richard Hartlan of South East Passage, Nova Scotia, noted: "I never
heard of knock-a-balls until I visited the Smith family at Blanche (Nova
Scotia)...They are knockings (there) which have no natural explanation." A
woman she interviewed said, "If we took the Bible and opened it we wouldn't
hear a sound but, if we closed it we would hear knockings. THe reason we
heard these sounds was on account of a girl named Cordelia. One time a
fellow had been cast away from a ship on the shore near here and he stayed
around these parts for a while. He took a shine to Cordelia and went around
with her bur, when he wanted to marry her, she wouldn't have him. He got
mad then and said he would send something to annoy her. It was then that
we bagan to hear the knock-a-balls. When they first started, the rest of us
was afraid, but the girl wasn't. She would ask questions and it would knock
out the answers. We supoposed he did it through a medium. One night a
friend of hers slept with her and she got frightened because it knocked
beside the bed. Other things happened too like my gun being thrown rattle
thrash across the room and all the wood falling from the woodpile, Mainly
though it followed Cordelia. It would follow her down the stairs and even to
the barn. People came around to hear it and it stayed in the room with her,
so she couldn't have done it herself.

"My father wasn't frightened of anything and he asked...Are you from

the devil? It said, "Yes," (Three knocks meant yes) Then he said "Are you
from the Lord?" and it didn't answer anything. Only (then) the Bible opened
(and) the noise would stop." 7

7Creighton, Helen, Bluenose Ghosts Toronto (1976) pp. 276-277.

 In the above case the unwanted spirit had a suspected genesis and a
short but noisy career, but this was not always true. An elderly gentleman
at East River, Tiverton, Nova Scotia, had no idea why his home was "haunted"
by ghostly footsteps, doors that opened and closed without cost and softly
tinkling cow-bells but he enjoyed the company and like a few others regarded
the knocky booh as an omen of good fortune.8

Some people felt that knockies were revanters (which see) or ghosts
of the uneasy and unquiet dead. This was thought to be the case at Thorne's
Cove in Nova Scotia which had a reputation as a house where slaves had been
cruelly treated and a peddlar murdered. At times doors rattled, latches
lifted without human help and strange noises were heard, "like the jumping
and shuffling of two men" fighting for theri lives. Mr. Abram Thorne who
noted that "only certain ones would hear and see them. Others would live in
the house for years and never hear a thing."

Although spirits of the dead were implicated in some od the stories

which have been recounted it appears that cowalkers could be roused to seek
vengeance on behalf of the person they represented in the spirit world. A
case in point was at Oyster Pond, Nova Scotia, where residents of a home
experienced the feeling of an icy hand coming to rest on their face. From
time to time they observed water running from an unprimed puimp and heard
violent noises as window panes shook withouit cause.
NS, Oyster Pond, BG, p. 252: hand like ice over face. Shaking window pane;
running pump. One person who lived nearby suggested that nobody could live
peacefully in this haunted house because "because there was a family once
who had turned their own father out (of the place) and treated him cruelly.
When he was still alive things began to happen." As we have already noted
victims were not considered the sole source of poltergeists. A
Charlottetown, BG, landholder noted that "the spirit of a person who
oppressed the poor might be around for generations." and pointed to
episodes of door-slamming and moaning in his own home as a knocky-booh
inspired by the mean-spirit of a man who had been parsimonious.

At Saint Croix, Nova Scotia, Helen Creighton was told about problems
at a house where an Englishman nmaed Stanley had murdered a farmer
named Freeman Harvey. Since the murderer was a small man he found it
difficult to conceal the deed and as a stop-gap measure beheaded his victim,

8Creighton, Bluenose Ghosts, p. 252.

placed the head under a wooden bucket and the body beneath a number of
potatoe bags. In the week that followed he let it be known that he had
purchased the Harvey farm and rented rooms to a family named Fisher.
Almost immediately the Fishers heard sounds of wrestling from the front
hall where the murder had occured, but when they came to investigate the
sounds would migrate to an adjoining room. Shortly after blood stains were
seen throughout the front hall, all showing through a heavy layer of fresh
paint. Although Stanley made repeated efforts to cover them no whitewash
or paint appeared capable of disguising what had happened. Stanley
confessed and was punished for the crime but the blood stains could never
be removed until the house burned to the ground.9

A prototypical knocker haunted the Reinsborough house in the

countryside near Moncton, New Brunswick. It stamped its feet, sang
exuberantly and was finally driven to a single room after a failed exorcism.
The Earl Stevenson house at Moulies River, also in New Brunswick, was the
scene of house-jarring crashes in nineteen fifty-five. Mrs. Stevenson
described these "racketing spirits" as producing a sound "as loud as plane
crashes I had heard in England in the Second World War." When Joan tapped
on the walls, she was answered. Fortunately the epidemic of noise ended
after two weeks. The Allan Hartlings of South East Passage, Nova Scotia,
had troubles with lifting door-latches and the noise of preserve jars
upsetting in a storage room although no damage was ever found. In this
case, the spirit was so persistent the family reacted by surrounding the
original "haunted" structure with a number of unafflicted ells and lean-tos.

A more widely publicized case involved the Louis Hilchie family at

nearby Eastern Passage, which is near Dartmoth. There, starting the day
before Christmas in nineteen thirty-four, there occured a sequence of very
startling eevnts: At first the Christmas tree jumped unexpectedly into the
air. The next day a kitchen sideboard went airborne, crashed into the stove
and bounced off hitting the ceiling. Next the washing machine broke its
moorings and began skidding back and forth across the floor. Cupboard
doors opened and closed and the ingredients for making a cake flew into a
mixing bowl without help from human hands. The police were called in after
five year old Robert Hilchie was neasrly brained by a hammer that came
flying through the air. All that the law-officers could do was watch in
amazement as a bucket of lard levitated its way down the stairway from the

9Creighton, Helen Bluenose Ghosts Halifax (1976) pp, 256-257.

second floor landing between the two Hilchie girls who were playing on the
floor. Earl Beatty, Maritime manager for United Press went to the house for
a story. As he and a fellow journalist approached the place they were
greeted by a huge metal hoop that came flying at them across the lawn.
There were no markings in the snow to suggest that anyone had picked up
the hoop, and the two visiting newsmen were disconcerted to discover that
neither of them had the strength to lift it.

From the above it might appear that all the action took place in Nova
Scotia, but although more incidents have been reported from that province
the knockies are well known in New Brunswick: At Lewisville, Stuart Trueman
reported tales from a house bedevilled by the sounds of clicking heels, crying
and "noises like fighting, or pushing furniture around..." At Lincoln, on the
Saint John River, he was told of a house filled with "loud creaking," and
"cracking noises, as if boards were being pulled apart, like wreckers tearing
(at) a house." At Barnaby River, a dead resident had his place taken by a
very physical knocky-booh. Sounds of an invisible wrecking crew began with
the internment of the body and a neighbour, visiting the house was met by "a
blast of wind blew me right out the door..." This house was offered for sale
at $900 but there were no takers. On remote Cheyney's Island, which is
southeast of Grand Manan Annie Foote heard recurrent "pounding, whistling,
talking, singing. I thought it was someone working on an uncompleted camp
near by; but it was locked, and no one was there." On the Keswick
a suicide occured on August 11 at precisely 11 pm. On the anniversary of
this date a window in the room where the death took place brusts outward
with great violence but no logical explanation. While many of our residents
have been cowed, or even driven out, by such activities, some have displayed
a formidible forbearance. Ryan's Castle poltergeist used to reside in a
massive stone building immediately northwest of Saint John. In the hey-day
of activity doors opened and slammed shut and knives went flying across the
rooms to the horror of those unfamiliar with the situation. The owner of the
residence simply advised his guests, "It's only mother. She'll be gone
shortly."

Flying knives are modest manifestations, several houses having served

as racecourses for invisible galloping horses or other animals includin dogs,
cats, rats and pigs. In some places electrical appliances have behaved
erratically and lamps have been smashed, seemingly in a spontaneous
fashion. On completely isolated Green Island, in Mahone Bay, lightkeepers
have seen a rubberbooted walker as forerunner the forerunner of storm; but
this was not as terrifying as the very real destruction of storm doors on
winless nights, the sounds of untraceable steps to as far as the door of
lighthouse; and the actual smashing of light on three separate occasions.
The winding chain that drove the old mechanical turning mechanism has fallen
with the sound of a truckload of tin being dumped. The fire has roared in a
fuelless stove; pans have rattleds; there have been sounds very like that of
bowling. Tenders have hear shingle nails being driven when there were no
carpenters about and have invriable heard three knocks before shattering of
the glass globe that housed the light.

The invisible knocky-boohs like to move lumber, glass and barrels, but
from the times they drop these commodities, are not very good at it. In a
jest-full mood they like to whip bedclothes from the beds of sleepers and will
even engage in tugs of war over the ownership of sheets. They have also
been known to levitate blankets and sheets above a sleeping human or even
give the bed a good shaking if the cold air doesn't bring him to wakefulness.
At Seabright, Nova Scotia, an ingenious spirit regularly knotted clothes on
the line and pleated the sheets while men and women slept. Maritimers have
heard creatures from the unseen world crawling on their roofs, have
experienced the sound of a rock-like phantom rainfall, heard invisible
woodpiles fall and have stood aghast while windows raised or fell without
human aid. Men have exorcised, abandoned, fenced off and demolished
houses, or parts of houses, affected by virutant haunts but even the
destruction of a haunted house has not always eliminated the problem. When
one such house was removed from Devil's Island in Halifax Harbour the wood
was incoroprated into other buildings and bad luck followed. The owner of
the new structure wryly reported that something untoward always occured
on the twentieth day of each month.

Things are not always as they seem: Residents of one Truro dwelling
were bothered by a errie sounds which seemed to focus on the fireplace.
They might have hired an exorcist or a psychic but instead took on a
carpenter, who knew something of old country ways. It was once
commonplace to cement harps into the old stone-built fireplaces, relying on
the rush of air up the chimey to produce pleasant if random melodies. Sure
enough the workman found remnants of a harp just out of sight beyond the
iron kettle swing, its strings either broken or loosened so that it produced
nothing more than a banshee wail. Of course, the production of uncanny
sounds was never beyond the ability of a good ventriloquist, and we know
that they occasionally passed through the area. As early as 1809, the Royal
Gazette of Fredericton advertised: "Ventriloquism. For Six Nights
(positively no longer) At the House of Mrs. Cock's." The body of the ad went
on to promote "Mr. Rannie, Ventriloquist" who was informing the populace of
neighbouring Saint John that he would soon be in town displaying his "singular
power of Nature." Although he represented himself as the only person "in
Europe or America possessing this inestimable gift" it is unlikely that this
"Black Art" was untended by lesser men and women.

Nevertheless, there were cases which were inexplicable and we

particularly recommend Roland Sherwoods tale of the highly unusual
adventures of Esther Cox of Truro Nova Scotia (briefly cited elsewhere) as
well as the tale of the Caledonia MIlls knocky-booh which is represented in the
work of several writers.

KRISKRINGLER

The Christianized spirit of the Yule.

German, Krist, Christ + kringle, to bend one's will to that of another;

to shrink away; to crouch in servility, humility or terror. Similar to the
English, cringe. Similar to the belsnickle, horrible, mummer, callithumpian or
calluinn man. The leading spirit of the host of Christmas-tide maskers once
commonly found in Atlantic Canada.

The kriskringler is particular to Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.

Poteet describes the act of kris-krinklin as "mummering or dressing in
costumes and masks and begging treats door-to-door at Christmas tide.
The krsikringler is essentially a stand in for the pagan god Woutan, who the
Anglo-Saxons called Woden

KUKWEES, KOOKWAYS

Cannibalistic earth spirits incarnate as giants.

Abenaki, Micmac dia., pronounced kukwesk; sometimes written

kookwees, confers with Passamaquoddys canoos; the word has something
of the sense of kaqtukwaq “thunder.” "Giants covered with hair. They
crave human flesh. The sound of their screams cause death."

Kukwees was the name given the northeastern bigfoot by the Micmac
Indians of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. They were also known west of the
Saint John River, where the Woolastook tribesmen identified them as the
"canoose". An aboriginal described them as, "giants covered with hair. They
crave human flesh and the sound of their screams cause death." Like all of
the hairy-bodied "devils", the kukwees was a cavern-dweller whose lair was
found in the deepest forests. The tribes of the east concurred with the
ancient Celts and the Norse in recognizing the giants as a race who had
occupied their Earth World prior to the Great Flood. Again, it was thought
that they were the losers in some ancient quarrel and thus bound to the
underworld. Kluscap inadvertently released them when his laser opened a
gate in Perce Rock, but he remained in Earth World until they were either
killed or imprisoned beneath the earth. The village named Canoose, located in
southwestern New Brunswick may be a memorial to them or may locate the
place where the last of them "disappeared into the earth."

While they walked the surface world they were a dangerous foe,
because they possesssed great physical strength. The Micmacs used to
avoid the "screaming death" by rendering "qamu", or moose fat, which they
used to stopper their ears against sound. Those whose sense of hearing was
acute sometimes took the extra precaution of rolling themselves several
times within their sleeping robes. At that it was said that the "Sounds of
Power" would strike men and women like a physical blow in spite of every
precaution. The kukwees were said to scream three times coming into a
battle, each sound being less lethal than the last. Fortunately the processs
could not be repeated without recharging of the giant's vocal cords. At that
they remained a hazard for the Indians said that the kukwees used whole
trees as their spears and arrows. Like the Fomors,the kukwess cannibalized
men in the belief that this added to their accumulated spirit. Like the Celtic
giants, they were also accomplished shape-changers using outer garmets as
the focus for their power. Ordinary men sought these "Robes of Power" in
order to acquire the strength of the former wearers. Although the robes
were oversize for men it was noticed that they grew to fill them when they
first tried them. In doing so, the possessor became possessed: "Their Power
fills him; their knowledge and strength come to him."

Like the wendigou, the kukwess were "those who are always hungry",
and therefore appear to be personifications of famine. They sometimes
lived for brief spells with a human of the opposite sex, but this was usually a
dangerous match for the latter. When Kitpusiaqnaw's kukwess grandmother
permitted her son to marry a human woman he felt he could not live without
the "old bear" refrained from eating her until the boy had tired of his new toy
and given permission. This old kukwees dearly loved her husband and after
she had eaten him she mused, "My poor old man, the dear old fellow, he had a
very sweet liver!"

KUKWU

The giant spirit whose bad temper produced earthquakes.

Wabenaki, Micmac dialect, earthquake. One of the kukwees, or

“giants,” a creature noted for his tendancy to stamp his feet during temper
tantrums. He accompanied Glooscap, when the latter made public entrances
and exits. In a moment of reason the giant married a mortal woman who
was able to control the trembling of the earth, but she died leaving him alone
to raise their son Kitooseagunow. Realizing he was likely to be a violent
parent, Kukwu placed the child on a raft on a river that travelled through
Ghost World. Mourning the loss of his wife, the thunder giant moved from
the Maritimes, which is why others now suffer from the effects of his
tantrums, while this region is largely untroubled by trembling earth.

KULU

The bird-spirit form of certain skilled human magicians.

Abenaki, Micmac dia., thunderbird; "a monster in size, into the form of
which certain chiefs, who were wizards, powwows and cannibals, are able to
transform themselves, retaining their intelligence, and able at will again to
resume the shape of a man...These birds are described in some legends as
able to carry a great number of men on their backs at once, along with
immense piles of fresh meat; they have to be fed every few minutes with an
whole quarter of beef, which is thrust into the mouth while they are on the
wing." Silas Rand, 1848. These creatures resemble the kaqtukwaq (which,
see).

"The Indians (tell a tale) of a boy who was carried away by a large bird
called a Gulloua, who buildeth his nest on a high rock or mountain...the gulloua
came diving through the air, grasped the boy in her talons, and although he
was nearly eight or ten years of age, she soared aloft and laid him in her
nest, food for her young." (John Gyles, ca 1690.)
 In 1894 Susan Barss of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, told Silas
Rand of this remarkable shape-changer, "a remarkable bird. a monster in
size, into the form of which certain sanguinary chiefs, who are wizards,
powwows (sic buoinaq) and cannibals, are able to transform themselves,
retaining their intelligence, and able at will again to resume the shape of
men..." These birds were described as able to carry a great number of men
at one time, along with immense piles of meat: "...thye had to be fed with a
whole quarter of beef, which was thrust into the mouth, while they are on
the wing."

Kulu-men were known to the Woolastooks (Maliseets) as well as the

Micmacs, and while John Gyles was a captive among them he spoke of the
"gulloua", "a bird who buildeth his nest on a high rock or mountain. A boy was
hunting with his bow and arrow at the foot of a rocky mountain, when the
gulloua came diving through the air, grasped the boy in her talons, and
although he was eight or ten years of age, she soared aloft and laid him in
her nest, food for her young."

If the kulus required food on the wing, they remained voracious, and
could be cannibalistic, when they were on the ground. One of their chiefs ate
his own kind: "he goes round and round the circles (of wigwams) eating first
one, and then the next, and then the next." Men usually tried to kill them but
some argued for their lives; thus young Kulusi suggested, "Do not kill me. And
when I am full grown I can fly you over great distances. I will take you to
places from which you can find the most beautiful women from which to
choose a wife. I will take you to World Above Earth..." It is clear that the
kulus and men were one species for the man who was promised a beautiful
wife married a kulu-woman and they had a child. The baby was peculiar in his
tendancy to shape-change into a bird without warning, but he could be
reconstituted as a man at a touch from the father.

Kulusi lived for a time in Sky World, where he shared a wigwam with
this man, his wife, the wife's sister, and the child but they were forces to
leave the World Above Earth: "The two women, the little baby, the man, all
sit on the back of Kulusi in his Great Bird Shape, and they hold on to all those
bundles of furs and things, and Kulusi leaps from the cliff into the sky, into
the clouds. Lower and lower he sails down the wind, until they can see the
Earth World below. The land rushes up towards them, growing in their eyes
until they see the old camp, and wigwam of the young man's family. The old
people are still alive. They are glad to see their son again. They welcome his
wife and sister, they play with the baby. And the People of that camp make
a feast. They make a feast for the young man and Kulusi and they are
eating and dancing and playing. They are eating dancing all night long."

KWEEMOO

The air spirit which served as Glooscap’s messenger.

Wabenaki, Micmac dialect, the loon.

LITTLE FOLK

Earth-spirits, the diminutive inhabitants of the hollow hills.

English, always plural, from the Anglo-Saxon, lytel, initially thin, later a
short or unimportant person; folc, a group of related people forming tribes
and possibly a rudimentary nation. Little is sometimes combined with the
Anglo-Norman, people, which suggests a more varied collection of individuals
the basis of a nation. Confers with the Anglo-Saxon lytig, lying or deceitful
and lot, deceit. Obsolete meanings of the word include few in number, or
small in dignity, power or efficiency. The related word little-good (little
god) is a rarely seen former designation for the Devil. The word litting, a
small child or animal, is also archaic, but litter is strill used. This
comparative identifies the folk variously known as the fay, elfs, sidh, or
mikumweesu, who are individual described under these headings.

LOLLYGAGGER

An slothful sea-spirit sometimes incarnate in men.

Anglo-Saxon, lollard, confering with loller, an idle fellow, an indiffereent

toiler. Similar to the Icelandic lolla. to act lazily and lolla, laziness and to
the Old Danish word lollen, to sit by the fire. Resembling the English words
lill and lull, tp hang loosely, droop or dangle + gag. Also, lall, to cry out.
The equivalent of the Middle English gaggen, to retch, to stop up someones
mouth, to silence by authority of person or simple violence. To choke. A
word imitative of the sound of choking. Gaggle and giggle are related
words.
Locally seen written as lallygagger. In the Prince Edward Island Dictionary
of English lolly is defined as "soft, semi-congealed ice or floating snow",
material difficult to move through and promoting lallygagging among
oarsmen. In the days of sail the presence of lolly in the Northumberland
Strait separating The Island from Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick, meant a
torture of paddling and poling extending the passage to as much as seven
hours. Often men found they could not fight the forming ice nor walk home
across a solid surface hence enforced sloth. In the earliest days it was
considered that all such difficulties could be laid to the inspiration of
antagonistic nature-spirits. Similar to lallygigging, a sport described by
Poteet: "The Chester (Nova Scotia) version of "lollygagging"; what the boys
and girls do in lover's lane."

LOUP GAROU

A shape-changing wolf-man.

Acadian French, loup (lu), m.,wolf, waster; garou, wer(e), m., man;
alternately a bear spirit similar to the English bugbear.

Father Chaisson makes one brief reference to this creature which is

otherwise not very evident in local folklore. "Another form of sorcery known
in Acadia involved werewolves, who had sold their souls to the devil and were
transformed into beasts at night and prowled about the villages terrorizing
the inhabitants. In most areas...these unfortunates could not be released
until they were wounded and a drop of their blood shed; while at Baie Sainte-
Marie, on the other hand, such an event would make it impossible to escape
their condition.

LOX

A mortal earth spirit of the Abenakis; the wonder-worker

known widely as a trickster.

Abenaki, lox, the wolverine, "a very fierce and mischevious creature,
about the bigness of a middling dog, having short legs, broad feet and very
sharp claws, and in my opinion may be reckoned a species of cat. THey will
climb trees and wait for a moose and other animals which feed below, and
when opportunity presents, jump upon and strike their claws in them so fast
that they will hang on them till they have gnawed the main never in their neck
asunder, which causes their death..." - John Gyles. The description was
correct, but Gyles was speaking of a member of the weasel or polecat
(poultry cat) rather than the true cat family. The Woolostook name for this
animal was "carcajou", or black devil, a name they extended to white men who
cheated them. This creature is sometomes considered synonymous with
Malsum the evil twin of the god-hero known as glooscap.

The Abenaki character personalized as Lox is similar to Nanabozho of

Chippewa mythology and the Wisakedjak (Whisky Jack) of the Crees. He is
Coyote on the western plains and Raven among tribes of the Pacific coast.
These shape changers appeared in human or animal form. In human disguise,
the trickster was sometimes benevolent toward mankind, but in totem form,
he was a model for malicious mischief. It has been noted that Glooscap "the
main character in the stories of the Micmacs and the Malecites ...appears
only as a benefactor and as a human or superhuman being, never as a
trickster or an animal." This is because the culture-hero had his alter ego in
the twin brother known as Malsum, who he finally fought and killed. While
Glooscap aided the creator-god in inspiring men and the useful animals,
Malsum struggled mightily to raise up a small mound of clay and only
succeeeded in creating Lox. If this animal was small, it incorporated all of
Malsum's jealouy and hatred for his brother. Like the Norse god Loki, or the
tale-bearing squirrel that infested the branches of their world-tree, Lox
served his master by spreading the rumour that Glooscap and Malsum were
one and by gathering men to rise against him. At this, Glooscap destroyed
his brother but was apprently unable, or unwilling, to bring down his single
creation, thus Lox continued to spread dissent and damaging gossip among
men.

Speaking to the subject, a Passamaquoddy noted: "Don't live with mean

people if you can help it. They will turn your greatest sorrow to their own
account if they can. Bad habits (such as those entertained by Lox) get to be
devilish second nature. One dead herring is not much (to bear), but one by
one you may get such a heap as to stink out a whole village."10

Lox's approach to humour is made apparent in his interaction with Mrs.

Bear, a middle-aged widow, who house-mate was another woman of somewhat
advanced age. One night as the two ladies lay asleep "witusoodijik" (heads to

10Anastas, Peter, Glooscap's Children, p. 49.

feet) with their backs to the fire, Master Lox, The Indian Devil, crept in
under the wigwam bringing with him long sapling pole. Seeing some potential
for mayhem in their positions, he lighted the end of the pole in the fire, and
touched the burning point first to the foot of one woman and then to the
other. Mrs. Bear woke up and accused her companion and then the other
awoke and levied a counter-claim of distress. Soon the two were fighting,
and at this Lox fled to the outside of the wigwam where he burst from
laughter and fell down dead.

In the morning, the women had given off warfare and finding the corpse
of some animal in their yard decided to cook it for breakfast. They skinned
Lox, hung the kettle to boil and popped him in. Feeling the scald, the Devil
came to life and leaped clear of the kettle, grabbed his skin in passing and
retreated into the greenwood. At that, Lox had time to consider a parting
trick. As he left he kicked over the pot sending scalding water into the fire,
which threw up ashes blinding Mrs. Bear.

John Gyles reported: "The wolverines go into wigwams which have been
left for a time, scatter things abroad, and most filthily pollute them with
odure. I have heard the Indians say that this animal has sometimes pulled
their guns from under their heads while they were asleep and left them so
defiled. An Indian told me that having left his wigwam, with sundry things on
the scaffold among which was a birchen flask containing several pounds of
powder, he found at his return, much to his surprise and grief, that a
wolverine had visited it, mounted the scaffold, hove down bag and baggage.
The powder flask happening to fall into the fire, exploded, blowing up the
wolverine, and scattering the wigwam in all directions. At length he found
the creature, blind from the blast, wandering backward and forward, and he
had the satisfaction of kicking and beating him about. This, in a great
measure, made up their loss, and then they could contentedly pick up their
utensils and rig out their wigwam."11

Fierce, malicious, and diabolically cunning, this animal eventually

became the bane of white travellers and trappers. In 1791 the Scottish
writer Patrick Campbell noted that one of these beasts had entered a
trappers hut, untied a carefully secured bundle of furs, and hild them "piling
them under snow in heaps in a thousand different parts of the place."

11Gyles,John, Memoirs of Strange Adventures, Odd Deliverances etc,

no place of publication, 1869, pp. 40-41.
Campbell noted that where Indians set out a trap line, Lox would not rest
until he had sabataged the whole chain, even where it was ten miles long.
The spirit of Lox was abroad among men at the time of "The Turning of
the Brain", a bacchanal at the end of winter. This holiday was very like the
European Yule except that it took fifteen days following the twenty-second
day of February. A missionary-observer noted, "This is The Time of all Kinds
of Fooleries...with everyone disguised in a thousand ridiculous Ways. They
break and overset every Thing, and no Body dares contradict it...they give a
good Drubbing (while disguised) to those they think have done them Wrong.
But when the Festival is over, every Thing must be forgot...One would have
taken them in this state for a People drink or stark mad."

Indian Captive John Gyles notes: “I was once travelling a little way
behind several Indians and, hearing them laugh merrily, when I came up I
asked them the cause of their laughter. Tley showed me the track of a
moose, and how a wolverene had climbed a tree, and where he had jumped off
upon the moose. It so happened that the moose had taken several large
leaps and come up under the branch of a tree, which striking the wolverene,
broke his hold and tore him off; and by the tracks in the snow it appeared he
went off another way with short steps, as if he had been stunned by the blow
that had broken his hold. The Indians were wonderfully pleased that the
moose had thus outwitted the mischievous wolverene.”

LUCIFEE

The Wabenaki wild cat. Sometimes another name for Lox.

Anglo-Norman, lucifer, “bringing light,” the morning star. The Latin

rendering of the Hebrew helil, “day-star,” the planet Venus. Satan as a
rebel archangel before the fall, thus a demonic character.

At Jordan Falls, Nova Scotia (1949): “I don’t rightly know what they
are, maybe like a cross atween a wolf and a wildcat, only they’re tied up, with
the Devil, so the story goes. I’ve heard my father tell of one thatcome out
and yelled near the village when he was a boy. The men grabbed their
muskets and took after it, for the snow was soft for tracking. They got into
the woods and then they quit. There was the critter’s tracks plain as day,
but when it comes to a big tree there was one half the tracks on one side of
it, and half the tracks on the other side. They weren’t following that sort of
thing, not them!”12

LUTIN

An earth spirit whose chief forms are that of a horse, or a

man.

Acadian French, (lyte-in) plural lutine, m., a hobgoblin, sprite, elf;

confers with lutiner, to plague or tease. Perhaps related to the Old French
leut, the branch or trunk of a tree. Keightley says this word is also written
as lubin and as luyton. He says that this spirit may relate to the Germanic
Good Lubber, "to whom the bones of animals used to be offered at
Mansfield... "In" is a mere termination, perhaps like the English "on", a
diminuation..." Although this author thinks otherwise, we supect he is tied
linguistically to Loki, the fire god of the north, as well as the English, lob-
lie-by-fire the leprachaun and the sun-god Lugh, both of Ireland . The
sea-spirits of this species are the lutin du mer.

Father Chaisson notes that: "Among the creatures of fantasy which

populated the world of Acadian legends, eleves are undoubtedly among the
most important, in the sense that everyone believed in them. These tiny
creatures in human form were particularly interested in horses. They would
come into the stables at night and braid the animal's manes into stirrups,
then, mounted astride their necks, they would take the horses outside and
gallop them across the fields for hours. The elves took great care of the
mounts they had selected. They would feed and water them. Horses cared
for by elves were always fat and healthy."

M’

The M’ is the personal possessive pronoun referring to Glooscap.

Thus M’anghemak, “Glooscap’s snowshoes.” Near the lighthouse at Dice’s

Head, Castine, Maine, there once were marks on a ledge believed to have been
snowshoe prints impressed in the living rock by the hero as he leaped across
Penobscot Bay pursuing a giant moose. Clara Neptune noted wryly that you
could “see his prints plain till the white folks spoil ‘em.”

12Bird, Will R., This Is Nova Scotia (1950) p. 155.

There is a legend that Glooscap killed a giant moose whose carcasse became
a hill known as Kemo. He threw down his kettle and left it as Kettle, or Little
Spencer Mountain. Where he threw down his pack there is M’sabotawan, also
called Big Spencer Mountain.

MAIN JOHN

A personifiaction of the chief god of the sea.

Anglo-Saxon maegen, one having great force of strength and

personality; John, a familiar form of the Latin Johannes from a Hebrew
word meaning beloved of God. Confers with Ivan and Jane and diminished as
Johnny, Jack or Jock. Also known as "the old man", the "main john" was
the local superintendent of wood's-work, a vertible god within his sphere,
sometimes regarded as the Devil incarnate. The word main is confluent with
the Gaelic mor, great, famed.

John Bull personified the nation called England, but all powerful god-
kings have been maligned out of their hearing. Thus, john-trot was a name
once applied to a dull, uncultivated boor, while a john-thomas was a liveried
servant and john thomson's man an individual under the thumb of his wife.
Names such as John O'Groats, John O'Nokes and John-a-Stiles were
used to identify individuals who were best left unnamed (for fear of drawing
their unwanted attention). The Most noteworthy mythical John was Little
John, a giant and the right-hand man of the god-king Robin Hood. Saint John
the Baptist had Midsummer's"Day (June 24) marked as his festival. This
was probably instituted to displace the worship of a pagan god since
Midsummer Eve is distinguished as "the most widely diffused and most
solemn of all the yearly festivals celebrated by the (pre-Christian) Aryans in
Europe."

The god who was displaced persisted in German folklore as Master

Johannes, "the Lord of the Northern Mountains", leading to the suspicion he
was either Thor or Wuotan. Johannes was the best known hey-hey man
(reinforcing the idea that he was Wuotan). He appeared in a bewildering
array of shapes and forms: a woodcutter, monk, donkey, charcoal-burner,
herb-gatherer, woodsman, farmer, hunter, messenger, guide, horse or dog.
In these forms he supplied information, or apparitions, that led men into the
swamps and deep forests, where they frequently lost their way and their
lives. In addition to adjusting the weather he was known to magically change
fruit into dung, roots into poisonous snakes; turn men's wigs into donkey-
tails, cause people ears or noses to grow in proportion to their gossip, and
transform straw into horses or vice-versa at his whim.

Locally, a john may be the client of a prostitute or a make-shift

outdoor latrine. John-down is a Newfoundland nickname for the fulmar, a
gull-like bird common in our part of the North Atlantic. This bird is noted as
an eater of offal. Johnny-bad-luck is the sea-going joner or jonah the
equivalent of the land-based jinxer or hoodoo. See joner for a more complete
explanation of this spirit.

MALSUM

A giant, the evil twin brother of Glooscap.

Glooscap’s “creations” included the loons, two of which he conscripted as his

“dogs” (beasts of burden). They proved unequal to the tasks he set and
because they went AWOL so frequently, he harnessed two wolves to do his
heavy work. The Celtic death-god, Crom the Crooked, also had a pair of
dogs and so did Uller/Odin. In some traditions Glooscap was always
accompanied by an alter-ego, sometimes called Earthquake, but as often
identified as the spirit of the four seasons, the one who kept the sun and
moon in their courses. As such Glooscap is a sun-god, like Lugh, and the
wolves he kept are, clearly, the spirit of his disembodied brother Malsum
who he killed to bring order to the worlds. One dog is described as bone-
white the other pit-black, possibly symbolizing day and night; good and evil,
and the complex of things which cluster about these concepts. In the Norse
and Celtic tales the sun-dogs hunt the sun just as other warriors pursue the
North Star and the moon. In the Norse version of the wolves of day were
Skoll and Hati, whose aim has always been that of devouring the sun, thus
recreating primal chaos. At times of the eclipses it was noticed that the
wolves nearly succeeded, but the people always shouted encouragement and
the startled beasts always dropped back. In the Glooscap legends it is
always made clear that the last days are those of Malusm the Wolf, the
frost giants, the Winter-god, Stone-giants, and Thunderbird folk, all powers
of evil. It is said that the overthrow of the last days will be announced by a
terrible earthquake set off by Kulpejotei (Glooscap) just before the final
battle of good and evil. See Lox and Glooscap.

MANAGAMESWAKAMAQ
 The river or rock fairies.

Passamaquoddy. The rivers of the region were considered adjuncts of the

ocean, the magic of place being inversely related to the distance from the
abyss. Larger rivers were considered the most powerful. Thus the Saint
Lawrence was considered more potent that the St. John, which is the largest
flowing into the Bay of Fundy. The latter is no dwarf: Rising in northern
Maine it is separated from the Penobscot by the famous Indian “Northeast
Carry” (the site of Champlain’s Norumbega. This powerful river is four
hundred and fifty miles in length, and the largest body of water between the
St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. It swings in a wide half circle in its first
145 miles of travel entirely within the State of Maine. Within New Brunswick
it forms 75 miles of border with the United States until it approaches Grand
Falls. The remainder of its course is entirely within New Brunswick, where it
gets innumerable tributaries, some having their headwaters close to the St.
Lawrence. Having drained 26,000 square miles, this extraordinary system
plunges twice daily between high perpendicular fault-cliffs, at the “Narrows”
and falls into Saint John Harbour where it argues perpetually with the tides
of the Bay. As we have noted elsewhere, a powerful manitou was said to
exist incarnate as the Reversing Falls which run between these last two
locations.

The clefts in the Narrows, and similar rock faces elsewhere, were
observed to be edalawikekhadimuk , “places where they make markings or
writings on the rock.” “They” in this instance is the managameswakamaq ,
the “rock fairies,” who were sometimes identified as “water-fairies.”
These were not the land-dwelling mikumwees, a race of little-people who
averaged about two-and-a-half feet in height, but a separate species, “only a
few inches tall.” There presence throughout the region is revealed in a large
number of places named either Fairy Lake or Fairy Pond.

MARCHIN

An ill-spirited island.

There are several islands within the Fundy bearing the “Penobscot”
name Marchin. This is said to be the modern form of Malsum or “wolf, “and
these places are, by connotation, islands which should be avoided. Although
this is said to be a native word, there is surely some connection between it
and the French marcheur, a “walker,” one constantly on the prowl? It may
be recalled that this was the name of Glooscap’s evil brother who was put
down after a battle-royal in Northern New Brunswick. In the world of the
past not even evil-doers were permanently laid to rest and these islands may
represent the remains of “The Wolf.” Not all men care to emulate heroes,
and Champlain has noted that, “beyond Kinibeki (Kennebec, Maine) there lies
Marchin Bay, which was named for the individual who was chief there. This
Marchin was killed in the year that we left New France, 1607.” The place
referred to seems to be entered on champlain’s map of 1607 as Baie de
Marchen. Aside from this, we have the islands referred to as Ies Perdu,
“the Lost Isles,” on Champlain's charts. Exactly what is meant by this is
uncertain, but the English may have revived an earlier name in referring to
them as “The Wolves.” This collection of islands will be found about seven
miles north-east of Grand Manan, on the ferry route between North Head and
the mainland at Blacks Harbour. There are two small islands called the
Eastern Wolf and the Southern Wolf, and between these two islands there
are three small islets that make the passage between very difficult. A
dangerous shoal is known as Wolf Rock, and this stands north of Eastern
Wolf Island.

MATCHI HUNDU, MAJI HUNONDU

An Alogonquin spirit associated with deep water.

Penobscot, Majahhundopamumptunque, “the Devil’s Track, at Red Bridge on

the Kenduskeag River, near Bangor,, Maine. A site above the Bangor Dam
was once called Matchihundupemabtunk, “The Devil’s Footprints,” marks a
place where one of these beasts left an imprint on stone. The last word is
represented in full as awahandu and is the equivalent of the Iroquois
manitou, a word more generally known. The matchiwoodadawaboodi, is “The
Devil’s Armchair,” a natural rock formation not far from the footprints in a
ledge along the river bank. I had “a high back and high arms,” as if fashioned
for the use of a giant. Men did not linger here in better informed times.

The basin of the Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, was
once a relatively dry valley, isolated from the open ocean by the banks of
glacial debris at its mouth. About 6,000 years ago a relatively sudden rise in
melt waters allowed that barrier to be broached connecting this valley with
the Atlantic. Since that time the, tides have increased in range by about 6
inches per century. The Fundian basin was, and is, wedge-shaped, deep and
wide where it joins the Gulf of Maine, shallow and narrow where it cuts into
mainland New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. As sea-water is pulled into the Bay
by the moon it must rise in height where it cannot spread in width. This
effect is emphasized because the Gulf and the Bay form a container which is
in “seiche” with the phases of the oceanic tide.

This vast movement of water has produced a great scouring action,

piling up muds at the head of the Bay, excavating deep holes wherever the
tidal rip is pronounced. The tidal rip is strong in many places, including the
infamous Western Channel, which the Passamaquoddies called Matchi-hundu
(sometimes represented as Mutchi-hondo), “the bad spirited manito (devil).”
Here at approximately three hours before flood tide one may encounter
some form of the whirlpool known as the Old Sow. Nicholas Tracy has said
that the movement of waters approaches 5 to 6 knots on the flood tide and
(on occasion) this produces “spectacular whirlpools and eddies. The worst of
these is known as the Old Sow (and she is found) close west of Deer Point...
When it forms it is 30 feet in diameter and up to 4 feet deep, and it can
cause difficulty for large ships. It is folly to try and sail through it, or even
speak disrespectfully of the gods anywhere near it. When the Old Sow fails
to form a number of smaller whirlpools (piglets?) take its place. Reportedly
the whirlpools are at their worst three hours after low tide.”

In the elder days, Indians contemplating a sea voyage in

Passamaquoddy Bay had no doubt that Matchi-hundu represented an
incarnate sea-spirit. This knowledge caused them to avoid this part of
Passamaquoddy Bay and even tabooed landing on the closest island, now
called Indian Island, but once named Mutchignigos, “the bad island.” In
1950 Joseph Neptune of the Passamaquoddy reservation at Pleasant Point,
Maine, told historian Harold A. Davis that this belief persisted and that the
Old Sow itself “is held in superstitious awe by the Indians and is also feared
and avoided by fishermen.”

The second most powerful whirlpools in the region are found at Falls
Point, near Sullivan, Maine. Here a great “horseback ridge,” technically a
glacial kame, cuts across the great tidal stream from Sullivan Harbour with
predictable effect. Captain Manning tells of chasing a French ketch “up into
the river,” on August 7,, 1674: “We bore vp vpon her & she claped close
vpon the wing & shott a Cables lenght more on head. We had lost Ketch &
men, but we came too & had a stout scurmighs with them...” The reason
they hesitated was because of the whirlpools and for fear of “The Great
Cellar Hole,” which sometimes emerges as the tide falls in the vicinity of
Mount Desert Ferry. The Indian name for this place is Adowauskeskeag, “the
sloped hill where the tide runs out.”

In both these places the current roils the water because it passes
between through tight spaces between the land. Unfortunately there are
plenty of these narrows among the West Isles of the Bay of Fundy. The
channels around Campobello, Grand Manan and Deer Island all have serious
rips, accompanied by minor whirlpool activity. This is why sailing guides warn
that “the approach from the eastward through a mass of islets is not
recommended to strangers. Tracy says that channels like Letite and Little
Letite Passages carry rips of up to 5 knots and should be avoided at night,
“although in good conditions, a yacht may on the tide slip into the Bay
(Passamaquoddy) by this route.”

A little east of here, at Saint John, New Brunswick, this same writer
found another spirited place, the Reversing Falls: “produced by the narrow,
rocky gorge through which the Saint John River flows into Saint John
Harbour. At low tide, the volume of water flowing out produces a very
strong current with turbulence greater than most ocean-going yachts are
designed to navigate. As the tide rises, the back pressure gradually tames
the torrent. At half tide, passage either way is easy... At high water the
inflow from the sea is too rapid and again produces too much turbulence for
passage. There is about an hour of safe navigation beginning two hours
after high water...”

At that, there are more extreme tidal rips on the Nova Scotian shore
and in eastern parts of the Bay. A very spirited place is found at the
extreme northwestern corner of Nova Scotia, where a spectacular
outcropping of basalt creates Briar Island, Long Island and Digby Neck. The
channel between the first two islands is known as Grand Passage, and here
the rip moves waters at up to 6 knots. “The heavy overfall outside the
northern entrance prevents Grand Passage from being the route usually
chosen for ships moving between Yarmouth and the north.” Larger vessels
usual take the Peitit Passage between Briar Island and Digby Neck, although
the race there can be up to 8 knots. Some of Champlain’s men were turned
back at the southern rip, now called the Roaring Bull, where we are told there
is “an extreme overfall if the wind is in the south, “and where, “sailors
should be prepared for sudden shears produced by the tide boiling up from
the bottom.”
 Champlain’s difficulties started when he arrived at Grand Passage
when the tide was too low to allow the passage of his barque. He decided to
anchor just outside and wait until the tide rose sufficiently to let him pass
into St. Mary’s Bay. The error in of this decision became apparent when a
strong rip began dragging the anchor. Before long the anchor was torn away
along with the cable that held it. The sailors then had a difficult task getting
out of the southward stream of water and had to return to their base on the
Saint John River to procure a second anchor. They returned, and on the
second try, were able to manage the Grand Passage. Nicholas Denys who
followed Champlain to the region three decades later had the same trouble at
exactly this place, and was forced to agree with Champlain’s notice that the
channel was, “very dangerous for vessels that choose to risk it as a
passage.”

Even at the more benign Digby Gut, Marc Lescarbot (1606) stated
that, “we entered on the ebb tide, though not without much difficulty, for
the wind was contrary, and gusts blew from the mountains like to carry us
upon the rocks. Amidst all this the ship sailed stern-first, and more than
once turned completely around, without us being able to prevent it.

Knowledge of this danger did influence the next generation of mariners.

When Captain Peter Capon came to the region seventy years later, following
a report that some English-speaking fishermen had been captured by Indians,
he chafed at his long stay before Grand Passage waiting the lifting of
contrary winds and fog. The greatest annoyance in the region was actually
at the western end of Briar Island, where the basalts of North Mountain
continue out under the sea. This drowned mountain creates underwater
shoals , “so bad, so great an enemy to navigators, that it is called the raging
bar (Joseph-Octave Plessis, Bishop of Quebec, 1815). Fortunately a
lighthouse was erected here in precisely that year.

In the last century, a geologist named Daly noted that all about these
islands, “excavation by tidal scour is going on apace.” The Digby Gut, further
east, on this same shore, is today eighty metres feet deeper than the
seafloor outside Digby Harbour because of the two million cubic feet of water
that abrade the inner entrance on each tide. Here the race is approximately
5 miles per hour. Within the Minas Basin, where the water moves between
the Cobequid Shore and Cape Blomidon, the speed approaches 9 miles per
hour and here the swirling undersea currents have gouged out three pot
holes, one 200 feet below the surrounding sea bottom. The record for tidal
rips is in the Minas Channel where the sea moves as fast as 12 miles per
hour. Perhaps the heaviest rip on the flood tide is off the shores of Cape
D’Or. The only place of equal spirit on the New Brunswick shore is the aptly
named Cape Enrage, just within Chignecto Bay.

MAYER

An earth spirit sometimes regarded as incarnate in May Day

celebrants.

Anglo-Saxon, maeg, verb in present tense meaning "I am able (to cause
or prevent) a give action." Similar to the word main, stength, see Main
John (above). Routinely attached to the earth-goddess of the Romans, Maia
or Gaia, the daughter of Atlas and mother of Mercury by Jupiter. Related
English words (moden and archaic) include: mey. kinsmen; maybush or
haybush, the hawthorn; maydame, madame; maydan, maiden; mayhill, a
very tiring or trying time; May King; May Lord; May Queen; May Lady;
mayne, to maim; mayhem, originally the loss of an arm or leg; Maytide,
period of the pagan festivities.

This word describes the men and god-spirits who participated in the
Maytide rites, which centered about a tree-spirit termed the maypole. Mae
was the name given one of the months as well as the Celtic goddess Maeve.
In the Anglo-Saxon language, maegg was the word for son while maegden,
or maiden, was an offspring possessing a vagina or "den". Megburg was the
family. The word maeg confers with the English word main, and was the
source of the obsolete word main-gauche or left-handed, the direction
taken in the maypole dances. The mayers were led by a Masy Lord and a
May Lady, activities being carried out on a cleared elevated area termed the
may-hill. J.G. Fraser thought that "The intention of these customs (was) to
bring home the blessings which each tree-spirit has in its power to bestow."
Aside from dancing the maypole, participants took the parts of uncostumed
mummers. On the eve of May Day, the younger members of the community
went into the woods, ostensibly to collect the evergreens used to decorate
individual homes. As a group they brought back, and erected, a venerable
evergreen tree as their maypole. Afterwards they went on house visits to
gather "the bread and meal that comes in May" and enjoyed a feast which
included liberal amounts of ale. In some places, the paraders carried hoops
decorated with marsh marigolds and rowan. In Ireland these were explicit sun
and moon symbols being balls covered with gold and silver paint or paper. In
the earliest presentations there was ritual as well as informal sex, and the
maypole was sometimes burned to rejuvenate the soil, animals and women.

DPEI: May snow, a synonym for "poor man's fertilizer": a late spring
snowfall. Compare with "farmer's blessing" and "million dollar rain." Also
known as "blindman's snow" (possibly in memory of one-eyed
Wodin)."...thought to have curative propertioes especially for the eyes."

At Fredericton, a newspaper said that May second to fifth, eighteen

thity-two, brought uninterrupted snow on the last of these days residents
"beheld the novelty of the May-pole exhibited on the frozen surface of the
River." Mary L. Fraser remembered a few details of the old rites as
practised in Nova Scotia: "In one district at least in Cape Breton...the hair on
the backs of the animals is singed with the flame of a blessed candle...to
avert the influence of the evil eye. Throughout Nova Scotia the snow or rain
that falls on May Day is considered a cure for sore eyes." One repondant
said: "My mother used to go out and collect to melt it. It was supposed to
be blessed (by a religious authority). She even put it on her hurting eyes but
never drank it. It had a healing power, a cure in it...You could (even) soak
your feet in it."

Expanding on this general theme, Malcolm Campbell of Glendyer Mills

remembered that, "Old women who had the charm (were boabhs) would go out
on May Day...and borrow something...you weren't supposed to loan them
anything because they would surely take the virtue from your land and your
cattle and you. She would get the benefit of whatever you were doing. (Thus
the saying: On May Day give nothing away!) Respoonding to this speaker
Helen Howatt reminded him that the frustrated hag who was refused her May
Day "offering" would leave carrying a handful of earth, thus carrying away
some of the spirit of the land where she had failed to get it all. It is obvious
from these examples, that the May Day rites were intended to remove evil
spirits as well as to regenerate the land. May Day was the Beltane, or
Bealtainn, and Pratt says that "beal" is retained to describe an infected
wound, "a festered running sore", perhaps symbolizing the evils that were
once netralized by fire.

MEGUNTICOOK

An enspirited mountain.
Penobscot. The basement rocks of Atlantic Canada belong, essentially, to
two vastly different past environments, one the Avalon Belt and the other
the Meguma formation, both between 600 and 400 million years of age. The
Avalon Rocks of southern New Brunswick and Newfoundland were laid down as
sediments in warm seas, while the Megumas of southern mainland Nova
Scotia were deposited in a cold arctic-like environment. Although these
rocks now touch in places, it is theorized that they were originally separated
by hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres. About 400 million years ago
these vastly different land massed were brought into contact by a collision
of the North American and African land-plates, giving rise to a series of
parallel hills and valleys, termed, respectively, the Appalachian anticline and
geosyncline. For about 180 million years, the Bay of Fundy held no water,
but was an uplifted region supplying sediments to surrounding lowlands. The
unconsolidated matter collected and became compressed producing rocks of
Devonian, Permian and Jurrasic age. During the late Triassic and Jurrasic,
block faulting took place and the present Bay was depressed below sea level.
The Atlantic Ocean was born in this time, about 165 million years ago, as a
rift opened in the mid- Atlantic. The sides of this rift-valley have, ever
since, moved apart by a few centimetres each year. This rifting process
immediately began to stretch the crust, and where it was particularly thin,
fingers of molten basalt began to move upward from the earth’s basement.
These erupted from a series of volcanoes, located in northwestern Nova
Scotia, that spilled lava over most of the present Bay bottom. After
cooling and crystallizing into black basalt, the Bay became a collection site
for sands and silts, which finally consolidated as the siltstones, shales and
limestones now found overlaying the basalt.

Vulcanism ceased as the plates became more widely separated, but the
cracks in the crust, which favoured earthquakes and volcanoes, remained as
an inheritance from the days when the Appalachians were uplifted. In the
immediate region, these faults trend northeastward from Cape Cod and
underlay all of the Bay near its northern shore. These Fundian Faults (a
part of the more extensive Cabot Fault System) emerge from the water at
Cape Split, penetrate the Cobequid Mountains of Nova Scotia, and veer south-
east through Cape Breton, before striking off over the continental shelf. It
is now more or less agreed that they are continuous with similar breaks in
the crust of southern Newfoundland, and that they can be traced from here
to the Great Glen of Scotland and beyond into Europe as far as the Ural
Mountains. When the Atlantic Provinces were in uplift following the removal
of the continental glacier, there must have been considerable readjustment
along these stress lines, and earthquakes were a common part of Maritime
prehistory. Consulting historical notes shows that there were major
earthquakes within the region at Plymouth in 1638, at Newburyport in 1727
and at Scituate in 1755. Major movements have always plagued the St.
Lawrence River (which lies above an equally impressive fault system) and one
of North America’s most intense earthquakes took place at sea, where this
river overrides the continental shelf headed for the abyss. In Maritime
Canada most of the action has been along branches of the Cabot fault zone
in southern New Brunswick or in the unquiet northern uplands of that same
province.

James Simonds one of the first trader-settlers at Saint John, New

Brunswick arrived at Portland Point in April 1764. He and his partner, James
White, had a busy and difficult year being pulled between fishing, building a
house, damming the marsh, erecting a mill, creating a schooner, clearing
land, and other odd chores. In the midst of all this they were given pause on
September thirtieth by, “a very severe shock of earthquake at St. John
coming at about 12 o’clock noon.” The effects are not recorded but
Simonds went on to say that “the winter that followed was of unusual
severity with storms that wrought much damage to the shipping.”

Early historian Peter Fisher said that “New Brunswick appears to be

but little liable to the great convulsions of nature, such as earthquakes,
hurricanes, tornadoes &c. There has been but one shock of an earthquake
experienced by the present inhabitants since they have settled the country.
This shock happened on the twenty second May, 1817, at 25 minutes past
three o’clock in the morning. The duration of the shock was about 45
seconds. It was attended by the usual rumbling noise, without thunder. The
appearances, however, usually indicating earthquakes, such as fiery
meteors, the uncommon brilliancy of the aurora borealis &c. had been
frequent the winter preceding.” Peter Fisher says nothing of the epicentre
or damage, but the country was sparsely settled and had few skyscrapers or
super highway ramps to be damaged at that time. We can only note that the
very destructive Californian earthquake near Los Angeles in 1994 lasted for
only 20 seconds, and at the time it was predicted that the expected “great
quake” along the San Andreas fault would last approximately two minutes.
In other times this local quake might have been a spirit worthy of greater
note!
 In 1852 the Carleton Sentinel said that an earthquake had shaken
Gloucester County in northern New Brunswick: “On Monday, the 2nd instant
there was a smart shock of an earthquake at this place (Bathurst). The
motion of the earth was a rocking motion (suggesting they were not at the
epicentre), and then followed several (perhaps eight or ten) lifting or
vibrations of the ground. It was accompanied by a heavy rolling sound...The
whole lasted at least five to six minutes... Our houses being chiefly low,
suffered no damage beyond the loss of a pane of glass or two. The Court
House being the only brick or very heavy building, had several panes of glass
broken, the plaster cracked in many places, and at the south-west corner
the main walls were separated nearly an inch...We understand that the
rumbling noise was distinctly heard in Newcastle and the vibration (felt) on
the North-West (Miramichi).”

The letters of my family, who settled Charlotte County, New

Brunswick, speak of earthquakes as commonplace just before and at the
turn of the century: “Another shaking up Thursday last.” The same
situation seems to have been the case for the southern edge of the Bay of
Fundy: The Fred Allen family settled Boot Island, within sight of Blomodin in
1915,, and not long after Mrs. Allen lived through, “a full-fledged quake. Not
just a tremor, of the sort most Maritimers experience from time to time. It
was strong enough to bounce the house up and down on its foundations and
topple the dishes from the shelves. Because of the lack of kitchen
cupboards, the plates had all been standing on their sides on high shelves
near the ceiling...Since the dishes had been a wedding present...Mrs. Allen
regretted their loss for years.”

In 1925 the “Telegraph,” published at Saint John, said that “distinct

shocks were experienced throughout New Brunswick” on the second day of
March: “Those who were in the streets looked in amazement to see tall
buildings quivering. The tall Atlantic Refinery building trembled... Saturday
night’s earthquake was more severely felt in Moncton and vicinity than any
earthquake within the memory of Moncton’s oldest residents...At
Fredericton the stores were just closing and the picture theatres were also
filled...When solidly built buildings began to quiver and crack there was a
general rush for the open streets.”

Currently the entire region is regarded as a zone of “moderate

earthquake activity,” and not in the running with high-risk regions such as
Japan and the western coast of America. The 1982 earthquake in the
woods several hundred miles north of Fredericton was the most severe in
historic times. The main shock registered 5.7 on the Richter Scale at 8:35
a.m. on January 9th. The epicentre of that shake was at 46.99 degrees N.
Latitude and 66.62 degrees W. longitude. Luckily all the roughness took
place in an unpopulated region, so there was little significant damage.

It is acknowledged that “Earthquakes in New Brunswick are mostly

related to movement on pre-existing geologic faults - possibly a delayed
response to the unloading of the crust due to the melting of the ice sheet
about 13,000 years ago.” In Nova Scotia the process of gaining equilibrium
is virtually over, and upward movements in New Brunswick are less
impressive than they were in the past. Notice that Glooscap had the man
named “Earthquake” as his closest companion, and it was said that the
“god” always appeared and disappeared in moments when there was a great
displacement of the earth. There are other suggestions that earthquakes
were once a common occurrence: “Tidal waves” at sea were blamed on the
jipjakamaq or “horned-serpent” people; but it was further claimed that the
shaking-earth was prompted by the fact that these mythic creatures were
able to swim through solid rock as easily as through water.

Ethnologist Fannie Eckstrom says that the Indians regarded the hills
and mountains as potentially dangerous. While the Penobscots might refer
to a local landmark as megunticook, “the big mountain,” or as megankek. “a
steep hill,” or note the presence of the wajo, “sugar-loaf hills,” they did not
personalize them. This is because they understood that the horned-serpent
people took their rest as mountains and it was feared that naming them
would make them active, causing an earthquake. In the elder days it was
understood that the hills might move. Historian Daniel Boorstin says this is
not a local peculiarity: “Every mountain(world-wide) was idolized by people
who lived in its shadow.”

The ultimate stone was a mountain peaks. These were seen as

residences of the air-spirits, and as jumping-off places for gods of the upper
air and as the focal points for unusual magic. Thus an unmarried woman of
the Penonscot tribe once looked upon Mount Kathdin (in present day Acadia
Park, Maine) and seeing its beauty in the red sunlight said, "I wish the
mountain were a man that I might marry him!" After making this wish, she
disappeared from the tribe appearing three years after with a small child,
who was beautiful, but particularly noted for the fact that his eyebrows were
of stone. "For the spirit of that place had taken her as wife, but he forbade
her to tell any of their union."

In later days a hunter on Katahdin followed snowshoe tracks on this

great mountain and found them terminated at a rock-face near the summit.
Here he found many signs that people had passed to-and-fro, seemingly
through the solid rock. "And as he stayed watching the place grew stranger
and stranger. At last he heard a sound of footsteps, and lo! a girl stepped
directly (out of the rock) out of the precipice onto a platform (of stone).
And although she proved kindly and sweet he was afraid because he saw she
had powerful "m'teoulin." In spite of this, they got on rather well and she
took him into the heart of the mountain to meet her father and her
brothers. All of this clan comprised the "thunder-people" "giants,
stupendous and of awful mien. And their eyebrows were of stone, while their
cheeks were as hard as rocks."

In Scandinavia, winter storm used to be blamed on the passage of

Odin’s Wild Hunt, which rode out in search of the souls of animals and men.
Something of this is implicit in tales of the local gougou, who whites called
the “wood’s-whooper” or the “eastern big-foot.” A little north of here this
wood’s-spirit was called the wendigo. All of these correpond with that haunt
of the English forest known as the woodese (his name just happens to be a
similie for Woden). In western North America this creature is sasquatch, a
vile smelling, tall, hair-covered humanoid creature with a distinctive
agnonizing call. Like Odin, the gougou was guessed to ride counter-clockwise
upon the wind, trailing lost souls in his wake. The noise of the storm was
sometimes credited to the creatures known as “thunderbird,” shape-
changers, who lived within the highest mountains of the region, and could be
distinguished from men by the fact that their faces were half grey stone. It
was their huge wings that beat out the winds on which the hunters of the sky
travelled, and their eyes that blasted the earth with lightning. In
Scandinavia, all of these powers were credited either to Thor, or Odin, or the
frost-giants, all capable of taking the form of huge black birds.

Here in America, as in Europe, men supposed that thunderbirds (like

Odin in his eagle form) dwelt in the heights of mountains, while serpents lay
curled at their bases. In point of fact, little pre-glacial land has remained
unaffected by the last sweep of the ice, the sole remnants being the highest
mountain tops. In the Mount Carleton Park region of northern New Brunswick
there are a examples of peculiar land-forms that developed during
deglaciation. While the temperature was constant the rock faces exposed
above the ice, which are termed nanataks, were unaffected, but with
thawing and freezing these rocks were subject to intense frost heaving and
they shattered. This left angular projecting bedrock the features now

namedtors.. Tors, or are found on most of the higher peaks and are
particularly characteristic of the mountain known as Sagamook. In some
quarters the shattered rocks were thought of as the remains of the giants
put down by Glooscap. These specialty words, from the world of geology are
closer to myth than science; tor originating with the Norse godThor, whose
lightning bolts were seen to damage the earth in a manner similar to that of
thawing ice and freezing water. Nanataks are also located in northwestern
Newfoundland and within the Cape Breton Highlands. Intesrestingly, these
three separte places share a common flora and fauna. Some biologists have
suggested that there was a migration of species between these regions when
the rest of the land was covered with ice, but the problems of such cross-
migrations would have been almost insurmountable under past conditions of
extreme cold.

MENTOU, M’NTOU, MANITOU

An earth-spirit capable of instantaneous time and space

travel sometimes incarnate in human form

Abenaki, also variously seen as mento, mentoo, mentouk, mentook.

Entities thought to exist in dematerialized as well as in corporeal bodies, the
chief exponents of "meda" or magical powers. These were not the healers or
the physically powerful, but those who obtained a place over other
tribesmen by being capricious, eccentric and malicious. The Micmacs said
that some were born with these skills while others acquired the arts as they
grew older. Leland distinguished the mentouk are those that were witches as
opposed to those who were simple entertainers. He said that malicious
magic was largely innate although the skills might be deepened with practise.
Acquisition of knowledge concerning simple sympathetic magic was said to be
acquired through fasting, abstinence and ceremonial rituals. The mentouk
were called upon to settle family fueds, being paid to take one side or the
other. They sometimes clashed with one another where two or more
magicians were hired by opposing parties. Like the witches of English-
speaking communities, the mentouk directed their energies through familiars
they called puhigans, baohigans, bogans or logans (names strangely
reminiscent of Gaelic underworld spirits). Usually these were carried in a
pouch in the forms of apparently inert animal furs, but they were easily
aroused creating phantom animal attack-animals or spy-beasts. Kluscap was
considered the most adept of this witch-tribe. The mentou were particularly
associated with the horned-serpents, but able to revert to human shape at
will. Many men became jipjakamaq but only the mentou and those who were
horned serpents from birth could reverse the shape-change.

Francis Parkman has added the fact that these were the creatures
known to the Hurons as okies or otkons. He says: “These words
comprehend all forms of supernatural being, from highest to lowest, with the
exception of certain diminutive fairies or hobgoblins, and certain giants and
anomalous monsters, which appear under various forms, grotesque and
horrible...These beings fill the world and control the destinies of men. In
nearly every case, when they reveal themselves to mortal sight, they bear
the semblance of beasts, reptiles or birds, in shapes unusual or distorted.
Sometimes they take human proportions, but more frequently they take the
form of stones, which being broken are found to be full of living flesh and
blood.”

Tales of the mentouk include that of an elderly female mentou who

went into the woods with her sister-in-law and two brothers. The men went
on a hunt promising they would return within three days. When they did not
appear at the appointed time, the young woman became disraught and the
older woman agreed to contact them. Not being familiar with the use of
magic the younger woman watched aghast as the woman lay upon her robes
and apparently stopped breathing. While an attempt was being made at
revival a globe of fire emerged from a nostril and started spiralling in a
counter-clockwise path away from the body of the magician. For an hour the
body lay as if dead but finally the force-ball came barrelling back along its
outward path and entered an ear opening. At that the mentou got up and
calmly explained that she had seen her brothers standing at their camp-fire
and that they had been delayed by particularly good hunting. This lady was
obviously a very powerful adept, most mentouk being forced to project their
souls upon some form of matter which they then animated. Like the familiar
the shadow-traveller put the mentou at hazard if it happened to be injured.
The species most favoured as puhigans were predatory mammals, beavers,
owls and loons. Two hunters found themselves harassed by the attentions
of a large and ugly porcupine. When it blocked their smoke-hole in the
wigwam, one of the men fired at it with his spear and injured the animal's left
leg. In their home village, the local magician was found with an injured left
arm. The most impressive magic of the mentouk involved "earth-dancing",
where the legs of the mentou were seen to penetrate the earth, moving
through it as if it were fog. The mentouk were both admired and feared
which is why they were often assasinated or driven from their villages.

The rivers of our region are tidal; the Saint John, for example, carries
salt water inland north beyond the city of Fredericton. Because the Avon, in
Nova Scotia, and the Petitcodiac and the Saint John, in New Brunswick, all
have constrictions near their mouth they sometimes show their spirit in a
peculiar phenomena known as a tidal bore. At certain phases of the moon
and tide when the pile up of water is extreme at the mouths of these rivers,
a solitary wave front is formed which travels upriver show a crest as much
as four feet in height. Something like this is also seen as the rivers reverse
and flood out to sea. Salt and fresh water will mix, but not immediately.
Since river water is predominately fresh it enters the Bay en mass, and
retains its integrity as a stream. In the case of the St. John River, these
borders persist far out past Grand Manan Island. At the front, at the turn
of the tide, there forms a peculiar tidal bore that streaks seaward and is
locally known as “the streak.” At the leading edge of the river within the
sea the warmer, less dense, fresh water piles up above the colder salt
water, and an entity is created that picks up all the debris in the water as it
sweeps toward the ocean. Men who have nets in the water must rush to
remove them to keep them from becoming fouled or pulled under. In earlier
days these tidal happenings were seen as manifestations of water manitous.

MER FOLK

The sea-spirits of northwestern Europe.

Anglo-Saxon, mor or moor, from which morass, the salt water

"ocean sea", confering with the English mere, a lake. This word is also the
source of Moor Dance, now referred to as the Morris Dance, a part of
rural pagan religious practises. Akin to the Gaelic muir and the Latin mare.
Derived words include marsh, marine, mermaid and merman. + folc,
people living at the tribal level of organization without central government.

In northern European mythology, the descendants of the sea deities Aegir

and Ran were nine wave maidens, snowy-complexioned white-women, willowy,
golden-haired, blue-eyed, usually seen clad in transparent white veils. They
were a capricious lot, sometimes favouring wind-ships by driving them
toward their destination, sometimes "exciting one another to madness", thus
destroying sea-craft.

Writing in 1881, Carl Blind, noted that the Scots, and particularly
Shetlanders termed the merpeople, the “Finns.” “Their transfiguration into
seals may be a kind of deception they practise for the males are described
as most daring boatmen...they are held to be deeply versed in magic spells
and in the healing arts as well as soothsaying. By means of a “skin” which
they possess, the men and women among them are able to change
themselves into seals. But ons hore, after having taken off their wrappings,
they are, and behave like, real human beings. Anyone who gets hold of their
protecting garment has the Finn in his power. Only by means of the skin can
they go back to the water. Many a Finn woman has got into the power of a
Shetlander and borne children to him: but if a Finn woman succeeded in
reobtaining her sea-skin, or seal-skin, she escaped across the water. Among
the older generation in the Northern Isles, persons are sometimes heard of
who boast of hailing from Finns; anmd they attribute to themselves a
peculiar luckiness on account of the higher descent.” 13

These are the ancestors of the merpeople, men and women from the
waist upward, fish from there down. In some circles, these were thought to
be sea-suits, the equivalent of modern scubs-diving gear. Mermaidss will be
found cut into the stonework of the earliest eastern civilizations. The
Greecian scholar Alexander ab Alexandro writing in the first century told of
on that had the misfortune to be beached by contrary winds. She burst into
tears as crowds of curious onnlookers crowded in to examine her. At last
she was able to break away and was last heard shouting uiinintelligable, and
not very pleasant words, as she paddled away. The Roman historian Pliny the
Elder regarded as fact the rumour that mermaids lured men to their
destruction on the sea-rocks of the Mediterranean, while the esteemed
Bishop Pontoppidian insisted he had seen the mermaid netted at Hordaland in
Bergen Fjord. Unfortunately the men whom took hjer tried to keep her in a
bathtub filled with fresh water. Like a jellyfish she fell victim to osmosis and
dissolved.

In 1723 a Dutch Royal Commission was set up to resolve the reality or

13Blind, Dr. Carl, “Contemmporary Reviiew” (1881).

non-reality of mer-folk by means of an expedition to bring one back alive.
They did encounter a merman off the Faeroes. A “neat bearded creature”
stared at them for five minutes, snorted disdainfully at their attempts to
capture him with nets, and dived into the ocean. A corpse of a mermaid
supposedly washed ashore in the Hebrides in 1830, where it was described as
"a creature about the size of a well-fed child of three or four years of age,
with an abnormally developed breast. The hair was long, dark and glossy (it
always lost the golden hue out of water); while the skin was white, soft and
tender. The whole lower part of the body was like a salmon, but without
scales."

They were never restricted to European waters and in 1610, Captain

Richard Whiteborne saw one "in the very Harbour of Saint Johns
(Newfoundland). "I espied it swiftly swimming towards me, looking cheerfully
as it had been a woman, by the ordinary face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ears,
neck and forehead: It seemed to be so beautiful, and in those parts so well
proportioned, having however round upon the head, all blue streaks,
resembling hair (but certainly it was no hair). I beheld it long and another of
my company likewise. It was not far from me and I stepped back, for it came
within a pike's length. When this strange creature saw that I went from it, it
dived a little under water, and swam toward the place where before I landed;
whereby I beheld the shoulders and back down to the middle, which was
square, white and smooth as the back of a man, and from the middle to the
hinder points, pointed in a portion like a broad arrow...the same came shortly
into a boat, wherein was William Hawkridge, my servant...she did strive to
come into him and others in the same boat, wheras they were afraid, and one
of them struck it a full blow on the head, whereby it fell off from them.
Afterwards it came to two other boats in the Harbour, and the men in them
fled for fear to land. This was a mermaid."

Captain John Smith, one of the first men to chart Maine waters fopund
one which he observed, “swam by with all possible grace.” Smith said that
she had, “large eyes, well-formed ears and long green hair that imparted to
her an original character, which was by no means unattractive.” Smmith
was just beginning to be smitted with thgis salt-water swimmer when he
noticed she was fish-tailed from the waist down. Christopher Columbus, it
may be recalled, had a contary notion, “The mermaids I have seen were not
as beautiful as they have been painted although to some extent they have a
human face.”
 In Boston harbour the enterprising Captaion Dodge actually exhibited a
mermaid in 1822, being very careful not to allow observers to get very
close. Popular acceptance of the idea of a mer-peopleled sailors at sea to
carve strange little mummies from dried skate flesh, pandering them ashore
to gullible “mermaid” collectors. For three huiindred years there was a brisk
trade in these “Jenny Hanivers,” some specimens of which may be as much
as 600 years old. In times past a “jenny” was a man who busied himself with
“women’s work” while the last reference is likely in derision of the ducal
state of Hanover, whose members rose to kingship of England. It is
noteworthy that P.T. Barnum launched his carrer with a jenny (see our entry
under Jack) which he claimed had been taken in the south seas. Actually this
was a monkey’s body very skillfully sewn to a fish body. The shrivelled thing
measured 18 inches but Barnnum expanded it to 18 feet on his advertising
banner.

Speaking of this species, Father Ainselme Chaisson said that the

Acadians encountered mermaids "all along the coasts of the Maritime
Provinces". He reported that Magdelane Islanders "had heard them sing, had
seen them, and even spoken to them." Their sea-caves used to be well-
known, an example being found near Lorneville, New Brunswick, at Smuggler's
Cove in Sheldon's Bluffs. It is described as having a narrow entrance to a
cavern twenty feet high, sixty feet long and from ten to twenty feet wide. It
was said to have stactilites hanging from the roof and a sand floor,
submerged by ten feet of water at high tide.

MHORGHA

Any of the sea dwelling offspring of the Celtic goddess

Mhorrigan.

Gaelic, mor, great, famed, widespread (as the sea). Perhaps derived
from muir, the sea. + gamhlas, malice, possibly from gann, scarce, hurt,
injured. Thus, the malicious sea-dwellers.

The morgha is the descendent of the Celtic Cailleasch Bheur, the

original Mhorgan or Mhorrigan corresponding with Samh, the alter-ego of the
the winter hag. This goddess was described as a perpetual virgin, one who
lay annually, at Samhuinn, with the kings of Tara, thus ensuring their divine
right of kingship. In the medieval romances, she was described as Morgan le
Fay, the half sister of Arthur. Morgan and Arthur shared the European
carrion-crow as their familiar. Like her "sisters" Mebd or Maeve (May Eve)
and Macha, Mhorrigan was the daughter of a chief of the Tuatha daoine. This
triad composed the Celtic "befind", "those who predict the future and endow
it with good or doubtful gifts." In this they were exact counterparts of the
Norse Norns, the three witches of past, present and future, who promised
Macbeth his fate in Shakespeare's play. Latter day befinds were sidh
assigned by the gods to serve as the familiars of mortal men. As such, they
could be invisible but often took the form of the crow, the totem-animal of
the seed of Morgan, also known as Clan Mackay. In the myths of the Gaels,
the Mhorrigan was also known as the "bean-nighe" (washer-woman) from her
habit of frequenting highland streams where she washed blood from the
garmets of those fated to die. Correponds with the English white or witch-
woman.

In our country, this raven-haired sidh, with the blood red pupils and
webbed fingers and toes (all revealling her Fomorian ancestory) is know as
the keener, caney (Gaelic "caoine", a shriek) or caney-caller from her habit of
announcing the approaching death of an enemy or any member of her clan.
These are the creatures better known as banshees, those of the sidh who
attached themselves "to families of the old Milesian lines, who are known by
the "O'", "Mc" or "Mac" which they prefixed to their names." The keeners of
Maritime Canada were sometimes identified with roving swamp lights and on
Morden Mountain, near Auburn Nova Scotia, Helen Creighton found an Irish
family possessed of a wailing corpse-cart follower. Elaborating, Creighton
explained that "In the Irish tradition the banshee was supposed to wail when a
member of a certain family (e.g O'Keefes or O'Sullivans) died. Her wail was
quite distinct from the mourning cries of near relatives or of the (human
"keeners" who were in olden days called upon to mourn a dead person."
Creighton has also recounted the case of an unnamed wireless operator who
was drowned while rowing across Hawk Inlet, near Clarke's Harbour, Nova
Scotia. At the wireless station, other workers were bedevilled by "a steady
shrill noise" whose source was never found. This continued without ceasing
until the body was recovered from the sea. At the turn of the century, a
Scot named James MacDonald insisted that "The mhorag as a rule shows
herself on Loch Morar (Scotland) when a member of a certain clan (Clan
Morgan?) is to die...She reassembles herself on the surface of the lake in
three portions, one a figure of death, another a coffin, the third an open
grave."
 The original Mhorrigan was given charge of the purloined Cauldron of
the Deep, “the source of all poetry and inspiration,” for landsmen. This was
the genius astral for Britain, now buried in an unknown location. This cauldron
of life and death, the focal point for all passages to the underworld, was
considered a metaphore for the ocean and all natural lakes and wells. The
mhorrigane were, therefore the guardians and protectors of such water-
ways.

Mountains and valleys had their roots in the World Beneath the Earth.
Like the lands above, this place was rumoured to have its own light, and air,
and all of the aspects of Earth World itself. The underground rivers were
thought to have some influence in the world of men, springing in some places
from the earth as artesian wells, or evidencing themselves as slow-flowing
sink-holes. As was the case elsewhere, men distinguished white streams
from the black streams, and those that drank or lived by mean-spirited
water were observed to wither and die. This is no longer regarded as a
strange concept, since some of our water passes through radon-heavy
rocks, and may indeed pass acqire an “evil-spirit” on the way to its
consumer.

Some of the waters of the earth were regarded as helpful thus the
persistence of healing mineral springs in the current century. Men have
never fully explained why certain sources of water were deemed more
potent, or spirited, than other nearby streams or tap water, but they
certainly flocked to them all through the last century.

A case in point would be the Glengarry Mineral Spring located in Cape

Breton. A farmer living near the village in 1890 noticed that his cows were
attracted by a small spring in one corner of his property high up in the hills
near Big Pond. He wondered why they travelled into this remote place for
water and took a drink. He found the water “different,” but not unpalatable,
and recommended it to a few of his close neighbours. Soon the neighbours
and friends of friends were trekking across the landscape to take samples.
One of these visitors was the Rev. Neil MacLeod who supposedly blessed the
waters giving them even more potent “magic.” Soon the water gained a
reputation for curing rheumatism and arthritis and the show was on the
road.

In 1895 a woman crippled by arthritis was brought by boat to the

wharf below Big Pond. Her stretcher was placed at the back of a wagon,
which hauled her uphill, a distance of two miles. Upon arrival at the spring
the victim drank a glass of water and had her company erect a tent nearby.
She stayed in it for a week before returning to the wharf. She had been
carried from tyhe boat, but on the return trip walked out of a carriage with
no apparent difficulty. The spring afterwards became a mecca and the
most-talked about place in Cape Breton and the writer Michael MacKenzie
says it is currenty in use. As he has noted there are many similar springs in
Cape Breton and mainland Nova Scotia.

Springs of “white-water” were also located in New Brunswick, thus an

issue of the “Fredericton Gleaner,” dated 1831, notes: “We do not recollect
having made previous mention of a certain Spring in the county of York which
seems to possess peculiar properties. Shortly after the settlement of
Nashwaak, when the hunting of Moose was yet in general practise, the
attention of hunters was attracted to this spring by its being resorted to by
this animal. The water had a peculiar taste, and when drank produced
frequent eructations (farts) strongly impregnated with suplhur. Thus it
obtained the name the “Gunpowder Stream.”

See also morrigan, caoineag, etc.

MICAREME

A French earth-spirit seen incarnate in a human at mid-Lent.

Acadian French, mi, mid or middle + careme or carene, a corruption

of the Latin word quarentena which described a forty-day religious fast, in
particular that now called Lent. Called the mickeram by Irish immigrants to
America.

T.K. Pratt says that micareme identifies "a disguised person who
brings treats to children. or one of a group of mummers who require
onlookers to guess their identity. Chaisson explained that "Ash Wednesday
ushered in forty days of penitence, as prescribed by the Church. Fasting,
for those between the ages of twenty-one and sixty, was very severe,
permitting no more than two ounces of bread in the morning, a good meal at
noon and a light snack of perhaps eight ounces at night. Children gave up
candies or sweets and some men would try to give up smoking. By mid-Lent
everyone was ready for a break and all affected "homemade wooden masks"
or "stockings with holes cut for eyes, nose and mouth. Thus costumed and
armed with sticks, they would go about, alone or in groups, from house to
house. The game consisted of escaping recognition, while making gestures,
dancing, and even speaking but in an assumed voice. In some parts
celebrants distributed candy to children, who were allowed to eat it on that
day. In some parts of Prince Edward Isalnd, Mid-Lent was used as an
opportunity to collect gifts for the poor. It was celebrated originally for one
day, and later for two days...only in Chetcamp (Cape Breton) is it still
celebrated..."

Pratt has noted that micaremes usually visited the homes of relatives
and that there was a prime "devil": "The role was traditionally played by an
adult member of the home, either a parent, a grandparent, or a grown-up
brother or sister. Mrs. Anne-Marie Perry of Tignish (Prince Edward Island)
recalls how her grand-uncle acted the Mi-=careme in her family when she
was a child. This was in the 1920's: "At our place, Joe Nezime was always
the one who did the Mi-careme. He was my mother's "old uncle" and he lived
with us. He never married. Anyway, after supper he would put on his
disguise, and come in to act the Mi-careme. He always wore a big blanket and
carried a long cane, a long pole. And we were dead scared of him! He'd come
in with a sack which he laid on the floor. He spoke no word. Each of us kids
had to go one at a time to pick up our treats. Generally it was an apple,
taffy or something like that." Baking was well protected at mid-Lent
because children feared the interest of the Micareme. Georges Arsenault
said that the word was still known at Malagash in nineteen eighty-one: "We
wouldn't go handy the table (which had candy on it) because the mickeram
might get us." The micareme makes it clear that mumming was never
exclusive to any race and that it was not exclusively a winter activity.
Whatever mask was put on the proceedings, they were never Christian, and
amounted, at worst, to disguised extortion; at best, to a legal lapse of
dignity and politeness.

MICHABO, MICHEBO

The creator-god of the Algonquins.

Wabnaki, Upper Canadian dialect, originally Michwabo from the root

wab, which may mean “white, east, dawn, light,” or “day.” Thus Wabenaki,
or Abenaki, “children of the dawn.” The hare was probably considered the
totem of the procreative god from its vigor in mating and producing
offspring. Other forms of the name include Manabozho, Messou,
Michabou, Nanabush.

See also Hesolup and Kjikinap who are localized forms of this god. In a
creation tale it is claimed that Michabo was hunting with his wolf-dog when
the animal broke through the ice and was eaten by serpents. Angered
Michabo transformed himself into a stump at the edge of the lake and waited
until the serpent people emerged to sun themselves. While they slept he cut
many of them to bits. The reamining serpent-mentous reacted by flooding
the world. As Micabo was himself the pre-eminent mentou, he escaped death
by enlarging himself as the waters deeopened. Standing nose-deep Michebo
sent his totem raven to find a bit of land from which the world might be
regenerated, but the bird quested unsuccessfully. Then the god sent his
otter form on a similar errand, but it failed to find even a bone of the earth.
At last the muskrat dove deep within the water and returned with the
nuclear matter, which Michabo used to fashion solid land. In recognition of
this help the Great Hare copulated with the muskrat and from her arose the
sons of men. It is obvious that Michabo is a combine of gods, since he is
represented elsewhere as forming the world (like Odin) from the carcasses
of beasts, birds, and fishes left over from the flood.

It was suggested that the creator took a single grain of sand from the
ocean bed and made from it an island which he launched on the primal ocean.
The island, being a giant tortise, grew to great sizee, its back being so
expansive that wolf-man attempting to cross it die of old age in the quest.
Uncertainty prevailed concerning the creators homeland, some said it was on
an island in Lake Superior, otherrrs said he lived on an iceberg in Arctic
waters, but most agreed that his home was weast of the sun, “beyond the
great river that surrounds dry land.”

The Great Spirit, or father of all, was sometimes confused with

mortal-gods, thus he was regarded not only as lord of the wind, but also as
the inventor of picture-writing, the creator of fish-nets, and as the
instigator of all charms used in hunting and fishing. In the fall it was his pipe
which filled the air with the smoke of Indian Summer. The bringer of light as
well as civilization

Where Michabo is confused with man-gods his parents are designated

as the West Wind and his mother is given as a great-grandaughter of the
Moon. Glooscap is given a similar background, but he is not represented as
“a vain and treacherous imp,” as is sometimes the case with this god.
Micabo seems a combination of Malsum and Glooscap, “Sometimes he is a
wolf, a bird, or a gigantic hare, sometimes a human, a migthy magician, a
destroyer of sepents and evil manitous; sometimes full of childish whims and
petty trickery, the butt and victim of men, beasts and spirits. His power for
transformation is without limit; his curiosity and malice are insatiable.”

MICKLEEN

Earth spririts, the "englished" sigh.

Maritime dialectic from Gaelic, plural of mhac (son); mhic (sons of) +
leanan, loaners, those that put themselves out for hire; literally sons of
the little men, i.e. the sidh (which, see). Confers with mickey, a term
applied to Roman Catholics, especially those of Irish background. The OED
Supp. lists mick (1856) but this is predated by "Mickey" in the Carleton
(N.B.) Sentinal, 5/7/1850. Mick is still applied in derogatory fashion to
Irishmen; confluent with the ME. miche, a truant, a pilferer, a sneak, a skulk,
a way-layer. See Creighton's Bluenose Magic (p. 104) for an example of the
use of this word in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

MIKUMWEES, MEGGUMOOWESOOS

The Wabenaki equivalent of the earth-spirits known

elsewhere as elfs, sigh or fairies.

Abenaki, Micmac dialect, the little people, "dwellers under stone." A

native informant explained that they “live in caves or burrow in the ground.”
(They are) "beautiful and strong, flute-players whose music enchants. Male
and female, they appear to humans lost in the woods. They are thought to
have once been people, having become through Power, the ultimate
realization of human potential. Time runs differently in a mikumesu wigwam:
one night with them and a year has passed in the camps of the People.”

It was always guessed that the little people were “human beings but
very small (averaging perhaps 2-3 feet).” Men said that they sometimes
hear their feet moving across the forest floor on warm summer days
although they were typically invisible. “They generally remain quiet during
the day but come ouit at night to do mischief and perform wonderful deeds.”
It was advised that people who offended them should immediately cross
water as themikumwees did not like to get their feet wet. All of the wee folk
had a slanted sense of humour and liked to approach people who were at
work in order to filch some needed tool. When the individual had become
stretched thin with trying to find the needed implement, the thief restored it
to plain sight, thereby creating great embarassment and a source of
laughter.

Stones found piled together in the forest were sometimes taken to be

the dwelling places of these creatures. When they were disassembled they
were invariably found back in cairn-form when men next passed that way.
Nearby, careful observers usually spotted many tiny footprints often leading
to a cavern or a cleft rock. Those who encountered the little people said
that they were able to follow their hosts into these small places, apparenntly
by having their size reduced. Friends of this race sometimes travelled in
their tiny canoes after a miraculous reduction in size. Upon leaving one of
their canoes a human was immediately returned to more usual size.

These were first creations of Kluscap, and their progenitor was

Marten, who lived in the underground with Kluscap and the Great Bear
Woman. He was present at the creation of the first man and woman and
suggested they be named Ash and Elder after the trees from which their
spirits were liberated. Like all of his kind he was exceptionally intelligent and
a subtle orator. When the Great Bullfrog Man threatened a source of
drinking water, Kluscap called Marten to his side in hopes of settling the
issue. This was one case where the intellect of the mikumwees failed for the
animal continued to drink up water as Marten lectured him. Perhaps tiring of
the flow of speech Bullfrog Man swallowed Marten whole and would have
digested him if Kluscap had not lost his temper and beat the creature across
the back with his staff. At that Bullfrog Man disgourged the little man and
the valuable water, and was afterwards magically reduced to his present
size. The injury to the frog's back renmains in all his descendants.

The mikumwees did not often live in close communication with one
another, and had little to do with the Lnuk, or normal people of the Micmac
world. All of their kind were mentou, or shape-changers, possessing an
ability to move instantaneously between the worlds. In addition, they were
buoinaq, having knowledge of the healing powers of herbs and the flute.
Finally most could generate kinap, or great physical power, and any of these
three would have been enough to set them apart. Those who could heal, also
had the power to destroy, and many mortal buoinaq were driven from their
homes, or were killed or left behind, out of fear, jealousy, revenge, or as a
simple insurance policy against their future behaviour. The fact that they
could call and control the dangerous horned serpent people with their "ash-
whistles" did little to convince people that they were non-violent. Like the
witch, the mikumwess camped in the midst of the oldest forest, taking a
genuine interest in men who were outsiders.

Kluscap considered the little people beings of superior virtue and

rewarded his favourite men with the means to becoming one of this tribe:
"Kluscap combs this young man's hair, and then ties it up with "sakklopi", the
hair-string of Power. The hair-string changes the young man, changes him
into mi'kumwesu. Kluscap has given him Power.

The mikumwees are not considered an extinct species. According to

Wilfred Prosper, a member of the Eskasoni band in Cape Breton, a friend
named Noel entertained a party of these little men in 1975. He might not
have been approached except for the fact that he was a "bull-beer" brewer,
who lived in a remote place to better avoid the attention of the law. He was
alone in his wood's-camp when "six of them came in. And Noel he told me
exactly where they sat, one sat there, and one on the table. Some sat on
the bed, some on the stool." "Little people," Noel explained, "were all bout me
and they were talking although I couldn't understand a word they were saying.
I'd heard if you were confronted with these folk, you should give them
something. All I had was cookies, so *I gave them cookies...It wasn't too long
they went along their merry way...but my God, I was scared by them, scared
to death. And someone came in to deliver oil or something, and I was so
damn glad..."

Because of their mutual interest in collecting and singing old hymns

translated from English into the Micmac dialect, Noel and Wilfred went
seeking music from an elderly man living on the Restigouche River. While
there, they were invited to visit an Indian community on the Gaspe and to
view the fairy mountain near the Mission St. Luke. To set the scene, their
guide explained that "This is farming country. There are some very big
farms there, and they have horses and cattle. And these fairies used to
harrass the animals to the point where some of them died. Some of the
horses had died. And in the morning the farmers go and tend to the animals
and find them full of sweat..And some of them had died. Mostly horses. And
their tails would be all braided. And their manes and everything. They'd be
running wild and like nervous and everything. So they contacted the bishop
or priest that ca,e down with a cross. You'll see that, you'll see the cross
still up there." At the actual site the host pointed out deep scars on the
face of the hill. "see those marks coming down, like little brooks? Thos are
put there by the fairies when they used to slide down. There's the cross
that the priest put up. After they put the cross up there, that put an end to
it. No more fairies. No more harassment, no more nothing."

MIMKITAWOQUSK

One of mikumwees made visble by a covering of moose-wood.

Abenaki, Micmac dialect, moose-wood man (Acer pennsylvanicum).

Moosewood is the straight-growing wood used to make the hoop which
encloses and binds the central poles of a wigwam. Pipe-stems were made
from smaller shoots. See mikumwees. The moosewood tribe is remembered
for gifting men with a potent all-round medicine made of steeped moosewood
leaves.

MISTER LUCKY

The thinly disguised elemental god Loki.

Anglo-Saxon, maegister perhaps from the Latin magnus, great in

power. Confers with maestro, magister, magistrate, magnitude,
mayor, magician, master, mister, mistress, mickle. Note also these
words: mag, a chatterbox, to chat or chatter; magg, to steal or mangle
beyond usefulness, to wear out with extreme use; magastromancy,
divination with reference to the stars. + luk, possibly related to the German
geluk, to entice (usual into an evil deed). Luck is still considered any chance
happening for good or evil; formerly, any omen or portent. Similar to the
Anglo-Saxon locen, to lock in place (seal one's fate.) and to loce. to bend or
twist in various directions; from this, a lock of hair (grasped by the serf in
the presence of his master.), a bunch of wool, cotton, flax, usually tag ends
as opposed to that of first quality; also loch, water enclosed by land and
ultimately the Gaelic god Lugh and the Norse god Loki. The latter is
considered the ultimate contrinver of discord and mischief, An elemental god
and one-time member of Odin's Aesir he was an adroit, cunning, ambitious,
shape- and sex-changing prankster. He contrived the death of Odin's
favourite son and was tracked dowm by Thor and bound in the underworld.
He has been promised freedom at the twilight of the gods when it is
expected he will lead the his host in the final battle between good and evil.
While is practically immobile his daughter Hel was said to represent his
interests on earth. Referrred to as Mister Lucky because of his numerous
brushes with and escapes from the law of the gods. The equivalent of the
Hebrew Satan and by juxtaposition the Devil of our own mythology.

Sometimes identified locally as Mister Man or more simply as The

Man. The name Loki corresponds exactly with the Latin Lucas, the French
Luc and the English Luke, hence we also have reference to Mister or
Master Luke, but more frequent notice is given Luke's Summer,
sometimes distinguished as Saint Luke's Summer (saint being intended to
signify a person with a religious occupation, either good or evil in its effects
on men.) In the past, luke was slang for nothing and is the a cousin of
looker (Loki was supposed to have been attractive in apperance.) This god
lusted after gold, thus lucre, any reward or gain in money or gooods.

Saint Luke's Summer is better known as Indian Summer and is a period

in autumn or early winter, characterized by clear skies masked by a hazy or
smoky atmosphere near the horizon. The occurence is typically in October
or very early November in America. In England, where it occurs in November,
it is sometimes designated Saint Martin's Summer or the Mart Summer after
Saint Martin's day (November 1). Saint Luke's Day (October 18) was never a
formal Christian holiday but usually fell near "Saint Luke's little summer in
fall." It has been said that "no shrines were ever erected to honour the god
of subterranean fire" but he has been remembered longer than some of the
more virtuous gods. To understand Loki's connection with these lazy hazy
days of post-summer it has to be reemembered that Odin controlled the
north winds that brought sleet and snow, but Loki was the south wind: "Loki,
the south wind, brings back the seed or the swallow, both precursors of the
returning spring." This might seem an innocent piece of work but remember
that Loki tended to excess? He was thus the personification of heat
lightning and his presence led to the moisture, heat, misery and bad temper
of sullen mid-summer days.

MISTPUFFER

A sea-spirit chiefly characterized as a noisemaker.

Anglo-Saxon, mist; Middle English, puf, a blow. These are mentioned in

an early issue of “Nature,” after George H. Darwin, the son of Charles,
wrote enquiring if readers were familiar the mistpouffers or “Barsil Guns.”
He wrote the magazine in October of that year defining them as “dull sounds,
more or less resembling distant artillery,” and says his attention was drawn
to them by a letter from a the conservator of the Museum of natural History
in Belgium. M. van der Broeck wrote that “certain curious or aeriel or
subterranean detonations, which are pretty commonly heard in Belgium and
the north of France, and are doubtless a general phenomena although little
known. People wrongly imagine them to be the sounds of distant artillery.”
Darwin consulted a colleague with the geological survey who added that they
were frequently heard on the coast of Belgium, being called “mistpouffers,”
as they were thought tom dissipate fog. M. Rutot testified that ten of his
acquaintences had heard the noises, “...detonations, dull and distant and
repeated a dozen times or more at irregular intervals. They are usually
heard in the day-time when the sky is clear, and especially towards evening
after a very hot day/ The noise does not at all resemble artillery, blasting in
mines, or the growling of distant thunder.” NM. Broeck thought that the
discharge might be that of atmospheric electricity, buut Rutot said the noise
was more likely to come from the earth’s crust.

A request for reader response led to the information that the noises
were also heard at Dartmoor, England, in parts of Scotland, Western
Australia, India, and in America, as well as on ships at sea. Approximately
twenty years later the “Monthly Weather Review,” noted that the Japanese
called these sounds “uminari” and reported them routinely to the central
weather bureau. Mr. T. Terada noted that, “These oceanic noises are
distinctly audible at sea or a few miles inland from the coast,” although he
said they were rarely heard on the headlands. “They resemble the rumbling
of a heavy wagon passing over an uneven road or crossing a bridge.” Terada
thought that these sounds were reflections of wave noise propogated
simultaneouly through air and earth.

In June of 1896, the “Scientific American” published a letter about

Mistpuffers as observed “from the Candian east coast.”: “These
detonations are also heard best in calm summer weather. There is also a
very good correlation between the sounds heard on the very deep
Kennebecasis (Bay) and the Barsil Guns, which were related by Shurr to the
deep depressions in the Ganges delta...Everyone who has been much upon our
Charlotte County coast must remember that upon the still summer days,
when the heat hovers upon the ocean, what seems to be gun, or even cannon
reports are heard at intervals coming from the seaward. The residents
always say, “Indians shooting porpoise off Grand Manan.” This explanation I
never believed, the sound ofg a gun report would not come that far, and
besides the noise is of too deep and booming a character. Mr. Samuel W.
Kain, secretary of the Natural History Society of St. John, N.B., has written
to us that these local noises, and the “Barisal guns,” and “mist pouffers,”
were discusssed at a meeting of the society. A letter was read from Edward
Jack, C.E., stating that he had heard these peculiar sounds on
Passamaquoddy Bay years ago. It was also announced that a similar
phenomena occurs in warm days of summer on the Kennebecasis, a lake like
affluent of the St. John River, of great depth and about seven miles from
the city of St. John. This has been observed by several competent
observers. The secretary also read a letter from Captain Bishop, of the
schooner Susie Prescott, stating that similar sounds were heard on warm
days between Grand Manan and Mount Desert Rock.”

MOODUS

The land-based noise-making spirit of East Haddam,

Connecticut.

Wagunk, moodus, “noise.” East Haddam, a few miles below

Middletown on the Connecticut River, was originally called Mooehemoodus,
“the place of the noises.” “these shocks are generally perceived in the
neighbouring towns, and sometimes at a great distance. They begin with a
trembling of the earth and a rumbling noise nearly resembling the discharge
of a haevy cannon at a distance. Sometimes three or four follow each other
in quick succession, and in this case the first is the most powerful.” In the
town itself, the noise appears to issue from the northwest corner, where it
has been observed that the ground was repeatedly struck by lightning. A Mr.
Hosmer, on site in 1729, said that the sound was “intermediate between the
roar of a cannon and the noise of a pistol. The concussions made to the
earth is the same as the falling of logs on the floor. The smaller shocks
produced no emotion of terror or fear in the minds of the inhabitants. They
are spoken of as a usual occurrence, and are called Moodus notes, but when
they are so violent as to be heard in the adjacent towns, they are called
earthquakes.”

The Indians of Connecticut chose Machemoodus as a spiritual gathering

place because of the "earth music" they heard there. The name means
"place of sounds" and has been shortened to "Moodus". The Wangunk Indians
suspected that the bear-like growlings which they heard at this location
were gods breathing from the caverns of the earth. The phenomena is lived
with on a daily basis by residents who describe the effects as ranging from
the sounds of corks popping from champagne bottles to the rush of a
cavalry at full charge. Whatever the intensity, from light popping sounds to
the snsation that the bottom of the feet are

In our century, scientists have been puzzled by cannonades of high

intensity sound that appeared, seemingly without cause, along the eastern
coast. At first it was assumed that these were due to the after-shocks of
jet-aircraft breaking the sound barrier, but it was later shown that there
were no crossings of airplanes in the places where these noises occured. It
was finallly decided that these were also "moog sounds." We are not sure
that science has eliminated spirits as a source of these noises, since these
are the rumbles and thunders and creakings of the moving earth as it
stretches across its tectonic plates. Actually such noises occur from time
to time in all kinds of locations and are due to minor earthquakes along
faults. Most faults are deeply seated and the sound is generated too far
from the surface to carry to the ears of men. The Moodus quakes are
noisier than most because theyoriginate with very shallow breaks in the
crust (the average fault is six to nine miles in depth). The Moodus
movements do not lose their voice, and the overlying rock in the regions
where they are heard is a good conductor of sound. Since the town is
located between two nuclear power plants residents have shown more
anxiety about the integrity of these buildings than with the general effects
of quakes which constantly juggle their dishes in the pantry.mistpuffer,
whose effects are sometimes referred to as the Barsil guns.

Legend has it that ”a numerous tribe of cannibals” once inhabited East

Haddam in colonial times. They were infamous for worshipping an evil spirit
hoping to appease his wrath. These folk claimed that, “the Indian god was
angry because the English god had intruded upon him, and these were
expressions of his displeasure.” According to an article in the “American
Journal of Science,” (1840) the trouble commenced in 1790 when a European
named Steele came to the community and told his landlord that he sought a
“fossil carbuncle,” which he later brought home after several nights of
mining. Mr. Knowlton, who boarded Steele, said that he was shown “a white
round substance resembling a stone in the light but remarkably luminous in
the dark.” It was noticed that the illuminating power of the stone was so
great that it caused “cold fire” in the house itself, an illumination “perceived
at a great distance.” The morning after this happening, Mr. Steele wrapped
the mineral in sheet lead and left for Europe. While he visited with Knowlton,
Steele said that this substance was the cause of Moodus sounds. Their
occurence was followed by changes in temperature and rainfall. Steele
supposed that the sounds were emitted by the stones still in situ as their
crystalline structures abraded one another due to the differing amounts of
water they contained.

Frank Osterwald thought that the sounds were due to underground

rockbursts, “the sudden violent failure of masses of rocks in quarries,
tunnels and mines,” events accompanied by “shocks, rock falls, and air
concussions.” In mining regions, rock bursts are also called outbursts,
bumps, pillar bursts, pounces etc. This idea is somewhat belied by the fact
that some of the noises have been perceived “at regular intervals since
colonial days,” when deep-pit mining was not widespread in North America.

In 1940 the “Buffalo Evening News,” guessed that “the mysterious

Moodus has returned. At irregular intervals since colonial times, this region
(Connecticut) has been shaken by sharp earth shocks and dull booming
sounds... Shortly before midnight the sounds came agian. Loud rumblings
were heard and houses trembled. Townspeople awakened. There was no
damage...”

MOON CUSSER

A spirit commited to destroying sailors and their craft.

Anglo-Saxon, mona, the moon; confers with the Gaelic samani, an

assembly, and samhuinn, summer-end and sam, summer, from Samh, the
pagan moon-goddess. Note that the Mani of Old Norse mythology was male
and that he was accompanied in the sky by Hiuki, the waxing, and Bil, the
waning moon; two foster-children snatched from the grasp of an earthly
father who overworked them. These two were the equivalent of Jack and Jill
as represented in the old nursery rhyme, and our ancestors contended they
saw the water-pail carried by these twins faintly outlined on the moon.
Hence, the local idea that the moon is the source of tides which were
anciently thrown out from this pail. When the cusps (pointed ends) of the
moon were up it was said that there would be little rain as "the moon holds
water. + Middle English, curser, one who calls upon the gods to injure
others; secondarily, a fellow or beast who is contemptuous or below an open
slight. Anciently, perhaps, men who called upon the moon-goddess to create
dangerous tides in shaoler water. Comapre with wrackers.

As it happens the ancients were entirely correct in supposing that

there was a relationship between the spirit of the moon and that of the
ocean. We still speak of "a bad moon rising" (see the magazine "Discover"
for March 1993) and see the dangers of being "moonstruck" as real
possibilities. In the past century the greatest storm that ever struck the
Maritime Provinces came ashore on the night of October 4, 1869.
Interestingly, it had been predicted by Lieutenant S.M. Saxby, an irregular
with the Royal Navy in a letter to the London "Standard" on December 24,
1868. In part, he wrote, "I now beg to state with regard to October 5th,
the moon will be at that part of her orbit which is nearest the earth. Her
attraction will therefore be at its maximum force. At noon that same day
the moon will be on the earth's equator, a circumstance that never occurs
without marked atmospheric disturbance, and at 2 p.m. of the same day the
moon's attraction and the sun's attraction will be acting in the same
direction...and nothing more threatening can occur...Therefore the tides can
be at their highest and the wind and tide damage may result in the greatest
destruction..." Saxby extended a second "warning to mariners" in September
of the following year and this notice was taken up by a Halifax meteorologist
who passed the information on to the local public in the "Morning Chronicle."
The British Admiralty gave extra force to the warnning by advising its men
working in the Halifax Dockyard to prepare for storm on the predicted date.
As it happened, Saxby was on the money, and a hurricane beat its way into
the Bay of Fundy, the eye crossing St. Stephen, New Brunswick about
midnight on the day before Christmas. In Charlotte County sixty-seven
vessels were driven ashore before the storm blew itself out in York County.

Saxby was not universally believed but Bob Berman, who runs Outlook
Observatory in up-state New York, is of a like mind and in 1993, he wrote: "A
celestial chain of coincidences begins when March's full moon lands on the
very day that the moon comes closest to the earth. Such alignments happen
infrequently, since the 29.5-day cycle of lunar phase doesn't march step
with the 27.5-day interval between close approaches. There';s more: the
moon's orbit changes shape, depending on the relative positions-and
gravitational pull-of the sun and Earth. Sometimes it's more circular; at
other times more elongated. This month the orbit distorts to maximum
eccentricity."

"This stretched out lunar orbit will push the moon to an anomaously
great distance from Earth on March 21, a distance that won't be surpassed
until 1998. But the real show-stopper is the strangely close lunar approach,
or perigee, two weeks earlier. On the night of March 7, between midnight and
dawn, the two surfaces of our two worlds will pass barely 216,000 miles
apart."

"And there's still more. Perigee occurs at 9 a.m. Greenwich mean

time, while the full moon arrives at 9:47. So, as another bonus, full moon
and the most extreme perigee come not just on the same night but les than
an hour apart. (Now) tides vary with the cube of distance, if the moon
ventured 3 times nearer its tidal pull would be 27 times stronger...That's
why the sun, 400 times more distant than the moon exerts less than half
the lunar effect even though it's 27 million times heavier."

"Sincy brawny "spring tides" (which have nothing to do with the season;
the word comes from the German "springen", "to rise up") occur at evry full
moon this bull's-eye combination of full moon and extreme perigee will cook
up extraordinary tides. They even have their own Scrabble-friendly name
"proxigean." History has shown a disquieting correlation betweeen
astronomical conditions and costal flooding. The proxigean spring tides on
March 8 will be dramatic. High tide will climb far up the beach while low tide
will expose areas normally submerged. If there's a storm at sea or strong
onshore winds that day-we can expect impressive costal damage. Even an
the air pressure can be important, since oceans behave like the pool of
mercury in a barometer. A 1-inch barometer drop will raise the seas 13
inches." 14

The mooncussers may have cursed the moon for any inadvertant light
it threw on their activities, but it may be supposed that they noticed these
connections between the moon, the sun, weather and the sea, and a few of
them may have been capable of "bringing off a good shipwreck" through
simple observations of nature. In a "good shipwreck", the title to flotsam
and jetsam was made absolutely clear by the loss of all hands on board. In
cases where there were survivors, the mooncussers and wreckers
sometimes found it necessary to assist the forces of Rann and her sea-

14Berman, "Bad Moon Rising" in Discover, March (1993), p. 90.

spirits by murdering the few unfortunates who stumbled ashore. It was, of
course, preferable (in their eyers) that the sea-hag would make a clean
sweep, carrying away all of the living from the face of the waters.

MOSS FOLK

Mortal spirits of the marsh, forest and bush-lands.

Anglo-Saxon mos, a marshy placer, especially a peat bog. + folc,
people organized tribally but not nationally. Former word confers with mire,
mud and muscoid. Also known as the wild, wood, timber, forest, bush or
fern people. They sometimes lived together in remote places, but often
resided alone. They were small in stature, but somewhat larger than the elf,
being perhaps three to four feet in height. All of their kind were grey-
compl;exioned, old-looking, hairy and dressed in moss or plant foilage. Except
during the spring and summer they lived in the deep woods. The woman, who
were more placid than the men, sometimes obtained cloth in trade with men.
In this case they appeared dressed in green clothing lined with red, wearing
cocked hats (Robin Hood style) decorated with feathers. Males and females
were ruled by the bush-grandmother, the eldest among them. Most of the
women raised their children in patches of Spanish moss, or Old Man's Beard,
high up in the trees. In Europe they were often spoken of as the quarry of
Odin's Hunt.

My ancestors at Bonny River were always involved with the timber-

trade on the Maguaguadavic River, which is just next door to Lake Utopia, the
haunt of our most publicized sea-serpent. They knew of the moss maidens
who insisted that men should refrain from needlessly destroying trees by
stripping their bark. They often came to men who slept in the forest
offering to interpret their dreams. If they were given bread baked with
carroway seeds these little women might exchange their knowledge of the
healing properties of plants. They were expert knitters, spinners and
weavers and would often roll down a ball of yarn from the trees to favour
women who had befriended them. It was well to accept this yarn as each ball
had a magical "twist" which allowed it to be used for more projects than
seemed possible. In the fall they assembled at the homes of men asking
some part in the fall baking, washing and hay-making, expecting dough "the
size of a half mill stone" in return for their efforts. Woodsmen used to cut
three crosses on trees which were to be hewn. When the stumps were all
that remained the moss-folk used them as places of refuge to escape the
cannibalistic woods-whooper.
 A man from the community of Flume Ridge, New Brunswick, was
travelling south through the forest when he met a tiny woman struggling
along with a wheelbarrow which had a split hub. Being a blacksmith, he
offered to amke repairs with bronze. He carried the little barrow to his
shop, renovated it with metal and gave it back to the moss-woman. She was
exceedingly grateful, but the smith was amused when she "paid him" by filling
his hands with wood chips. So as not to offend her he placed the chips in his
pocket, but when she was out of sight threw them into the grass. He went
back to work dismissing the incident, but at home discovered that one of the
chips had become threaded into his pocket lining and had turned to gold. By
kerosene lantern, the blacksmith and his wife made careful examination of
the tall grass around his shop, and were afterwards counted as wealthy
citizens of the community of Bonny River.

MOTHER CARY

The goddess-spirit of the upper air, the mate of the Norse

wind god Kari, often said incaranate in the European Storm Petrel.

Also seen as Mother Carey, anciently Mother Kari. Note

Mother Cary's Buring Ground an ancient Indian burial site on the Old
Meadow Road within Kejemukjik Park, central Nova Scotia.

The Norse god Kari is unknown in Atlantic Canada but Mother Carey's
Chickens are common spirits of the region. Mother Carey is, of course, the
consort of the old elemental known as Kari. Some men have suggested that
"seagulls are the souls of dead sailors", but they are actually runners, and
Mother Carey's "chickens" are not seagulls but the less common Leach's
Petrel. My grandfather, Chester Guptill, of Grand Harbour, Grand Manan,
knew that the "chickens" could be consulted to determine the weather. He
said that the oldest birds were the ones to watch and when one planned on
going to sea it was hoped that they would be relatively inactive. When they
flew in a sluggish dispersed pattern sunny weather lay ahead, but when they
began to fly in close circles wind storms were expected. Grandfather said
that these birds flew in the quadrant of the sky from which wind might be
expected to blow, except when they ventured over land, in which case a
westerly breeze was ahead. When the birds flew close to the water in open
circles nothing of great moment was expected, but the higher they flew, and
the closer the members of the flock, the greater the danger to men and
boats.

Ornithologist Robie Tufts says that Storm Petrels generally "nest on

islands in the northeastern Atlantic...Although it has been recorded a number
of times in the western Atlantic all North American records of sightings have
proven inconclusive." Roger Tory Peterson confirmed the presence of a
single bird at Ungava, Labrador. Few winds cross the Atlantic against the
prevailing south westerlies, so that most of our strange petrels and
shearwaters may be considered "accidentals", blown our way on hurricanes
that originate in the West Indies. The petrel which does breeds and reside in
our region is not the Storm Petrel but Leach's Petrel an eight inch sea-bird,
sooty brown in colour with dark grey wing coverts, a white rump and a forked
tail. Tufts says that these are the birds locally known as "careys". Like the
members of the crow family petrels were not universally liked since they
often dropped excrement on house-tops. While this is no longer a problem,
the faeces used to be washed by rainwater into barrels used to obtain and
store drinking and bathing water. Lightkeepers discouraged them by keeping
cats which ravaged their nesting burrows. The period of nesting is the only
time when this oceanic bird is found on land, and that is usually between June
and September.

A resident of Riverport, Nova Scotia explained that: "Every time a

sailor drowns he takes (his external soul moves to) the soul of one of the
birds at Ironbound (island). This bird is sort of like the Stormy Petrel or
Carey's Chicken. The people (in this vicinity) will not disturb the birds
because that would disturb the souls." This belief varies regionally; at
Peggy's Cove a seaman identified gulls as "Carey's Chickens" and in Cornwall,
England, it is suggested that "the souls of old sea-captains never sleep; they
are turned into gulls and albatrosses." Elsewhere in Britain it is guessed
that the souls entrapped in petrels find no rest until the death of the bird.
In many cases, birds have been observed as the befind or follower of
individuals, and as such, appear as the forerunners of these people
immediately before their death.

The relationship between the spirits of the air and those of the water
has always been close. As Helen Creighton notes: "The wind always comes in
with the tide." In Norse mythology the wind god Kari was considered one of
the triad of elemental-gods, his brothers being Loki, the god of underground
fire, and Hler, god of the sea. The voracious goddess Rann, the consort of
Hler would be the equivalent of Mother Kari. According to the old tales the
sea-deities had nine beautiful daughters known as the "waeg" or waves, "a
very moody and carpricious bunch." They only "came out to play" when the
wind-god, or a related spirit, was present. Usually the sea goddesses were
gentle and playful but sometimes this foreplay became a rough and
boisterous mating of water and wind with unforseen consequences on ships
at sea.

MOTHER RAW

A bogie-woman bound to remote mountainous places.

Anglo-Saxon, moodor + hraaew perhaps from the Gaelic creo, a

wound. Confers wiuth crude and cruel. Alternate maeanings include
uncooked flesh, unmfinished, disagreeable, damp, cold, chilly, bleak.

J. D. A. Widdowson has noted that this "fairy" is found in Newfoundland

where she "prevents children from climbing a dangerous mountain." He says
that Jack o"Lantern keeps them out of the woods while Henry Gouldwoody
lurks on the barrens. See Widdowson's article "The Function of Threats in
Newfoundland Folklore."

MUIN WAPSKWA, MUINISKW

The “white bear woman.”

Micmac, the “bear-squaw.” An albino black bear. After Glooscap eliminated

his brother it is said that he lived alone upon the land for seven times seven
moons, until there came to him others of his own race, in particular the
Muiniskw, or Bear Woman, who corresponds exactly with the Winter Hag or
Cailleach Bheurr of Gaelic myth. It was often said that both these individuals
were “born of the sea foam,” and it was sometimes contended that Glooscap
came to land out of the eastern ocean rather than from the moon. In either
instance, Micmac mothers used to consider it their first duty to dip a
newborn child in sea-water, thus dedicating him to the god Glooscap. The
bear woman was always obliquely addressed by the People as “our
grandmother.” It was said that in the latter days “she could hardly move,
and was old and blind.” This winter-woman is like the Macha of the Mhorrigan
triune, but she is also that more youthful woman: “(She was) A woman of
long ago who came out of a hole in the ground. She made her house in a tree
and dressed in leaves. In times past she walked alone singing, “I want
company, I am lonesome; and far away a wild man heard her...” Her
relationship with Glooscap was never definitely stated, but when he departed
from the northeastern coast it was said that he regenerated her in the form
of a maiden named Oona, and cast a blanket of forgetfulness over her, so
that she was able to continue her life in a normal fashion.

Once, enemies invaded the camp of her People causing most of them to flee.
Being blind and stiff of joint she remained and was mistreated. After a short
time, the mistress of magic reformed herself as a white bear lying “dead” at
the edge of the encampment. The invaders finding this easy source of
fresh meat and grease carved her up and ate her. The newcomers were
dead in the space between dawn and evening. Eating uncooked bear meat can
be a painful experience as their livers sometimes contain trichina worms,
which burrow from the human stomach out into the muscles and joints. Of
more concern is the liver, which concentrates amounts of vitamin A which
are fatal when consumed by men. The Scottish kelpies, the water-horses of
inland lakes and streams might have had this same problem with the people
they ate, but they always had the sense to discard the liver!

MUTCHIGNIGOS

An island perceived as having an evil spirit.

There are tens of thousands of islands in Atlantic Canadian waters,

and in the Penobscot language they were distinguished by the presence, or
lack, of the absentive case. Generally, the ending menahan, “island”
indicated “a weak (inanimate) noun,” and a place of little hazard (although
that condition was always open to change without notice). An example of an
island with this ending is Cheemanahn, “Big Island.” Islands prefixed with
some form of the word naghem which also means “island,” were known to be
shape-changers, and capable of generating phenomena that were, at least,
likely to be unnerving. For example we have: Mutchignigos, loosely, “Bad
Island.” Another would be Kasoonaguk, “Crane Island,” now called Mark
Island, standing off Camden, Maine. In other days it was considered wise to
avoid this landfall. By contrast Pitaubegwimenahanuk. the “Island that Lies
Between Two Channels,” now a part of the town of Islesboro, Maine, was
considered spiritually neutral. The letter M’ prefixed to any word identifies
the noun as the personal property of the Penobscot god Glusgenbeh, thus
we have M’dangamak, “Glooscap’s snowshoes,” an early name for Dice’s
Island near Castine, Maine. Near the lighthouse on that island there used to
be marks engraved in a rock ledge which the Penobscots identified as those
left by this heavy creature when he leaped across Penobscot Bay in pursuit
of a giant moose. These prints in stone were greatly venerated by the
Indians, but the white settlers destroyed them as pagan artifacts.

Champlain came to Muttoneguis or Muttonegwenigosh , an island in

the Saint Croix River, one with a warning buried in its name. The Indians
stored their goods there, but did not live there, not only out of a sense of
taboo but also because it was known to stand amidst shifting cakes of ice all
winter long. Champlain had been a proponent of island life for intending
settlers, noting the advantages of security from attack by Indians and wild
animals. A few years later, speaking with hindsight, Marc Lescarbot noted,
“whoever intends to take possession of a country will never succeed if they
imprison themselves upon an island. There are not many comforts on an
island, often no drinking water and no wood or other household needs.”
These were not the sole problems for the inhabitants many have been
harried by the resident spirit for they suffered joint pains, lost teeth and
bleeding gums and a general draining of vigour. This has since been
diagnosed as scurvy due to a lack of vitamin C, but the malignant epidemic
would have been just as severe had the French known its name. The winter
of 1604 was very difficult. For starters, the buildings were not well
insulated, for the wine and beer froze and fresh water could not be thawed
from the limited snowfall. When spring arrived thirty five of the original
seventy-nine visitors were dead and twenty more were at the point of death.
When the enterprise was transferred to Port Royal for the next winter
things were a bit better but twelve men died of the same disease. This is
unfortunate as the remedy stood all about them in the leaves of the balsam
fir. These have a high vitamin C content and were boiled by the Indians to
create a prophylactic drink against this disease.

MUMMER

NATHAIR

An immortal Celtic god-spirit of the upper air, the

destructive fraction of the athair who the Norse called the
Allfather.
 Gaelic, n-athair (nay-ayr), a negation of father; one who is not
fatherly. A serpent, the Gaelic devil. Similar to the Cymric neidr and the
Cornish nader (from which the family name Nader.) The Brythonic form
was azr and the Latin natrix, a water-snake. Norse nathr, confering with
the English adder. Corresponds with the West Wind of Indian myth, the
creature in opposition to the East Wind, or Michabo, the creator-god of the
Wabenaki.

The antagonist of the Allfather. The male leader of the "Unsely Court"
(see Uruisg), also called the Host or Wild Hunt. The remote dweller in the
unmoveable pole-star, who had a female equivalent in the Cailleach Bheur
(which, see). The Gaels were at odds with the Anglo-Saxons, who proudly
referred to themselves as the "Coiled Serpent People", so the Nathair was
perhaps their god Wuotan. Resembles the local Woods-whooper (which see).

This Gaelic god resembles the continental Dispater, who Caesar listed
as one of the six most often worshipped in Gaul. "Pater" is a Latin word for
father and "dis" is a prefix having the same meaning as the English "bis",
"duo" and "bi", which is "two". Dispater identified a spirit of two minds, one
constructive like the Oolaithair, the other a damaging force. At best, the
prefix is preserved to suggest separation as: "dismiss, disperse, distribute"
and "dissuade", at worst it is a negation: "disable, disaster, discord, disease".
Caesar said that all the Gauls claimed descent from Dispater, but failed to
notice that this god had an alter-ego. Ward Rutherford equates him with
Cernunnos or Kernow, but the latter is clearly a low-grade earth-spirit rather
than an aspect of the creator-god.

The nathair was particularly associated with huge black land-snakes

such as the one which Neil McNeil said frequented Red Rock, Cape Breton,
Nova Scotia: "as big around as a flour barrel". Others have reported
outsized snakes from MacNutt's Island off the southern shore of the
mainland. One observer commented "They're rare big black ones..."

NATHAIR MARA

The Gaelic sea-serpent

Gaelic, nathair, serpent; Old Irish, nathir, Welsh, neidr, Cornish, nader,
Middle Brythonic, azr, Latin, natrix, a water snake. Confers with the English
adder. + marasgal, master. Possibly related to marc, a horse and
certainly to mor, great and muir, the sea.

Refer to sea-serpent and notice Helen Creighton's report that Maritime

seamen do not like to dream of horses. Lowland forms were the the
nuckalavee and the nuck (which, see).

NESSA

The oceanic and estuarine sea-snake or sea-serpent.

Anglo-Saxon naes, nose, referring to the fact that its head had this
predominant feature. Also know as the neck from another prominent
characteristic. Possibly related to the Old Gaelic ness, a wound from its
voraciuous appetite. The nessa did not differ substantially from the
nicca, or nicks (which see), but were generally seen as the young of the
species, having less length and girth, and thus found coasting closer the land,
even entering lochs or embayments. The Loch Ness Monster Nessie is
representative of this class of creatures. See nuckalavee, nick, sea-serpent
etc.

A classic sighting of a ness was made by the entire crew of the

schooner Madagascar just before it docked to load coal at Lubec , Maine on
the morning of July 28, 190l. The ship was moving through the Bay of Fundy
at eight knots when the watch warned of an object in the water, which at
first appeared to be a floating log. Within "a sea-buscuit" of the object,
sailors were astonished to see this apparently inanimate object raise a snake
like head and glide sinuously away from the ship. The crew all agreed that
the animal was snake-like thirty feet in length and covered with scales, which
refracted light so that parts appeared green and other areas brown. There
were spinal points all along the back and a huge dorsal fin just below the
head; this was thick, dark in colour, and about the size of a man's hand. The
body was estimated to have a diameter of two feet, tapering slightly beyond
the head and drastically toward the tail. The men watched it for a half hour
as it made "fast skipping motions" through the water.

Edward Ray told "The Saint Croix Courier" of Saint Stephen, New
Brunswick, that he had been a seaman for nine years and had never seen
anything on or in the sea that looked like this animal. Asked if it might be
feasible to trap the creature, Ray guessed that it would be dangerous to
attempt this or to injure it with a harpoon. The "Saint Andrews Beacon"
reported a similar sighting, August 2, 1906. This time the serpent was seen
very near land by Theobold Rooney the keeper of Sand Reef Light. This man
supposed that the monster had been drawn into shallower water following a
school of herring. After a fast entry into the approaches of Saint Andrew's
harbour, the serpent put about and moved slowly away in the direction of
Clam Cove. Rooney said the animal was twenty-five to thirty feet in length,
and the diameter of a large weir stake. The keeper said he might have taken
it for a shark, but it lacked a dorsal fin and kicked up a whale-like tail before
diving out of sight. Having heard of these sightings the naturalist-historian
William F. Ganong came to the area to assess their validity: "For the past
few summers the local papers have often reported the appearance of sea-
serpents at Passamaquoddy and the Saint Croix (River). The animal is really
there but is according to testimony of observant persons, a White
Whale...Locally it is stated that it came into the Bay of Fundy with war-ships
during the Champlain selebrations, June 25, 1905...the animal was also seen
in the bay at least one season before 1905." If this was a whale it was a
very emaciated example!

NICK

An adult sea-serpent.

Anglo-Saxon nick, also known as the knicky-ben. Most references

suggest that the source of the word is obscure but we think it is the nikkur,
ninnir, or Hnikur of Norse myth, the last being the Eddaic name of Odin
when he takes the form of a sea-creature. Akin to nock, both indicating
something notched or slit and perhaps referring to the mouth of the
creature. Either word may indicate an animal showing good physicalcondition,
breeding which produces virile offspring. On the negative side, "to nick" is
to strike out and bit at precisely the weak point in enemy defenses, to catch
off guard, and by extension, to cheat, defraud, outrun, or somehow break
another individual. Also to deny or nay-say. Thomas Keightley has said
that, "The Thames, the Avon, and other English streams never seem to have
been the abode of the neck." This is because these souhern rivers are
shallow, and the nicks preferred the room offered by the deep fjords.

The nick has been characterized as having two horns on its head,
making it an obvious relation of wiwilameq and the jipjakimaq. Like those
creatures, the deep-sea nick has been pictured as having a triangular head
on a long neck after the fashion of an ancient pllesiosaur and a body not
unlike that of a seal.

The earliest sighting of one of these mythical beasts in our waters

occurred off Cape Breton Island in 1805 when David Lee reported seeing
adark green sea-serpent passing through the water "with an impetuous
noise." Twenty years later there were multiple reports from a number of
ships in Halifax Harbour when one swam by on the twenty-fifth day of July.
One man who saw it guessed this nick to be "as big as a tree trunk and sixty
feet long." In 1833, to members of the Royal Navy at Mahone Bay, Nova
Scotia, saw a beast they said resembled a common American eel, except
that its long neck supported "a head six feet in length." The two thought
that the total length of the animal might be eighty feet and claimed it was
dark in colour, almost black with streaks of white.

A very spectacular sighting was recorded by geologist J.W. Dawson

from Merigomish Beach, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, in 1842. Estimated at
one hundred feet in length, this serpent beached itself within two hundred
feet of shore and struggled there for a full half-hour before regaining deep
water. In that time it was seen by a horde of Pictonians. Some thought the
head was horse-like others said it resembled a seal. The colour was black
but the body surface had a mottled rough appearance. In its efforts to
reach safety, the animal was seen to "bend its body almost into a
circle." In 1890 a fisherman returning to Port George on Victoria Beach,
Nova Scotia, spotted another "horse-headed" creature racing through the
Bay of Fundy. The captain noted that "it rolled hoop-like" beside his craft,
each hoop taking up thirty or forty feet of water. The crew were terrified
to observe "eyes as big as saucers" and as the creature was following closely
they put on more sail hoping to outrun it. Nevertheless they were trailed
under threatening storm clouds as far as Prim Light. Two sister vessels
made similar sightings before the weekend, but this sea-serpent was never
reported afterwards.

NIGHEAG NAH-ATH

Another name for the Celtic banshee.

Gaelic, also nighean (pronounced neeyah-e), daughter; + nathair, of

the serpent, i.e. the virulant fraction of the athair or creator-god. The
equivalent of the male nathair mara. This is the lady alternately known as
the bean-nighe (ban neeyah) or beansidh; which is to say, the banshee. This
later word interprets as “washer woman.” This appellation is given as the
lady is often seen washing blood from the shrouds of men destined to die.

"They are usually represented as short and stumpy with shaggy hair.
dark wrinkled faces, little deep-set eyes, but bright as carbuncles. Their
voices are cracked and hollow; their hands have claws like a cat's; their feet
are horny like those of a goat. They are expert smiths and coiners; they are
said to have great treasures in the barrows or weems (hollow hills) in which
they dwell, and of which they are regarded the builders. They dance round
them by night, and wo to the belated peasant who, passing by, is forced to
join in their roundal; he usually dies of exhaustion." Wedneday is their
holiday, the first Wednesday in May their annual festival, which they
celebrate with dancing, singing and music. They have the same aversion to
holy things as the morrigan; like them they can foretell events. The nighean
is always furnished with a large leathern purse, which is said to be full of
gold, but those who have succeeded in wrestling it away, have found nothing
better than locks of hair and a pair of scissors. These are the same sidh, or
trows, who warn some men of death by appearing in the night as globes of
fire or as wraiths which wail or track the path which the funeral cortege will
follow from home or church to the grave.” See also morrigan, caoineag, etc.

NIGHT MARE

A spirit of the air, the cause of bad dreams.

Anglo-Saxon, neaht, that part of the day when the sun is below the
horizon + mara, an incubus, melancholy, a hag, witch or specter. Akin to the
Gaelic marc, horse and the Anglo-Saxon, meach, horse. Confers with
marshal and mare, a female horse.

The name commonly given a creature which has found a place in

pschological literature as well as mythology. Writing of this "condition", Dr.
Hufford has said, "The Old Hag (or Night Mare) refers to bad dreams usually
about being chased by an evil creature, and feelings of hearing or seeing
something come into the room (of a sleeper), and being pressed on the chest
and nearly suffocated and being unable to move or cry out." This
psychiatrist further noted that, "such experiences are more widespread than
previously thought, and probably originate from altered states of
consciousness, possibly related to narcolepsy."

This spirit was termed the night mare from its habit of sitting upon
the chests of people while they slept, riding them like horses as they lay
dreaming. They sat upon the chest or back of the afflicted person, gripping
human hair like reins on a harnesssed horse. These invisible beings
sometimes materialized as cats, dogs, mice, snakes or as less easily defined
creatures, varing according to the sleeper's pet fear. The huge weight of
the night mare left the victim panting for breath and bathed in a night sweat.
People who suffered the attentions of this monster sometimes felt they had
been sexually assaulted and often found their hair lutinized so that it was
difficult to untangle. The night mare is the "lutin" of the Acadian people, a
beast that troubled dometic animals in precisely the same manner. Men and
animals that were repeatedly ridden sickened and died of wasting diseases,
notably that now called tuberculosis. The night mares were sometimes
identified as unattached spirits of evil, but were alsosaid to have been
projections of the Devil, a witch, a boabh or a hag. In German-speaking
communities, the mare used to be called the "hagge". THis was translated in
neighbouring English-speaking villages as "old hag" and the victims were sid to
have been "hag-ridden".

A classic case was associated with the poltergeist-ridden Hartlan

House at South East Passage in Nova Scotia: "After I got to sleep there was
somethin' pressing me and I couldn't wake or couldn';t turn over (for) about
half an hour and, when I woke, I seen this person go from me to the windy and
she was a woman with a black and white spotted dress on and I was in a
latherr of sweat with water pouring off me as big as marbles. Whatever it
was, a witch or not, God knows." In this instance the night mare was
dissuaded from further visits by writing "nine letters from a German Bible"
on a board which was placed over the doorway to the bed room.

At East River Point two men managed a more ironic revenge. It was
suspected that a village hag was causing the bad dreams of one resident and
a second suggested that he sleep in his friend's bed to lay atrap for the night
visitor. She came as usual but he was not actually asleep. "When the witch
took him out to put the bridle on, he put it on her instead." Presumably he
rode her through the night because, "she nver came back there again."

NIWAH
 The Wabenaki mermaid.

Similar to the nibanaba of Lake Superior, which Anna Brownell Jameson

(1838) recorded as a legendary creature of the Chipewawas, “a being half
human, half fish.” “The Indians dwelling in the region between the
Kennebecasis and the Saint John rivers were called Etchemins, the name
first given the Saint Croix River by Champlain. The several Etchemin tribes
were always closely associated. In both war and peace they acted uniformly
as one. Among their noted chiefs were Bashaba the Great...; Madockawando
(and his descendants) who ruled the Quoddy and Penobscot tribes for two
hundred years... These salt water saghems believed themselves descended
from a mermaan and the name Neptune seemed fitting for them.”15 When
the French at Port Royal presented a pageant honouring the safe return of
explorers from Cade Cod, they represented Father Neptune as a central
figure, and by this act inadvertently honoured some of the Indian tribesmen,
thus binding them to their cause.

NIXE

Collectively, all spirits of lakes, streams and rivers.

Anglo-Saxon, feminine nix, masculine nixe, plural nixen. Similar to the

German nichts, nothing, no one; nix my dolly, obselecent slang, never mind.
In the U.S. Mail Service, nix, improperly addressed undeliverable mail and nix
clerk, one in charge of nixes. Nixuriate, to attempt to bring forth.

Small in stature, these creatures were still within the human range of
height. All seemed youthful in comparison with the mature mer-people. Most
of the males were described as blond, curly-haired, wearing red caps and
invariably carrying a harp. Their mates were about four feet in height with
irridescent hair and skin like white velvet; they always dressed in white
gowns following the fashion of many of the sea-people. In humanoid form
they were indistinguishable from ordinary people except that their eyes were
green in colour, and their teeth fish-like in colour and shape. The nixs were
adepts at shape-changing and could appear as fish, half fish, or even flowers
or jewellry floating in or on a stream. The men appeared as humans, fish-

15Murchie, Guy, Saint Croix The Sentinel River, (New York) 1947, pp.
66-67.
men, horse-men, horses, bulls and stallions. Like the kelpy, the nix, or nixe,
made an acceptable work-horse if bound with a magical bridle.

While the mer-people were apt to damage people and their property,
the nixen were more often harmless tricksters. While Mr. Horace Johnston
of Port Wade, Nova Scotia was serving as first mate to his brother aboard
the "Vesta Pearl" in the midddle of this century, they were forced into "a
little river" as it was "raining hard and blowing bad." In this situation they put
down one of two sea-achors, holding back a larger anchor in case of
emergency. Feeling reasonably secure the entire crew went into the cuddy
to play crokinole. As they were amusing themseleves the second anchor
reeled out on its steel chain. Startled the captain commented that he
thought that this anchor had been made fast, and led a group of men to the
deck to windlass it back to the deck. It had not been moved from the original
place of storage.

They had other disconcerting habits, for example at Devaneys Cove on

Hackett's Cove in Nova Scotia, numerous people reported seeing a headless
woman dressed in white emerge from the waters. River spirits also created
the "baffling forces" which occasionally stopped ships in their track although
they were under full sail at the time. On the La Have River in Nova Scotia one
capotain said that he had sailed into a river under "a good breeze". Suddenly
the vessel did a complete about turn in the water. The men knew the
waters, and were all excellent seamen but no matter what their tack could
not get the vessel much beyond the estuary until the break of day. A s
one progressed upstream it was noted that the spirits of the river became
less powerful and dangerous. The waterfall grims were superb fiddlers,
singers and flutists, and would pass on their talents to men in exchange for a
black lamb. They taught ten tunes suitable for human ears, but reserved
"The Elf King's Tune", since it caused all unattached objects to break into
dance.

NOGUMEE

Grandmother, a term of great repect. Also the name given

Glooscap’s constant companion.

NOSIC
 An earth spirit, the fool of quarter-day festivals often seen
incarnate even in the off-season.

Gaelic, nua, new, first + ass, milk; a cow's first milk. The god Nuada
the twin of Lugh, the co-creators of the worlds. Discredited by Christian
theology the word became a synonym for an inexperienced, stupid, naieve or
foolish person. The Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English says this word
is similar in meaning to gommic, kittardy, omaden, oshic, and stouck which
are not linguistically related.

NIGHT DIGGER

The spirit that inspired men to seek treasure in remote and

hidden places.

Anglo-Saxon, nihtes, by night + Middle English diggen, from the Danish

dyge, to raise an earthen mound; to bring to the surface from a hollow in
the earth. DPEI quoting Frank Ledell: "There was once, it would seem, an
active pirate traffic along the shore (of Atlantic Canada); in cosequence,
belief in huge caches of buried treasure spread, and brought into being belief
in the "night-diggers." The officers of this happy profession would spend
weeks digging vast holes at the least likely points around the village. The
occupation was necessarily fitted out with an appropriate doctrine. It was
for example an article of faith that when the objectives of the occupation
were in progress nobody could make any noise...if he'd say a word well that
thing (the treasure) would disappear and they never could stike (find) it
again."

See guardian in part 1. The night digging-spirit was assumed to be the

second soul of the individual inspired by the night-time whispers of the
treasure-guardian. The presence of treasure was often revealled in dreams.

N’MOCKSWEES,

The sable.

Wabenaki, Passamaquoddy, the totem animal of Glooscap’s little friend,

Martin.

NUCK
 The oceanic and esturine sea-serpent.

Anglo-Saxon, Scot.dialect, from nok, an object of tapering form; as a

verb, anything hidden in a remote place. Also seen as nuckalavee, nock,
nick, nikkisen, nixon, neck or ness. The Loch Ness monster is the most
famous of this kind. As noted earlier, nuck confers with nick, and nick with
Auld Nick and Wuotan, the noted Norse shape-changer. Ness, suggests a
neck of land, or a long-necked monster.

Keightley noticed that the Icelandic nuck was called Nickur, Ninnir or
Hnikur, which correspond with the eddaic names of Odin: "He appears
(sometimes) in the form of a fine apple-grey horse on the sea-shore; but he
may be distinguished from ordinary horses by the circumstance of his hoofs
being reversed. If any one is foolish enough to mount him, he gallops off and
plunges into the sea with his burden." In this form the nuck is an equivalent
of the kelpie. More often he was observed far from shore as in November
1805: "A small vessel of the Traeth was upon the Menai (Wales) sailing very
slowly, when the people on board saw a strange creature like an immense
worm swimming after them. It soon overtook them, climbed on board
through the tiller-hole, and coiled itself on the deck under the mast - the
peole at first were dreadfully frightened, but taking courage they attaccked
it with an oar and drove it overboard; it followed the vessel for some time
but a breeze springing up they lost sight of it."

OLD COOT

A water-spirit incarnate in cerain sea-birds of the rail

family.

Middle English, cote from the Danish, koet, stupid + auld, ineffectual,
beyond the prime. In Europe a coot is one of the genus Fulica, a creature
which is duck-like in shape, plummage and habits, but a stupid, slow-flying
bird "that may hardly be classed as a game-bird." In Scotland, the coot is the
murre and in North America, Fulica americana, commonly called the surf-
duck or scoter. Secondarily, a stupid fellow, a simpleton; a thing of little
value, a trifle.

Local ornithologist Robie Tufts says this is a bird which fancies

swimming in open water rather than the more approved habit of skulking
among the marsh grasses. He says: "In some parts of its range it is killed
by pot-hunters, rather extensively for food, but because of its slow and
laboured take-off it offers small appeal to the skilled sportsman. It is locally
known as the Mud Hen." Not mentioned in Poteet or Pratt, but a rather wide-
spread designation for ineffectual men, spirits, or gods who are not within
hearing distance of the speaker.

OLD DICK

The Devil of devils.

Anglo-Saxon, dic, a moat, dike or ditch. A place where men urinated,

and by thus the human penis. A nickname for Richard, derived perhaps from
association with a number of powerful but unjust Englishmen. Among them
was Richard, the ne’er-do-well so of Oliver Cromwell. During his brief rule the
Crown of England was referred to as “Dick’s hatband.”

OLD FIDDLE

A mortal earth spirit, a nickname given the Devil.

Scottish and dialectic English, old fiddler, from the Anglo-Saxon

fithele, a common name for the festival of the Beltane (May 1). Confers
with the proper name Fitheach, or Raven, the name of a Gaelic family and
the familiar of the goddess Morrigan. The latter creature that appeared
before the Ulster hero Cuchullain just prior to his death in battle. Also
confers with fid, a conical pointed post used to secure the fiddle strings in
their place or (in a larger version) to secure a sacrificial victim to the
ground. Not also fidchell, the ancient Gaelic board game, which their gods
played to "maintain order in the world of men"; moves on the board
corresponding with the fates of actual men. Another name for the nathair,
Wuotan, the Devil and similar debunked gods of our pagan past.

The business of staking out prisoners and burning them as god

substitutes has ceased but the word "fid" or "fib" was preserved in "loggin'
language." George Smith of Pomeroy Ridge, New Brunswick, who was involved
in the lumberring trade has defined it as "a wooden pin used as a spike."16

T.K. Pratt defines an "old fiddle" as a woman who is sexually

experienced, hence the saying, "There's a few tunes left on that old fiddle."17

The Christian missionaries to Britain identified the reincarnate "devil-

god" at the centre of pagan dancer-circles as the fitheler. This "devil of
the coven" often provided the pan pipe, or stringed instrumental, music
which inspired left-handed dancing and sexual "promiscuity." The Christian
ethic was supposedly virtuous and anti-erotic and the clergy of Scotland
actrually succeeded in stamping out use of the harp, lyre and bellows pipes.
Historian Charles Dunn says they, fulminated less effectively against the
bagpipes and the fiddle. Well- meaning, godly elders of the Presbyterian
Church had solemnly smashed the fiddles and burnt the pipes of those
carnally minded people who wished to cling to their beloved instruments. One
of the most pathetic stories among the minor tragedies..is told by Alexander
carmichael about a music-loving native of Eigg (Scotland) who was at last
convinced by the men of God that he should dispose of his violin. Although it
had been made by a pupil of Stradivarius, he allowed himself to sell it to a
pedlar for ten shillings. But his pious renunciation of worldly music was not
deeply rooted and he lamented: It wasn't the thing I got in exchange for it
that grieved my heart so sorely, but the parting with it! the parting with it!
and that I myself gave the best cow in my father's fold for it when I was
young."18

In Upper Musquodobit, Nova Scotia, this same attitude was held by the
Reverand , who brought meeting-house services to that part of Nova Scotia
in 1829: "The Rev. Sprott had no time for musical instruments such as the
violin and fiddle, and did not think they should be allowed in churches. But
one congregation held to the fiddle and he had to preach there on occasion.
So at the closing he announced. "we will fiddle and sing to the glory of God in
the 119th Psalm. Basil - Basil - get my horse." Basil was his aide and as the
fiddle wailed the first of the one hundred and sixty-six verses of the psalm
the good man walked out, and the congregation was left to wonder whether

16Smith, George, Timber, Saint Stephen (1977) p. 25.

17Pratt, T.K., Dictionary Of Prince Edward Island English, p. 105.

18Dunn, Charles W., Highland Settler, Toronto (1980), p. 54.

or not he would be back as it struggled through the entire length of that
Psalm. Then worn and exhausted it had to disperse as Sproitt was far away
on his good horse."19

When the "devil's instrument sounded without cause uncanny events

were always expected. Thus, in the 1930's, an elderly lumberman at Alma,
New Brunswick, was perturbed when he laid aside his fiddle and hear three
unplayed notes echoing from it. He knew that the these were the "voice" of
the devil calling home a lost soul. Being "Christian" men, those present
dismissed the incident, but the next day a blast of lightning knocked down a
tall tree, fatally injuring one of the loggers.20

OLD HARRY

The Devil.

Anglo-Saxon, har, old, grey, hoary, and thus inept. Again, there were
a number of British monarchs thus entitled.

OLD HOB

A mortal earth-spirit, another form of the Devil incarnate.

English, Hob, a familiar derivation of Robin or Robert, confers with robber.

Robert is of Norman origin, but originally from German, thus resembling
Ruopert, Rupert, Ruprecht, Houodpecht, and Hrodperki. The word is
akin to the Anglo-Saxon hreth, one of great fame and glory. Old Hob
identifies various pagan gods now called the Devil.

Knecht Ruprecht (Robin the Bondsman) is identified in German

mythology as one of the hausbocke (or house bucks). He is distinguished as
a satyr-like creature dressed in shaggy clothing and wrapped in furs and
straw. He carries a large sack filled with ashes and a staff topped by the
wooden head of a goat. He has goat-like horns, a long white beard, aquiline
nose and long tapering fingers. He generally prefers the deep forest but
comes indoors during the Yule-tide in the company of other goat-spirits. He

19Bird, Will R., Off-Trail In Nova Scotia, Toronto (1960), p.206.

20Trueman, Stuart, Ghosts, Prirates And Treasure Trove, p. 13.

he usually quiet in temprament, but carries a handful of switches, to trouble
naughty children; and can gnash his teeth and roar with formidible effect
when angered. Ruprecht's staff, known as a "klapperbock", has mechanical
jaws which catch at the bodies of young women and those in his "bad-book".
His current travelling companion is Saint Nicholas (or Santa Claus), giving rise
to notion that he is the alter-ego of the old god Woden. Nancy Arrowsmith
has noted that Knecht Ruprecht and Saint Nicholas are currently "so
confused they are very difficult to tell apart." In the Victorian era Knecht
Ruprecht was known to be "a hobgoblin, who in shaggy clothing, and carrying
a switch and a sack, appears to Children before Christmas, threatening the
disobedient with blows, but throwing nuts to the well behaved." This creature
obviously has the function of the Celtic bogle, which we call the boo-man,
boo-beggar or bogey man.

The Auld Hob was sometimes referred to in English mythology as

Robert the Devil, or Robin the Devil, a character remembered in the French
metrical romances of the thirteenth century. This legendary individual was
supposed to have been the son of the Duke of Normandy, but his cruelty led
his subjects to supposed he was actually the issue of the Devil. He repented
and took service at Rome in the disguise of a deaf mute and court jester.
Commanded by an angel to fight the Saracens, he threw off his costume and
succeeded in this mission. Afterwards, he was offered the hand of the
King's daughter, but instead put on his jester's suit and retired to the woods,
where he lived as a hermit. This latter period of his life became elaborated
as the tales of Robin Hood.

There are numerous diminished forms of the name Robert, including:

Bob, Bobby, Dob, Dobby, Hod, Rob, Robbin, and Pop, Popkin. In northern
England "hodden-grey" describes the apparel of this tribe, "a coarse grey
cloth retaining the natural colour of the wool." The best known hob, named
Robin Goodfellow, lived in English country homes where he exchanged his
labours for a place and a modest ration of food and clothing. This goodfellow
corresponds with the hobgoblin and the puck, which prefer an open-air
habitat. He has equivalents in the brownie and the bodach of Scotland and
the niss of Scandinavia.

The Old Man is the common English nickname for the Devil, but there
are many other local designations, viz.: Old Feller, Old Son, Old Boy, Old Dog or
Luke's Dog, Old Hob, Old Hoofie, Old Hornie, Old John, Auld Nick, Nickie, or
Nickie-ben, Old Reekie, Old Scratch and Old Willi or Vili, the latter being
identified as the elemental god who gifted men with their five senses.

The names used to describe the Devil are synonyms for a huge group
of pagan destroyer-gods including the Roman Janus, the Norse god Loki, the
Hebrew, Satan. the eastern djinn and perhaps even the Indian, Siva. His
powers were much reduced as represented in the various horned-gods of
European mythology (for example the Celtic Cernu and the English god-spirit
Herne). It was from the latter that the Old Man inherited his physical
characteristics. He was said to be black in complexion or at least heavily
tanned; he had horns, a skin that was leathery and hairy, cloven hoofs, ears
that were pig- or goat-like, a tail, fiery-eyes. a sulphurous smell, and a large
cold but permanently erect penis. In ancient times Old Saint Nick was as
busy as Good Saint Nick, whipping from one fire-festival to another where he
served as the central figure in fertility dances. In practise these "devils"
may have been ordinary men dressed in animal pelts, magically imbued for a
single night with "the spirit of the corn". In the medieval times they were the
coven-laeders to groups of "bhoabhs", or witches.

Old Hob or Hod has special interest since his name is a diminished form
of the German, Ruprecht. Their Knecht Ruprecht (Robin or Hobbin the
Bondsman) was one of the hausbucks (house bucks), a satyr-like creature
who spent his summers in the deep woods but crept closer the houses of
men as the Yule approached. Finally he entered the homes of men where he
switched naughty children and pinched comely females. Given plenty to eat
and drink he usually went on to the next farm, but if he considered himself
badly treated he placed weevils in the flour barrel, upset the kegs of ale in
the basement and strewed ashes about the kitchen. In English mythology
this old man was sometimes called Robert the Devil, or Robin the Devil.
According o the French medieval romances of the thirteenth century Robert
was a son of the Duke of Normandy, a man whose cruel jokes led his subjects
to regard him as the Devil incarnate. He afterwards repented, put on a
jester's suit, and became a hermit within the wild wood. This later period in
his life was supposedly chronicled in the various tales of Robin Hood.

In some parts of Maritime Canada Knecht Ruprecht was still

remembered in Victorian times as "a hobgoblin, who in shaggy clothing,
carrying a switch and sack, appears to children at Christmas, threatenening
the disobedient with blows, but throwing nuts to the well behaved." This hob
goblin was a lesser devil, sometimes called Robin Goodfellow, a character who
lived in country homes exchanging labour for his room and board.

OLD HOOFIE

A mortal earth spirit also known as the Devil.

Dialectic English, hoof, the protective encasement of the far ends of

the digits of ungalate animals, differing little from the finger, toenails and
claws of other animals. Here, a cloven hoof is implied. A related word is the
verb hoof, to boot, kick or trample. The expression on the hoof, indicates
a living, as opposed to a dead, animal.

Auld Hoofie was the nathir of the ancient Gaelic rites, a creature who
survived well into the last century. He appears as a central character in the
Horseman's Word, a secret fraternal society found in both Britain and
America until the time of the widespread use of farm-tractors. This was a
self-help society for hired hands, and the lodges were arranged in the fashion
of witch-covens, except that women were excluded. Almost all farm-boys
were conscripted when they reached the age of thirteen. At an initiation
meeting, they were given passwords used to summon "the great black horse"
whenever they had trouble controlling a farm-animal. Although this
apparition might appear fearful, their positions as "made horseman" allowed
them to bridle and mount him, following which no lesser animal dared defy
them. The meetings of The Word were held in distant barns, annually, on the
eleventh of November, a time when whisky was put away, bread and
preserves eaten, and a good deal of time devoted to obscene songs and
riddles. When initiates were introduced to Auld Hoofie, the appendage they
shook, was usually that of a goat.

OLD HORNY

A mortal earth spirit, the Devil incarnate.

Anglo-Saxon, corn or horn; confering with the Gaelic kern or cern, an

animal equpped with head projections used in offense or defense. Has
reference to the kern-god, or horned-god Kernow, or Cernu, who gave his
name to Cornwall in southwestern England. He corresponds with Herne the
Hunter, who haunted the Windsor Wood. Horn was a word applied to cow, or
other animal horns, which were blown to produce sounds for assembly.
"Horn" was first applied exclusively to "corn", the dominant grain-crop in a
given region, the corn-king being the last sheath cut at the harvest. This
spirit of the corn was overwintered by auld hornie, the last harvester, who
was expected to return it to the field in the next planting season. Thus the
spirit of the corn, or of the horn, now termed the devil.

Alcoholic drinks were fermented and distilled from grains, hence the
local noun horn, a drink of liquor, especially one offered as a bribe in the
course of a political campaign. The word horn was applied both to the
container for drink and the bribe, while horn up meant tippling, agian in the
course of a political campaign. By the old horned spoon! is a Liverpool,
Nova Scotia, exclamation of anger or surprise. This recalls the fact that the
hexxen, or witches, would not eat off ironware, and used spoons made of
horn at their ritual feasts.

OLD MAN

The patriarchal god sometimes spoken of as if reincarnate in

a human.

Anglo-Saxon, eald, originally, to bear, produce and bring up many

offspring. Related to the Latin alere, to nourish and confering with the
English words adult, alderman, auld, and elder. Currently, the meaning is
"advanced in years or at the end of a specified life span, weakened, worn out,
decayed, stale..." Formerly, "skilled, experienced, canny." + mann, a human
being. Particulary the old man of the sea, Davy Jones, Nikkur, Manan mac
Ler, the sea-going gatherer of souls of the dead.

A term applied ironically to the Devil and his devils and used in the local
venacular when male children speak of their male parent. See also Old Boy,
Old Twist, Auld Reekie, Auld Cloutie etc.

OLA MUC

Gaelic, muc (f), pig; ola (f), old. Female equivalent of the diel or Devil.
Similar to the English word muck, from the the Danish moog, manure in a
moist state. Mucker was applied as a term of reproach but originally
identified farm hands who shovelled this material. Confers with the obsolete
muckender, a handkerchief; muckibus, drunk; and muckerer, a miser. See
Pig, Old.
OLD NICK

The spirit of the god Odin reincarnate.

Anglo-Saxon, nick + old (see entry above). Also seen as Nickie or

Nickie-ben or as Old Saint Nick. Nick is a contraction of Nicholas,
Nicolaus or Niclaus; ben, a mountain, thus the high knicker. Nicholas was
the preferred personal name of the god Odin or Wuotan. Other meanings of
"nick" include: a pun, a false bottom in an ale mug to defraud drinkers, a
false name, thus a nickname; to strike, catch of guard, steal, cheat,
defraud, to break window glass, to run up a bill, to gamble, a demon. Related
words are knicker, a tavern brawler and nickel, from the Germ
kuperfernickel, an ore that promised but failed to yield copper. Nicholas
Wuotan had a family name that translated as "oath-breaker" hence the
negative connotations of nick. The only positive use of "nick" appears in
animal husbandry where it describes the successful breeding of strong,
healthy animals. Lately Old Nick has been identified with the Hebrew Satan
and with the adversary known as the Devil. In Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia
it is considered a bad omen to hear bells in the midst of the wilderness, but
at such times the locals insist, "Old Nick is abroad and ringing his bell (to
assemble souls of the dead)."

Some reference is made in mythology to Saint Nick, but medieval

sainthood did not comment on the morals or sexual proclivities of Auld
Hornie. In ancient Britain, the "saints" were understood to be no more than
men or women or even demons, officially designated to conduct religious
ceremonies. Auld Saint Nick has tended to disappear from the public
imagination, but his alter-ego, Good Saint Nick, the spirit we call Santa Claus,
has recently re-surfaced. It is noteworthy that his Germanic counterpart is
Knecht Ruprecht who is clearly one of the "boches" or "he-goats." In some
places Saint Nicholas carries toys in one hand and switches in the other. In
Germany his personality is often confused with that of Knecht Ruprecht,
"the demon who accompanies him and chastizes naughty children."

The spirit of Old Saint Nick, or Knecht Ruporecht, was until recently
projected upon human followers in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, during the
Yule: "In the old days the men wore ox hides with horns and beards, tied bells
around their necks, and made belts of ravelled rope and oakum...Sometimes
they used their tails to thrash the youngsters...so that they were frightened
and had to hide...Women dressed as wise men and brought gifts and were
called Kris Kringles (Christ's Children). Because of the hides that were worn
and the connection with Saint Nicholas, the custom is known as belsnicking,
and any person who takes part in the fun is a belsnickle."

The belsnickles were active through all twelve days of Yule and were
sometimes called kris kringlers or santa clawers, the latter name suggesting
something of their darker nature. On Scatarie Island, off the coast of Nova
Scotia, Allison Mitchum found them still active in nineteen eighty-four. Here
they wore uncanny costumes that included face-coverings of "painted
cotton" and "masks of bird skins with the feathers turned in...Eyeholes
painted, (feather holes) like pimples all over the face." Wherever they
travelled they made every effort to remain anonymous, a hold-over from the
days when most belsnickers were working class individuals taking a one-a-
year shot at their bosses. In theory, they exchanged "entertainment" for
"lots of booze", but since they were hosted throughout the community the
quality of fiddling, mouth organ music and tap-dancing degenerated as the
night progressed. Not infrequently, these Yule-devils lived up to what one
might expect of the Devil.

The nick is preserved in the Germanic belsnick of Lunenburg County,

N.S. In Scottish dialect bel means a bubble and this is close to the AS belle
as well as the German bel, a hollow vessel. All confer with bellow, a hollow
cry, thus the belsnick was a noisy nick, whose followers were known as
belsnickers. They have been described as "masked and costumed
entertainers who toured at Christmas with sacks for treats, using gestures
for communication." Belsnicking is also referred to as Santa Clausing or Kris
Krinkling in much of southern Nova Scotia and as santying or sandying at
Lockport. See belsnickle.

OLD REEKIE

An earth-spirit identified with the nathair or Devil.

Anglo-Saxon, a diminuation of reek, to belch smoke. The word is now

restricted to literary use in northern England and Scotland. Secondary
meanings include fetid air, a disagreeable smell, an industrial stench.
Confers with rick, a heap or pile of acrid smelling matter, eg hay.

Men frequently encountered the Devil as an ordinary-looking men, but

one characterized by "a wicked countenance and an unbearable stench." This
sulphurous smell is understandable since his stand-ins at the fire-festival
rites wore the skins of a bull, goat, black sheep or horse. Tindall supposes
he rarely appeared as a wild animal because his descent was from a cattle
god. Whatever his disguise, Auld Reekie was done up in animal pelts in days
before the tanning process was well understood and when farmyard odours
were better tolerated. It is noteworthy that all of the Devil's underlings were
into the craft of causing crops to rot, and were themselves identified by a
quick decomposition after death. The Devil was a confirmed smoker as were
all the fire gods of the north, including Auld Nick (Wuotan). Auld Nickie's
alter-ego was Good Saint Nick, better known as Knecht Ruprecht or Santa
Claus. It will be recalled that he was "a right jolly old elf" with a pipe whose
smoke "encircled his head like a wreath."

OLD SCRATCH

A familiar name for the spirit now known as the Devil.

Of Scandanavian origin (see scra directly above). Perhaps also from

the Old Norse krota, to engrave or incise with lines, to scratch. Similar to
the dialectic Scottish scrat, to rake, to toil as a drudge, a mean, puny,
insignificant person, one of the black elfs, a wizard, an evil magician, an
hermaphrodite, a devil, the Devil, the latter including all pagan male deities
fallen from power. Confluent with the Scottish scraichin, to call out in a
screeching voice, sounding like fingernails dragged over slate.

In the Dictionary of Prince Island English Pratt says that scra is from
the Scottish word scrae, a stunted, shrivelled, underdeveloped person,, a
drunkard or trouble-maker. Scris, he says, is an omen of bad luck, a curse,
and unwelcomed crowd from the Gaelic sgrios, to destroy, ruin, annihilate.

Thomas Keightley says that this god became the demoted spirit known
in German literature as the scrat, schrat, schretel or schretlein. Those who
translated the name into Latin rendered it as "pilosus, naming this creature
as either a house or a woods-spirit. "Terms similar to it are found in the
cognate languages (eg, Old Norse) and it is perhaps the origin of Old Scratch,
a popular English name of the Devil."

OLD SNARLEYROW
 The elemental spirit of fire; the Devil.

Anglo-Saxon, snearl, from sneare, snare, to entrap; the sound made

by an entrapped animal. The word is correctly snarleyow, the obsolete past
participle of snarl. See Devil.

OLD SOW

The water spirit in charge of the world's second most

powerful oceanic whirlpool located off Deer Island, N.B.

Also written Auld Sou and in colonial times Auld Sough. Anglo-
Saxon, sough, describes a sound somewhat like that of a wind moving
through dried leaves; a rushing, rustling, sighing, dead noise. The Scots form
is sou and was used to describe the sound of an agonized pig or sermons of
particularly boring preachers or a sing-song chant that had the effect of
listening to the unaccompanied drones on a bagpipe. The Scots also
described a very noisy party as one held at full sou while moments spent in
a graveyard reflecting on mortality were entitled a quiet sou. Sow is a
word reserved to the female of the pig species, so the spirit of the Old Sow
may be thought of as corresponding with that of the Cailleach Bheur. She
must also be the equal of the Norse goddess Ran, "the goddess of death for
all who perished at sea." When lowland Scots settled Deer Island, N.B., they
found an Indian water-demon resident off the south-western shore, a spirit
that occasionally materialized as the world's second-largest off-shore
whirlpool. This they named the Auld Sugh (since corrupted to Sow). Sugh
also corresponds exactly with the Middle English swough, which derives from
the Anglo-Saxon swoogan. This is similar to older Tueutonic words which
mean to sigh or whistle. It is confluent with the Old Norse suugr, a rushing
sound, like that of moving wind or water, and confers with the English word
surf. The Old Sough was a place of hollow mummers, moans and sighs, as
well as a salt-water drain (a secondary meaning of seugh, sewer or sough).
See also slue.

OLD STICK

Another name for the Devil.

Anglo-Saxon, stic, to stab; stician, slaughter. Having reference to

the old fellow's propensity to cause mayhem leading to slaughter.
OLD TWIST

A name for the Devil

Maritime dialect, from the Anglo-Saxon twist, a branch. Confers

with the Old Norse tvist, the deuce in a deck of cards, also tvistr,
distressed. Has special reference to the interlacing of branches in basketry
and rope-making, the art for which the witches, or wickers, are named. Old
Twist is patently the Anglo-Saxon god Tvs, Tws, Tys, Tyse, or Tues, whose
name is preserved in Tysday or Tuesday. In Germany this god was Tyr,
patron of war, who Christians identified as the teoful, or Devil.

A colourful local oath, "holy old twist", centres on this defunct god.
This is similar to the expression "holy old deuce", which obviously derives
from the same source.

OLD WOMAN

The ultimate female spirit of the sea.

Anglo-Saxon, wif-mann, originally any individual female irrespective of

marital status. Wifian, to marry.

See Cailleach Bheur, Mhorga, Samh for complete accounts. The female
equivalent of the Old Man of the Sea (above).

OMADON

The fool-spirit of Celtic festivals.

Seen variously as: amadan, amaden, omadawn, omadhawn,

omidown and omigon. There is no question of its origin, the original spirit
having been the Omadan na Briona, who the English termed "The Firey
Fool". The word continues in present day Gaelic as omadhaun, with a
meaning similar to that in dialectic Maritime speech. In Pratt's Dictionary of
Prince Edward Island English, omadon is said the equivalent of gommie,
kittardy, nosic, oshick, hick and stouk. The original Omadon was the
described as one of the sidh, the most powerful of his kind, second in magic
to Queen Maeve or Morrigan. He has the character of Robin Hood as a jester
and relates to the Scottish Auld Donald. This last had his name from his Old
Norse ancestors, who occupied the Western Isles of Scotland and created
the Clan Macdonald. The Gaelic Domhnull (Donald), is literally, the master of
the Yule, and corresponds with Uller, the winter-time usurper of Odin's
throne and power.

In other ages the god-kings needed stand-ins to "go to earth" in their

place at the conclusion of the twelve days of Yule. These men, selected by
lot, were a special breed of fool, whose end was indeed firey! In the harsh
past before Christainity introduced the idea of a final single salvation, life
was considered a hard journey and men went to death a little less grudgingly,
facing the possibilty of many subsequent reincarnations. At that they had
to be cajoled with special treatment, thus the omadon was granted the
temporary advantages of kingship, which he often took with as much jaundice
and whimsy as he could muster. In later years the European Lox, or master
of trickery, was still at large although he was no longer burned at the end of
his "reign" When Henry the Eight, dressed as the Lord of Yule, led a party of
sixteen masked revellers against Cardinal Wolsey's Christmas supper-party
in fifteen twenty-eight, he did so under seasonal, as well as regal license. No
man could stand against the will of the "fools" and even the Sherriff of York
once expressed his resignation in a proclamation saying "This season, all
manner of whores and thieves, dice-players, carders, and all other unthrifty
folke, be welcome to the towne, whether they come late or early, at the
reverance of the high feast of "Youle", till the twelve days be past." This
Uller-Odin was variously entitled the Lord of Misrule, the Abbott of Unreason,
the Archbishop of Fools, the Precentor of Fools, the Tommy, Beelzebub,
Little Devil Doubt, or the Old Goose. The character of this lord of mummers
is without doubt, one "tommy" having been described as wearing "a fox skin
to cover his head with a tail hanging down in the rear."

This was the same "dyhinker" that led the belsnickers in Lunenburg
County. In 1862 Samuel Breck wrote that, "while they have ceased to do it
now, I remember (the mummers) from 1782 (in Boston)...a set of the lowest
blackguards in filthy clothes with disguised faces, obtruding themselves
everywhere. The only way to get rid of them was to give them money..."

OONAHGEMESSUK

The water-goblin.
 Wabenaki, a creature half-grey, possessing a single eye. Thus, similar
to the thunder-giants of Katadhdin mountain and the Innuvit elves. Leland
says they confer exactly with the Micmac mikumweesos. “Eles and fairies.”
“These can work great wonders, and also sing to charm the wildest beasts.
From them alone come the magic pipes or flutes, which sometimes pass into
possession of noted sorcerers and great warriors; and when these are
played upon, the woman who hears the melody is bewitched with love, and the
moose and caribou follow the sound even to their death. And when thes folk
are pleased with a mortal they make him a fairy, even like themselves.”

OONIG

The spirit of fog

OUAHICH

The guardian-spirit of a man gifted on him at birth by the

Great Spirit.

Wabenaki, Micmac dialect. The first French settlers called its

container the aoutmoin (which, see). This was a real-world resting place for
the external soul, usually a peculiar shaped or coloured rock or stone
contained in a triangular leather pouch and kept abouit the neck on a thong.
A Micmac shaman said that his “devil” was pressed against the stomach to
overcome hunger or fatigue. Every effort was made to prevent this
extension from falling into the hands of enemies. The natives said that this
representative thing was part of the buowinodi or puoinoti, or “magic kit.”

PHANTOM SHIP

Spirits of the sea materialized in a sea-going masted ship.

Middle English and Old French, fantesme, French, fantome, Latin,

phantasma, to show, to make visible. A ghost ship (which, see). The most
famous is the “Flying Duitchman.”

October, 1796: “A Strange Story is going that (a) Fleet of Ships

have been seen in the Air in some parts of the Bay of Fundy. Mr. Darrow is
lately there bt Land. I enquired of him. He says they were said to be sen at
New Minas, at one Mr. Ratchford’s, by a Girl, about Sunrise, & two men that
were in the house went out and Saw the Same Sight, being 15 Ships and a
Man forward of them with his hand stretched out. The Ships made to the
Eastward. They were So Near that the people Saw their Sides & ports.” 21

PIG, OLD PIG

The ultimate spirit of evil at sea.

Anglo-Saxon, piegge, particularly the male of the species as

distinguished from the sow. Similar to piegian, to play. Also note piecan,
to seduce or deceive and the Low Saxon picken, to gambol as well as
pickeln, to play the fool. Confers with the Old Norse, pukra, to steal away
silently and the Danish pukke, to scold. Similar to the Swedish poika, a boy
and the Anglo-Saxon, piga, a boy. Almost certainly, the old English spirit
named puck, puckle, or pickle, corresponding with the Icelandic pukki, who
is likely the thinly disguised fire-god Lukki or Loki. Sometimes prefixed as
"Old Pig" to indicate creatures of inferior value, the disenfranchised sea-
gods, or a deity such as Hler, the one-time supreme god of the sea. Notice
that Loki was bound by Thor, but it was Skaddi, a daughter of the sea-giants
who placed a poisonous snake above him so that it might drip venom on his
face. The powers, and evils, once attributed to Loki were, thereafter,
assimilated by the spirits of the sky and ocean, a situation supposed to
continue until Loki is unbound at the end of time.

There are a number of names that are never mentioned at sea for fear
of stirring up dormant but potentially dangerous spirits: "Sailors generally
avoid mentioning by name eggs (Ygg is another name for Odin), rabbits and
knives while on board ship. Cargoes of pigs, dogs and horses were
considered unlucky; and aboard American ships cats were considered
creatures of ill-omen." While this may not be the case elsewhere, there is a
local prohibition against saying "pig" aboard a ship, and since they are
ocassionally transported a number of aliases have sprung up, some being
"Mr. Dennis", "turf-rooter", "the animal", "

PILSQUESS

Pillar rocks thought to encompass the souls of unfortunate

21Perkins, Simeon, Diary, for Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1796.

virgins.

“Pillar-rocks,” stand isolated in the sea, worn away from the mainland
by weathering and erosion. They frequently take eccentric forms and were
once considered to be the bound remains of sea creatures or men. Until
recently the perfectly formed “Southern Cross” was a feature of southern
Grand Manan, but it has disassembled and fallen into the sea. Differently
shaped is a similar stone, which used to stand on Carlow’s Island, near
Pleasant Point, Perry, Maine. It was named pilsquess, “the virgin,” as are
two similar stones, which still stand, one off Grand Manan, the other near
Campobello.

PISMIRE

A meddlesome spirit often found incarnate in men and

women.

Middle English, piss, from the Old French, pissier, to urinate + mire,
from the Anglo-Saxon, aemete, confering with the Ennglish emmet, from
which ant. These communal insects lived in the ground or decaying wood and
some eject a fluid containing formic acid, which smells very like urine, thus
pismire, a bad smelling place or creature.

DPEI: "A spoil-sport or meddler; a brat. A person of little (social)

significance. Not a word said in polite company." OED: applied
contemptuously to an insignificant or contemptable person." Often used
descriptively, as in the magazine, "The New Dominion" (1875): "The measley
slimy, loathsome publisher (of the "Moncton Times") who would accept a
forger's money aqnd assist a felon to evade the laws of the land, is meaner
than the meanest pismire that ever crawled on the surface of the earth."

POGUMK

The “Black Cat.”

Wabenaki, Passamaquoddy. The tribe of “wild cats” to which Glooscap

was sometimes said to belong. It is noted that “the chief of the cats was by
his mother the son of a bear.” Pookjinskeqwees who was Glooscap’s chief
rival also belonged to this tribe. The totem animal of the “lord of men and
beasts” was never entirely settled for elsewhere he is represented as a
shape-changed fisher or as a woodchuck or groundhog.

POOKJINSKEQWEES

The “Evil Pitcher” of Indian myth.

Wabenaki, Passamaquoddy. The Innu had a similar character known as

Arnakuak. Like this creature she had the ability to change sex at will. In
Indian and Eskimo legends only wicked magicians had the ability to aleter their
gender in the fashion of the European god named Lokki.

Pookjinskeqwees exceeded all these others as she frequently

appeared among men as a man or a woman, or as several men and/or women,
according to her will. She was the chief antagonist of Glooscap and once
approached him as a poor woman in diminished health. It was said that the
god-hero “threw out his soul to all men,” and hence could not turn her away.
Fortunately his foresight prevented him from being injured by her
complicated designs. She was alternately termed “The Black Cat.” It was
said that her children were those “begotten on her by sorcerers, giants and
monsters.” Because all were ugly she stole the children of men and raised
them as her own. It was this witch-woman who abducted Glooscap’s closest
friends, causing him to follow, eventually bringing them back from the land of
the dead. See Pogumk.

PUOIN, BUOIN, POWOW

An Indian magician or shaman.

Wabenaki, Micmac dialect, puninoti or buowinodi, the bag of magical

objercts carried about the shaman’s neck. This was neither the class of men
exercising great physical power nor those able to move readily between
dimensions in space and time, but men who were “able to hear and see what
was going on very far off.” In addition they were masters of trickery and
jugglery and ventriloquism, and other wonder-works.

The chief example was perhaps Ulgimmo, sometimes entitled L’kimu.

“he who sends out (his spirit): “Thomas Boonis told Silas Rand that this was
the man who drove the Kwedeches (Mohawks) from the south side of the Bay
of Fundy, urging them on at last to Montreal...” The Kwedeches retired first
to the Tantramar marshes and then to Petitcodiac. As the place called
Salisbury Ulgimoo followed and built “a mound and fortifiactions which still
stand (1894).”

It was rumoured that this shaman “could hear and see what was going
on very far off...” When the great magician was 103 years of age his people
were was still at war, and using forsight he saw the Mohawks again moving
against his village. The shaman sent his own people off into the forest and
allowed himself to become a captive. They quickly made a fire for him and
bound him to a tree amidst dried wood. One among the Mohawks warned the
others that this man was not to be taken lightly, but they fired the wood pile
in spite of his objections. Immediately this supoerman burst his bonds and
appeared before them as a young Glooscap-like warrior. In the battle that
followed the puoin emerged without hurt but only three enemy warriors
escaped from a carnage that killed hundreds.

Ulgimoo died shortly after: “It was the beginning of winter when he
went; he had directed his people not to bury him but to build a high platform
and put him on it. This they did, and all left the place. He told them to come
back the following spring. They did so, and to their astonishment found him
walking about - exhibiting however proof that his death was not a sham. A
hungry marten had found the corpse, and gnawed an ugly looking hole through
one of the old man’s cheeks.” At his second death a few years after the
shaman predicted that he would expire by morning, and that this time they
must bury him but open the grave the following morning. He assured them
that if they did this he would walk forever among them. He gave them a sign
by which they would know the exact time to unearth his corpse and then sank
into his final sleep. On the morning the sky was clear but at the assigned
time there was a peal of thunder. This time his friends and enemies were
content to let him remain dead and took special care to see that he did not
become reanimate: “They dug his grave very deep and piled stones in upon
him. The plan was successful as he has not yet arisen.”

In the last century James Paul was an impressive “juggler.” One of his
stunts involved china tea cup. Not realizing his physical strength, Ja,mes
was seen to have left finger prints in the non-plastric surface of this
drinking implement. Advised of this he laughed and sid, “I’ll straighten it up,
here!” “He straightened it up as if it were made of wet clay.” Paul had a
similar solution for carrying his clay pipe. ASfraid he might breakm iit
because of the long stem, he simply “stretched the pipe around his hat,” and
wore it as a band, reversing the process when he wished to light up/ In
another case, he stopped the motion of a huge waterwheel at Dartmouth,
when he spotted children playing at riding the main shaft. “OLd James Peter
Paul he grabbed it and the whole thing stopped.”

Peter Sack, who lived earlier in this century, had similar skills. Once he
cautioned his son from going further in the woods because of an undefined
precautionary warning in his head. “He got a stick and started tapping the
ground, and WHAM, a bear trap!” “Pure luck, “ he noted, “something told me
to stop. I couldn’t make up my mind why I should stop...If we had gone any
farther, it’d have grabbed the boy.”

These abilities were never restricted to the male sex. In 1912, when
Old Woman Sallie was living at Pictou (she was said to be 100 years of age),
she once took thge train to New Glasgow. The conductor finding that she
lacked full fare put her off short of the town. Not far down the line, the
engine derailed. While they were putting the train on the rails a second time,
the conductor had his finger squashed between a wheel and the rail. After
that he began to give thought to Old Sallie’s reputation as a witch and
motioned her aboard. “After that whenever an Indian wants to travel, the
railway takes him, fare or not.”

Le Clerq referred to shamans as “jugglers, “ from their habit of

carrying bags full of items which they often manipulated in tyheir hands to
fortell events or create illusions. Among these items was the personal
“devil” or ouahich, an object thought to serve as a residence for the external
soul when it was not involved in some magical project.

QUAHBEETSIS

The son of the beaver-spirit.

At the beginning of time this creature is supposed to have advised

Malsum to oppose Glooscap. Hence, Glooscap’s implacable hatred for this
animal.

QUEEN MAB

The goddess Queen of the May, the chief female mayer.

Anglo-Saxon, cween, wife, woman, and with time the wife of royalty +
mab, a slattern, now an obsolecent use; the verb mab, to dress untidily.
It should be understood that this was the English characterizing the
goddess of the Gaels! Queen Mab has been identified as the Celtic Mebd, but
while Mebd gave sexual "gifts", she was as much interested in accumulating
goods as giving them. Mab was the counterpart of the continental Celtic
goddess Habundia or Mabundia, who Thomas Keightley said was "queen and
ruler over a band of what we may call fairies. those who enter houses at
night, feast there, twist the horse's manes, etc." This lady he identified as
Shakespeare's Queen Mab. She was described by Ben Jonsons (1603) as
"Mab, the mistress Fairy, That doth nightly rob the Dairy; and can hurt or
help the churning as she please..." She was very like Mother Goody pinching
the maidens who failed to clean their benches, scratching others if they
failed to rake up their embers at night. Nevertheless, she could be a gift-
giver, leaving a silver coin within shoes of workers who merited her pleasure.
Like all of the Quarter-day spirits she was ambivalent and quirky, thus she
was accused of kidnapping children and leaving a changeling, or even a soup
ladle, in their place. Like the White Woman, she was able to reveal the
future, and on St. Agne's night (January 21), her intrusions into dreams
allowed women a glance of future lovers and husbands. In Romeo and Juliet,
Mab has been represented as "the fairies' midwife", "...that very Mab That
plaits the manes of horses in the night; and bakes the elf-locks in foul
sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bode. This is the hag
(i.e the Night Mare) when maids lie on their backs, That presses them."
Keightley says that Mab superseded the fairy-queen Titania in the popular
imagination, and she was the mate of Oberon, a form of the Celtic king
named Arthur, so perhaps there is a connection between Mab and Mebd? It is
noteworthy that Oberon went about in a chariot pulled by three white bears
and that his court jester was a man named Robin Hood.

Yes Virginia, there is, or was, a Mrs. Santa Claus! A resident of

Amherst, Nova Scotia told Hubert Halpert that their family was visited
annually by a female gift-giver at New Year's. This respondent thought that
the custom was widespread in her community in the nineteen forties, and
mentioned that she knew of visitations in other households at Moncton, New
Brunswick. This spirit seems to have been the equal of Mother Goody, but
distributed "a small gifft of something to wear on New Year's Day", rather
than good things to eat. She could hardly have predated Santa Claus under
the name Mrs. Claus, but there was mention of a mysterious female gift-
giver in the Maritimes before Saint Nicholas was first given publicity in 1807.
Lady Hunter, the wife of New Brunswick's Commander of the British Forces
in Fredericton wrote home to England noting: "Tomorrow is Christmas and
the children are saying, "Oh, mama. what do you think the fairy will put in our
stocking? Queen Mab is a Dutch fairy that I was never introduced to in
England or Scotland; but is a great favourite of the little folks in this and the
other Province, and if they hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve, she
always pops something good or pretty into it, unless they are very naughty,
and then she puts in a birch rod to whip them."

RED CAP

Visible earth spirit bound to the ruins of ancient buildings.

Anglo Saxon read; caeppe, a cae or hood. Identified by their red

wearing apparel. Originally identified as the bloodthirsty castle spirits of
lowland Scotland. Variously called red caps, redcombs, bloody caps, dunters
and powries. Dunter is from the AS. "dunt," to wound, bruise or knock about.
Pow is a dialectic version of pull. Note that all of the fairy tribes including
the Indian mikumwees sported red caps.

The Red Caps main amusement was the daily colouring of their caps in
the human blood they spilled in overnight escapades. This was largely
managed by levering boulders from parapets on passing travellers. These
blood-spillers were short elderly elfs, , sturdily built, sporting long grey hair,
protruding teeth, fiery red eyes (after the fashion of the beansith) and
eagle-taloned fingers. They were about four feet in height, carried battle
staves, and wore heavy leather boots. Where they could not manage a death
by "misadventure" they sometimes resorted to poisoning and travellers
were warned against consuming food, especially bread, cheese and wine
heaped on a green table. A number of golden cups have been purloined from
these people who offered "stirrup cups" to passers-by. A little suspicious of
the brew, a few men noted the danger when drink spilled on their horse and
singed away the hairs. Disposing of the drink men rode away bearing the cup
with them. The trows often followed but were always blocked when streams
of running water were crossed. As a rule, momentos of this sort could only
be used after deconsecration from the pagan gods.

NS, Allandale, BM. p. 20: witchmaster named Daddy Red Cap

REVANANT
 A spirit remain of the human dead.

French, m., a ghost. Based on the verb revendre, to come back again;
to return, to recur, to reiterate the past.

Father Chaisson indicates that "Appearances by the dead, or revanants

as they are known among the Acadians, were another source of countless
legends in Acadia. The apparitions always came to request prayers or
masses, to make amends for past wrongs, or, in some cases, to persuade
the living to mend their ways."

REVENANTER

A ghost or spirit of a dead human being.

Anglo-Norman, thought to be the past participle of revener, to return.

Correpsonding with the more usual Anglo-Norman revenant (see above
entry). In folklore it was guessed that the fay underworld might correspond
with An Domhain or Hades or Hell. Witches, who visited the fairy-hills often
returned with reports that the dead worked and laboured under the fay.
Bessie Dunlop, convicted of witchcraft in 1576, confessed to sexual
intercourse with a coven "devil", one Thomas Reid, "ane honest wee elderlie
man, gray bairded" and completely ordinary except for the fact that he was
known to ber dead and buried. When Bessie was taken by him into his hill she
saw the Laird of Auchinskeith "riding with them and he had been dead nine
years". This land had many characteristics of the Indian Ghost World, a place
where time passed according to different rules, where one might spend a day
or two and return to the surface world to find that years hasd elapsed, or
the reverse. Whatever the case men who visited with the dead "returned
drained of vitality, strangely silent, and did not live long after." Those
committed to formal burial but afterwards seen in the land of the living were
the "revanters", who the Acadian French called "le revendirs". Occasionally
their restless spirits took animal form, but unlike vampires they had no
taste for blood. Nevertheless, their confused state at being unable to pass
into another incarnation made them potentially dangerous.

At Bochdan Brook, Cape Breton, a man notorious for heavy drinking

was found dead in a field. Because he was considered to have died by suicide
he was not buried in consecrated ground but placed on a small island opposite
the mainland. Soon "ugly noises" began to be heard echoing across the island
and a woman with the two-sights reported seeing a black creature moving up
and down the brook. One villager encountered a very material ghost and
fought a wordless battle with him, remebering that any spoken word allows a
fay-creature to make use of "the killing-howl". A priest finally set this
revanter to rest.

Revanters have been seen in very ordinary places in the full light of
day; thus Mr. Rossier, of Newcastle, New Brunswick, agreed to return to
earth with news of the netherworld if that proved possible. His friend Mr.
Briden claimed that he actually met the shade of Rossier on a fishing trip and
had been told that his friend had not yet managed entrance to heaven.

Dean Llwyd of All Saints Cathedral in Halifax, Nova Scotia, made a more
public return from the dead. A fellow clergyman glanced up from prayers
and saw the revanter entering an elevated pulpit where he stood looking out
over the entire congregation. Thinking that grief had affected his
imagination, the clergyman kept this viewing to himself, but later a lady of
the in the crowd that night admitted seeing exactly the same shade in the
same place at the same time.

ROANE

A sea-spirit whose travelling form is that of the Lager seal.

Gaelic, ron, pl. roin, seal. Perhaps from Teutonic models although the
Anglo-Saxon hron indicates a whale. The highland version of the selkie of
the northern islands and the morrigan of southern lands. The equivalent of
the English merman and mermaid. "The Irish name is merrow and the legends
told of them are similar to those of other countries." Descendants of the
Fomorian sea-giants.

The largest colonies of seal are found on the north shore of

Sutherlandshire and sightings of the roane are still made in that region. The
silkies commonly took the form of mermen or woman, but Nancy Arrowsmith
says the roane always appeared as seals. Like others of the sea race, they
came ashore in human form and even attended local festivals and markets
without being noticed. Fishermen were not usually troubled by the sight of a
male of this species, but the females were thought to be omens of
changeable weather. Some said that her appearnce indicated bad luck with
the sea or the fishery. People who were thought to have drowned, but whose
bodies were never found, were assumed to have been abducted to the
undersea world where they lived in perpetual bondage. The Gaelic sea-people
were under the command of Ler, the immortal god of the sea. Little is
known of this elemental, but he seems to have been the Anglo-Saxon Aegir, a
gaunt old man, with claw-like fingers, that grasped after the ships of men.
His avocation was shared by his mate, the goddess Rann, who actually spread
her magic net near dangerous rocks, enticing mariners there with promises
of sexual or other favours.

ROTE

The spirit of the surf.

The fishermen of our waters still listen for the "rote" as a guide to their
position on the water, particularly when they travel in fog. This word is the
Anglo-Saxon "ryn", the Old Norse "rauta", to roar, and defines any sound
heard in nature, whether produced by the sea, winds, thunder or some
unidentifiable agency. It also implies a repetitious sound produced without
any sense of meaning. When Henry Hudson made his voyage into Canadian
waters, he was keenly aware of everything within hearing and in his diary
wrote: "Wee heard a great "rutte" or noise with the Ice and Sea...We
(therefore) heaved our Boat and rowed to towe out our ship farther from
the danger." A Sable Island fisherman once explained that he was "listening
for the "rote" as "the surf breaks with a different sound all along the shore."

ROWING MEN

Sea-spirits, little people bound to costal locations.

These are, perhaps, the decendants of the promnotory kings who are
known in Danish tradition as the "klintekonger". They kept ward and watch
over their country, driving the sea in a chariot hauled by four black stallions
whenever war or calamity threatened. At such times the sea and the sky
blackened and the the horses could be heard snorting and neighing from the
midst of churning waters. When the sea-peoples were defeated by men and
the "gods" they gained the advantages of virtual immortality and invisibility
but surrendered freedom of movement. Thus, "It is a prevalent opinion in
the north that all the various beings of the popular creed were once worsted
in a conflict with superior powers, and condemned to remain till dommsday in
certain assigned abodes. The dwarfs or hill trolls, were appointed the hills;
the eleves the groves and leafty trees; the hill-people the caves and caverns;
the mermen, mermaids and necks, the seas lakes and rivers; the river-men,
the small waterfalls..." The rowing men were deeded some small part of the
coastline or beach, either on or near the sea.

Rowing men are widespread in the region, the species being

remembered by Lyman Lorimer, a one-time resident of Wood Island, located
south of Grand Manan: One moonlight night he was walking toward his Whale
Cove weir with the intention of seeing if there was herring to be seined.
Passing Leaman Wilcox's home he became aware that he was not alone.
Stopping on the path, he heard following footsteps fade away. Moving again,
the footsteps began once more. When he paused and snapped a twig and
invisible had broke off a mate several feet distant. When he arrived at the
beach and sat on the shingle, stones rolled noisly away and a little apart from
his position he saw other stones disturbed by some invisible presence. When
he lobbed several stones into the water, others followed from an unseen
hand. Retreating, Lorimer stopped to tell Wilcox of his strange experience
and express the belief that he had acquired a permanent companion. "No,"
Wilcox assured him, "I know this fellow. This is his territory; he'll stay here!"
At these words there was a great angry shaking of a clump of fir trees and
Lyman Wilcox went home without further hindrance or company. As a rule,
the rowing men were subtle jokesters, who created the sounds of moving
row-boats from the midst of fog. As they apparently pulled their pinkies, or
dinghys, ashore men rushed to meet expected friends but found nothing.
The worst of this kind were exhibitions who materialized in the nude and
sunbathed atn roadside locations in order to shock passing ladies. They are
not recorded as assaulting anyone, an exception being the "Little Old Man of
the Sea" of Tetagouche Falls, New Brunswick, who for some unknown reason
was assigned to an abandoned manganese mine.
Only two and a half feet tall with a disproportionate head and mass, this
creature once jumped on the back of a passing hitch-hiker and road him
piggy-back.

SANTA CLAUS

A spirit of the upper air loosely based on the Norse god Odin.

Middle English, saint or seint from the French saint from the Latin
sancta, sacred. One officially appointed to conduct religious ceremonies.
The family name derives from Nic-o-laus.
 Our long list of Maritime devils might lead to the conclusion that there
are few good spirits in the region, but we do have Saint Nicholas, who is as
busy a bishop in his own diocese as the Devil in his province. The Devil is
often entiteled Old Nick while Santa is Good Saint Nick, the heir of the
constructive Anglo-Saxon Allfather. He was anciently called Father Time,
Father May, Father Yule and finally Father Christmas, the latter the least
offensive to the newly-introduced Christian religion.

For many years it was considered that Santa Claus resided at the
North Geographic Pole, but when geographer Arthur Wiggington was mapping
the New Brunswick Highlands in 1963 he stumbled on several gates to the
underworld while exploring North Pole Stream in the north central region of
the province. North Pole Mountain is located north of the stream and has an
elevation of two thousand two hundred and fifty feet. It is believed to be a
hollow hill and directly south of it is Mount Saint Nicholas as well as Mounts
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.

Santa Claus was first described as "a right jolly old elf", and has close
relatives among the house bucks and the ho-ho men of Europe and North
America. Like Santa, the ho-ho men wore red mantles, but had shorter
tempers, striking dead those who laughed at their hearty "ho! ho! hohs!" In
medieval England Father Christmas dominated the Yule but Santa Claus came
to notice when Clement Moore published A Visit From Saint Nicholas in
eighteen forty-eight. It is an interesting aside that a handwritten copy of
this manuscript is on deposit at the New Brunswick Legislative Library. He
was represented as being totally elf-like being able to shape-change,
dematerializing to squeeze through flues and chimneys. Remember that he
drove "a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer?" He was first
represented, in drawings for that book, as wearing a sailor's linen trousers,
high boots and the turned-coat of the European peasant. He was every
Victorian child's exotic sea-going great-uncle, a pipe smoker, who brought
small gifts from distant lands; a person "dressed all in fur from his head to
his foot..." His appearance changed when he was redrawn by Thomas Nast
for a later edition published in eighteen sixty-three. Three years later the
artist renamed him using the shortened "Santa Claus" when he submitted
drawings of the "Old Fellow" for inclusion in "Harper's Magazine". By eighteen
eighty he had grown unaccountably taller. Animal rights activists had nothing
to do with the rejection of his traditional fur coat for one of flannel in the
eighteen nineties. Blue was the colour preferred by King Odin and this was
taken up by both Father Christmas and Santa Claus, but the latter went
through a phase when he could not decide what colour suited him. Through all
of these years Santa Claus did retain the ermine fringe which was the mark
of northern royalty. The standard red suit with a plain white fur fringe did
not become stylish for him until after World War One.

SANTYER, SANTA CLAWER

An earth spirit incarnate in humans at the Yuletide.

Anglo-Saxon, after Santa Claus, see above. A member of a striking

crowd of belsnickers (which, see). A disguised individual who travels from
house to house exchanging amateur entertainment for food and drink,
particularly the latter. This business takes place in rural Lunenburg County,
N.S., where it is referred to as santyin' or sandyin'. It is alternately
known as kris krinklin' or belsnicking and is called first footing in Gaelic-based
communities.

SAMH

The Gaelic goddess-spirit of summer.

Gaelic, (pronounced shah), Her winter form is the Cailleach Bheur

(Winter Hag). Her season, extending from May 1 until October 31, was
entitled the samhradh (saur-ach). The celebration at the end of her reign
was the samhainn (tav-inn) a name also applied to the month we call
November. The winter season belonged to her alter-ego, the Cailleach Bheur,
who supervised geamhradh (geaur-ach), the winter, and shape-changed into
the Samh with the renewal of summer at Beultainne (May 1). This fertility
spirit was involved in ritual sex on the eve of summer. Precise counterparts
are the Middle English summer and the Anglo-Saxon sumor, a compound of
Sum or Samh + mer, any female animal. The underlying word may be the
Sankrist sama, the year. We note ocassional reference to Samhain, “a
dreaded Druid god, Lord of the Dead and Prince of Darkness, the chap who
assembled the living dead.” He appears to be a modern invention. See Lugh
and Cromm.

The Gaels were a cattle-people, who recognized two seasons based on

happenings in the herdsman's year. The first of these was the removal of
animals to lowland pastures, a duty completed by the first day of winter.
May Day marked the date by which they had returned animals to the upland
meadows. The most important festivals of their year contained no
agricultural landmarks such as mid-summer and mid-winter, these holidays
being added when farming peoples joined their ranks. Sir George James
Fraser thinks that the Samhainn was the more important of the two
festivals. He has noted that new fires were kindled at this, the beginning of
the Celtic New Year. Divination was given attention, and the spirits of dead
ancestors were welcomed, while evil spirits were discouraged through ritual
magic. This was the time when the baobhs were at large and the sidh
loosened from their magical binding. Alexander Macbain has noted that
samhuinn may derive from the same root as the English word same which
is also the basis of the English assembly. He also says that the gathering
at Tara took place "on 1st November while the the Ceit-shaman, our
Ceitein was the first feast held on 1st May."

Samh is, of course, preserved in the Gaelic tongue as it is used in Cape

Breton but I have heard my grandfather, Wesly Hanson Mackay, unwittingly
refer to her in the mild expletive, "By The sam hill!" He was also fond of the
semi-rhetorical question, "What the sam hill?"

Mary L. Fraser has noted that "The druidical feast of Samh'in, the
second great event of their (pagan) year, was coincident with Hallowe'en. On
this day they killed the sacred fire and discharged judicial functions with
which superstitious usages for divining the future were intermingled...(eg)
the eating of a salt cake before retiring in the hope that one's future
husband might appear, with a glass of water, to the thirsty dreamer...the
only day on which Satan was unchained..."

At the Samhuinn, certain Maritimers once placed candles in every

window (to drive off evil spirits and serve as a beacon for spirits of the
welcome dead). "On this day the old people used to carry, personally, food
to their poorer neighbours. There seems to be something quite pagan about
the injunctions given and carried out by careful housewives on All Soul's Night
not to throw water out of doors for fear of harming the spirits..."

Fraser further indicated that Samh was a moon goddess; and noted the
local superstition that crops and animals only fatten during the increase of
the moon; and that animals were not killed on the wane lest they lose body
weight. Human hair was similarly only cut on the wane, "otherwise it would
grow too fast". Observing the summer moon (which personified Samh) over
the left shoulder was thought to invite bad luck; so men were careful to
observe it over the right shoulder. Wishes made on the new moon came
true, provided an object was held in the left hand and the cross signed with
the right.

Changes in the phase of the moon used to be carefully watched as it

was observed that "a change in the moon always brings a change in the
weather." Some of our ancestors held that "The prevailing weather at the
time of the change would be the weather for all of the following quarter."
Some went further than this suggesting that the weather that came with the
change would continue until the cycle was complete. Mariners also noticed
that the sea was usually calm for about twenty-four hours before and after
the full moon; but at the full moon "there is generally blowy weather." It was
also said that both the new moon and the full moon brought "a swell on the
water" and my grandfather Guptill used to say that "fish will rally at that
time." "The tide runs fastest then, fish follow the bait better on the run and
the hook is best set at that time."

Men also noticed how the incarnate Samh sat in the sky. When she was
seen with her tines up it was noted that "the moon holds water" and a dry
period was expected in the next few days; otherwise she was thought to be
"spilling water" and rain was anticipated. If the moon was close to a high-
magnitude star it was observed that fine weather was in the offing since
"the star is trolling a long painter (tow-line)." If an intense tow-star was
seen at a distance it was assumed that the long lead was needed in
anticipation of stormy seas. A "star-dogged" moon was the worst omen; this
rarity was supposedly a star within the inner tines of the moon, a physical
impossibility. Whatever was observed, this was supposed to suggset the
worst possible weather since the tow star was within the mother-ship.

Like the sun, the moon-spirit was pursued by the wolves or dogs of the
under-sea world, who (at the time of eclipses) came near to devouring her.
While the locals saw the sun as pursued by sun-dogs; the moon was
considered at hazard because of pursuing dawfish (dawnfish or dogfish)
which are a species of shark. Althought these sharks are too small to be a
hazard to men they were always considered ominous: "A ship followed by a
shark is due for bad luck." The cloud formation known as the sharks mouth
is infreqent enough to be remarkable. When it occurs the clouds are seen to
arrange themselves in parallel rows (like sharks teeth). These rows usually
fan out from two points on opposite horizons and are most expansive
directly overhead. "When the shark's mouth is seen, wind will come from one
of these quarters."

SANDMAN

A sea spirit, often a reincarnate devil-doomed mariner.

This creature resembled the sea-weed man which is spoken of below.

These unfortunates were cursed to “bind and haul” sand until the Devil was
satisfied with the work done. It is said that the wraiths of this kind are seen
at the shoreline embodied in all wet hgales. They are supposed to have wailed
on the wind: “More rope! More rope! More sand! More sand!” With the deeping
of dusk these figures always grew in size and malevolence. After such
nights men avoided repositioned sands “observing the tremulousness of the
atmosphere above them.” Thus folk said: “Old Tricky is a’binding sand! God
save the fishing smacks from harm!”

SEANMHAIR

An elderly female healer.

Gaelic, sean, old; marach, big and ungainly; a grandmother or grannie.

“Bordering on the supernatural were stories told of the “grannies” or

healing women. They were last in a line of women who had been more
numerous in the days before the rise of the medical profession...From
generation to generation, the grannies had passed on the mysteries of their
healing arts, an essential element of which was the “charm” - the secret
word or words which helped in the healing process. For example, if the
grannies were told that someone had something in his eye, as long as it could
move, she could take it out (even if the person happened to be at a distance)
provided she had his full name and baptism, and knew which eye it was in.
This was done by taking a special bowl to the spring where the charm was
repeated and the water was dipped three times. No matter where the
person was, the offending object would leave the eye. This charm had come
from Scotland. It was probably Gaelic but since secrecy was essential for
the efficacy of the charm, nobody but the granny knew this for
certain...Unfortunately this charm was lost (on Pictou Island, N.S..) when the
last grannie died over on the mainland, before she could pass it on to a
successor who also had the “gift.”” 22

SCRA

Earth spirits of the bogey class, addicted to mayhem;

sometimes incarnate in humans.

Gaelic, sgrathai, destructive, confering with the Old Norse scra,

having a dry unattractive skin; hence the English word scraggy. Comparable
in meaning with scut and skite. DEfined by the Dictionary of Prince Edward
Island English as "a worthless person, a good for nothing." One under the
influence of a minor devil.

SCUT

An earth spirit often incarnate as an unreliable human.

Anglo-Saxon scut probably from the Old Norse skott, the tail of any
animal, particularly a fox, hare or rabbit.

Definted in the Dictionary of Prince Edward Island as an "impolite" word:

"A low mean person." Seconarily, "an immoral young woman or a mischievous
child." Comaparable to skite, snollygoster and spleach.

SEA CAT

The ultimate female sea-goddess.

See mhorgha. See also roan. The sea-cats are almost certainly
incarnate as seals.

SEA HORSE

A sea monster having a horse-like head.

The Anglo-Saxon, hros-wael, better known as the wal-rus, literally

the whale-horse. Danish, valros or hvalros, Old Norse, hrosshvalr, A
very large marine mammal found in the Arctic and allied with the seals in a

22Ross, Eric, Pictou Island Nova Scotia (1987) pp. 15-16.

distinct biological family. The upper canine teeth are vey long and pointed,
the neck thick and muscular and the weight of individuals up to a ton.

The “sea-cat,” observed by Brendan the Navigator in our waters was

no ordianary seal, since it was described as having, “huge eyes, bristles and
tusks like a boar.” Brendan’s hide-covered boat was threatened by this
creature and another less obvious monster, which sped in frommmm the
west and killed it. This was assumed to be a response to prayers, the killing
“dragon” being an agent of God. At a later time the voyagers found the half-
eaten carcase of the sea-cat stranded on a tree-covered island where they
had landed. They gathered the meat, cutting and opreserving it, because
Brendan had foresight that they would be forced to remain on this island for
a long time. Sure enough, his divine espionage was accurate and bad weather
stranded them there for three months before they could continue their
cruise among the western isles.

SEA LION

A variety of sea serpent possessing a leonine head.

Anglo-Saxon, sae, originally a body of salt water inferior to the ocean;

later, the ocean proper. Anglo-Norman lion , a member of the cat family
native to Africa. Referred to elsewhere as the “sea cat.”

Not a species described by Betty Garner in her compedium of Canadian

Mionsters. The sole sighting seems to have been made by Sir Humphrey
Gilbert off Cape Race, Newfoundland in 1583: “So upon Saturday in the
afternoon, the 31st of August, we changed our course, and returned back
for England. At which very instant, even in widing about, there passed along
between us and towards the land...a very lion in our seeming, in shape, hair,
and colour, not swimming after the manner of a beast by moving of his feet,
but rather sliding upon the water with his whole body, excepting the legs, in
sight, yet diving under, and again rising above the water, as the manner of
whales, dolphins, tunnies, porpoises, and all other fish; but confidently
showing himself abovbe water without hiding...Thus he passed along turning
his head to and fro, yawning and gaping, with ugly demonstration of long
teeth, and glaring eyes; and to bid us a farewell, coming right against the
“Hind,” he sent forth a horrible voice, roaring or bellowing as doth a lion. 23

SEA SERPENT

An snake-like sea-spirit similar to the land-going dragon.

Anglo-Norman, sae, and pronounced as such until about 1750; one of

the larger bodies of salt water inferior to the ocean. Like ocean, serpent is
a word which has come into our language from Old French. The Latin form is
serpens, which is perhaps derived from serpere to creep. A related word
is repere, which confers with the English reptile. The Anglo-Norman word
sea-serpent is better known than the earlier Anglo-Saxon sae-wurm, or
sea-worm. The sea-worms bred on the high seas, but cruised the naess, or
headlands, thus they were sometimes identified as the ness, the most
famous being the Loch Ness Monster. These creatures correspond with the
land-dwelling "dracs". or "dragons," except that the latter were sometimes
winged. The Anglo-Saxons referred to these creatures as sae deor, seas-
deer or beasts or as sae draca, sea dragons. These confer with the
Micmac jipjakamaq or “horned-serpents.”

Sea-serpents had very long necks, and individuals have been identified
by the Anglo-Saxons as the "hnecca" (neck). The necks or nucks included the
ferocious nuckalavee (killer nuck) of Scottish waters men. The Gaelic nuck
was the "nathair-mara", but whatever the name all are related, being
generally described as "long necked, humped-backed creatures of the
northern waters."

The father of all sea worms was the creature known as Ioomungandor
(world-river serpent). In Norse mythology he was the son of Loki and a
giantess named Angurboda. Odin cast this "great worm" into the sea. There
he grew to such proportions that his form finally filled the ocean-river.
Seeing his own tail, Ioomungandor snapped at it and occasionally closed on it
with painful effect. When this happened the worm shudder beneath the sea
creating earthquakes which loosened vulcanism on the land. Thor, god of
thunder, once fished for this Middle Earth snake and brought it to the
surface amidst terrible storms. He was about to annihilate it when his

23Payne, Edward John, Select Narratives from the Principal

Navigations of Hakluyt (1909). Hakluyt quoting Gilbert, whose vessel was
later lost in these waters.
frightened boatman cut the fishing line and allowed the worm to drop back to
the sea bottom. At the end of time it has been promised that Ioomungandor
will play a part in the destruction of Odin's Aesir. Thor is to be the ultimate
nemesis of the Middle Earth snake, but in his slaying the thunder god has
been promised drowning in the flood of venom which will issue from the dying
monster's jaws.

Particulars seem to have come first from Lorenz von Ferry, who
observed a "sae-orm" (sea-worm) near Molde, Norway in 1746. He thought
that the grey-coloured head of this sea-worm was horse-like. "It had large
eyes and seven or eight folds or coils." When Ferry fired at the creature it
dived. The existence of sea-serpents has be argued for a very long time,
some of earliest observations having been made by Olas Magnus, who
published drawings and descriptions of those he claimed to see in Norway
during the sixteenth century. Afterwards this creature made closer
approaches to vessels. One is described by travel-writer George Borrow:
"Once in October 1805, as a small vessel of the Traeth (Wales) was upon the
Menai, sailing slowly...the people on board saw an immense worm swimming
after them. It overtook them, climbed on board through the tiller hole and
coiled itself on the deck under the mast-the people at first were dreadfully
frightened, but taking courage they attacked it with an oar and drove it
overboard, where it followed the vessel (“Robert Ellis”) for some time..."

It will have been noticed that this particular sea-sidh has roots in
Scandinavian and Gaelic lore, but Thomas Keightley has said that "The
Thames, the Avon, and other English streams, never seem to have been the
abode of the Neck or Kelpie." This may be due to the fact that these
southern rivers are shallow and nuck can only inhabit the deep fjords of the
north (which are also found in Atlantic Canada). It should be noted that the
Abenaki have had a long history of interaction with sea-serpents, which they
refer to as the jipijkamaq

When Champlain abandoned his interests in Acadia he moved to Quebec,

and from here explorered parts of eastern New York State, including Lake
Champlain. On the lake bearing his name, the sxplorer saw, “a creature that
was serpent-like, about 20 feet long and as thick as a barrel with a head that
resembled a horse.” Further on in his report of the matter Champlain added
that, “The Indians gave me the head of it, which they prize highly, saying
when they have a headache, they let (human) blood with the teeth of this fish
placed at the focus of pain, and get immediate relief.”
 The Wabenakis described “Champ,” as an water-animal having the
thicknesss of a man’s thigh, aporting silver-grey scales that a dagger could
not penetrate, with jaws two and-one-half feet wide filled with very sharp
pointed teeth. There descriptions remind one of certain figureheads seen on
the Viking dragon-ships. According to them the beast had a beak-like head.
To catch the birds it fed on, the creature moved sinuously through the lake
reeds, snapping at the lower branches of overhanging trees.

Perhaps the earliest sighting in Atlantic waters was made by a

boatload of new settlers and Indians off Cape Anne Massachusetts in 1639.
In this case the creature was found sunning itself on the rocky shore, and
was only saved from harpoons on the intervention of the Indians.

After that there were undoubtedly sporadic encounters between men

and serpents but the next recorded one was in 1805 when David Lee saw a
one hundred foot sea-snake off the shores of Cape Breton Island. "Its back
was dark green and it stood in the water in flexuous hillocks and went
through it with an impetuous noise."

The Gulf of Maine was visited in1817, when the Sandy Bar monster put
on a memorable aquatic show for several hundred people. In that year there
were numerous mass sightings of “a monster snake with a mountain range
like body,” in the shallows through many days of the summer. The continued
sightings caused the Linnean Society of Boston to form a committe “for the
purpose of collecting any evidence that may exist repecting a remarkable
animal denominated as a Sea Serpent, reported to have been seen in and
near the Harbour of Gloucester (Massachusetts).”

The committee’s report finally came back as a small pamphlet in

December of 1817. It contained the sworn testimony of twelve individuals
who had observed the monster. It was conclude that all of them had seen a
single sea serpent about the dates August 10 to August 28 within the
Harbour. After that, until, October 5, the creature was seen within Long
Island Sound. Observations took place over periods of time ranging from a
few minutes to two hours and the sight-seers were a distances that varied
from a few feet to perhaps a mile.
 The serpent was seen at all hours of the day and was sometimes in
rapid motion but was also seen at rest on the water. Its back appeared to
undulate at times but in other instances it was seen as smooth and barrel
like. It looked like a land-snake, black or dark-brown in colour, having a
diameter of about three feet, tapering toward the extremnities. Its length
was variously guessed to be between twenty and a hundred feet. Most
observers though the skin was smooth but two said it was rough in texture.

The head was said to be like that of a conventional serpent and three
witnesses said that had seen a tongue projecting from the mouth. One
witness compared the eyes to that of an ox. No fins, gills or mane were seen
and there was also unanimous agreement that the animal was extremely
fexible.

This sea serpent appeared to have little interest in the human

observers and totally ignored the firing of guns from the shore. It made no
sound and was not afraid of the shore for it was once seen lying partially out
of the water.

The naturalists who interviewed the observers were not content to

publish this general information but attempted to create a hypothesis
regarding the sighting: A month after these singular events a small black
snake was found on the beach at Loblolly Cove and this three foot “beast”
was slain using a pitchfork. It was presented to the Linneans who
afterwards gave their iopinion that it was the young of the sea serpent
whose “eggs” might have been deposited on or near the shore. Examining
the carcasse some of the Committee were “delighted” to find a series of
small humps on the animal’s back and soon published the fact that “no
material difference” had been found between the large and the small animal.

The specimen was named Scioliophis atlanticus and appended to their

report was an anatomical description based on their dissection of the smaller
animal. European critics of the report quickly identified the two drawings as
representing the more common Coluber constrictor, apparently suffering
from tumourous growths. The science community took the Committee’s
report with “a calmness bordering on indifference,” and this helped to sea
the animal’s fate as a fabulous creature. In the end the twelve honest
burghers of Glucester came under the gun as being credulous, and the town
gained a reputation for tall-tales.
 This led to many practical jokes, and fictious sea-serpents were
generated and reported tongue-in-cheek by the Press. Worse still, in the
following year, Captain Rich of Cape Ann outfitted a ship from Boston and
claimed they were going to track the monster. When they came to shore
they reported they had caught the beast and thousands came flocking to see
it. At the shore-line they found a 600 or 700 pund macquerel, which was a
great curiosity, although not as billed. Those who had previously decided
against the existence of sea serpents proudly took credit for their superior
judgement, discrimination and clear-headedness. Even the few who had been
believers ducked the issue and most supposed they had been deceived.
There was less tendancy to be open about sightings after that incident.

There was one in Halifax Harbour on July 15, 1825. One person
described it as having, “a body as big as a tree, with eight coils or humps to
its body, and it was about sixty feet long.” A similar creature was seen in
the following year by William Warrburton in the waters south of
Newfoundland. At Mahone Bay in 1833, two members of Her Majesty's Royal
Navy saw a beast they claimed resembled a common sea-snake except that
its long neck supported "a head six feet in length and had a total length of
eighty feet." Both men agreed the colour was dark brown, bordering on
black, streaked with white.

On his second visit to America in 1842 the geologist Charles Lyell was
told of a sea-serpent that had the misfortune to become stranded on
Merigomish Beach, on the Northumberland shore of Nova Scotia: “It was
about one hundred feet long, and nearly aground in calm water, within two
hundred feet of the beach. It remained in sight about half and hour, and then
got off with difficulty.” One witness thought that the head was seal-like, and
on its back spotted a number of humps, which some thought were due to the
flexing of the body wall. The colour appeared to be black and the skin was
rough in texture. There was no indication of side flippers.

In 1844 a similar creature appeared at nearby Arisaig, on this same

coast. There being a slight breeze, it was easily seen by a millwright from
Pictou, who stood on land within 120 feet of iot. He estimated the length at
sixty feet, the thickness of the body at three. There were humps on the
back which he thought were two close together to represent bends in the
body. As the creature undulated, its head and tail were sometimes seen
simultaneously. Later that fall a similar animal was seen from the eastern
shore of Prince Edward Island, which lies across the Strait.
 In 1849 four fishermen sighted an eel-like monster swimming off
South West Island near the entrance to St. Margaret’s Bay, in southern Nova
Scotia. They launched a boat and tried to approach it. Again the animal
wasa seen to be black in colour, its back covered with scales. No caudal fin
was observed but they saw a very high fin, or perhaps a row of spines
erected along the back. Each was judged to be about an inch in diameter at
the base, and the set continued along the back for perhaps a third of the
animal’s length, each end being equidistant from the head and the tail. At
some point the animal opened its mouth and looked hostile so the men,
“pulled vigorously for shore, followed for some distance by the snake.”

A fisherman, returning from Port George to Victoria Beach in 1890,

held his ship parallel to the black basalt cliffs but became momentarily
unsteady when he spotted a "horse-head" racing through the water. The
captain claimed that "it rolled hoop-like" beside his craft, each loop taking up
thirty to forty feet of water. Since the eyes were "as large as saucers" and
the creature was following closely the crew put on extra sail in spite of a
threatening gale. They were trailed as far as Point Prim light. Two other
vessels made similar sightings before week-end, but it was not seen
afterwards.

In 1913 a sea-serpent which had a giraffe-like head was spotted by

Allen Line personnel travelling across the Grand Banks in the steamer
Corinthian. The First Officer confused the creature with an overturned ship
and approached to within 60 metres before a curious haed arose from the
water. The Second Officer went immediately for his rifle but was disuaded
from shooting by its “great blue eyes.” For a few moments the sea-giraffe
churned the waters near the boat and then cruised away uttering a wail,
“altogether out of proportion to its size.” Those who heard ity claimed the
sound was not unlike that of a disraught child.

In 1915 the German Submarine V.28 torpedoed the British steamer

Iberia.. As it went down, there was an undersea explosion, and amidst the
debris brought to the surface the startled conning tower observers saw “a
gigantic sea-animal, writhing and struggling wildly.” Before they could
photograph it the animal dove out of sight. The four witnesses agreed that
what they had seen was eel-like, 60 feet in length, “crocodile-like” in shape,
having four limbs “with powerful webbed ffet and a long tail tapering to a
point.”
 The Sable Island sea-serpent was spotted by veteren fishermen over a
period of five days in July 1976. On the fifth of that month Eisner Penny
made the first report from a position in the vicinity of Pollock’s Shoal. He
thought at first that he was looking at a whale, but later concluded that it
was, “bigger than anything I have ever seen at sea.” He approached it to
within seventy feet and described it as having, “a massive peaked head, with
a longish mouth like an alligator.” He watched it for a half hour before it
vanished in the distance. Two days later, Keith Ross and his son Rodney saw
the creature again. They agreed that the head was eight or ten feet above
the surface of the water. When the mouth opened the younger Ross ducked
into the cabin to save a confrontation. The two men said they were close
enough to see that the beast had two tusks, “two and a half feet long, three
inches thick at the base, with rows of smaller teeth as well.” On top of the
head they observbed a mass of brown flesh protruding from the neck. The
protruiiding eye sockets were “the size of saucers,” and the tail vertical like
that of a shark. Two days further on, Edgar Nickerson and his son Robert
were the next terrified spotters. They saw the creatures head emerge from
the water twenty feet from the cabin of their boat. Nickerson turned on his
depth sounder which usually frightens whales, but this creature remained in
place, its haed “right over my cabin, not five feet away.” Nickerson revved
up his motor and attempted to move away forgetting he was at anchor. The
anchor line strained at the railing and tore it away. Nickerson said he never
looked back to see if the sea-serpent was following: “It was a horrible thing,
“ he later observed, “If there’s a devil, that was it.” 24

The Utopia neck seems to have been gentle. He was first spotted in
1856 but it was 1868 before an attempt was made to turn him into a
trophy. That year, the Saint Croix Courier said: "Several gentlemen of St.
George recently brought the monster of Lake Utopia to the surface by
exploding twenty-five pounds of dynamite under the water near the Mill (i.e.
the Mill Stream)...and four rifle shots were discharged at him".

Apparently he had a thick hide because newspaper reporters for the

New Dominion were attracted to the area by continued sightings. They criss-
crossed the Lake by sailboat in August of that year, became disillusioned and
were about to return to Upper Canada when, "Lo! there it was about 150
yards from us. What I saw of it appeared to be about seven

24Weekend Magazine, October 30, 1976.

foot in length and perhaps two and one-half to three feet in height..."
One reporter said that the part above water was "about seven feet in
length and two and one-half to three feet in height.

An illustration of the Utopia Monster was prepared for "The Canadian

Illustrated News," and published in the issue released on November 30, 1872.
The woodcut engraving was signed E.J. R., the well known short-form for the
St. Andrews artist E.J. Russell. He was very likely the author of an
accompanying article which stated that the, "chief Medicine Man (of the
Passamaquoddies) swears that a fearful creature with a head as big as a
puncheon followed him and a brother Indian in their canoe some distance
after the ice was cut this spring, snapping its bloody jaws in a most horrible
manner." E.J. went on to say that the belief in a sea-serpent was not
confined to the aboriginals: “The dwellers by the lake nearly without
exception firmly believe that a huge fish or serpent has a home in “Eutopia,”
for have they not seen it, basking sometimes full length of 100 feet or
thereabouts, like a huge pine log on the surface of the waters? And does it
not occasionally, when in a sportive mood, raise Ned generally at the bottom,
sending up old logs, spruce edgings, and ancient deposits of various kinds and
sorts, causing the water to boil and foam, as if a geyser had suddenly broke
loose?”

The following year, a couple of journalists were sent to check the

story and found "appearances were alleged in different parts of the lake; and
so positive were the residents that some monstrous animal was the cause,
they set large hooks baited with salt fish and pork...The credulous asserted
that a slimy track of some huge animal had been traced from the ocean to
the lake thirty years ago...we were considered adventurers in sailing on the
lake so soon after the above occurrence." They were told that a joint stock
company had been organized at St. George, “with a capital of $200 for the
purpose of procuring nets and apparatus for the capture of the monster.”
This venture was also unsuccessful.

Additional coverage came when Andrew Leith Adams mentioned the

beast in Field And Forest Rambles, a travel book published in London in 1873.
He was convinced that it was a local hoax or at best "an extravagant
delusion". Lumbermen, he admitted, "were suddenly disturbed by the
splashing of some object, which some individuals asserted was fully ten feet
in breadth and about thirty feet in length."
 After listening to eye-witnesses, Adams concluded that the effects
described had taken place, but could not see that access of a marine
monster to the Lake was possible "considering the geology of the place." He
thought what had been observed might have been air and water vented from
"sub-lacustrine rock fissures", or perhaps "shoals of eels or fishes in violent
activity, or the result of a whirlwind." In the latter case, the old-timers
would have more certainly tied what was seen to an effect of the little
people.

The historian, William Francis Ganong followed Adams to Saint George

parish in 1891. His note book reads, in part: "Mr. McCartney, an observant
and well-informed resident of Red Rock, said that some twenty years ago he
often saw the Monster of Lake Utopia while lumbering there; it was a dark
red in colour, the part showing above water was twenty feet long and as big
around as a small hogshead; it had two large flapping affairs like fins; no
head was ever shown; it was much like a large eel; it never let anyone get
near it but was often seen by lumbermen from the shore; he had seen it
many times with his own eyes; he had also seen or heard of the great
furrows in the sand which it had made; it disappeared about eighteen years
ago and has not since been heard of by anyone." Ganong also interviewed
James Woodbury, who reinforced the old story that the monster periodically
moved overland between the Lake and the sea. Others who were questioned
said this nuck had "a dark red head" which a few though resembled either an
alligator or a horse.

The next appearance of this great serpent was near the coast of
Maine, where it was seen by the entire crew of the schooner Madagascar,
just before it landed a load of coal at Lubec. During the morning watch, at 6
o'clock on the morning of July 28, 1901, the vessel was standing under sail
moving north along the coast at six to eight knots. The watch sighted an
object on the starboard bow which had the appearance of a huge log. As the
drew closer, Edward Ray, a sailor from Ellsworth, Maine, said that he thought
the "log" was moving. The mate, Len Armstrong of Lubec, saw the object
floating on the surface but was not as certain there was movement. As
they approached within a sea-biscuit throw of the object, the two sailors
were astonished to have it raise a great snake-like head and glide sinuously
away from the ship.

They were close enough to observe minute details: In shape they said
that the creature came closest to a snake. It was 30 feet long, covered
with scales, ranging in colour from green to brown, and strangely refractive
of the sun's rays. Along the back, from head to tail, they saw a spinal
points, which seemed an extension of the back bone. Just below the head
was a huge dorsal fin, or spine, thick, dark in colour, and about the size of a
man's hand. The crew agreed that the body diameter must be about two
feet, tapering slightly beyond the head and drastically towards the tail. As
far as they could see there was no difference between the body tone or
colour from the top to the bottom surface of the animal.

After the monster was safely separated from the ship it lay quietly
upon the water for a number of minutes, seemingly appraising the ship. For
a half hour more, the men watched it making occasionally fast skipping
motions through the water, travelling only a short distance with each burst
of energy. It appeared entirely fearless, showing no alarm at any of the
tacks made by the vessel.

In speaking of the incident Edward Ray told the "Saint Croix Courier"
that he had been a seaman for nine years and had sailed the Atlantic from
Africa to Labrador, but had never seen anything in the sea that resembled
this creature. Asked if he thought it might have been possible to trap the
animal, he said that no crew could have taken such a massive creature alive,
and he guessed it would have been dangerous to injure it with a harpoon.
Again, the "St. Andrews Beacon" reported another sighting, August 2,
1906: This time the serpent was seen close to land by Thebold Rooney,
keeper of the Sand Reef Light. Rooney thought that the monster had been
draw to land in the wake of schools of herring, which he may have been
pursuing. If so, he was not after food, for after moving quietly about he
moved away from the lighthouse in the direction of Clam Cove.

Rooney got out his binoculars and reported the animal to be between
25 and 30 feet, judging by background objects. The head was small and
snake-like and he guessed it to be the diameter of a weir stake. The keeper
said that he might have taken it as a shark except for the lack of any dorsal
fin. As the serpent moved out of sight it flipped up a "tail" in whale-fashion,
and was lost to sight.

Rooney said that this was not the first "sea-snake" he had seen in St.
Andrews Bay. Several years earlier he had been in the company of several
other fisherman when one went scudding by making "a great deal of noise".
For their part, the editors of the newspaper supported the keeper noting he
was "not a man given to seeing snakes other than sea serpents."

Visiting the region, Ganong noted this flurry of sightings, and published
a paper in 1907 edition of The Bulletin Of The New Brunswick Natural History
Society, noting: "For the past few summers the local papers have often
reported the appearance of "sea-serpents" at Passamaquoddy and the Saint
Croix. The animal is really there but it is according to testimony of
observant persons, a White Whale...Locally it is stated that it came into the
Bay with the war-ships during the Champlain celebrations, June 25, 1905.
But in this belief we have nothing but an illustration of another wonder-
tendency, viz. the habit of linking together, as casually connected,
prominent events which are merely contemporaneous; for the data in my
possession shows that the animal was seen in the bay at least one season
before 1905."

Ganong remained interested in the legend: "I have been on the lookout
for some years past, during my trips to New Brunswick waters, for
appearances which might sustain a sea-serpent preconception." Aside from
the Utopia sightings, which were all second-hand, he did uncover the
"inconclusive testimony" of Dr. J. Orner Green, who thought that a similar
creature occupied Lake Oromocto, many miles to the north. There was also
the "celebrated case" of Mr. Eben Hall, who seems to have seen the
wewiliamaq of the Passamaquoddies in the lakes of Maine. Although Ganong
thought that this native of Saint Stephen gave evidence "in good faith" he
was suspicious of the fact that Hall was making a living with the information
on a lecture tour. Unable to convince himself, Ganong finally concluded that
the nuck was "floating logs" or up-wellings of gas as Adams had suggested.
The trails across land, which the Indians said were left by the jipijkamaq,
Ganong dismissed as Indian portage routes or trails left by well-fed beavers.

The story did not end with Ganong. Several decades later Robert
White, the foreman of a lumber rafting crew, watched in fascination as "a
shining coil of black flesh" turned over within his log boom on Lake Utopia.
The upheaval of logs which followed was seen by all of his workers and none
of them thought that it looked much like escaping jets of water and air.
Joseph Goddill later said that he frequently watched the animal sunning itself
on the spring ice just before break-up. If the nuck was a log, or a group of
logs, it must have been powered by an outboard motor because Victor Cook
saw it travelling away from his location on the shore at a speed of about
eight knots.
 In 1951, Mrs. Fred McKillop, a ninety year old grandmother, told the
Telegraph-Journal of her encounter with the famous monster: "It is still
fresh in my mind, and I was never so frightened in all my life...The men had
gone fishing (on Lake Utopia) and had left me to sit with two of my
grandchildren. We were all watching the lake and it was beautiful. It was so
clear it resembled glass and there wasn't a ripple showing."

"Suddenly, as I watched the water commenced to boil and churn and

make waves which came in and broke on the shore. Then a huge creature of
some sort emerged from the water, at least it showed part of its head and
part of its body. It resembled a huge black rock, but it moved and churned
all the time. I was alone with the grandchildren at our cabin, and was so
terrified that I took the children and ran into the cabin and locked the door."

"After a short time had passed, I realized that whatever it was

belonged in the lake and so we were in no danger. It was then that I went
outside again and watched it. I had never before heard of the Lake Utopia
Monster, and therefore, had no idea what it was. When the men returned
home I told them about it and they said that must have been what it was..."

The expert observations of geologist J.W. Dawson are allowed here

although his a spectacular sighting took place at Merigomish Beach, Pictou
County, N.S., in 1842. Estimated at one hundred feet, this monster swam in
from the Northumberland Strait and beached itself. It became stranded
within two hundred feet of shore and struggled for a half hour before
regaining deep water. In this time it was observed by large numbers of
Pictonians. One thought that the head was horse-like while another thought
that it resembled a seal. The colour was given as black and it was said that
the body surface had "a rough appearance". In its efforts to reach safety,
the animal was seen to "bend its body almost into a circle and unbend it with
rapidity..." Some who saw it thought it had the appearance of a long string
of fishing net buoys "moving rapidly about." Considering the capacity of the
sea-serpents to shape change it may be asked why this creature did not
assume a land form and walk away? Unlike the land sidh, who became
diminished in shape-changing, sea forms increased in mass by assimilating
water, becoming larger with each alteration. The oldest, fiercest, and most
impressive nucks in Scotland were the nuckalavee, who have been described
as "psychotic creatures, made so by their inability to change form."
 A sea-monster has been seen in the tidal waters of the Kennebecasis
and in Bellisle Bay. This may be the same creature that was described by a
Grand Lake resident as, a creature with a head as big as a water pail and
great green eyes..." He said this serpent "raced around my canoe on more
than one occasion, year after year." Others observed wet furrows on the
beach where some gigantic mass had slithered across the shore.

Pictou Island lies nine miles off the coast of Pictou County, N.S., and
was, briefly, the home of a sea-creature which came ashore and cut a broad
swath through the marshlands at the south of the island about the middle of
this century. Some of the men, noticing the crushed grass and cat-tails
thought the trail might have been left by a horse, except for the fact that
there were no hoof-prints and no horses on the island. It began to be
suspected that, "it must be a monster from the sea that's made the
crawlings on the way to our pond." A group of brave, but foolish, lads went
to look for this grand-daddy of all snakes, and to their shock found him!
Retreating to a nearby hunting camp they spent an uneasy night listening for
the rustling of grasses. In the morning, deciding to eliminate this visitor,
they set fire to the marsh, but when the smoke had cleared could find no
sign of the animal in the burned area.
This was the beginning of a series of sightings which occured without much
public record. A number of people did see the emergence of the Champlain
monster in 1819 when it poked its head above Bulwagga Bay. In the early
1870s a group of New Yorkers on a steamboat excursion out of Essex saw
the creature as the hove in towards the Vermont shore at Houseboat Bay.
The local paper, “The Temperance Advocate,” reported that the “What-Is-It”
moved through the lake at railway speed, and that the water was agitated
for thirty feet or so in the wake of what appeared to be a head on a long
neck. During the decades that followed P.T. Barnum offered $550,000
dollars to the person who could present him with a carcass of the sea-
serpent.

No one ever delivered the creature, but the sightings persisted. In

1939 a couple fishing in a boat off Rouse’s Point spotted an unusually
agressive example of the species. This one chased the couple to the shore
with all the speed their outboard could musterr. In 1945 there was another
group sighting from the “S.S. Ticonderoga.” In 1947 L.R. Jobnes saw it from
the northern tip of Hero Island: “There was nothing to see at first but a
group of large ripples diverging in circles fro a point about 300 yards from
our craft... Then out of the deopths reared a huge dark form which moved
swiftly in a northwesterly direction. Three segments appeared clearly above
the water’s surface, separated from one another by about five feet of
water, the overall length of the creature being about 25 feet...It moved with
incredible swiftness - about 15 miles per hour - and disappeared altogether in
about two minutes.”

Again in 1976 two New York scuba divers saw it near Maquam Bay.
Fred Shanafelt and Morris Lucia were both in the water when Lucia motioned
that there was danger. The two emerged to be confronted by a beast that,
“couldn’t have been anything but a sea serpent. The two later agreed that
the length was about 40 or 50 feet and that the head was horse-like and a
mushroom grey in colour. They thought that the neck rose about 8 feet
from the surface of the water.They were not molested and Shanafelt
commented that: “We watched the serpent for about two minutes...It didn’t
make any effort to harm us. I think we could have gone right back in the
water. Of course I wouldn’t have done that for a million dollars.”

(which see)In 1961 The Loch Ness Phenomenon Investigation Bureau was set
up after a Scottish whisky distiller offered a large sum for a living specimen.
In 1970, the director of that organization released motion pictures of a
ness, which Royal Air Force scientists examined for fraud and returned
"without negative results". Afterwards, Professor Tucker of Birmingham
University recorded, on sonar, "large objects behaving in an animate manner"
within the Loch.

In 1968 a Cape Ann fisherman, John Randazza, his father, and a

number of crew members motored to within 10 feet of some similar sea-
creature, which they spotted on the Midddle Bank, 15 miles south-east of
Gloucester. It had been reported from that fishing bank all through the
previous two weeks, but this was the closest approach. The men said the
serpent was 70 feet long, snake-like, with a black hide and a white line
emphasizing the mouth. As first seen the Cape Ann monster was swimming
away but, “It saw us and turned right around heading right at us,” said John.
“My father started screaming “Let’s get out of here.” Fifty years he’s been
fishing, he’s never seen anything like that. He was scared, we all were
scared.”

SEA-WEED FOLK

Sea-spirits seemingly composed of derelict sea-weeds.

 Anglo-Saxon, see the note on the sea-serpent (above). Also known
as the rag-tag people, this species reminds one of Old Bear Woman who is
said to dress in the leaves and mosses of the forest, or any other natural
materials that happen to be at hand. This species is not widely represented
in European myth, but almost all countries have stories of invisible forest
spirits who sometimes made themselves visible by gathering leaves or twigs
to their bodies.

Their are numerous stories, particularly from our inhabited islands, of

men whose runners returned to their former homes at death. Here they
revealled themselves to surviving relatives as constructs of the seaweed
through which they had travelled on the jounney from the sea. The more
subtle among them allowed the family to sleep but left a pile of seaweed
within the house to announce their passage and declare a loss. This spirit
was seen at Moser's River, Nova Scotia: Albert Mosher and William Lowe had
gone to Toby Island during the lobster season, taking with them provisions
for two weeks. Before that time was out they found themselves short of
rations and Albert went ashore in a row-boat to pick up a few "necessaries".
He promised to return by dawn, which explains why Will was surprised to hear
the door rattling after he was barely asleep. Neverthelwess, supposing his
partner had completed his business earlier than expected Lowe went to the
door and opened it; there was no one there! He diidn't know how to react to
this, but being quite sure no one stood outside their shack, returned to bed.
Again he had hardly settled when he heard another rattling of the latch and
again was puzzled at finding no one standing outside the door. A third
repetition caused him to make a thorough survey of the surrounding area,
and close to the beach he discovered a "man" draped in seaweed. Thinking
Mosher was involved in an elaborate stunt, Will called out " Give it up Albert,
you can't fool me!" At this the figure melted into a puddle containing salt
water, sea-weed and eel-grass. The purser of the Grand Manan steamer,
the "Keith Khan" told a similar story: He claimed that one state-room had an
uncanny visitor, and that the line would not rent the space to anyone unless
absolved of responsibilty for what happened there. The trouble started
after a passenger had committed suicide in this cabin. Naturally, there were
those who were curious about this supposed haunt, and the last of these
convinced the captain to bunk with him in an attempt to either disprove or
banish the ghost. Both men were skeptics but remained awake and on guard
against any unusual happenings. They were astounded to see an eel-like
figure squeeze through a partially opened porthole and reassemble itself as a
shadowy figure completely sheathed in slime and seaweed. No coward, the
captain wrestled with the sea-weed man and got several bruised ribs for the
effort. The passenger, following the example of several previous occupants
went over the side, and the room was permanently locked.

SELKIE

A sea-spirit incarnate in a common harbour seal.

Anglo-Saxon seolc, possibly derived from the Old Norse silki, soft and
smooth after the fashion of silk, the fine lustrous fibre produced by the
larvae of the silkworm. Originally a fine woollen cloth similar to serge, having
a surface sheen, like that of a seal. These are the sea trows (trolls) of
Scotland's northern islands. The resemble the roane of highland Scotland
and are counterparts of the kelpy.

In the Faeroes (Far Isles): "It is the belief of these islanders that every
ninth-night the seals puit off their skins and assume the human form and
sport about on the land. After some time, they resume their skins and
return to the water." On the Shetlands people said that, "they are all fond
of music and dancing, and it is their dancing that forms the fairy rings."
In the Orkneys it was said that they came ashore on nights when there
was a full moon. "Seal women can easily be recognized, when in human form,
by the slight web between their fingers (see morrigan), the roughness of
their palms, their slow breathing, their fondness for swimming and diving,
their knowledge of medicine and midwifery and their ability to tell the
future." The seal-people of the Orkney Isles were alos known as the haaf
(which, see) and were said to have startling bright red pupils, like Morrigan in
her form as Badb, the battle-goddess. Lonesome fishermen sometimes
sought the sea-suits of the selkies knowing that they could then force one of
the sea-people to become a devoted, if wistful, wife. However, the skin had
to be well-hidden since she would invariably don it and leave her land husband
for the sea.

SEELIE

A sea-spirits whose ocean-going form is the seal.

 Anglo-Saxon saelig which is our word silly. Silly was originally an
adjective used to modify people or creatures who were brave, honest,
trustworthy and naieve. The sea trows (trolls) travelled the oceans in seal-
skins which they laid aside on coming to land. These creatures, the
descendants of the sea-giants, were in the habit of assuming human form
every ninth-night. A typical traditional tale follows: "A man following to pass
by a female seal found her without her skin, disporting herself and dancing
and sporting on the land. He found her skin and took it and hid it. When she
could not find it, she was forced to remain in human form. As she was fair
to look upon, the same man took her to wife and had children by her and lived
happily with her. After a long time, the wife accidently rediscovered her
hidden skin, and did not resist the temptation to creep into it, and so again
became a seal and returned to the sea.

The Wolves which lie due west of Deer Island. They are five small
islands. South Wolf now has an automated lighthouse but East Wolf was
always unlighted, very desolate and close to sea-level. This island was a
satging-ground for the seelys. East Wolf was visited, in the last century, by
sealers who clubbed and skinned several animals before it was noticed that
the sea was running unusually high and storm clouds gathering. In the
tremendous sea-swell that developed, all but one of the crew managed to get
off this island and reach the mother ship. Diverted by his work, the
marooned sailor was forced to watch his shipmates up-anchor and make for
safe-harbour at nearby Fairhaven. With the incoming tide proving more than
an inconvenience, this lad moved to the centre of the island where he was
surprised to find a number of nude females standing about the flayed body
of a "seal". Most of them scattered at his appearance but one who was
particularly distressed stayed in place moaning in cadence with the wind. He
approached and spoke to her, and she upbraide him and his kind for skinning
the seelys. She motioned to the blood-streaked naked figure of a man lying
at her feet and said this was her husband. Recoiling in horror, the sailor
offered to return the skins taken earlier, and, for her part, the seely swam
with the man on her back to Deer Island. Although he had some difficulty
convincing his ship mates, the sailor finally pressured them to take the sea-
suits back to the Wolves, where they were redistributed to their owners,
allowing them to return to the deep.

SHEILA, SHEELAGH
 A leading spirit of the duin mara.

Also seen as Sheelagh, the "englished" form of the Gaelic sith, one of
the side-hill folk, or little people; those the English call elfs or fairies. The
pronounciation is "shee" in Ireland and "shaw" or "shay" in Scotland. + lag,
weak or hollow, curved, and thus laghach, pretty. Similar to the Latin
electus, chosen over others and the English election. Similar to the Irish
Gaelic sidh, a fairy hill and their word sigh, a fairy. Siabhrach, siobrag
and siochair are a few of the equivalent names in the Scottish Gaelic.
There are numerous other local forms of the word in both Ireland and
Scotland, all derived from the Old Irish side, those the Romans recognized as
the "dei terreni," or "gods of the earth." Their dwellings were the sid and
side was the ancient name for their magical powers. The last two words are
similar to the Greek sed, a dwelling place, seat or abode. The Romans
learned of these "people of peace" and introduced into the theology at Rome
as the novensides, the "new (British) gods." Finally we have sithean,
literally "the peaceful home", a green fairy knoll. Sidh is sometimes
translated as wolf, or as venison, the feed of wolves. Sheelagh was the
daughter of the Celtic god Dagda, variously represented in folklore and
literature as the May Queen, Mebd, Morgan, Samh or Bridd. See mhorga and
cailleach bheur which are also synonymous.

In the Christian mythology of Ireland Saint Bridd, Brigid, or Brigit, is

considered the female equivalent of Saint Patrick, who died in the year 460.
She is supposed to have been born in 450 to a chieftain named Dubhtach (the
Dark One) of Fang and a Christian bondswomen living in County Louth.
Dubtach's legal wife was not fond of the child and so Bridd (the Bride) was
fostered to a druid, in nearby Faughart. Interestingly, this is the site of the
ford between northern and southern Ireland, where the northern hero
Cuchulain single-handedly beat off the armies of the wolf-witch queen Mebd
or May. Brigit adopted her mother's religion rather than the druidic
traditions and supposedly founded "a convent" at Kildare. Some have
guessed that she chose this site because it was easy to gather the recently
converted at such well-known places. What is not so easy to explain is her
establishment of "a sacred fire in an enclosure outside the church." The
flame was kept perpetually alight and was guarded by twenty virgin nuns.
This does not sound like anything remotely connected with Christian creed,
but the fire burned on until it was ordered extinguished by the archbishop of
Dublin in 1220. At that, it was rekindled and only went dark at the time of
the Dissolution of the monasteries and nunneries.

The warmth of Brigit's personality was sufficient that she gathered

10,000 converts to her convent. Those were the days before such places
were unisexual retreats and it was noted that while Brigit "had no interest in
marrying, she never eschewed the company of men." As the abbess became
more powerful she invited bishop Conlaeth to come to Kildare to serve the
interests of the males in her community. He was a fine artificer in gold,
silver and iron and the community began to specialize in the production of
metal objects for religious and secular use. Some of the nuns worked with
the men in the forges and design shops but others specialized in weaving,
dyeing, cloth work and medicine. Four years after the birth of Saint
Columba, in the year 525, Brigit died and her remains were placed "in one
tomb with Patrick at Down." She was claerly a woman of mythic dimensions
described (long after her supposed time) as "the prophetess of Christ; the
Queen of the South; the Mary of the Gaels."

Irish historians have rebelled at the suggestion, but there is obvious

merit in Sir James George Fraser's idea that, "St. Bride, or St. Bridget, is an
old heathen fertility goddess, disguised in a threadbare Christian cloak.
Probably she is no other than Brigit, the Celtic goddess of fire..." Anciently,
a tribe known as the Brigantines were known to have crossed from Belgium
to northern England and to have migrated from there to northern Ireland, the
seat of St. Brigit's power. They are sometimes compounded with the Tuatha
daoine (northern people, or people of the goddess Danu). Folklorist T.W.
Rolleston supposrts Fraser, noting that "Dana also bears another name, that
of Brigit, a goddess much honoured by pagan Ireland. Her attributes were in
great measure transferred in legend to the Christian St. Brigit of the sixth
century." The name of the older goddess was also found in Gaul (France)
where she was inscribed as Brigindo. In Greater Britain (England) she was
worshipped as Brigantia. Her father/husband was sometimes given as Dagda
(father of the day) and their grandson was Ecne (pronounced Yeo-hee) whose
name means "knowledge" or "poetry". Dagda and Danu, or Brigit, represent
the source of the Tuatha daoine, "the gods of the earth", and she was
identified as "the mother of the Irish gods."

The Tuatha daoine were eventually defeated and "driven to earth" by

totally human invaders who have been identified as the Milesions, or sons of
Miles. They had insignificant magic as compared with the Tuathans but they
had the advantage of ultra-sharp iron weapons. It was after the Tuathans
were driven to the hinterland, and to refuge beyond the sea, that they were
contemptuously dismissed as the Daoine sidh, or side-hill people. A
generalized name for any female leader of these sigh would be siabrach-
laghach, which may be anglicized as sheelagh.

The pre-eminent female leader among these defeated people was

Mebd, the "wolf-queen" who took residence under Sliab Cruachan in the
southern province of Connaught. She was definitely curvaceous, and pretty,
and elected to office by her Irish peers. On the other hand, she was hardly
as generous with her enemies as her incarnation in Saint Brigit would suggest
and she was definitely more than csually interested in men. Brigit, herself,
was a superior horsewoman, being represented in a contemporary hymn as
the "cailleach", or nun, who used her chariot to "range the Curragh" behind
two spirited horses. The same was said for the southern "queen of the May"
but she did more than spread the word of God, being a warrior of the highest
order. She cut down Cuchullain's pal, Cethern in armed combat. Compalining
of this unknown assailant Cethern noted: "As I stood a tall, long-faced
woman with soft features came at me. She had a full head of yellow hair and
two golden birds stood strangely silent on her shoulders. She wore a purple
cloak folded all about her and had five hands of gold decorating her back.
She carried a light, stinging, sharp-edged lance, and leld her sword in a a
woman's grip over her head. Truly she was a massive, frightening figure of
womanhood." Hearing this Cuchullain smiled wryly: "You are lucky to remain
alive for that was certainly Queen Mebd of Cruachan.

This character is Sheila, the personification of storm at sea. Like the

ocean she is a shape changer: she is often pictured as a hooded crow, or a
dark haired warrior-woman. This is also the case with mermaids who were
seen at the surface as having golden hair but it became seaweed-coloured
when they were in their deep-water hiomes. It is on record that Mebd was as
generous as Brigit with her friends, but enemies were beyond the pale. While
Cuchullain and his friends believed in fair play, Mebd felt no similar
constrains. At the onset of war, she abandoned the north, and visited a
curse on the men of Armagh, promising them monthly stomach cramps not
unlike those of the female menstral cycle. They might not have survived the
initial invasion except for the help of the off-shore hero Cuchullain, who came
to them from the Island of Scathach, off the western shore of Scotland. He
held the pass (where Brigit was born) until his allies recovered their
strength.
 Mebd is a personification of the voracity, willfulness and ambivalence
of the ocean. On one occasion, Mebd suggested wiping out friendly tribesman
fearing their eventual attachment to the northern cause. Her consort Ailill
condemned this suggestion as "a woman's thinking" and said it was "an evil
concept." Mebd, the mhorrigan, said candidly that she never slept with a man
unless another stood in his shadow ready to do duty. She was always willing
to use her sexuality to cement alliances, thus she said she would sleep with
the warrior Fergus if he would march against Cuchullain. When that failed to
inspire him she offered wealth and marriage to her daughter. Ailill had a
great deal to forgive, but did so saying, "I know much about queens and
women and I lay all fault in marriage with the strange swellings within a
woman';s breast and with her natural lust."

Cuchullain was a repeated target of Mebd's alternate bursts of lust and

hate. At one "truce", the lady sent six armed warrior against against
Cuchullian but he cut them down. Next the queen promised a one-to-one
meeting, promising she would come accompanied by her unarmed maids-in-
waiting. Cuchullain's charioteer was doubtful of her honesty and advised his
co-adventurer: "Mebd is a forceful woman; if I were you, I'd watch for her
hand at my back." Thus advised, Cuchullain took along a a hidden sword, and
it was just as well, for the accompanying maidens turned out to be fourteen
armed men in disguise. Even after that, Mebd appeared to her nemesis as a
beautiful, although shape-changed woman. When she propositioned
Cuchullain, he said something to the effect that he was too busy and tired to
bother. At that she became truly annoyed, revealled her real identity, and
promised evil times. At their next meeting, she fought him in serpent form,
worried him as a wolf, and tried to trample him after she shape-changed into
a ravaging herd of cattle. Eventually, Cuchullain fought the black queen to a
draw, but she had the last laugh. When the hero was an older man, she
approached him as the three old crones (the hags written into Shakespaere's
Macbeth). By subterfuge, these fates convinced Cuchullain that he should
share a stew with them. Unfortunately, it contained dog-meat, which was his
"geis", or taboo. As a result, he was paralyzed on one side, but even then he
and his stallion held off enemy warriors for three days and nights. Not long
after, Mebd was herself killed when an enemy shot a fruit-stone into her
forehead with a sling-shot.

Mebd may therefore be seen as the alter-ego of Brigit; the former an

adherent of the dark forces; the latter a representative of light, wisdom and
knowledge. Actually, the matter is more complex than this, as the supreme
goddess, Befind, was known to be a triad. The Befind resemble the Roman
Fatii and the Scandinavian Nornr; each group consisting of three women who
were responsible for the fates of the gods and men. The goddess of the
past was the sheelagh, pretty, vivacious, quixotic and sexually active, and
most often called Mhorrigan, or Morgan. She is alternately Samh or Brigit or
Danu, the matriarch of antique times. Her mature counterpart, the goddess
of the present, was usually said to be the warrior-queen Mebd, Maeve, or
Badb (the last translates from Gaelic as witch, wizard, hag or carrion crow).
The crone of future events was entitled Macha. While these spirits might be
encountered individually it has to be understood that they were each
components of the larger Befind. The woman adherents of Befind became
the befinds, the spirits given to men and women as guardians at their birth.

In Atlantic Canada the "line storm" is sometimes alternately called "St.

Patrick's storm" or "Sheila's storm". This event is usually a snow-storm that
comes about the time when the sun seems to cross the equatorial line at the
time of the vernal, or spring, equinox. Sometimes parallelling the equinoctial
gale, Sheila's storm was expected "a little before or a little after" Saint
Patrick's Day (March 17) and was expected to be one of the most difficult
storms of the year. It is noted elsewhere that the sigh (shee) controlled
the weather. Those that dwelt in the underworld were the daoine sigh, while
those who lived beneath the ocean were the daoine mara, and the latter
controlled the face and force of the waters.

In Gaelic parts of the Atlantic Canada folklorist Mary L. Fraser has

noted that any spontaneous assembly of women is guessed to be an omen of
storm. She says: "This may be a survival of the Old Celtic myth of Cailleach
Bheur (The Winter Hag), a giant woman who brought the storms of winter."
This woman is, obviously the the "horse-faced hag" who the early Irish called
Macha, the third form of the Befind.

In ancient Ulster Macha was said to have assumed the sheelagh form
and to have taken residence with a young man named Crundchu. He
impregnated her, but noticed that even encumbered she could outrace the
deer of the forest. Being addicted to gambling, he bet that she could
outrace the king's horses. At the race-course, she pleaded with the men
who were assembled to put off the running until she was delivered, but the
men of the north had no pity. "Then bring on the horses," said Macha, "I will
certainly beat them but my curse will fall upon you for this infamy." She did
as promised, but fell immediately afterwards and gave birth to twins.
Arising she held the boys aloft and faced the men saying, "Men of Ulster!
From this hour, for nine times nine generations, you will be as weak and
helpless as a woman in childbirth for five days and four nights of each
month, your spirit robbed when it need be strong." Thus the goddess of fate
abandoned the northerners, and blighted them with "the Debility of the
Ultonians". This caused them to call for the services of Cuchullain, who was
unaffected by the curse since he was in Scotland at that time. It was, of
course, Queen Mebd (another form of the Befind) who opposed this northern
hero.

It is significant that North Americans remember Ground-hog Day (in

Lunneburg County, Nova Scotia it is called Daks Day, or Badger's Day). This
informal holiday is celebrated annually on the second day of February when
men look to see if the groundhog sees his shadow. If he does, six additional
weeks of winter are expected. If the day happens to be cloudy it is supposed
that the back of winter is broken. In Scotland, men considered bears to be
their "ground-hogs" and looked to their emergence, after hibernation, with
similar interest. Interestingly, the Micmac tribesmen shared this concept:
"The second of February was regarded as a turning-point in the seasons, and
sun seen on that day was not hailed with delight. There is the Indian wise saw
that goes, "If the bear can see his shadow on February second, he goes back
to his den for more sleep."

Anciently, this was a pagan quarter-day which the Gaels entitled the
"Imbolc", "Imbolg" or "Imbolt." This is another two part word, derived from
"im", once every twelfthmonth, periodically + " "bolt", a welt. This refers to
certain religious paractises that need not be examined in this context. The
time was also called "Bridd's Day" which was renamed St. Bride's Day or
Candlemas. Even after Christianity was established in Britain, rural men and
women thought it practical to consult the spirit of Bridd in the highlands of
Scotland. There, the beginning of February was seen as the time for the
emergence of mean and animals from their winter of hibernation or
inactivity. It was also the time for the real or ritual deflowering of the "oigh"
or virgin animals of every species. It is of interest that the Gaelic word for
virgin resembles "og", any young animal, and "oighre", ice. Thus, the Imbolc
was held at the revival of vegetation and was a fertility festival. One of its
intentions was to melt the ice of the Cailleach Bheur and return Sheelagh to
the land.

Sir James George Fraser tells us that some of the old customs were
still practised in the Hebrides in the last century: "The mistress and
servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in women's
apparel, put it in a large basket and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call
Bridd's bed; and then the mistress and servants cry three times, "Bridd is
come; Bridd is welcome." This they do before going to bed, and when they
rise in the morning they look among the ashes (on the hearth) expecting to
see the impression of Bridd's club there; and if they do, they reckon a good
crop year, and the contrary they will take as an ill omen." Another
commentator says that "one or more candles are left burning nearby all
night long." The interpretaion of this we leave to the individual, but it has
obvious sexual overtones.

Spring is much later appearing in Maritime Canada than in Britain,

nevertheless the old weather lore that surrounds the Bride's Day is well
known in parts of our region. Fraser tells us that people in Antigonish
County, Nova Scotia, referred to February as "the wolf month". This is
understandable since "Faoilleach" is the old Gaelic month extending between
what is now mid-January and mid-February. The month derives its name
from "faol", anciently a name for the winter sea, but is now that given "a wild
dog" or "a wolf." In Irish Gaelic "mi na Feile Brighde", the month of the Wolf-
Bride", is used to name February; in Scotland "am Faoilteach" is the modern
form for January.

According to local myth, the Cailleach sent her "wolf-storms" out into
the world all through "wolf-month." It was her spirit (she was, after all, the
"bear-woman") which emerged from the winter darknesss of her cave on
February 2. She was content if the skies remained grey on her day; but the
appearance of sunlight, and the reminder that her powers were fading, was
always sufficient to cause her to vent her fury on the land. As Fraser has
noted, the first three days of the third week of February were "the shark-
toothed days", a time when the "sea-wolves" were joined by "biting, stinging
east winds." Then came "Feadag", the "plover-winged" time, marked by three
days of swift, fitful blasts of rain - bringing winds that killed the sheep and
the lambs." "Fead" indicates a flute, whistle, blast, or breath of air. In
Scotland "an Gearran" is the entitlement for the month of February, but it
used to be a period of time following that of the plover or wind-bird. In any
event it was a four week interval, beginning as late as March 15, and was
perhaps at first, thought dependent on the whims of the Old Bear Woman.
The meaning of "gerran" is "gelding", any young but sexually mature animal..
Related words are "gearr," the sexually precocious hare; "gearrach", any flow
of bloody fluids, and "gearraidh," pasture-land between the shore and the
moors. This time was always invariable followed by "Cailleach", the Old
Woman's week, which was characterized by horrid weather. What followed
was the time called "Oisgean," the three days given to the birthing of the
"Ewes." Finally, there was the month of "Mart" (the Cow), or March, and
Sheila's Storm, sometimes called Sheila's Broom, the very last gasp of the
Winter-Hag, near the time of the vernal equinox. At this, the Cailleach Bheur
threw her hammer "beneath the mistletoe" and became reincarnate as Samh,
the goddess of summer.

The Cailleach Bheur, known as Mother Night, or Mother Gode, in

Scandinavia, was considered at the height of her power at Yule eve, and her
ascendancy was celebrated in the twelve days of Yule, which ended January
5. As a consequence, here as in Europe, "it was commonly held that the
weather on each of the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany
indicated what might be expected of the corresponding twelve months of the
year. Consequently (fishermen and farmers) drew weather calendars on this
basis; the early hours of December 25th, for example, indicating the weather
for the early part of January, its later hours proving what the close of the
month would be like."

Weather forecasters watched the midwinter solstice with a great deal

of interest for it was suggested that "the way of the wind and weather (on
the day) when the sun crosses the line will be reflected in conditions during
the following three months." A seaman explained the effect in this way:
"Last December, remember that the sun crossed with the wind south and
thick o' fog. Then, afterrwards, we had a very mild winter."

Irrespective of this, it was always held that, "If Candlemas (Brigit's

Day) be clear and true; their'll be not winters one, but two!" Another version
of this homilie goes: "If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, Winter will take
another flight." Another version says: "If Candlemas day be fine and fair,
The half the winter's to come, and mair (more)." At the time of Sheila's
storm, near the spring equinox, the wind was watched with equal interest for
it was said that "when the wind happens from the west fine weather will
follow." The other quarters carried their own predictions following this little
verse:

When the wind is in the north

Dare the mariner not go forth.
 When the wind is in the south
Blows the bait in the fishes' mouth.
When the wind is in the east
Venture not, nor man nor beast.
But when wind is in the west
Then the weather's always best.

Creatures unrelated to water-goddess always sought cover when Sheila

was at large. Thus it was stated that "when hens run for cover, it is a sign
of storm. Cats and hares, which were an animal-totem of Sheila acted very
differently, running, jumping and frisking like the wind itself. It is another
local belief that loons are particularly plaintiff just before an easterly gale.
The wind that was particular to Sheila originated in the north; and was that
which she rode when her host travelled the Yule-tide sky seeking the souls of
the dead. Hereabouts, that wind was sometimes called "the stepmother's
breath." Sheila's last gasp was sometimes referred to as Sheila's Broom and
this storm usually came in mid-March at about the time of the vernal
equinox. That storm is often the worst of the winter in these parts and is
alternately identified as the line storm, or the Saint Patrick's Day storm.

SHELLYCOAT

The fresh water spirit whose body is covered with shells.

Anglo-Saxon, scell or scyll, originally the scales of fish. Laterally, the hard
exterior covering of any plant or animal. This spirit resembles the Scottish
spunkie, as well as the chaffinch. jack-o'-lanthorn, hob-wi'- lanthorn, will-o'-
the-wisp, and hobredy's lanthorn, all spirits of England.

A Scottish bogle who haunted fresh-water streams, a creature

festooned with the shells of clams and snails, which clatter as he moves. His
chief delight was to mislead men through subtle noise making. "The office
of some is to steal children; of others to lead travellers astray, as will o' the
wisps (fire-balls), or to pixy-lead them, as it is called. Roguery and
sportiveness are the characteristics of this spirit." The phosphorescent
"flames" or cold lights seen in bogs and swamps were related to these bog-
trows (trolls). Some humans found these spheres or sheets of dancing light
hypnotic and would follow where they led, often into places of treacherous
footing or over the face of cliffs. The sound of a shellycoat was even more
subtle, being mistaken for the voice of a woman or child in distress, or as
that of a promiscuous female. The shellycoats preferred life in the swamps
or moors, but also lived in, or near, graveyards. They were most active in
the winter of the year and were never seen on bright sunlit days.

SHOOPILTEE

A salt water-spirit whose usual form is that of a pony.

Anglo-Saxon, from the Old Norse sjoor, the sea + piltr. boy; The
former word confers with English shoo, an interjection meaning Begone!
Away! An expressive means of frightening off animals or men; The word piltr
confers with pilt, or pelt, to strike beat or knock or push. A creature
similar to the English pilwiz, or pushy witch, "a sprite who devastates fields
and torments human beings." A frightful creature similar to the phooka, the
kelpie, the tangie and the galoshan. Poteet has noted that the local form
shoopie indicates any animal in need of a haircut.

This spirit belonged to the general class of creatures known as the

eich uisge, the water-horses. The Scottish kelpies and the Gaelic fuaths
(cold ones) were shape-changers who might appear in human form but more
often materialized as horses of gigantic size. The glashans of the Isle of
Man correspond with main-land galoshans, but the former had a reputation as
rapists although only the size of small foal or a year-old lamb. The shopiltee
was a native of the Shetlands, and therefore appeared in the semblance of a
miniature horse or Shetland pony. Although the smaller horse-spirits had
less potential to damage than their larger relatives it was generally agreed
that they should be avoided where possible. The shopiltee is known as the
tangie, or tangye, in the Orkneys. Although most of the water-horses are
residents of the sea-side they have also been found populating the deepest
rivers and lakes of Wales, Scotland and the northern islands. Keightley
says that "as far as our knowledge extends, there is no being in the Irish
rivers answering to the nix or kelpie..." All are, of course, descendants of
the Fomors, who often took this form.

SIGH, SIDH

One of the little-people, the Gaelic spirits of the side-hill.

Gaelic, sigh , the daoine sidh, the side-hill folk devoted to the
goddess Danu. Duine, plural daoine, Cymric dyn, English dwine. a mortal,
all from the Sankrist dhvan, anything that eventually falls to pieces.
Related are dan, a poem or as an adjective. The word may also refer to
destiny or the fate of men. We have also danhanh, wisdom as well as dao
obstinate or foolish. Daoi is a wicked or foolish person. Sidh is a
contraction of siabhrach, siobhrag, sibhreach (the spelling varies
between districts) which appears to derive from the Old Irish Gaelic siabra.
The word confers with the Welsh hwyfar which is used in such names as
Gwenhwyfar or Guinevere, in each case a fairy, elf or fay, one of the wee
folk. Hence: siaban, sand drift or sea spray; siab, a dish of stewed
periwinkles (Hebrides); siabhas, a useless ceremony.

The Daoine sidh were sometimes regarded as the descendants of men

although it was more oftain said that they were “gods of the earth.” When
they were defeated by the Milesians they were left no recourse but to swear
allegiance to the Fomorian sea-gods and take refuge beneath the hollow hills
of Ireland and Scotland, or join the Fomors in Tir Nan Og. In exchange for
their complicity, Manann MacLer gave the sidh-people their cloaks of
invisibilty, the magic drink against aging, and access to "the pigs of Mannan"
who were a reincarnate source of never-ending food. The sidh resemblanced
the North American little men in all but their size and social habits. The sidh
were "wee folk" in the old sense of the word, "tall and thin" rather than small
or diminutive. It was said of them: "Their attire is green, their residence the
interior of hills. They appear more attached than their neighbours (the elfs
and fairies) to monarchical government, for the fairy king and queen were
recognized by law in Caledonia (northern Scotland). They were more
mischevious than the southrons, and less addicted to dancing." King James
VI of England suspected their might be a "jolie court" composed entirely of
these "seed" people, but felt their reality was not something that should be
"believed by Christians." Questioned why the Crown burned witches for
having "congress" with the completely fabulous sidh, James was unable to
answer. Tradition says that the elfs, fairies and sidh fled Greater and
Lesser Britain "by the reign of James or Elizabeth at the fartherest."

A little after this the entire clan was found landed in North America.
As some Gaels considered the sidh descendants of the Firbolg settlers of
Ireland and Scotland (those bearing the prefixes Mc, Mac and O') they were
nicknmaed the mickeleens (sons of the little ones). We have seen this name
applied particularly to a group of little people at Seabrtight, Nova Scotia, but
the English "fairy" is more often seen than either this designation or "sidh".
This is a cause for confusion, but there is no doubt of the identity of the
race that settled the Shean (Gaelic Sidhean, sidh hill) which is now the land
upon which the town of Inverness, Cape Breton, sits. Mary L. Fraser says
that: "In this district there was a small hill, shapoed something like a large
haystack, where the old people (colonials) used to see "little people" in the
thousands." Before they moved in to develop the area, the Scots would not
walk in that place after dark. The few who tried to approach the sidh found
that they vanished from sight exactly like the elusive mikumwees. Nova
Scotia historian Will R. Bird thought that the "pixies" at Mother Cary's
Orchard Indian Burying Grounds, in the Kejemukujik Lake region of Nova
Scotia, might have predated white settlement, but the stories of their
residence caused a neighbouring body of water to be named Fairy Lake.
There was another well-known hill within the present city of Dartmouth, one
in the Dagger Woods at Beech Hill, Antigonish County, and a fifth within Sugar
Loaf Mountain in Cape Breton. At the Beech Hill location a man was abducted
although "returned in good condition.”

Again, in New Hampshire, it was reported that fay-folk were in

resident as early as 1720 having come to that place with a Irish Presbyterian
emigrant. While he flourished, they died out “after lingering a few years ina
very melancholy and desolate way...”

They were supposedly last seen in New England about the year 1816
when a testy temperance man spoiled the hospitality of his New Hampshire
inn. The landlord’s wife, stout, buxom and never fazed, patronized the liquor
agents when he was not about and thus maintained her “own heart whole.” It
was now rumoured that the little people had taken permanent residence at
the inn, and in spite of the landlord people on the road began to drop by to
observe this curiosity. The “folk” were never seen but guests were invited
to listen to their chatter in “Yankee-Irish dialect” from one of the back
rooms. The Inn benefited from this blessing and the landlady had less time
to visit with her gin-bottle. As the novelty of this situation began to wear
thin, customers disappeared, and it was whispered that the voices were
witch-inspired or those of a ghost. The little visitors provoked by this
disbelief left and some say they retreated to Old Ireland.

SIRENE

A sea-spirit; the French equivalent of the mermaid.

 Acadian French, a Spirit modelled on the classical Greek sirens who
used their voices to lure the ships of men upon the Mediterranean rocks.
Father Chaisson alludes to: "Certain legends," which "go far back in
time...There were tales of mermaids all along the coasts of the Maritime
provinces; but Acadians from the Magdalen Islands..had heard them sing, and
in some cases had even spoken to them."

Pierre Charlevoix (1744) has written that, “The River St. Laurence
produces many fish which are not known in France...but I know not what
Credit to give to an account seen in the manuscript of a local missionary,
who affirms that he saw a mer-man in the River Sorel, three leagues below
Chambly... We are sometimes seized at first Glance with a Resemblance,
which upon mature attention vanishes. Furthermore, if this Fish in Human
Form came from the Sea, it came in a long way to get so near the Chambly,
and it is somewhat strange that it was never seen but in this one place.”

SKITEKMUJ, SKADEGAMOOCH.

The external soul of a human.

Abenaki, Micmc dia., skite-kmuj. m., the ghost body of men living or
dead. Confers with the taibh, cowalker, runner or doppelganger of the white
men. The ghost-body was said to exist for all spirited matter whether
animate or inanimate. With humans it was described as a black shadow cast
by that individual, sometimes attached to him at an extremnity but
sometimes seen at distance. "It has hands and feet, a mouth, a head and all
the other parts of the human body. It drinks and eats, it puts on clothes, it
hunts and fishes and amuses itself. With a moose or beaver, it looks like a
black shadow of the animal. For a canoe or a pair of snowshoes, a cooking-
pot, a sleeping-mat, it looks like a shadow of these things, these Persons.”

Some men had knowledge of their guardian, or shadow-helper, at birth,

others sought it through ritual. In a typical situation a youngster would go
alone into the woods on his spirit hunt. Here he first bathed and then fasted
hoping to have a vision in which his skitekmuj would speak to him. Guardians
often appeared in the form of the family totem-animal, so that those
belonging to the bear often slept beside a bear’s-den hoping to absorb some
of the spirit-power of that animal. It was said that only strong-willed people
could persist until the vision materialized. If the seeker did not flee “from
his own voice,” it might tell him the number of days to remain in
“purification.” At the end of that time the disembodied spirit would usually
reward the individual by giving him spiritual or physical powers and naming his
personal totem. The person who retrurned from a quest was under an
obligation not to reveal what had been revealled to him. Later, after the
guardian spirit dances, he might begin to wear a neck ornament as a carrying
place for his spirit. When attempting to practise magic or obtain help the
individual would sing his spirit song thus calling on the power of this
supernatural creature.

After a death the skitemuj passed from Earth World to Death World
paralleling the European tradition. This was a place "above the sky" for those
who had been useful, worthwhile citizens in their former incarnation. Others
were shuttled off to World Beneath Earth where people who were evil were
forced to dance without stopping. Those who lived exlemprary lives on earth
were treated to shadow-canoes, snowshoes, sleeping mats and twice-daily
sunrises. "The sun renews them when it shines," and it was said the
Papkutparut, the guardian of all the dead, "watches over them so that they
always have enough meat to eat."

At the death of a family member the Abenakis used to mourn bing

their hair, thus unbinding their own spirits to go to and comfort that of the
newly deceased. As with the Celts, the Indians thought that the souls of
friends were sometimes needed to fend off the spirits of enemies who might
try to prevent a man's skitemuj from reaching its destination. So that they
might not be recognized as mortals, the Abenaki used to blacken their faces
and call out "Uey! Uey!" repeatedly in the hope of scaring off evil spirits. The
shouting also had the function of drawing the ghost-shadow from the body,
and while this was being done the relatives maintained a circle about it thus
excluding dangerous spirits. At internment useful items were buried with the
dead, it being supposed that the shadow-forms would detatch from each
item and accompany the shadow-man or woman to the Otherworld.

Very few living men penetrated the underworld and fewer visited Ghost
World. A group who did, knew the guardian's weakness for the gambling
game "waltes" They contested their souls against Papkutparuts stakes of
corn, spirit berries and a substance he called "tmawey" (tobacco) and won.
Thus these substances came as gifts to the People from beyond Sky World.
Getting the dead back from beyond proved more of a problem. One father
was given the spirit of his dead son contained in the kernal of a nut within a
leather bag. He was warned not to look into the pouch until a ritual dance
had been completed. Back on Earth World he was occupied by this dance
when curiosity caused an elderly woman to glance into the bag.

In the best case, the spirit of a man was believed united whith his shadow at
death, and the shadow then travelled to Ghost World where it lived a life
similar to that on earth, but free of want and stress.

This belief explains the grave-offerings found in lands all about the
Atlantic basin. Nicholas Deny, who was in Acadia in 1672, noted that many
individual graves held goods to the value about $2,000. These items were
within easy reach but the French did not dare rob the graves for fear of
causing “hatred and everlasting war.”

Marc Lescarbot commented that, “Their most valued possessions

were the copper kettles they got from us, and these they put within the
graves for use in the spirit world. On one occasion they opened a grave for
us, our people having it in mind to prove that all the objects were still in place
and not in any spirit world. A kettle covered with verdegris was unearthed.
An Indian struck a stone against it and noted that it no longer sounded and
lacked spirit. He observed that it was an item of recent introduction and that
its shadow had been taken into the other world since it was needed there.
As for the common grave robes, which were little changed, he noted, “the
dead man did not need them, but will take them as required.””

In the elder world everything was seen to be raised by at the will of the
creator, the most spirited things being the most active in terms of growth,
locomotion or gross movement. Thus a tree, a man and a hurricane were all
observed to be supported by the spirit of god. This old world was a
dangerous place where death was common, but oblivion was not known. The
Algonquins, the Norse and the Gaels accepted the Law of Conservation of
Matter and Energy long before it was put on paper. They saw that their
world was in constant flux, that plants and animals arose and quickly “went
to earth.” that forests were reduced to earth by wildfire, that waves in the
sea and the air periodically altered the landscape, that there was no physical
surety for men, but believed, nonetheless, that all matter was eternal. Ruth
Whitehead says that the Micmacs regarded their entire world as, “a nexus of
Power moving beneath the outward appearances of things, of Persons
shifting in and out of form, of patterns recombining.”

In a world where nothing could be created or destroyed but only

altered, the People used a absentive case-ending, to describe the inanimate
parts of their environment. Thus, the dead who were without motion, were
not seen as totally dispirited but rather as animate beings situated outside
of time. If the body was not broken or decomposed magicians were
sometimes able to revive it by “speaking” the corpse back to life. Thus in
one instance Glooscap revived his little friend Marten and his grandmother by
simply speaking in their ears commanding them to arise. Here it was
imagined that some of Glooscap’s life-force was transferred through the air
to the other beings enabling them to return to life. In other stories, hunters
pursued the souls of loved ones to Ghost World, capturing them there and
bringing them back to Earth World to reanimate the corpses.

If men believed that the world-spirit dwelt in all things, they also
considered that the part was a microcosm of the whole. Thus the concern
of Indian braves that some portion of their body be preserved after death.
The bones of men and animals were their power-cores, just as the mountains
were known to be the “bones” and the power-centres of the earth. It was
claimed that reformation of the dead was likely as long as these centres
existed to attract the atoms of dead flesh which became reanimate in the
ground, recharged by the earth-spirit. The ability of the part to become
whole explains the respect which men used to have for the bones of animals
and fish. These were returned to their element where it was undestood they
would reflesh themselves to the benefit of men and the other animals that
fed upon them. In a like manner men would not unnecessarily destroy the
plants of the earth since they understood their dependence upon them.

The shaman namedL’kimu noted that, “It is a religious act among our
people to gather all bones very carefully, and burn them (thus restoring
them to the earth spirit) or throwing them into a river where beaver live. All
the bones from the sea have to be returned there, so that those species will
continue...domestic animals must never gnaw on the bones of wiild things for
this would diminish the species of animals which feed us.”

Parkman said that bone gathering took place every ten to twelve
years, “among the Hurons, the Neutals, and other kindred tribes.” He stated
that “The whole nation was sometimes assembled at this solemnity; and
hundreds of corpses, brought from their temporay resting-places were
inhumed in one pit. From this hour the immortality of their souls began,
They (the souls) took wing, some affirmed, in the form of pigeons; while the
greater number declared they journeyed on foot, and in their own likeness
(but as shadows) to the land of shades, bearing with them the ghosts of
wampum belts, beaver-skins, bows, arrows, pipes, kettles, beads, and rings
buried with them in the common grave.” While few people returned from the
Netherworld, complete reincarnation was not thought impossible, and
eventual return, in some form, was considered probable.

The persistence of the life force in individual forms led to difficulty in

overcoming enemies. Unless every atom was thoroughly dispersed, nothing
could be eradicated for long periods of time. Having killed a man, a brave
sometimes ground his bones to dust, but even this was never enough to
prevent reassembly, and the most skilled knew that they must magically
transform the remains into midges, mosquitoes or flies, which had a
tendancy to disperse, delaying the reincarnation. Another way of preventing
this was to incorporate parts of a dead enemy into a new construct. Bits of
living things were often recombined to make newly animate beings with very
different characteristics from the old. Thus an eelskin might be painted with
earth-colours to make an entirely unique “life-form.” Porcupine quills and
skins and sinews of dead animals, were given the absentive ending when they
were incorporated into a headband, thus recognizing the fact that they had
become a new living being. A man’s weapons, his clothes, his canoe, his
snowshoes were all spirtual as well as physical constructs, all vested with life
force. Through long association, these items absorbed some of the life-
force of their owners, becoming extensions of him. As the part of an object
encapsulated the whole, shamans carried about bags filled with the bones of
enemies, snakes, bears and those animals whose character they fancied.
Contained by spells these creatures became part of their keeper and were
unable to reincarnate in their previous forms. Nevertheless, their spirits
might be called upon to serve as a magical messenger or agent or
construction or destruction.

Some North American men, in common with their European

counterparts, supposed the existence of at least one external soul
which they said resided within “a complete little invisible model of the man
himself.” The Innuit, like the Micmacs, believed in a shadow-man, “One
having the same shape as the body to which it belongs, but of a more subtle
and ethereal nature.” As far away as the west coast, the Nootkas said that
the soul had the look of “a tiny little man, whose seat is often the crown of
the head. So long as he stands erect all is well, but should he fall, then the
man loses his senses.” In the lower Fraser Valley, the Indians suggested
that men had at least four external souls, the principal one in the form of a
man, the others being, “shadows of it.”

In addition to making appearances as a human doubles, the external

souls sometimes became visible in the world of men as totem animals. In
addition, man-spirits were thought to reform themselves as stones, as
water, as fire, as stars, as horned serpents, as water-fairies, as little
people, as thunderbirds, or as giants. Whitehead says that none of these
shape-changes were intended as to be understood as metaphores; men
believed that shape-changing was actual and commonplace in the world of
men. Thus Kikwaju disturbed the peace of “a boulder-person,” who
challenged him by rolling after him down a hill. A white man once asked a
shaman if all stones were thus alive. “No,” he replied, “but some are!” “How
does one know which may move,” asked the questioner? “One knows,” said
his repondant, “by their glow at dusk and by the way they feel.”

As the ice fell away into the sea, and retreated northwards, it exposed
the highest peaks in the region including portions of Cape Breton and the
mountains near what is now Mount Carleton park. These bared rocks were
exposed to intense temperature changes between day and night and became
frost-shattered relics which geologists call "nunataks." This word is
borrowed from the natives of Greenland, who still use it to refer to any
isolated mounatin completely surrounded by an ice sheet. Here, as there,
the nunatak was understood to have the same force as the Innuit
"inukshuks," which are humanoid-form cairns thought to have been
deliberately erected in the faceless Arctic to create artifcial landmarks. It
was once rumoured that these rock piles were raised by men to celebrate
victories over the "frost-giants", an ancient race of dangerous propensities.
Other have contended that these actually are the spirits of giants held in
bondage by the magic of long dead shamans. Whatever they are, they are
more than simple signposts. Farley Mowat suspected they were "guardians,
who solidly resisted the impalpable menace of space which is
uncircumscribed..." When Mowat visited with them, he found himself
c0onversing with "these silent beings who have vital force without the gift of
life." In our region the ice is long gone and the inuktuks have crumbled into
"bedrock showing strange and irregular forms."

The Norse said that the underground was ruled by the goddess Hel, the
daughter of the fire-god Loki. Interestingly she is spoken of as “the parti-
coloured deity of birth and death,” indicating that she had the power to
release men from her kingdom of Nifhelheim. At their root of her world the
fire-giant Svrtr (Loki) was said to be bound awaiting his release to bring
about the last days of the Nine Worlds known to men. The death gods are
perhaps embodied in Nidhug, the giant dragon that feeds upon the roots of
the world-tree and the bones of the unworthy dead. This situation parallels
Celtic belief with Donn and his mate taking the place of Hel and Loki. It is
noeworthy that Donn has as one of his totems the nathair, or snake. The
death gods are regarded as immortals, raised to that position at the will of
the creator-god.

In a similar manner, the Micmac death-god, Papkutparut is spoken of

as a fearful immortal who was once a man. In his present incarnation he is
still supposed to have an interest in smoking tobacco and the gambling game
called waltes, and men are known to have bargained their way out of his
kingdom using these levers. We are reminded that the Celtic death-god had a
similar fondness for the game known as fidchell, or “raven.” The Micmac god
was like a Fomorian giant, a shape-changer who might appear, “huge as a
mountain, like a mighty waterfall, or as a terrible storm of fire or wind or
water.” Like Hel and DonnPapkutparut resented the arrogance of men and
women who came to his land before their time. Those who wished to escape
his first rush against them were expected to expose their bellies to his anger
if they expected to survive long enough to bribe him.

In the legends of the people the land called Ghost World is never fully
identified with the World Beneath the Earth, but it may be tucked away there
as the Norse Nastrond lies hidden within the larger kingdom of Nifhelheim.
One route to Ghost World was through the underground but more often men
took the ocean-route, which has been described as “many days journey
across water. Going to Ghost World is walking on top of the World Beneath
the Earth. The bodies of seekers walk through Water World with their heads
in Sky World. Their eyes see nothing but water all round, edge to edge.
Every night they rest upon sleeping platforms which they build in the water.
It is a hard and hungry journey and some die and travel faster than the rest.
When that land is near, men see Ghost World curving up above the water like
a bow. Then there are never jokes about the dead or dying. Men who go on
now see that there are dogs there, and beaver, and moose, and caribou and
snowshoes and the wigwams of people. Then they must meet the Guardian
of Souls before they can pass or leave this gate between the worlds.”

Glooscap himself followed the water route into the land of the dead.
The place of his entry into Ghost World is variously given as Grand Manan,
Isle Haute, or Newfoundland. Some tales say that his conquest of death was
made alone, and that he swam through Water World to attain his goall.
Others note that he travelled by canoe and was accompanied by his boon
companions Marten and Grandmother, perhaps in the form of wolves or
foxes. In the latter versions it is claimed that his craft took him into a cleft
between the rocks, and that the water carried him to a place where
disembodied spirits swarmed, howling their warnings that he should retreat.
The river bed is said to have descended into a rocky unlit chaos and in it his
friends met a premature death from fright. The stoic Glooscap sailed on
chanting his magic, and emerged “on the other shore,” and back in the world
of men with new-found magic. Leaning over Marten and Grandmother he
breathed into their mouths, thus returning to them the spirit of life. From
this time Glooscap and his companions chanted their way into the underworld
at will and even encamped regularly within the hollow hills of Atlantic Canada,
travelling the bowels of the earth when he wished to pass quickly from one
place on the surface to another. Most men were not privy to Glooscap’s
secrets and were only able to access the outer parts of his stoneoogotol,
“wigwam,” at Blomodin and the Fairy Hole in Cape Breton. Those who tried
had to overcome falling rocks, overhangs, rushing water, and “two great
snakes which barred the way.” Some of this is reminiscent of the troubles
that Norse and Celtic heroes experienced in trying to enter their ghost
worlds.

It may be recalled that the Indians of our region periodically gathered

the bones of the dead for common burial rituals. Only after this did their
spirits move on to ghost world. Some said that the souls of the dead were
seen to rise as spherical lights, or as bird-like creatures, soon after
inhumation. These people believed that the departed souls journeyed
through the sky to the North Star lanmds by the Milky Way. Other animals
had their own routes to the Netherworld, dogs finding their way by the
constellation still known as “The Way of the Dogs.”

Others were just as certain that the dead travelled in their own
shadow-forms, bearing with them all items they might require in the after-
life. Some observed that the shadow men and women travelled toward the
deep woods, disappeared in a cleft rock, or vanished within a lake or passed
into the sea. Whether these shades travelled heavenward, or were detined
for lands under the sea or the eath, it was agreed that there were perils
along the road to Ghost World. Even in the sky it was rumoured that there
was a river that had to be crossed on a log that made a shifty and uncertain
bridge. Futher a ferocious dog (like that guarding Hel’s domain) opposed
their passage and drove many into the abyss. That river was filled with
sturgeon and salmon, which the dead-shadows speared for sustinence.
Beyond the river there was a narrow path between animated rocks which had
the unfortunate habit of crashing against one another, sometimes reducing
passersby to atoms.

At that, it was always claimed that the alternate world was worth
attaining and that Ghost World was actually close, so that “roving hunters
sometimes passed its confines unawares.” Only the souls of men and women
who died at their prime were full up to the journey to Ghost World. The
spirits of the very young and the very old were often too enfeebled to take
the long march, and they had to remain behind awaiting a recombination of
spirits. These departed souils remained close to their village, their presence
detected in the opening and closing of tent flaps by invisible hands. In the
corn-fields the voices of invisible children were often heard driving the birds
from the crops.

SKOOLIGAN

An earth spirit with mischievous tendancies.

Anglo-Saxon, skole, school, a place of rest from manual labour, leisure

+ gan, born of, derived from; born of leisure. Hence the old Maritime belief
that too much learning is a dangerous thing. See also hooligan.

According to the Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English these

spirits are often seen embodied in children. That source defines the word as
the equal of skinflint.

SKUT

The fire-spirit.

Passamaquoddy. The spirits of wild-fire were often abroad, and men

were not usually present to see the lightning strikes that set them in action.
In the early seventeenth century Father Chretien LeClerq reported seeing
the entire Miramichi watershed aflame, an event that might have been
caused by lightning or human carelessness by whites or Indians. In a dry
summer during the year 1826, the horror of that scence was repreated in
The Great Miramichi Fire, which took 6,000 square miles of trees and made
them cinders. This time there were more people about and more than five
hundred were killed. The fire halted the lumbering industry for many years
and dropped the town of Newcastle into a deep financial hole from which it is
still struggling to gain high ground. Botanists have estimated that at least
half of the Atlantic region is completely burned over once in two hundred
years.

In the theology of the local Indians, the deep forest was only second to
the abyss as the source of chaos. It was sometimes said that Glooscap and
Malsum emerged from the primal woods rather than from the sky or the sea.
One reason to fear this place was the danger of displacement and starvation,
but there was also the possibilty of entrapment by the fire spirits. The
effects of fire appeared in many place-names which Champlain found used by
the Indians. The end of the great Gouldsboro peninsula, now a part of
Acadaia National Park in Maine was originally Schoodic and we have nearby
the Schoodic Lakes. The Indians encamped regularly at the twin towns of
Calais and St. Stephen on the Maine-New Brunswick border, and called this
place Schoodic, “a great clear place made by fire.” The root, in each case, is
skut, “fire.” In the days before men had the means to clear land, great
assemblies could only take place where the spirits of fire had first held
court.

The last continental glacier took a good portion of the best Atlantic
topsoil and dumped it as frontal moraines at sites which are now on the
continental shelf. Of all the provinces Newfoundland took the worst beating
from glacial scour, which left it with topsoil that was often barely more than
an inch thick. Today only about forty percent of Newfoundland is forested
and nearly all the trees that stand are destined to be uprooted by wind.
Where the soil is poverty-striken nothing stands high, thus the endless
vistas of rock and barrens and boglands which characterize that island
province. The Miramichi fire was scarcely more than an inconvenience to the
forest as compared with slighter fires that ravaged Newfoundland in the
1960’s. Any place that is similar, and there are barren-lands in both New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia, incinerates the land in any fire, and this leaves a
place that will have tree growth for one or two human generations.

Repeated fires, perhaps as few as three every century, have been

known to create the blasted areas which Newfoundlanders call the
“goodwiddy,” or “goldwithy,” a growth as dwarfed as a collection of bonsai
trees, but consisting of laurel, Labrador tee and blueberry bushes all
intertwined. The Avalon Peninsula was forested when Cabot first spotted it.
Now it is a barren, thanks to the beginning destitution of the soil coupled with
the fires of men and the gods. It will be remembered that Glooscap taught
his people the arts of civilization and these seem to have included the idea of
a “controlled burn,” which the Micmacs used to gain camp sites and flush
game from hiding. See fear dreag and Smokey Joe.

SLUE, SLOUGH, SOW

Hair-covered creatures of the unseen world the cowalkers of

certain humans.

Gaelic: The "ard-righ" (high king) called Ard-bheur (the high bear), or
Arthur led an mythic assembly known as the sliochd a company of bears.
The word is similar to the Gaelic slighe, a path or way through the woods. In
the English language we have the similar word slew, a host of people or
animals; in particular the devils of the Devil. The Dictionary of Prince Edward
Island English says that a slew or slough is "a hollow in an uneven or snow-
covered road that causes a vehicle such as a horse-drawn sleigh to lurch
sideways." In the past these obstacles may have been created by the slue
for it is said that this species "lay at roadside jumping up to frighten or
waylay strangers." The slue were exactly like the sea-going soughs, or
sows, in fact the two words have the same root in the Anglo-Saxon tongue.
Confers with the Anglo-Saxon sleuth, sloth, sloucher, slaughter and
slought, to cover with mire. Also similar to the word slew, a large number,
as, "a slew of people." A multitude, a host, the host of the Devil, or of devils.

Local dialectic forms for this creature include zwoog, swoog or sow,
all pronounced sough. The former use is in Prince Edward Island, the word
being derived from the Middle English swough, or sough. The zwoog is a
creature which can be called upon to tranport the second soul from one place
to another. In this, it corresponds exactly with the Lunenburg, Nova Scotia,
guy's buck. Elsewhere we refer to the Gou Gou and the Woods-whooper,
beings who seem to be particularized forms of this creature.

The fay people were often described as "being of the smallest size and
uniformly habited in green." On the other hand, they were recognized as
shape-changers, able to alter their size and appearance at a whim. After
"threshing the corn, churning the butter, drinking the milk &c," one
goodfellow was observed "lying before the fire like a great hurgin bear."
Keightley noticed that "picklehaaring" (hairy sprite), the German term for the
zany or merry andrew, seems to have resembled the English puck-hairy, a
creature very like the sliochd, one that "wore a vesture of hair or leaves,
thus making it rough like the brownie and kindred beings." "From bug also
comes bugbear, and bugleboo, or bugaboo. They owe their origin probably to
the ho! ho! ho! (or boo! boo! boo!) given to puck or robing goodfellow, as well
as to the Devil (or Pouke) in the Mysteries. Bull-beggar may be only a
corruption of bugbear or bug-a-bear." The Scottish pawkey and the Gaelic
bogle are both related to these creatures, who were reputed to lay at the
roadside jumping up to frighten or waylay strangers. In general, the
maliciousness of this slough-dweller was in proportion to the wetness or
dryness of his countryside, the dryer the surround the less dangerous the
sidh may be only a corruption of bugbear or bug-a-bear." The Scottish
pawkey and the Gaelic bogle are both related to these creatures, who were
reputed to lay at the roadside jumping up to frighten or waylay strangers. In
general, the maliciousness of this slough-dweller was in proportion to the
wetness or dryness of his countryside, the dryer the surround the less
dangerous the sidh.

Our ancestors had some trouble with the eastern panther, which was
perhaps a projection of the woods-whooper, but they had more difficulty with
pigs and bears, the first our mythic sows, the other our slue. Pigs were not
native to the Maritime Provinces and the first settlers turned them loose to
make their own way during the warm months. Unfortunately they developed
tusks and were very much like wild boars, so that they could only be brought
to the dinner plate after being shot in the head. In Pictou County, Nova
Scotia, notice was taken of a bear driven to a stump by enraged domestic
pigs, which finally got him off balance and gored him to death. We have
mentioned the caution with which aboriginals treated the Old Bear Woman,
and white men had were equally careful with her offspring. Even so they
were casualties and as late as the year nineteen hundred, Amos Wite of
Memramcook was reported eaten by a bear while he was in the woods picking
berries. Even Christian ministers considered recall of the bear-spirit a
potent curse. When the Hansons and Turners of Bocabec Cove, New
Brunswick refused to leave their woods work to bury the "old man" of their
tribe, the Presbterian minister promised them a visit from "a great bear who
will tear you with jaws of iron." At Cocaigne, on the north-eastern shore, a
child was born with bear-paw marks, brown spots covered with hair, "on
account of a fright the mother received from a bear." The sidh-bheur or
slue were however more often heard than seen. Invisible bears created
noise, but no physical damage,in Nova Scotia at Glen Haven and Tantallon. On
the other hand a "real" bear was constantly sought at Hoyt, New Brunswick,
after it killed sheep and farm animals and smashed a milk shed. They
trapped it and followed the slue on an obvious trail through the woods, but
the trail was never traced to an end and neither animal or trap was
recovered.

When lowland Scots settled Deer Island, N.B., they found an Indian
water-demon resident off the south-western shore, a spirit that occasionally
materialized as the world's second-largest off-shore whirlpool. This they
named the Old Sugh (since corrupted to Sow). Sugh also corresponds
exactly with the Middle English swough, which derives from the Anglo-Saxon
swoogan. This is similar to older Tueutonic words which mean to sigh or
whistle. It is confluent with the Old Norse suugr, a rushing sound, like that of
moving wind or water, and confers with the English word surf. The Old Sough
was a place of hollow mummers, moans and sighs, as well as a salt-water
drain (a secondary meaning of seugh, sewer or sough).

Our ancestors had frequent run-ins with corporeal bears; it is

reported that the son of Amos White was eaten by a bear while berry-picking
at Memramcook, New Brunswick, in 1900. It is not surprising that they
incorporated this ravaging animal into their legends. For the most parts
ghost-bears were the source of inexplicable noises in the woods, but left
little sign of their night-time visits. One exception was the mythic New
Brunswick creature known as Old Shan who left, "a path through the woods
like a bull-dozer might make today..."

It was formerly believed that the spirit of a bear might be projected on

the unborn within the womb. Thus it was noted at Cocaigne, New Brunswick
(1878) that a child had been born with what appeared as brown spots
"covered with bear-like hair" on its body and these were blamed upon "a
fright the mother recieved from a bear."

There were, apparently, bear-like creatures in the Hell: When the

Hanson and Turner boys of Bocabec refused to come out of the winter woods
to bury their patriarch, a local minister cursed them in public. Afterwards, a
ballad was written promising that they would each meet their death beneath
"jaws of iron and teeth of steel." It is said that latter day members of these
clans have been pursued in their dreams by bear-like wraiths.

SNOLLYGOSTER

A spirit of the air and the water, a combination of bird and

reptile; a small dragon.

Middle English, snool, to cringe or crawl, to snub, a cringing individual, a

craven. An unreliable or unethical person. Similar in meaning to the local
words scut and spleach. + goster, or gaster, a ghost or spirit.

In myth the snallygaster is described as a creature part bird, part

reptile. Locally the term is used with respect to politicians, especially those
whose talk exceeds their industry. A snolly gaster relies on facile
mouthwork rather than knowledge and industry. Also regularly applied to
unethical lawyers.

The snollygoster was credited with "a sad and almost unparalleled
tragedy" which took place in nearby northern Maine in 1869. The "saaint
Croix Courier" of Saint Stephen New Brunswick, records events as follows:
On one of the Fish River Lakes there was a lumber camp in which were
thirteen men. On Saturday night, almost three weeks ago, the "boss left the
settlement instructing the men to come out (of the woods) on the following
Monday. Monday, Tuesday and Werdnesday passed and a party was sent in to
see if anything was the matter. Arriving at the camp they found all quiet
and apparently deserted; but on entering (the camp) they saw the bodies of
the twelve men lying on the floor, all cold in death. Being somewhat
exhausted the relief party were about to warm some tea made in the kettle,
but on examination found a large lizard in the kettle that had been boiled with
the tea. It is supposed that the drinking of the tea was the cause of the
deaths of the twelve unfortunate men."

SNOOL

A cringing, hand-wringing spirit.

Lowland Scottish vernacular, a craven. DPEI: "A cringing or

subservient person. A sneaking or nosy person. Comparable with shook."

SON. OLD SON, SON OF A GUN

The spirit of elemental fire; Loki, the Devil.

Anglo-Saxon, sunu, a male child. With the definite article this word
identifies Jesus Christ, the "new" Son of God. The "old" son was, therefore
any discredited pagan god of comparable stature; thus the antagonist, the
Devil (which, see).

SORCIER

A human practitioner of magic.

Acadian French, sorcierere (masculine), sorcerer or sorceress

(feminine); sorcier guerisseur, a medicine man or witch doctor. Note also
sort, to cast a lot, fate, a spell, and the verb sortie, going out, coming out,
leaving, retiring. Thus a man capable of becoming disembodied at will.

Ile des Sorcieres was the first name given Ile d’Orleans, one of the
largest islands in the lower Saint Lawrence River. The habitants of this place
were said to be uncannily skilled as weather-mongers. They possessed other
superntaural powers which attracted the attention of the Jesuit priest,
Pierre Charlevoix (1720): “You apply to them, it is said, if you want to know
the future, or find out what is happening in some distant place.” One of their
number named Jean-Pierre Lavallee was credited with incanting a spell which
produced a thick fog in which British war-ships under the command of Sir
Hovenden Walker wandered off course and were wrecked on the riocks. this
forced the remaining belligerents to withdraw.

At a later date (1766), this same writer added that these inhabitants
“have the Character of being given to Witchcraft; and when they are
consulted, they say, upon future events, and concerning what passes in
distant Places. For instance if the ships of New France do not arrive as
scheduled, they are consulted to get News of them. It is said that what they
are told is sometimes true; that is they have guesssed right once or twice.
From This they have made people think that they spoke from certain
Knowledge of the facts, and people fancied that they consulted with the
Devil.”

The throwing of sorts was the art which the Anglo-Normans called "the
casting of runes." According to their mythology, the runes were magical
letters engraved upon wooden sticks which were thrown to the ground in the
interest of foretelling the future. The runes which were uppermost were
thought to fall according to the wishes of the pagan gods, these sticks
having been given to men by Woden. There were two basic types of rune:,
the malrunor, or speech-runes, which enabled men to magically embed sounds
on wood (or paper) and retrieve them at will and the trollrunor, or troll-
runes, which were of use in wonder-work. The latter were sub-divided into
skaderunor (Skadi's runes) and hjelprunor, or help-runes. There were five
sub-varieties of each kind of sort, the former producing ill-effects; the
latter being of medicinal use.

Marie Deveau of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, says that "some people
here could throw, what in French we call, a "sort". When you throw
something (a curse or hex) on a person." An interviewer from "Cape
Breton's Magazine" questioned her, asking if this was the equivalent of the
English "spell". "Well...yes," she replied, " And if you're scared of them, it
could easily take on you. If you're not scared of them, they can never touch
you (do you harm)." Asked whether practitioners were male or female, she
continued, "It could be both, it wouldn't matter. There was a family - the
whole family could (trouble their neighbours). From one to the other they
were passing it (the ability). The woman could, the man could, then some of
the children could... They could put a sort on you. That was to bother you.
For example when the Jersey (immigrants from the Channel Islands) came to
the island, there was a man named Charlie Romeril. Fr. Fiset was here then.
Fr. Fiset was one of the first priests and he built the church down here. A
woman was bothered by the sorcerer... When she was working...she had
some words with Charlie Romeril...and they say Charlie went (into the barn)
and put a sort on the hay. Then the girl, in the evening, she went and she
cleaned the manger. And then right away she was out of her mind. They
couldn't do anything with her (but then) Fr. Fiset cured the girl. (Then)
Charlie Romeril had a grudge against Fr. Fiset and was bothering them at the
glebe house."

"There at the glebe they used to hear chains banging together, and
they'd see fire here and there, and then noise - just to intimidate them...And
then sometimes in the nighttime, they'd hear something in the corner, and
then in another - and they couldn't sleep." The priest refused to act against
the sorcerer but his servant-handyman, Jeffrey Crispou decided to take
counter-measures and built a snowman in the back yard. Following traditional
protocol he initialled the figure "C.R." He then went to the house and came
back with his gun. He approached the "replica" of Charlie Romeril by walking
three steps ahead and one back, a procedure followed until he was within
easy aiming-distance. "I don't know how many times he shot him (the snow-
man)", said Marie, "but then he went home and the noise ceased. No more
noise...But little Charlie Romeril, he got sick. He was sick all the rest of the
winter. And when the snowman was melting, as the snowman was melting,
little Charlie was getting worse...finally, when it melted to the ground Charlie
died..."

Marie noted that Charlie was not alone in the practise of black arts,
another being identified simply as "Le Canadien", a travelling tinsmith who
came to Cape Breton from Quebec. Although he was called upon to to repair
pots and pans and other household goods, his neighbours began to suspect
that he had the ability "to put a sort on cattle." Marie's father-in-law, a man
named Lubin, came into a quarrel with the travelling man who threatened to a
put a spell on his cow. One morning the Cape Bretoner found the animal down
in her stall its tongue lolling from the mouth. Marie noted, "They couldn't
make her get up. Then when at last she was up, she wasn't a bit steady at
all - she couldn't keep still...they couldn't milk her and they couldn't put the
milk with the other cow's milk. There was maybe something in it. It wasn't
good milk."

Knowing that this was sorcery, Lubin went to Cheticamp to buy a

package of new needles for the making of a sorcerer's bane, which the
English called the witch-bottle. Lubin then obtained urine from his ailing cow,
and bottled it along with nine needles. "Then he went upstairs and put it
under a rafter -tight (so that the cork would remain in place). So my father-
in-law, he was making sail for the boats, for the fishermen. He used to work
at sometimes 12 o'clock at night. He was doing his work in the daytime - in
the woods - and in the evening would work at the sails. So one night, my
mother-in-law was in bed and he was working, and Grandpa went outside for a
bit - and gosh, he saw a big dog...The moon was up but he couldn't tell if it
was black or brown - but a dog bigger than he ever saw...he thought it was
perhaps a stray dog from a boat. So he came back in. He ate a bite, lit his
pipe, and started sewing again.
 "By about 10 o'clock...all of a sudden, bang, bang, bang on the door." A
voice came from outside the house, "Lubin, let me in, let me in Lubin, Awww,
awww...Let me in." The sail-maker opened the door for the Canadian, who
was doubled over clutching his stomach. "I'm in pain Lubin, I suppose it's my
supper, I hope you have soda?" Unfortunately, Lubin was a kind man and
complied with the request, perhaps not remembering that this would cancel
the effect of his counter-charm. The next day the cow appeared recovered,
but in the weeks after exhibited a syndrome of symptoms suggesting that
sortilege was still in action: "When she was eating well, when they were going
to milk her she kicked. and some other time, she was just lying down with
her tongue out of her mouth, making some noise like as if she was dying.
And then Grandpa would take his axe and go to kill her, but then the cow was
all right. If he had killed the cow the Canadian would have died. I don't know.
It was so aggravating...The dog it must have been the sorcerer...or perhaps
a warning or something. It was right after that that the man came in."

J.J. Deveaux added that all sorcerers were shape-changers who had
the ability to take the form of humans as well as animals. When one man
found himself afflicted by the casting of a sort, the "sorcier" came to gloat,
but at the door he had the appearance of a well-repected neighbour: "The
guy who put this on his wife and horse, he didn't go on his own. If he went
there (in his usual shape) that man would have known him and wanted to kill
him. He went looking like the neighbour...He didn't want people to know who
he was. He'd go as another person... They take any kind of shape, to scare
you. But they cannot really hurt you like that...But he can scare you..." It
was generally held that people who were without fear were immune to the
effects of sortilege although their animals might be injured or their crops
blighted. J.J. Chaisson, elaborated: "If they (the sorcerers) found anyone
weak-willed they could work on him. They didn't want to tackle one who
wasn't afraid of them."

The Acadians entitled the female witches of the local tribes "taoueille",
the gad-flies or horseflies. Chaisson says this designation was general in
New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. He has also noted that "strange or
inexplicible doings by people and animals were (in former times) attributed to
sorcerers who, through pacts with the devil, could cast charms or spells.
Blood in the cow's milk, a smell on the butter, an animal taken ill or someone
gone mad - all were ascribed to sorcerers. Those suspected of
witchcraft...took advantage of people's credulity by going from door to door
extorting food, linen and clothing."
 "According to the popular belief, some people were also endowed with
power against these sorcerers, and were capable of lifting spells and
charms. Ordinarily these antisorcerers used one or other of the following
methods. The first consisted of heating the witch, that is boiling water in a
large kettle with needles and something from the person of the person or
animal affected - urine hair, or some other element. The sorcer was
apparently unable to withstand this ordeal. He would appear at the scene and
remove the spell which he had cast. The other method consisted of using
magic words or incantations. The following was used, in English (Gaels also
incanted in this language), by the Acadians to remove a spell cast on a cow:
"Trotter Head (a pseudonym for any witch), I forbid thee my house and
premises. I forbid thee my barn and cow. I forbid thee to breath upon me
nor upon any of my family until thou hast painted every fence post, until
those hast crossed every ocean, and that thus dear dear (sic) day may
come in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

At Dupuis Corner in Westmorland County we hear of the education of a

sorcerer: Sorcery was gained from "large books on magic which had black
pages with white printing on them and it was these that were used to invoke
the Devil." It was said that village priests went from door-to-door seeking
the surrender of these volumes burning them at communal bonfires. "But
there were those who refused to give up their books and upon occasion they
tried to show "Les Livres d"Albert" to others hoping to increase their
numbers." In one instance a newly arrived schoolmaster at Cocagne, New
Brunswick, heard a knock at his door and opened it to see an old man
standing before him with a black book in his hands. He thrust it at the
younger man saying simply, "Here is a key to great power!" and then turned
and walked away. Examining the book, the teacher found it was written in a
foreign language, but some devil stood by as an invisible tutor, and as he
sounded the syllables he was able to take some sense of the meaning of the
words. He had only read one paragraph when there was another knock at the
door. This time he was greeted by a tall, thin stranger dressed in black with
eyes like live coals. Before he could speak, the teacher recognized him and
made the sign of the cross. The unbidden visitor vanished in a puff of smoke
of brimstone and the book was quickly consigned to the flames in the hearth.

SPRIGGY

An earth spirit bound to standing stones or similar natural

formations.

Anglo-Saxon sprig, a youthful spirit, "a small twig or scion". Derived

from the Cornish spriggan, also called the korridgwen or horridgwen, the
equivalent of the Breton korrid, adherents of the sea-goddess, Mhorrigan.
They were guardians of the standing-stones and may have been the spirits of
these stone. They were able to control the wind and could appear as giant
humans in order to scare men from territory which they inhabited. They
were skilled thieves and were held responsible for the circles seen in grain
fields and the more general wind storms that took down crops. Spriggys
were capable of carrying huge stones and some claim they were the race
that set up the cromlechs of Britain. The stone-men have bright "coal-
burning" eyes and a deeply tanned skin, and were traditionally employed as
blacksmiths. In keeping with their reputation as the guardians of stones,
they know the whearabouts of all buried treasures. They were not always
opposed to mankind, although never over friendly. For a token payment left
on a gravestone, they would shoe oxen and horses or sharpen the knifes,
kitchen utensils and tools that were left there. In doing this they acted
exactly like Voolund or Wayland, the master of Odin's forge. Wayland was
once held hostage to Nidud, King of Sweden, but escaped from him and
retired to Alfheim where he fashioned many miraculous swords including one
for Charlemagne. While the spriggans struggled to protect the sanctity of
stones set up to honour human or the heroes of other races, they would not
tolerate memorials to those who died by suicide.

John Hooper drowned himself at Deer Island, New Brunswick, on May

fifth, eighteen fifty. His body was found beneath the waters in a pond in
back of his home, thoughtfully attached to a string tied to a very stale loaf
of bread. Hooper had said that he wanted no remembrance but loving
relatives erected a tombstone over his grave in the pasture behind his
outbuildings. A few days after the stone was found lying face-down in the
grass. It was assumed that the foundation had been poorly set so workmen
came and cemented it into an upright position. Twice more the stone was
found down. After the third attempt at stabalizing the stone, it was found
split horizontally, the top half lying on the ground.

In the folowing century, Stirling Lambert, a resident at Lambertville

hearing the story went looking for Hooper's grave and found the stone split
into three sections in a field that had become a forest. He propped up the
large top section, but returning a few years later, found it back on its face.
Subsequently, the trees were cut and a new community dump was
established in what had been Hooper's back yard. After that residents made
almost daily attempts to oppose the wished of the spriggy. This battle of
wills went on for several weeks until the stone was finally found smashed
into thousands of fragments.
Some folks attributed this final damage to vandalism but few people are
willing to visit the Deer Island dump after dark.

SPUNKIE

A light-bearing water-spirit.

Gaelic, spong, tinder or a sponge; Ir. Gaelic, sponc; cf. Latin, spongia.
Confluent with sponge and punk. Also seen as sponkie or punkie. The
latter word defines wood that takes fire easily; also punk, a tinder made
from a wood's fungus; touchwood, a spark, glem or little fire, a sulphur
match; spririt, pluck, anger, passion, mettle. Finally, a lawless and dangerous
man or spirit, capable of craftiness or physical damage. To be full of
spunk is to be quick, plucky, merddlesome, and irritable or touchy. As a
verb spunk means to take fire. The spunkie is a descendant of the elemental
gods of fire and corresponds with the classical ignis fatuus; the candelas of
Sardinia; the lyktgubbe of Scandinavia; the irrlichter of Germany, the
ellyllidan of Wales, the tan noz of France, and the English will-o'-the-wisp,
fire-elf, kit-wi'-canstick, jack-o'lanthorn, joan-in-the-wad and hob-wi'lanthorn.
See also the lowland shellycoat, which sometimes played this part as did
boabhs, devils, the Devil himself, as well as ghosts of the dead. See entry
under will-o'-the-wisp.

The balls or sheets of light which moved through remote swampy areas
were called the will-o'-the-wisp, corpse candle, gopher light or taibh. Those
at sea were termed the fetch. Arrowsmith says that "the flames were not
the elves, but the lights they carried. These creatures are (often) animated
by the souls of (dead) men, women and children. As such they come closer
to being "ghosts" than any other of the fay people.

According to Pratt the phenomena is termed "Saint Anthony's Fire," in

parts of Prince Edward Island. He defines it as "a glow given off by swamps,"
and secondarily as "certain inflammations of the skin." The latter definition
is in line with European legend, for Saint Anthony of Padua (whose holiday
was celebrated June 13) was known to have interceded to cure the skin
disease called erysipilas. The first defintion is unknown in the Old World
where Saint Antyhony's Fire was not associated with the land but with the
air-glow that attached to the masts of ships at sea. Columbus had
acquaintence with this phenomena and used the occurence to suggest that
his voyage of exploration was under the guidance of God. On the southern
coast of Nova Scotia isolated sea-lights are referred to as "Jacob's Light",
possibly making parallel refernce to the Biblical prophet and the light which
he saw streaming down from heaven. In the waters of northeastern New
Brunswick supernatural lights are sometimes referred to as "John Craig's
Light." Among the Acadians this was the "feu follett" (wild fire), which the
Indians called "esk-wid-eh-wid", literally, the fire balls.

STIRK

The spirit of the quarter days. A dunce or clown.

According to OED the word is of lowland Scottish origin: "A heifer

between one and two years of age." Thus, any inexperienced animal. The
Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English defines the word as "a big clumsy
perspn, a lout."

STOUK

Another name for a spirit of the quarter-season.

From the lowland Scottish dialect. The Dictionary of Prince Edward

Island English says the word is comparable with the local words gommie,
kittardy, nosic, omadan and oshick, while it is defioned as "A stupoid person."

STRIKING PARTY

Spirits gathered as a host.

Anglo-Saxon, stric, pestilence; Said comparable with cooligan (which,

see). The Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English explains: "The early
settlers had few holidays...New Year's Day was the great day of the year. On
the Eve of that day "striking parties" composed of young folk of the
district, armed with sticks, marched through the settlement. When they
arrived at a house they surrounded it, and to the accompaniment of music
from the sticks beating the log walls, vigorously sang a Gaelic refrain... "Get
up an gie us our hogmanay." If, as happened rarely, there was not "Scotch"
on hand, they were given cakes...When log houses were replaced by shingled
ones, these parties were discouraged and finally abandoned." For more see
calluinn and houghmandie.

TAIBHS

Gaelic, Also taibhse (pronounced tav), runners for the soul. Ghosts
of living men. Middle Irish, tadhbais a phantom. The root word is tad, that
which speaks or otherwise shows itself from the Old Irish togu, to taste
strange things, to choose. The equivalent of the English fetch, co-walker,
runner, soul-shadow, guardian, guardian angel, or double; the ghost of a living
or recently departed individual. The Norse knew these as the "fylgiar". More
commonly, at present, an apparition or ghost, a vision. Confers with the
English, phantasm and phantom.

Runners were gifted upon people by the creator-god at birth,

prominent individuals being given more than one protector. Taibhs acted as
forerunners, making their human aware of future events; as backrunners,
perceiving the past; and as spies on current events. They possessed ultra-
sensitive vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell and travelled as invisible
heralds or followers of their ward, but could appear as a totem animal. They
sometimes materialized, leading to situations of bilocation. The runner
appeared before each individual or his relatives as an omen of death, and
they were then seen as fire-balls called corpse-candles or gophers. At night,
the spirits of men entered their runners and travelled with these wraiths.
Bad dreams were seen as reflections of quarrels between runners. The
runner was long absent in fevers and comas, and departed at death. People
who could project themselves into their taibhs were said to have "an da
shealladh", the two sights, and could predict the future. Those who lacked a
guardian were known locally as jonahs, jinxers or "droch-chomhalaichean",
rent-payers to hell, and suffered bad luck. Witches supposedly exchanged
their runners for an imp, which took the visible form of a familiar.

The equivalent of the English fetch, co-walker, soul-dancer, shadow-

person, guardian or guardian angel. Runners wer gifted upon people at birth,
important souls receiving more than one protector. The taibh had the
capacity to view the past or future and to examine distant events in the
present. They were said to house a supplementary soul and travelled
invisibly, or as a totem animal, with the person to whom they were assigned.
They sometimes materialized giving rise to stories of bilocation, a person
being seen at widely separated places at the same time. The taibh became a
forerunner of death when it materialized face-to-face with its master. As
corpse-candles, gophers or fetches, these runners took the form of fireballs
which warned relatives that a death was imminent in their family. The taibh
sometimes announced death by becoming a knocker. At night the human soul
was believed allied with its cowalker and bad dreams were seen as reflections
of actually travels in some parallel world. The runner and its travelling
companion were long absent in hallucinatory states, madness and comas, and
departed together at death.

The few Gaels who could project themselves into their taibh at will were
said to have "an da shelladh", or the two sights, an ability to see the past and
future. Those with no extra-sensory preceptions were the "droch-
chomhalaichean" and suffered exceptionally bad luck. The boabh supposedly
exchanged these useful spirits for a imp of the Devil. Whether the taibh was
a normal runner, or a familiar of a witch, it passed through the air in going
about its business, and existed at the sufferance of the god Kari and his
kind. As we have previously noted, familiars frequently showed their
attachment to the wind-spirits by taking the form of crows, ravens, owls,
eagles and other birds of the air. Mary L. Fraser described the appearance
of a forerunner as a sea bird. Two Nova Scotian girls saw it on the beach.
When one tried to approach it the other warned, "Leave it alone, don't touch
it, it is a taibhs." "And what is a taibhs?" asked the second girl. "It's a
spirit," she replied, "We're going to get some bad news."

Discussing this phenomena in 1652, Lord Larbolt noted: "there were

men and women and children who had the second sight; there were children
who had it but not the parents; some people had it when they were old who
did not have it in their youth; none of them could tell how they came to have
it; but all said it was a gift of which they would gladly rid themselves if
possible. They saw the vision only as long as they kept looking at it steadily.
Those who had a strong heart usually took a good look at it, and they could
see it for a longer time than the weak and timid. Those of strong will did not
have visions of the dead, but saw the living, and had no doubt as to what they
saw them do, or that what they saw happen to them would actually occur
just as they saw it. They could not tell what time might intervene before the
events in question might take place; but those who were accustomed to
seeing such things had special rules by which they could make a close guess.
For example, they could tell pretty well how soon a person was going to die by
noting how much of his form was covered by a shroud. If the whole form was
covered, the person was on his death bed."

While most visions were seen by sighted people, this was not a
prerequisite; a man might be blind, but his second-soul, housed in the taibhs,
might not be afflicted. Thus, at Saint John in 1777, a blind man, far distant
from the scene, was party to a vision of a judicial hanging. When he reported
the details to his family, they were able to confirm that his description was
complete and correct in every detail.

While most of these phantoms reported to their host by way of a

vision, the other senses were sometimes involved; thus there are reports of
men and women who tasted, touched, or smelled happenings from another
time and place, or by one means or another, observed events at a distance.
Mary L. Fraser noticed that many of her fellows in Antigonish County, Nova
Scotia would not consider walking in the centre of a road after dark "for fear
of encountering phantom funeral processions." Undertakers who worked
with the dead throughout the year, often found their horse drawn hearses
crowded about with a host of taibhs and were jostled and felt the touch of
these runners for the dead as they tried to harnesss their horses.

Often, the person gifted with one type of extra-sensory preception

would lack other extra-sensory preceptions. Fraser noted "the persistent
tradition that the spirits of the living (but soon to be dead) rehearse the
making of coffins." In English-speaking communities, this ability was often
termed clair-audience (as contrasted with clairvoyence, or the ability to see
hidden places and events.) In researching her books on folklore, Helen
Creighton discovered that, "Many people are deaf to forerunners (that is,
unable to detect them at any level). Of six people sitting in a room with the
body of a man who had just died, only three heard him call out the name of
his wife."

Speaking of the taibhs as represented in the sense of touch Joe Neil

MacNeil said: "Somebody (from the community) would say, rubbing his lips,
"Indeed I feel the itch of a kiss (or the itch of a dram) today," And somebody
else would say. "Oh, there is an itch in the palm of my right hand." Or
someone else would say, "Indeed I am going to shake the hand of a stranger
today." "And how do you mean that?" "Oh, there is an itch in the palm of my
right hand." Or someone might say, "Surely I am going to receive money in a
short time. There is an itch in my left palm." And another man would say,
"And what does it mean when a person's eye is quivering?" It was good news
if it was the right eye and it was poor news...if it was the left eye. And
another might say, "Lord how hot my ear is! It's almost on fire with the
warmth in it. Someone is talking about me." People would ask the man, "Is it
your right ear or your left ear?" "Oh my left ear." "Oh, well then, that's good
enough." "And what is the reason for that?"..."Well, when the heat is in your
right ear, they are making a lot of talk about you, and indeeed it is probably
not very good. But when the great heat is in your left ear, they are making
excuses for you."

In each of the above cases the taibhs would be considered the agency
responsible for the physical sensation, which was intended as a message or a
warning. Mary L. Fraser said that "All the findings of Lord Larbolt hold good
for the second-sight in Nova Scotia, where many people are endowed with the
gift. Sometimes whole families have it to a greater or lesser degree The
old people watched carefully the colours of the eyes of a child when it was
born. If it had, say, one eye blue and the other brown, they were on the
look-out for the second-sight; for if at the end of a certain number of weeks
the colours had blended so that they could not tell which eye had been blue
and which brown, the child was sure to have the gift. If the coulours did not
blend, the child was normal."

Helen Creighton found that the forerunner "usually deals with sounds.
Foresight, on the other hand is visual. On the island of Cape Breton it is
known as double vision or double sight and people who have the gift are said
to be double sighted. It occurs here mostly among those of Scottish descent
although there are isolated instances among other groups...Perhaps the word
gift...is inappropriate. For a gift is a pleasurable attribute. This is not, for
the vision is usually that of a funeral..." At that, it has to be remembered
that the taibhs was a ghost of the living thus Malcolm Campbell, of Cape
Breton, contended that, "A forerunner can be when you see a living
person...A stranger was going to come. And you'd see a forerunner of a
stranger. It might have no connection with death at all."

Fraser commented that, "It was a popular belief among the Celts that
if you wished yourself anywhere at night you were sure to appear there (at
least as an invisible spirit). If harm befell these apparitions, the rash wisher
was also harmed. The apparition could be (halted in mid-journey) if to the
words "I wish from the bottom of my heart or soul I was there," there were
added, "but not with (this) night's wish." Thus it is shown that the taibhs was
considered an invisible double, a projection of a living person. It was held that
these spirits were gifted upon men by the pagan gods, but they were counted
as angels in Christian times, and the Cape Breton historian A.A. Mackenzie,
assured his readers that the second-sight "is from God. It is only he who can
really know the future..."

The taibhs might be considered in this light, but thes spirit was
suspected to be something less worthy than a guardian angel. A Shelburne
man confronted by the "ghost" of a sister, who was still among the living,
gave his opinion as follows: "I wouldn't tell about it (the sighting) for ten
years (until after her death) because it was considered bad luck to see a
person who wasn't there."

It used to be said that the mentally handicapped had the ability to

travel through the air "at will." These people also posessed runners, but
their night-worlds were thought to be less organized than that of normal
men. Thus, it is likely that their psychic-travel was more a matter of random
process than "a night's wish." Mary L. Fraser tells the tale of an East Bay,
Cape Breton family, which possessed a set of hand-made horn-spoons of a
distinctive design when they lived in Scotland. They were forced to leave the
old country in hurried circumstances, and these spoons were left behind. In
the new land their handicapped son was often observed to fall into a trance-
like state, and the family considered he was then "on his travels." After one
of these incidents, the horn-spoons were found in his possession, and it was
assumed he had actually managed a passage to Scotland and back, without
the aid of a sailing ship.

When he was a young boy, Cleve Townsend, of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia,

says he was twice warned away from dangerous situations by his own
forerunner, who came to him as a wraith-like boy. In the first case, he was
about to go fishing alone on the harbour
when the taibhs materialized from the floor boards of the wharf
motioning him to return home. He refused, but on the water, found his foot
caught up in the anchor rope and was hauled to the bottom with it. On the
way down, he saw the face of the ghost-boy frowning his displeasure. This
time, he escaped injury, but when he encountered the same apparition in the
cellar of his own home, he retreated back up the stairs and "Forever after
that I never went against them."
 The use of the word "them" in the above sentence is informative for it
was understood that the gifted individual could often see much more than his
or her personal runner. Townsend made this clear by saying, "My father,
he'd go into the forest...and he'd sit down and talk with his own
father...people in that world...I never went with him (but) I can still speak
with my father...He's a young man now. When he comes he comes first with
his (familiar) beard and everything as I knew him (in life). And then after I
recognize him, he changes to what he is...My mother, the same."

Usually messages of impending doom were left to the taibhs, but while
Townsend was working as a Cape Breton steel plant in 1955 his runner
warned him of approaching doom. When he failed to take heed his father's
ghost approached him in broad daylight and said, "You stay on (working in)
that plant much longer, you'll be leaving your bones there." After that,
Townsend left steel-making for faith healing.

Commenting on his knowledge of unseen worlds, the Cape Breton native

said, "I've lived in two worlds for over seventy years...the spirit world and the
earth plane. You don't see them unless God gives you clairvoyent sight. I can
hear them...At the beginning their words are like listening to a mosquito, and
after a time it increases, until it's clear. And I can speak to them. That
world is not a different world than the world we see. Sometimes when death
comes to the physical body, the man willl go over and that world is so much
like this that he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know he's out of body
and dead. The inner man will live on, a million years, a hundred million years.
There's no death for the inner man. The inner man is what controls this
body, not you...There's no hell over there. But of course, if a man lives a
pretty good life, why he's going to find over there it's really good and
beautiful. But if he lives a life of sin and likes to kill or something like that,
his home over there will be the same as down here, black as Egypt. And he
may get one hundred years or three hundred years of that."

Because of his gift, Cleve Townsend had expectations of disaster when

he heard three solid knocks, and noted, "...when I was a boy, I wouldn't let
anyone else go to the door but me. I knew there was nobody there they could
see...there was always someone there from the other world...It would be like
to bring a warning about a death...I'd receive the thoughts from their mind...I
would see a form, see their face before someone was to die."

Dan MacNeil of Cape Breton, had this to say of another gifted

individual "the Mackenzie girl of Christmas Island." "... in the night-time
there'd be a knock at the door and a little hand would show on the wall. And
she'd go in what you'd call a trance...she'd go across to the other side...when
she'd wake up from that trance she'd tell her neighbours, "this person, or
that person died just a few minutes ago. I saw him entering into heaven."
And by gosh the neighbour died at that certain time... They took her to
priests and bishops and everything, and it was no use...she used to be like
that every night...this last time, she went in a trance and this old lady that
died up there rear of Christmas Island, she was in heaven. And she told her,
she says, "You tell your father to go to my son, and look in the old trunk in
the attic, and you'll find a ring there, "she says. "And get that ring,and put it
on your finger and this'll never happen to you again." This amulet negated
the unwanted gift of precognition.

Another local psychic saw no visions but could predict the future:
"Before a death I feel something beside me all day and I can't get rid of it."
Those that could not see or touch the intangible often heard sounds
generated by the taibhs. Joe Neil MacNeil says: "And people might hear a
sound as if somebody was on the threshold. They weren't hitting the door at
all, you understand, there was no knock on the door but you would hear the
stamping as if somebody put his foot on the threshold though no one was
there. And they would say. "It won't be long before a stranger comes to the
house."

When it was suspected that men were in danger on the sea, their
relatives used to consult gifted individuals, who might send their runners out
looking for signs of their fate. Cleve Townsend was consulted by Mrs.
Captain Dan Harris, who once piloted a coal boat between the Island and
Halifax. After peering through the "eyes" of his informant, Townsend was
able to reassure her: "Mrs. Harris, I got them. They're all right so far. But I
can see them all working, cutting ice, and the boat is leaning over, top
heavy...Tomorrow morning, ten o'clock, you look out the harbour and you'll
see your husband bringing in the towboat."

Townsend was also able employ his taibhs more directly when he
worked as a telegrapher aboard the ship "Troja," which once sailed from
Louisbourg to Saint John. This craft was off Grand Manan when, "The engine
room was first to fill with water, the boiler room (went) dead, so there
couldn't be a message sent... (nevertheless) a message was received in New
Brunswick giving the exact longitude and latitude, our exact position." The
"Troja" was rescued, and Mr. Townsend could only conclude that his cowalker
had somehow managed to act on his behalf.

Gifted individuals were thought related to the elder gods of the sea,
thus they were never allowed to drown or die by fire.
These "caul-bearers" or lucky individuals were usually sought as ship-
mates because it was believed that their protective spirit shielded any ship
on which the individual travelled. On the other hand, the old gods were
sometimes held in contempt as devils and Townsend had to admit that a
sailor from Forchu, knowing his reputation as a psychic and faith-healer,
refused to travel with him aboard ship.

In the best situations, the taibhs was engaged at being helpful:

Folklorist Mary L. Fraser claimed that her father had had a vision of her
mother as a bride, long before the couple had met. She also noted that
Bishop MacDonald, of Antigonish Nova Scotia, had routinely had childhood
visions of his father returning from distant journeys accompanied by his two
black horses. Members of the family were amazed when the eight-year-old's
predictions always proved correct. The Nova Scotian writer Roland H.
Sherwood claimed that a guardian of an individual working in the United
States spoke to his mother at home in Nova Scotia, reassuring her that he
had escaped death in the Spanish Flu of 1918.

During the Halifax explosion, December 6, 1917, three children

managed to avoid death by playing truant for the first time in their lives.
Questioned about their actions, none of them could explain why they had
stayed clear of a school that was almost totally demolished in the blast. All
referred to having vague feelings of unease at the idea of going to school on
that day, and one said simply "It didn't feel right!" There are many other
instances of men and women who were warned, or even physically barred,
from dangerous situations. In the days of horse-and-wagon, the animals
often balked at bridges hidden by darkness and storm. However, when men
tried to lead their animals into wash-outs they often ran up against invisible
walls, were warned by seeming voices in the wind, or were met by
apparations which indicated that they should not continue on the way. At
Antigonish a runner provides provided light in one such situation: "It looked
like a great big star and was so bright that it lit up the bridge that was one
thousand feet long."

At that, most of the reports concerning the taibhs have represented

the spirit as a forerunner of death. Helen Creighton was told that, "If a
person is dying and thinking of someone (to whom he is attached), he can
make his presence known (briefly, prior to death)." Presumably, the taibhs
first presented himself to his host and then went travelling to inform the
next of kin. Since the gifted regularly saw their own runners, this was not a
matter for concern. Those who occasionally saw their taibhs as a retreating
form were pleased as this was an omen of long life. "There (also) used to be
a theory that if you saw (a) forerunner early in the morning it (death) was
going to take a long time (occur at a remote time), but if you saw it late in
the evening it was going to happen very soon." The main thing was that the
taibhs should remain at a decent distance; when it approached for a face-t0-
face confrontation this was thought to spell immediate death.

Sometimes the taibhs materialized in groups. This was the case at

Southern Point, near Scatarie, Nova Scotia: At a shore-camp, which was a
temporary home to a number of fisherman, the door suddenly opened at two
o'clock in the morning. "In walked eight or ten men in their oilskins. And they
sat around the fire. And after a while (the solitary resident) kind of rubbed
his eyes and there was no one there." Two days later nine men fishing from
the "Ringhorn" were lost at sea and the ghostly figures were taken to be
forerunners of these men.

Very few individuals were naturally equipped to view their own or other
people's shades, and vague premonitions of danger were not always
understood by the uninitiated. Perhaps recognizing this, the taibhs often
intruded upon the dreams of the common folk. On a March evening, George
Salter of Avondale, Nova Scotia, dreamed of drowned lumbermen being
washed ashore. The night before five such men had left the Avondale wharf
to raft timber down the river, March 28, 1889. According to numerous
witnesses they were heard the men singing a tune entitled "Drifting, drifting
to our doom..." This was thought odd since it was always considered an ill-
omen to sing songs of loss and destruction on the rivers or at sea. A woman
of the district later said that she heard cries of terror and panic from the
river at nine o'clock, but if so they were not heard by others, perhaps
because the death throes were masked by chivaree celebrations going on
simultaneously. At exactly this time, Della Sweet, the wife of John, one of
the men on the raft heard her name called out, apparently in her husband's
voice. It was five days before bodies recovered, and men agreed that they
had witnessed the taibhs.
 Again, not many men experienced dreams that were as literal as that
of George Salter. The taibhs was never deliberately vague, but the
connections between his world and that of human kind seem to have been
indistinct for most men. A coffin, or a coffin-shaped object, seen in a dream
seemed to have a symbolism as direct as that of dead bodies; and funeral
parties, hearses, and the like, seemed open to easy interpretation.
Clergymen were seen as bad luck at sea, and in dreams, as they were funeral
orators. Dreaming of fire, or of hell, was considered unlucky; but there were
more obscure symbols of death: A boat seen landing might be considered
innocuous, but people of earlier times remembered that the death-god often
travelled by sea
Seeing teeth in a dream was considered a bad matter and people did
not like to view broken eggs. Interestingly dreaming of an undertaker was
thought to presage a long life.

Where the taibhs was unable to gather the force needed for a
materialization or the creation of a "sensible" dream it might still act as a
harbringer in the form of an elemental fire, sometimes termed the "dead-
light" or "corpse-candle."
Summing up the views of numerous interviewees, Helen Creighton
described this phenomena as, "a ball of light...with a tail. The corpse-candle
might travel in either direction between the home and gravesite of one
destined for death." Mary L. Fraser noted that, "A light seen going very
quickly towards the graveyard was regarded as a sure sign of death. A clear
round light indicated the death of a man; a light with little rays or sparks
after it, that of a woman. If you could see the house it started from, you
would know where the victim was." This form of taibhs was so feared that a
new boat built at Broad Cove, Nova Scotia, was abandoned to the shore after
corpse-candles seen on board.

When Cape Breton resideent Malcolm Campbell was asked about the
present seeming scarcity of spirts of the living, he said: "When people stop
fishing, there's no fish there. I heard this now in 1937. They used to fish
off Port Hood Island and Henry Island. And there was an awful lot of fish,
everybody was fishing. And the reason somebody told me that there's no
fish is nobody is fishing, there's no bait on the grounds. So why were the
fish going to congregate there? It's the same with other things, like seeing
things, like forerunners."

TANNAS
 The spirit of a dead human, a ghost.

Gaelic, tamhasg, tannasg, possibly from the root-word tann, long,

thin, stretched out. A ghost of the departed as opposed to the "taibh" or
ghost of the living; an apparition, wraith or spectre. Possibly confluent with
the Brythonic tann,...., the Breton tan, an oak tree, or the Cymric, tan,
fire. The Celtic ending asg is a preposition, indicating "out of". The
equivalent of the Anglo-Norman revanter. Contrast with taibhs, immediately
above.

This invisible creature usually made its presence known through

poltergeistic activity, but sometimes materialized in human form or that of a
totem animal. It was thought that the spirit of a dead person usually
combined with the spirit of his or her taibh, moving afterwards to
reincarnation. It is uncertain whether the "tannas" represented this
combination in earth-bound form or was merely an unemployed taibh forced
to remain behind because of the trauma of a violent death. Some of the
tannas were known to have been deliberately created to guard treasure, and
these could only be unbound through the removal of their horde. In Gaelic
communities it used to be thought that ghosts had unfinished business, the
fingering of a murderer, the settling of a debt, or the righting of a wrong
which occurred while the spirit lived. Some returned to fulfil an oath made
while alive or to see that alms were given on their behalf. This disembodied
spirit was often suspected of being malignant and it was sometimes thought
wise to propitiate it, or exorcize it, through magical rites. The Celtic eve of
the Samhain (Oct. 31) was a time for lighting the "samhnagan" or ritual fire,
whose purpose was to scatter witches and other evil spirits. The souls of
the departed hovered then, taking what comfort they could find before
autumn to winter resigned the pale year.

The Gaelic "tannas" is also represented as a "tannasg, tamhasg" or

"tannasg", a ghost of the departed as opposed to a "taibh" which was a ghost
of a living person. This being tokk his name from "tan" a Celtic word
sometimes taken to mean fire, but also describing the oak tree and the
colour imparted when people lie to long in the sun. The ending "asg" is a
preposition indicating a spirit that "comes out of". The equivalent of the
Anglo-Norman "revandir", which we commonly call a "ghost". This creature
usually made its presence known through poltergeistic activity but
sometimes materialized as the old totem animal of the dead person. Some
tannas were deliberately created to guard treasure and these could only be
allowed to pass on when the horde had been removed. It used to be thought
that ghost had unfinished earthly business.

Mary L. Fraser said, "It is a belief that the dead cannot rest easily if
they have left debts unpaid, or wrongs done and not righted. Sometimes too,
they have come back in fulfillment of a promise, or to request almsgiving on
their behalf." Creighton thought that ghosts should be carefully watched:
"Whether a ghost is coming towards you or walking away is thought to
detemine the length of life of the person seeing the vision." The former
indicated that spirits of the hereafter would soon come looking for a soul
among the living; the speed of approach was thought related to the period of
life remaining. This folklorist had thoughts aboiut eliminating a bothersome
spirit: "As to the way to lay a ghost, the method is the same as that used in
(against) witchcraft. In comparing the two, it looks as if witches are more
easily controlled than ghosts. Witches are always evil in their intentions
while ghosts may appear for a variety of purposes..."

The most persistent tannas in Celtic history was the "Rider" of Iona,
Scotland, Ewan Maclain, of the Little Head. He fought in battle against his
own father, Iain the Toothless, and persisted afterwards as "the Headless
Horsemen" whose ghost rides to presage the death of any Maclaine of
Lochbuie. His story is told in garbled fashion by Creighton, and with better
understanding by Fraser. What is important here is the fact that this shade
has been seen in Maritime Canada as well as in Scotland. In the battle, Ewans
horse nearly threw a shoe and the haunt is invariably heard by the clinking of
this loose shoe before it is actually seen. One old Macclaine of Inverness
County, Cape Breton was struggling against "bas" while a Macdougall watched
his wavering breath. Several times, the dying man was heard to say, "I'm
waiting...waiting..." All at once Macdougall heard the rattling of a horse
harness and looking from the window saw "a military man with a small head"
ride to the front door on a grey horse. At this the attendant turned to see
how the old man was faring and found him dead on his bed. Looking back
through the window he saw a headless man riding away but he dissolved
before reaching the forest.

Mary L. Fraser has said: "It is a belief confirmed by many examples

that the dead cannot rest easily if they have left debts unpaid, or wrongs
done and not righted. Sometimes too, they have come back in fulfillment of
a promise, or to request almsgiving on their behalf."
 Creighton's work in Lunenburg County suggests that necromancy was
still a known art at the turn of this century. At Madder's Cove, she
encountered an individual who insisted that
"There was a man at Mader's Cove who used to go to sea, and another
fellow taught him how to talk to the dead. He used to do it, but he said that
it was a great strain upon him." Strain, or not, there were benefits in
conversing with the dead. Aside from information concerning past or future
events which might be obtained from these shades there was a promise of
longevity. A Hubbards resident put it this way: "If you see a person who isn't
there it means you'll be a long liver."

Opposing religions, supposing that the "other" had more evils to undo
invariably saw more ghosts in their cemetaries. Thus at Wasabuckt, on the
Bras D'Or Lakes of Cape Breton, the Roman Catholics always said that"...the
Protestant cemetary swarmed with ghosts...The immediate neighbourhood
was not considered safe even in broad daylight..."

The reality of ghost was also admitted in the Protestant camp. The
Reverand Rev. Dean Cooper, a one-time cleric at Fredericton, New Brunswick,
admitted "Yes I was called to perform the right of exorcism in Fredericton
with the authority of the Bishop and following the form prescribed in the
Church. The family concerned are very responsible people...I became
thoroughly convinced that...some kind of "other world" activity was taking
place in (their) house..."

Although Cooper followed prescribed form Helen Creighton makes

these suggestions concerning the tannas: "as to the way to lay a ghost, the
method is often the same as that used in witchcraft. In comparing the
two...it looks as though witches are more easily controlled than
ghosts...Witches...are always evil in their intentions whereas ghosts may
appear for a variety of purposes..."

TARBH UISGE

A water spirit, typically seen in the form of a bull.

Gaelic tarbh (pronounced tar-ev), a bull; uisge, water. A water-bull

similar to the Anglo-Teutonic bullerman. These confer with bull-beggar,
bugleboo, bugaboo, bugbear and the Gaelic bogle (which, see).

The MacLeods had this animal as their totem, which may explain their
name, derived from the Old Norse "liot", "an ugly one". The black bull was a
very ancient symbol of Scottish royalty and a beheaded bull was presented,
as an explicit omen, on the table of a king whose powers were failing. The
Scots were in the habit of transferring all the sins, diseases and guilt of
their community to a king destined for death, thereby taking it to earth with
his cremated corpse. A black bull's head was set before a young Douglas
chief just before his summary execution at Edinburgh in 1440, and the
Mackintosh used the entry of this dish as a signal to cut down their Cummins'
guests. At a much earlier date, the druids are said to have sacrificed bulls
to unspecified sea-gods, a procedure that continued in the west highlands of
Scotland until well into the last century. Mannhardt supposed that human and
animal sacrifices released god-spirits from carnate form, their periodic
return to the earth being necessary to invigorate it for crop growth and the
health of animals that depended upon vegatation for food. This seems
supported by the fact that bull was named as one of the kern, or corn,
spirits. When the grain crop was luxurious in a part of the field men would
say "the bull lies in the corn."

Diabolical possession and exorcism remain a part of some Christian

traditions. In County Fermanagh, Ireland a Catholic priest made a notable
effort to help to troubled young girls but they were not freed of evil spirits
until the family "retreated to America". One Irish immigrant to Cape Breton
learned that not all of the "ghaists and gobbles" were halted thy the power of
"the vast stream" (the Atlantic). After Old Man riley was a few months in
the New Worls her approached his village priest at Saint Peters. He told
Father Henry McKeagney, that he was in "some trouble", having sold his soul
to the Devil while still resident in Ireland. OLd Scratch had just appeared to
him, he claimed, saying that the contract still had to be honoured. He
implored the priest to help, and being a decent man, the father put on his
vestments, and "accompanied by a Frenchman carrying a blessed candle"
marched out to Riley's place where he was met by "a great squall of wind."
His Satanic Highness came down off the steep hill behind the house "in guise
of a big black bull." The priest was a little surprised but held his ground,
and after calling up the usual Christian god spells, demanded that Riley's soul
be surrendered to God. At this the bull became "a great long-eared black
dog", that argued the case with the priest. The priest won more points for
the dog "took off over the bay".
TANGY

A water-spirit found in the intertidal zone living amidst tang

or fucus.

Anglo-Saxon, also tangey or tyangie. Dialectic English of

Scandinavian origin. Confers with the Danish tang, the Old Norse pang and
the English word tangle. All refer to seaweeds of the geni Ascophyllum and
Fucus, the species called Fucus vesiculosis being known as black tang.
Tangy, or tangie, refers to either the sharp, tart pinching taste of these
seaweeds or the spirit that resided in them on the island of Orkney.

Like the kelpie, who lived in the kelp beds, this creature cpould take the
form of any marine plant or animal, an ability gifted on it by the sea-giants.
These sea-horses were commonly referred to as the eich uisge in the Gaelic
tongue. They often came ashore as young horses or ordinary men and
women. In a playful mood, they often invited humans to mount them and
carried them on a ferocious ride that ended with a ducking in some nearby
fresh-water stream. They had kin among certain clans and these they
warned from the possibilty of drowning by setting up corpse-light over the
water or moaning after the fashion of a banshee. Those without this useful
connection were warned against mounting this kind when they were at the
seaside for they were capable of rape and murder, the male tangie especially
so since he had an oversized sexual apparatus. The sea-horses seemed
maddened in sight of the deep sea and invariably carried their victim to a
drowning afterwards consuming every part of his body excepting the liver. In
some repects this creature corresponds with the nuck (which, see), which
sometimes shape-changed into a horse.

NS, Moser's River, BG, p. 142: the sea-weed man, see also p. 139.

TEOMUL

The incarnate spirit-helper of the individual man or woman.

An exact equivalent of the Gaelictaibsh, which is the the English

cowalker, shadow man or nornir. A spirit gifted upon individuals at birth by
the Great Spirit; the source of all magic, and variously perceived by
recipients. Most men had to make the “spirit-hunt,” for this helper which
often took the form of a shadow, a tiny duplicate, an invisible humanoid or a
totem plant or animal. Also “an Indian charm.”

The magician named L’kimu (he who sends out) was so named for his
dependence on his “spirit-helper:” Ulgimoo (his true name) was a great
magician and one of his principal sources of magic was the pipe. His store of
tobacco would sometimes become exhausted, but his teomul, which in his
case was keeonik (the otter) would go along distance and bring him back any
amount he desired.”

Francis Parkman has refereed to the teomul as a “guardian

manitou,” but this is not entirely appropriate, the mentou being the guardian
of magicians who have a suspecr humanity. This spiritual ally was usually
gained at puberty by Indian boys who retired to a solitary place where they
went without food. Exhaustion, abstinence and the suspension of disbelief
usually led to troubled dreams haunted by visions. The first form seen here,
beast or objecvt, was taken as a personal totem. An eagle or bear was a
looked-for vision as it foretold that the man would be a warrior. The
appearance of a wolf indicated a future hunter, while a snake foretold that
the person would be a medicine man. Certain objectsseen in the dream were
thought to foretell an inescapable hostile future. The young Indian, advised
of his charm, afterwards wore some part of plant, animal or stone about his
personm as his “medicine.” The Indian was guided by its dream advice,
propitiated it with tobacco smaoke, thanked it for prosperity, and cursed it
for personal disasters.

TIGHEARNAS

The "ghost" or incarnate spirit of the Christian creator God.

Gaelic, An Tighearnas, the One God; the Christian Trinity: Father, Son
and Holy Ghost. See God.

TOM CAT

The spirit of male promiscuity and trickery.

Middle English, a contraction of Thomas, a common man as contrasted

with a gentleman + cat, a word of doubtful origin but possibly Celtic.
Sometimes entitled Old Tom, i.e. the Devil.

One cannot say that the mythic Twm Shone Catti of Wales is the
prototype but he represents the species: He was born at Tregaron in the
Shire of Cardigan in the sixteenth century and took up thievery before
becoming a rich man, justice of the peace and mayor of Brecon. Early in his
career as a thief Twm visited an iron-monger, pretended interest in a pot,
but insisted there was a hole in. Indignent, the smith lifted the vessel above
his head and peered at it, but could see no defect. At this, Tom pushed the
container firmly over the man's head and while he struggled to free himself
removed the rest of his stock-in-trade.

According to some authorities Tom was the illegitimate son of Sir John
Wynn of Gwedir, by the woman named Catharine Jones. He was christened
Tom Jones but was better known as the Twm Catti. Between the ages of
eighteen and nineteen he took up stealing to escape from poverty and the
demands of his mother. It was said that his disguises were beyond
numbering; sometimes he appeared as a cripple; sometimes as a crone;
sometimes as an out-oof-luck soldier. By no means a specialist at his art, he
was particularly interested in taking animals, and was adroit at disguising
them, so that he was sometimes able to sell the animals back to their
owners. Attempts to apprehend him were futile, he was never at home when
people came looking for him. If he was at home he was always incognito. A
farmer who had lost a bullock to Tom once came to his door to be greeted by
a miserable hag sitting on a stone bench near the doorway. "Does Tom Catti
live here?' asked the farmer. "Indeed, yes!" replied the indigent. "Is he at
home?" "Ohyes, He is at home." "Then will you hold my horse by the bridle
while I seek him?" The crone did so. The man dismounted made a thorough
search of the house and came back to the stone bench to find it littered with
a woman's clothing. His horse was, of course, missing! Riding to the
farmer's house in a new disguise Tom told the farmer's wife that he had been
sent for 5o pounds case to extricate the poor man from legal difficulties.
The wife seeing that the strangerr had her husband's horse and whip gave up
the money and Tom left Wales for several months.

Tom was widely known as a thief but he was free with his money in
helping the poor and he often ingratiated himself with potential victims with
his abilities at song, dance and humour.
A little later, Tom came upon a lady at the hands of a highwayman. A
handy man with a sword, Tom killed the robber and conducted the good-wife
back to the home of her husband. The couple invited him to stay over, and
the man of the house being in his cups, Tom treated the lady to a "pentillion
about her face, ankles and the tips of her ears." In the process he managed
to extract a promise from her that she would re-marry him in case her
current husband died. Afterwards this happened as promised and Tom
became the lord of Strath Feen, a pleasant valley by the River Towey. At
first Tom was refused by this independent woman who was not keen on
taking up with a thief. At her entreaty he left her home and took up
residence in a cnoc or "sugar-loaf" mountain just within Shiire Car. One who
had visited this place (in 1850) described it as "in a very queer situation;
steep rocks just above it, Towey river roaring below." There Tom set himself
up in his usual business but after a time decided to make one last foray
against the widow. Arriving outside her window, which was barred with an
iron grill, he left out a pitful wail that caught her attention. Coming to the
window she demanded that he make his case quickly and move on. Given this
leeway, Tom cried out, "I am come to bid you one eternal farewell and have
but one request to make, which is that you extend your hand so that I may
impress upon it one last burning kiss." the woman hesitated a bit, but
flattered, at last extended her arm through the bars. Tom caught the limb
and his expression changed, "I have you now, "he said flatly, "and you'll not
move from here without a solemn oath that you'll be my wife." "Never!" said
the lady, "Never will I become the wife of a common thief." Drawing his
sword, Tom stared the woman in the eye and responded, "Very well, will it be
your hand or your arm?" The lady being cowed and having some fondness for
Tom then swore to marry and thus became a man of means. As justice of
Camarthenshire he was an extremely able man, noting that if he could not
take "car" (booty) then no other should have it

TOMMY KNOCKER

An earth spirit bound to a mine or earth-cavern.

Gaelic, tom, tufted; + cnoc, hill, such as that favoured by the Daoine
sidh (which, see). The first word has come into the Scottish vernacular as
toom, confering with tomb, a hollow place. Hence the knockers that dwell in
mines and caverns. Similar to the house-dwelling knowie-booh, or knocky-
booh. The English word tommy was applied to soldiers in both World Wars
had reference to their toom-shaped helmets. By association, a tommy came
to be recognized as any individual who offered his labour in exchange for
little more than food or clothing. In Gaelic lands, he was called the bodach
na' cnoc, or bodach of the hollow-hills.

The local tommy knockers correspond with the wichtlein (little wights)
of Southern Germany. Keightley says they were "about three-quarters of an
ell (33") high. Their appearance is that of old men with long beards. They
haunt the mines, and are dressed like miners, with a white hood to their
shirts and leather aprons, and are provided with lanterns, mallets and
hammers. They amuse themselves by pelting the workmen with small
stones but do them no injury, except when they are abused and cursed at.
They show themseleves especially where there is an abundance of ore, and
then the miners are glad to see them; they flit about in pits and shafts and
appear to work very hard, though they in reality do nothing. sometimes they
are seen as if working a vein, at other times putting the ore into buckets, at
other times working at a windlass, but all is show. They frequently call, but
when one comes there is no one there. At Kattenburg, in Bavaria, they are
very common and they announce the death of a miner by knocking three
times, and also knock three times when any misfortune is about to happen."

These spirits are mentioned briefly in Bluenose Magic:, A miner at

Springhill told Helen Creighton, "I've heard of Tommy Knockers having been
heard before an accident. Men have often seen lights before an accident and
they would quit and come up." Again at Stellarton, Nova Scotia, a resident
suggested, "If miners heard a certain tapping in the mine they would close it
down and stop work for the day." A third respondent from Port Mounton
said that the "knockers" were known in Queens County mines.

Completely typical is a tale that came from the Mount Pleasant tin
mine in Charlotte County, a hard rock mine that is now closed. Igneous rock
mines are generally less susceptible to cave-in than coal mines, but this one
was penetrated by vertical cracks filled with white clay and fluorine crystals.
When surface water created a washout of this material there was some
danger than a miner might be buried or drowned. In this instance, two miners
were working at reinforcing the timberred roof of a kaolin "plug" when three
determined tapping noises were heard. Since the incident took place in
"modern times", these fellows were not superstitious and probably knew
nothing of tommy-knockers. They would probably have ignored this warning
if they had not been pelted with rock shards. Thinking that other miners
were "having their fun" they charged up the tunnel to do battle, but found
nothing in the darknesss. Behind them they heard the swoosh of water as an
underground lake emptied into the portion of the mine where they had stood.
 A less usual tale was that of Lazy Lew and the "Devil's imps". This
miner was employed in the Maccan coal mine which used to be found a mile
west of Maccan River. This mine was opened in eighteen sixty one and
extracted about twenty tons of coal each day. While working underground
Lew claimed he had contracted witha devil, perhaps the Devil, to exchange his
soul for help at work. Lew's co-workers thought this a pitiful tale but were
surprised when the miner commenced to send up twelve carts of ore per day
where his former record had been four. It was evident that something was
helping Lew as ordinary men were only able to produce six in a working day.
A burly miner agreed to spy out the situation and arrived at the "front" to
find Lew lying at ease, his hands behind his head, while the eerie sound of
several picks was heard knocking away the coal. After coal was slid down
the balance intop the level, Lew moved to help in filling the cart, but other
invisible shovels were heard in the piles of coal. Lew's life style changed for
the better but on one shift no cars came up from "the devil's workshop".
Fearing the worst, men rushed to the rescue and found a solid wall of coal
filled in across the mouth of the level. They dug in it and rescued Lew, who
following hospitalization, quit the mine. THe bodachs of the mine, he
explained, had become frantic workaholics and hemmed him in with coal,
almost claiming his soul.

Creighton reveals the fact that, "Tommy Knockers used to be heard in

the mines in Queen's County (Nova Scotia)..." In the Springhill coal mines they
were routinely heard before disasters. "Men have often seen lights before
an accident and they would quit and come up. Before Christams if one were
killed there seemed to be three...In Stellarton (Pictou County, N.S.) if miners
heard a certain tapping in the mine they would come up and stop work for
that day." In his History of the Great Disaster At Springhill Mines, R.A.H.
Morrow adds that "Distant rumblings, sepulcheral voices, human beings with
flaming fireheads and spectre-like visages, clattering hoofs and other unique
surroundings, are more than convincing that if this place is not the abode of
"the angels which kept not their first estate, " it is certainly not the paradise
of the righteous..."

In the Cumberland coal mines a mine horse named Spot-Spot hauled

thirteen coal cars up and down the slope in one of the seams. Encountering
invisible tommy-knockers the animal refued to move forward and the roof
caved in trapping the unfortunate animal but saving the lives of those who
tried to get him to move. After that the mine managerr found himself paced
by footsteps whenever he entered the mine. When he stopped in his tracks,
the following steps ceased and when he took up he was certain he was paced
by an unseen being. For their part, the miners insisted that they saw a
recurring ghost of the old horse complete with boxcars.

The natural caves of Atlantic Canada are often regarded as entrances

to the underworld and they are more extensive than most people would
suppose. The existence of subterranean passages connecting the St.
Lawrence River with the Bay of Fundy is suggested in legend. In addition, the
Indians claimed that underground trails could be followed from at least two
caves on the Fundy shore to similar “gates” on the Atlantic Ocean. There
was also supposed top be a west to east passage through the Cobequid
Mountains from Glooscap’s old haunts at Five Islands to an exit somewhere in
the vicinity of Wentworth, Nova Scotia. This cavern was even rumoured to
pass on eastwrd to an ultimate exit somewhere in Pictou County.

Unless it is believed that men can move through rock like the horned-
serpent people, men can only pass from place-to-place by way of caves in
the earth. Cave do not usually form in volcanic rock, such as the black
basalt that underlies almost all of the Bay of Fundy. In a typical case,
caverns form from the dissolution and weathering of soft sedimentary rocks
such as limestone and dolomite. Some caves are also formed by water
moving through salt and gypsum but only a few are shaped during the cooling
of lava, through the physical shifting of rocks and earth or by the action of
wind, waves, or ice.

We do have a fair quantity of soft rocks in the region and there are
examples of karst topography which points to a subterranean world. In
Maritime Canada most of these sites are within the central eastern lowlands
of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, once the location of a great isolated
inland sea. The geologic term used above refers to all countryside
resembling that found at Karst, in Austria. In that place there is a limestone
plateau marked by sinkholes interspersed with with abrupt ridges and
protuberant rocks. Beneath the surface are limestone caves and swift-
flowing underground streams which are responsible for the subsidence of
surface rocks.

Canadian karst regions and their caves are hardly pristine, since they
were repeatedly over-ridden by glaciers in the last million years. A sliding,
scouring glacier is capable of destroying almost any landform and of lowering
its prolife, filling low areas and burying caverns beneath huge quantities of
natural landfill. The northeastern bedrock of Quebec is the base for the so-
called Laurentian Shield, the softer sedimentary rocks of Atlantiic Cnada
being piled upon these, layer-by-layer. These core rocks are mainly igneous
rocks, congealed from molten matter or insoluble maetamorphic rocks,
former igneous rocks which have been subjected to great heat and pressure.
There are no caverns in these solid basement rocks, but the other geological
provinces to the north, east and south have hollow hills to varying degrees.

In the far north, on the shores of Hudsons Bay, pre-glacial karst

features have actually been found but only one cave of minor dimensions has
been discovered to date. Dozens of caves have been found on both side of
the Gatineau River in metasmorphic limestones, which are named the
Grenville Marbles. These caves are geologically young, all having been formed
by the water passing through them since the time of the last glacier, and
none face on the Atlantic Ocean.

The province known as the St, Lawrence Platform is south-east of the

Grenville Platform and parallels the St. Lawrence River. It consists largely of
flat-bedded limestones. Some interesting caves are found in the rocks here
all the way from Montreal to the Saguenay River. A few small caves are
known to exist on Montreal Island, but they have long since been land-filled or
blasted out of existence. The cave with the most interesting name is
perhaps Le Trou de fee de Desbiens, “The Cave of Desbien’s Fairy,” a tourist
attraction south of Lake St. John, which hosts 10,000 to 15,000 visitors
each year. This cave is described as “very scenic with waterfalls, rapids and
impressive gorges.” At that the cave is only 38 metres deep and 68 metres
long. There are more of these limestones beneath Havre-St. Pierre and
neighbouring Annticosti Island. At the turn of the century the island
belonged to Henri Meunier, who made a fortune in chocolates. It was
reserved from 1926 to 1974 by Consolidated Bathurst, who reserved it for
use as a private hunting and fishing preserve, and finally was bought by the
Quebec government. It has been ascertained that the upper reaches of the
Salmon River, which is found on Anticosti, flows through 16 kilometers of
underground caverns that have not yet been explored. Forty miles north of
this location are the associated Mingan Islands, famous for sea-caves, small
limestone islands, and interesting wave-cut features.

The last platform between these structures and the Continental Shelf
also contains limestones and is termed the Appalachian Platform. Three
caves are located in the Gaspe region of this platform, the best known being
Le Trou des perdus, “The Cave of the Lost Ones.” This cave is situated in
the remenants of an ancient coral reef northeast of Lake Temiscouta and
extends for 245 metres underground “in a complex maze of elliptical tunnels
lined with incredibly sharp rock blades.” A stream flows through this cave
ultimately emptying into a 3-foot deep pool. Although there are no stalacites
present there are numerous showy fossil coral-animals which can be seen
embedded in the cave walls. The cave is difficult to locate, thus the name.

A second important cave is found at the foot of the Notre Dame

Mountains, west of Lake Matapedia, near the village of La Redemption. There
is evidence that this underground was formed in pre-glacial times thus it has
been found to be free of water but partially plugged with boulders, mud, sand
and gravel. The deepest cave remaining here is 43 metres deep by 304
metres , a place called Le Speos, or “The Temple.” Like other nearby
structures this chamber sometimes gathers water from the nearby
mountains and when it does it takes on the aspect of a muddy football field.
This cave was inadvertently discovered by a prospector who excavated the
entrance while looking for asbestos.

The most intriguing cave has to be St. Elzear where cave-explorers

have found chambers 30 metres or more in diameter (the largest cave is 38
metres by 244). The entrance is a 10 metre shaft, and the presence of
moose, bear and other animal bones at its bottom show that it has proven to
be a death-trap in times past. Here again is a pre-glacial cave with typical
collapsed rooms. The place is thought to be extensive but was not totally
explored at this writing.
The solution caves of New Brunswick may number three dozen, but
many are truly “lost caves,” whose location is no longer known. Professor
L.W. Bailey said he was not aware of any caverns in the limestones of Silurian
age that band the northwestern part of the province. He did, however,
notice that “a stream of considerable volume discharges (at Grand Falls)
from the face of a cliff only a few yards below the face of the (Grand Falls)
cataract.” George Druper, the one-time postmaster at Campbell
Settlement in York County noted that a cavern was reputed to exist in this
same formation near Waterville (opposite Hartland on the Saint John River).
“...there is a hole that if one throws a stone into it, they can hear it rattle
as if it went from one to two hundred feet.”

A less likely report comes from Archibald Settlement, northwest of

Bathurst, a village situated on volcanic basalts. Here Mrs. W. R. MaMillan
insisted that there is “an underground lake or deep stream...A number of
years ago a man was digging a well, and at a depth of about eighteen feet the
bottom fell out, leaving him standing on a ledge of rock. He tried a pole
around, and could not reach any sides or bottom to the water. Two or three
years ago, when boring for water on higher ground, about 300 yards away, a
pond of water was struck at what was supposed to be the same level as the
other.” This may have be plausible considering that the volcanics were
deposited “in shallow submarine environments,” later filled with softer
rocks.

There are a series of small caverns along the course of Corbett’s

Brook, which is a small tributary of the Saint John River just below
Fredericton. Bailey found that one of these cavities was “sufficiently large
to accomodate not less than fifteen persons. Some are remarkable for their
cleft-like character. He notes that the caves are “several rods from the
stream and twenty or thirty feet above its level. At a site, “a considerable
distance from the caves described above,” this searcher stumbled upon a
reamrkable square hole seemingly cut from solid rock. It was seen to have
vbertical sides each fourteen feet wide and fouretten feet deep. the bottom
of the depression was filled with earth and on it small trees were growing.
these reminded hi,m of similar so-called “rock-houses seen in the
escarpment-valleys of Kentucky and Virginia, but there they have definite
entrances and signs of human habitation, which was not the case here.

On Penniac Stream a branch of the Nasshwaak River, Bailey saw

vertical holes, “fifty or more feet in depth,” but they seemed more clearly
natural in origins. He also located “several curious holes,” at Swan Creek
Lake in Sunbury County on a bluff forty feet high. “These run in horizontally
eight or ten feet, the openings to them being about two feet wide. In front
of these openings is a narrow ledge or path.” these were probably animal
burrows.

In neighbouring Queens County, at Newcastle, this same writer speaks

of finding cavities while drilling for coal: “The diamond drill at a depth of
between one hundred and two hundred feet suddenly dropped several feet
and upon withdrawl was followed by a fountain of water several feet high.
This continued to play for several months and similar phenomena have been
observed elsewhere.
 There is a bit of northwestern limestone arcing about the granitic
base on which St. Stephen stands, allowing for a report that, “Goat Brook
(near Lynnfield) is an underground stream for some distance.” For the most
part, however, the southern and western highlands of the province are
constructed of volcanic rock which is not subject to fast weathering and
erosion and offers few places where caves might develop. The central and
eastern lowlands, on the other hand, are of Permian age and consist of the
soft rocks of which legend is made. Bathurst is at the northernmost limit of
an old salt-sea basin which once extended all across Prince Edward Island as
far south as north-central Nova Scotia. Two arms of this salt-water sea
once intruded between New Brunswick mountains as far southwest as
Brockway in Charlotte County and Bayswater, in Kings County. The cities of
Fredericton and Moncton both sit upon these old sedimentary beds.

Approximately 320 million years ago, in what geologists call the

Carboniferous age, this region was arid and desert-like, the Bay of Fundy
existing as an upland, which fed sediments into this vast land-locked saline
sea. As the water evaporated various salts were preciptated at the bottom
of the sea, and are, in part, the resource now being mined as potash at
Penobsquis and Sussex. As it comes from the mine the raw ore is about 45%
potash, 50% salt and 5% clay and associated minerals. With so much soluble
salt it is obvious that strip mining would be impractical since rainwater would
soon create a vast field of slurry. In addition the main potash bodies are
located at depths of 300 to 800 metres. L.W. Bailey, noted saline springs
“near Sussex and at Salt Spring Brook,”at the turn of the century, but
concluded that there were “no actual beds of rock-salt known to exist.” He
thought this led to the conclusion that there could be no underground
caverns of much size. We now know this is far from the case, since the
Penobsquis mine has had to deal with the emptying of at least one
subterranean lake into its shafts.

The city of Saint John is similarly situated on “highly deformed

Precambrian volcanic and sedimentary rocks,” reputed to hold caverns.
Bailey noted that samll caverns “have frequently been laid open in the course
of quarrying operations both here and in Charlotte County.” This geologist
noted that the dolomites and limestones of the region sometimes had a
hollow ring when stamped upon and said that, “at Brookville...holes exist in
which, if stones be introduced, these may be found to drop a considerable
distance before striking bottom. Professor (W.F.) Ganong also informs me
that, as a boy, he was acquainted with a good cave in the rear of Lily Lake,
the dimensions of which he cannot now recall. But probably the most
interesting excavation is that of Oliver’s Cave, on the Sandy Point Road,
about two miles from St. John. It is evidently an old underground water
course, now left dry...and is of considerable size.” This cave is now known
as Howes Cave and has been measured at 80 by 13 metres. When Donald
MacAlpine went there in 1976 he found that it had been visited: “This cave
is strew with broken glasss, paper and plastic, and many of the walls have
been disfigured with etched names and spray-painted graffiti.” A similarly
vandalized cave was subsequently seen at Greenhead. It was described as
having an entrance on a cliff face. A third in the Saint John region was
Harbells Cave, entered near “an active sinking stream in Rockwood Park.”

Six caves are known to exist in neighbouring Kings County and the most
interesting from a mythological standpoint may be Kitts Cave, an active
stream bearing cavern in the limestone of the Kennebecasis Valley. This
cavern may correspond with Glooscap’s summer oogatol , or “encampment,”
may be located at a rock cleft known as the Minister’s Face, which is on Long
Island directly across from East Riverside , northwest of the Brothers Indian
Reserve. This cavern is known to be more than 150 metres in length. W.O.
Raymond described the “Face” as “rather a remarkable promnotory... At its
base the water is 220 feet deep, the greatest depth found on the entire
(Saint John) river.” Long Island itself is on the longest, highest and largest
island in the river system, and the perpendicular cliff is on the north side
opposite the town. The island is represented as a sedimentary structure on
my small scale geologic map, but it lies unconformably near mainland pre-
Cambrain structures on the north side of the river, and these are among
the oldest basalts and rhyolites in the province. Raymond says the
Ministers Face “marks the crater of an extinct volcano,” and this quite
probably shows on larger scale maps.

Another cut in this same formation is found “about the tributaries of

the Hammand River.” One of these was explored by Bailey in 1903. He and
his friend Professor C.F. Hart penetrated “several hundred feet” into the
ground, but Bailey said he was unable to recall “anything definite” about the
locale or the cave itself. This cave does not appear to be mentioned in
modern literature. Also unknown, at present, are Adam’s Oven, “on a
mountain facing French Village.” This place was said to be entered by an
opening on the side of the mountainn, but it also had a “smoke-hole,” at the
top. About three miles from this location Bailey said that there was a third
cave “on the Charles Darling property. The cave itself is very long and
certainly formed by nature.”

Four caves cluster about Sussex, and there are probably more. In
heavy rain and underground river may be heard rushing by the south wall of
our home on Court Street, while adjacent Paradise Row has to be filled
annually to prevent subsidence from carrying it away. It is a fact of life that
Main Street is undermined in the Mercantile Block. Town workers have tolfd
me that a light directed into spring pot holes has shown foundation stones
and brickwork on the far side of the street. A worker who attempted to
plumb one of this openings lost his shovel. Again, stones dropped into these
crevasses make no sound of striking for an uncannily long time. The
solution, in the past, has been to patch landfill in place with liberal doses of
asphalt.

An interesting variation on a theme is the Waterford Ice Caves near

the ski-resort of Poley Mounatin. Mrs. W.E.S. Flewelling noted that there
were “eight deep holes or bottomless pits two or three miles from the
village/ Here too was “the noted ice cave, where ice keeps all summer.” The
Parlee Brook Cave is closer Sussex and unlike the above is described as “an
active stream formation.” The Glebe Pot appears to be north-west of this
last location and is a 15 by 13 metres ground-kettle. The Hamilton Cave is
the most westerly of these four caves and is not much larger than the
previously named formation.

Historically, there were caverns associated with Colonel Alfred

Markham’s caves at Markhamville and Dutch Valley, but these have not
received much attention since Victorian times. Markham himself said that
he found them “very irregular in size and shape, with more or less water
running through them. Some had openings to the surface in ravines having
small openings which widened into irregular chambers ten to fifty feet wide
and six to twenty feet high. They then narrowed again into small passages,
some showing manganese in small irregular patches embedded in the rocks at
the top, sides and bottom.”

Markham found some of the caves closed by earth, but he had

workmen open them in an attempt to find minerals. Apparently they were
successful as he recovered “more than ten tons of Manganese ore out of
the alluvium, sometimes from under more than ten feet of earth.” Like
Waterford some of the caves had ice in place “in the month of July.”
Markham noticed that this was the case with a cave “immediately in back of
my home at Markhamville.” He said that this one was “a narrow slit in the
rock, into which a boy can crawl fifty feet or more. It delivers a small
stream of pure ice-cold water all the year round, the volume of which is not
much affected by heavy rains. The hill above it is probably 200 feet (rise) in
500 yards.”

The most interesting underground is found further east in Albert

County where there is a good deal of Karst topography with caverns to
match. The subsidence here is due to the presence of gypsum and limestone
deposits not far below the surface. The baest view of the spirited landscape
is 1.5 miles north of the Albert Mines road where Highway 114 intersects
with the road south of Hopewell Cape. The roofs of most underground
caverns have subsided with actually collapsing, but in a few places they have
collapsed, leaving more or less circular depressions filled with water

There is an ice cave not far from Havelock Corner. A stream

associated with it dips below the ground for a distance of about one mile. In
the last century Dr. David Van B. Thorne reputedly took a line and went 300
yards into the cave, bringing out “a huge lump of ice in July.” Bailey noted
that gypsum beds were to be found near Hillsborough as well as at Upham in
Kings County, and at the Tobique in Victoria County. “In each of these cases
the district immediately surrounding the deposits is remarkable for the
evidence of (natural) removal. These are usually in the form of pits or sink-
holes, though subterranean passages also exist. Near the plaster hills of
Hillsborough the ground is honeycombed in places with such narrow
intervening walls as to make passage both difficult and dangerous.

Mr. C.J. Osman, the one-time manager of Albert Manufacturing Comany

said that the plaster measure was up to fifty feet in depth and guessed that
the depressions in the rock were effects of “the percolation of water
through seams and fisures in the rock.” At a location within the quarry
property Dr. W.F. Ganong found ice pits and a “subterranean lake,” possibly
the same lake which Donald McAlpine later spoke of as “The Underground
Lake.” When ganong visited this place he noted several feet of snow on the
floor “in the latter part of July.”

The mine manager said there was a second underground lake at

Demoiselle Creek which is about four miles due south of Hillsborough. This
cavern about 40 feet in width and 200 feet in length was thought to be an
inadvertent creation of mining.
 The “Stewart Ridge Cave,”which was explored in 1979 by Marc and
Chris Majka is about 10 miles west of Hillsborough at Berryton. The entrance
is near the top of a ridge extending from Stuart Mountain. A smaller cave
opens 10 metres from this opening. The main cave was described as long
and straight in one dimension and six metres high. Unlike most poost-glacial
cavewrns, this one showed stalacties, hollow tubes of rock which form in
icicle-like fashion from dripping rock-water solutions. Donald McAlpine
refers to this as the Turtle Creek Cave and says it is more than 300 metres
in length. The length is correct but he appears to have confused this cave
with one on the Turtle Creek which is much nearer Moncton. Bailey and Hart
visited this cave at the turn of the century and referred to it as being on the
Coverdale River, possibly because Turtle Creek exits at Coverdale. He
found that it contained animal bones, “mostly deer or moose...”

The only other cavein Albert County is called The Rift or Acadia
Cavern. McAlpine refers to it as a tectonic cave arising through gravity
sliding in Fundy Park. He is illusive about its location but says it is “accesible
and dangerous to enter.” If this is within the Devil’s Half Acre, as we
suspect, then it would be very unstable indeed, a temporary pocket produced
by frost wedging and erosion.

We have left the “longest known cave in the Maritimes,” for final
notice. It is named Archie’s Hole and may have included the ice-caves
entered by Thorne near Havelcok. The Havelock mineral springs arise in the
Mississippian rocks of this region, and the limestone was formerly mined by
the Canada Cement Company. They owned the property in which Archie’s
Hole was located, and by that time it had become legendary as a place where
pets were lost, appearing many days after at some distant point of the
compass. Mine management was never concerned about this, but when a
teenage girl became confused and entrapped by the complex of tunnels in
1973, they sealed the entrance. This cave was never mapped or fully
explored but is known to be more than 2,700 meters in length (this
compares with 15,200 meters for the longest cave in Canada). Attempts
were made by the Nova Scotia Speleological Society to have it opened for
exploration in 1977, but the company feared legal liability in case of an
accident and it remained closed. Since then the cement works have closed
and the Society appears to be inactive.

` The Nova Scotia Speleological Society made a survey of Nova Scotian

caves when it was organized in 1963. In this they had the help of an early
caver named Walter Prest, who was seeking caves for the Nova Scotia
Institute of Sciences about the year 1911. He was not terribly active
centering his interest on three caves in Hants County “all within easy reach
of town and railway.” The true-blue cavers were able to expand on that list,
largely by consulting tour guides and geologic maps.

In northern Cumberland County they noted the Maiden’s Cave, located

at Black Point near Parrsboro. This is a sea-carved cavern comparable with
“The Caves” at St. Martins and those at “The Ovens,” in Lunenburg County.
According to tradition, this place got its name from a maiden who was sealed
into it after she refused the advances of a pirate captain. It is said that her
cries can occasionally be heard from this indentation, and it is hardly more
than that, having been reduced to 7 meters of depth by water erosion. In
Cumberland there was said to be “an interesting cave,” in gypsum cliffs
overlooking a lake near Oxford. The presence of sinkholes there and at
Lower Maccan has led to the supposition that are probably caves in these
regions.

In Colchester County karts is seen near the mouth of the Shubenacadie

River, and sinkholes have been noted near the village of Smithfield. In 1893
Fletcher reported “caves springs, and natural bridges among the great
deposits of gypsum and limestone which occur on the south side of the river
towards Pembroke.”

Within neighbouring Pictou County, the Geological Survey of Canada

(1890) located “a cave capable of seating a congregation on a rough branch
of the Millorona off Florida Road.” Later cavers were unable to interpret
these directions but some thought this cave might correpond with Fisher’s
Refrigerator, sometimes called the Pioneer cave, which is located two miles
south of McLellan’s Brook. This cave was formerly entered through a
wooden door set in the hillside. The place was once used for storage, and
possibly as summer housing. It is about 50 meters long and terminated in a
small room now half-filled with water.

Hants county is immediately south of Cumberland and has an extensive

underworld. When Prest visited Millr’s Creek Cave, 4 miles east of Windsor,
he found its entrance buried by rubble at the headwaters of the Creek.
Securing a lantern, a guide and tools, the explorer climed the immense cone
of weathered rock and slid into the entrance backwards. He found the
passage almost choked with rock, but was able to proceed although he found
the muddy floor difficult to traverse. Suddenly the cave seemed to expand
and a pond was seen in the lantern light. Prest estimated the dimensions at
200 x 80 x35 feet of height. He observed that they were uinable to follow
the main water-course due to mud on the floor and because it came to a
vertical ascent. Visitors later noted that the two sides of the cavern
disassembled into “a maze of passsageways.” While Prest observed a
number of pools of water, Taschereau (1963) found them united in a single
lake 900 feet in length. In his day Prest noted the tendancy toward land
subsidence in Nova Scotia, and said that many sub-caverns had already been
lost to flooding from the groundwater or the ocean.

In 1959 a biologist from Acadia University came to the region looking

for bat caves and entered a cave which had superficial similarities to the
Miller’s Creek Cave but with drastically different interior dimensions. At its
largest, however, this cave was 31 feet in height and 17 feet high. In his
notes Prest had mentioned a connection between his cave and a smaller one,
but scientists visting both places in 1960 could find no sign of the “lost”
passage. Finally in 1965 a group of cavers “squeezed through a very narrow
carck on speculation that the lost passage lay beyond.” This proved to be
the case, and these caves are now referred to as Miller’s Cave #1 and
Miller’s Cave #2.

Five-Mile Creek Cave is located on a river of this name about 3 miles

east of Burton’s Crossing (Latties Brook). It is possibly the largest and best
known cave in Nova Scvotia. Prest (1915) described it as having a wide
mouth “slowly being blocked up by rock .” By the time he approached it the
opening was about 8 ffet high, but older residents told hgim it had been 20
feet tall easrlier on. Within Prest and his guides stood under a dome 150
feet wide and 60 feet high. “On the left were several ponds and water-holes,
all deep and transparent, reaching to the wall...the lower part of the cave
became muddy while the cave became higher and wider. Near the first sink
hole it must have been nearly, if not quite 200 feet wide, and the white
gypsum roof stretched almost flat, without support from one side to the
other. Great blocks of gypsum littered the floor and finally compelled us to
climb over them or squeeze through, bbetween, or beneath them. In climbing
over the boulders, the guide fell and and put one of our lanterns out of
commission. In so large a cave this was a great inconvenience, as the narrow
circle of light from the remaining lantern did not reach to either wall. The
wide and slightly arched roof continued for over 1,000 feet. Spreading from
wall to wall without a single support it seemed to me a marvel of natural
architecture. About 1,300 feet from the entrance the cave became so
obstructed that a passage was hard to find. Many aperatures were followed
a few yards, and then retraced. Everywhere the cave was large, but blocked
from top to bottom with fallen rock...”

Frenchman’s Cave is located on the north bank of the Wier Brook,

which is a branch of the St. Croix River. It is located about a mile northeast
of the village of St. Croix. The cave was first described by Prest (1915) as
the place of a torrential stream in rainy weather. When Calder and Bleakney
visited it several times in 1967 they found no evidence of raging water even
during heavy rains, but they were not there in spring at the time of the melt-
water run-off. These two found the entrance at the top of a 55 foot
sinkhole. The sinkhole measured 86 feet at the top but was diminished to 40
feet at the bottom by the presence of a talus slope within it. Again, a small
stream was found running into the cave which penetrated to about 145 feet.
By crawling the cavers were able to penetrate 165 feet where they found
the ceiling less than one foot high. Following the stream they found that the
ceiling dipped to low for further explorations.

Although these are the best-known caves in Hants County there is

mention in literature of a cave “near Millers Creek on the Kempt Shore and
one at Cheverie. Another group of cavers uncovered the entrance to an
underground somewhere between Maitland and South Maitland. They
described the entrance as “almost hidden by bushes.” Inside they found
“damp and dripping walls,” and little foothold at the edge of a pool “that
sounded very deep when we threw stones into it. I’ve no idea how far the
cave extended and soon lost any intention of finding out for this was a
fearsome spot if ever I saw one.” Only the first of these places has been
rediscovered.

As their are limestone deposits and signs of Karst formation all

through Hants County it is likely that there are many caves in addition to
those mentioned above. “Plaster” topography is well developed in the area
immediately behind Kings College, at Windsor. at Noel Lake, at Moosebrook,
along the Tennycape River, and at Walton, where gypsum was quarried.

Kings and Annapolis Counties have northern borders on the Bay of

Fundy. Here the basaltic North and South Mountain are dominant features
and there are few deposits of the sedimentary rocks typically associated
with cave formation. All the same it will be remembered that
Glooscap’soogatol was supposedly located within Blomidon, which is at the
extreme westward end of North Mountain. In addition there are “ambiguous
references,” to caves throughout this region. Will R. Bird was told about a
ceve at Dalhousie West, about 5 miles south of Bridgetown in the Annapolis
Valley. It was supposedly “six feet high inside and one hundred and fifty feet
long. They said Indians used to stay in it during the winters and that it had a
dry gravel floor. We asked a man in a field where the cave was and he said
he had no idea. He had lived in the place for ten years and had heard some
vague mention of a cave but knew no more about it...” In all we asked five
different persons and no one could tell us where to locate the cavern.”
In this same region there was also reputed to be a cave referred to as
the Bottomless Pit, “near the Vault Road back of Middleton.” This cave was
rediscovered in 1965 near the southern face of North Mountain when cavers
were drawn to it by a local newspaper story mentioning the fact that it had
been deliberately sealed one hundred years before. According to one version
of events the cave entrance was located within the sunken garden of
Timothy Ruggles, who deliberately felled a tree into it and earthed it up to
prevent accidents. Others say it was barricaded after an individual became
imprisoned there. As it happened, the explorers found it quite easily since a
spring freshet had reopened it. They found it a place that equalled its
legend: “It’s a very dangerous cave, with passages and chimneys descending
to unknown depths. Exploration was suspended until the group had an
opportunity to undergo thorough training in the handling and use of rope.
..The cave is a gigantic crack. A pit of unknown depth was crossed by the
spelunkers by laying down and using a narrow plank.” It was claimed that “a
serious assault on this cave is now going on (1965),” but we have no idea of
the outcome. This is a place very reminiscent of that which Indians said they
found when they went seeking Glooscap.

Antigonish County is east of Pictou, and has extensive limestone and

gypsum outcroppings. There are sinkholes at Crystal Cliffs, at and Lanark,
on St. George’s Bay, and at this last location drillers have penetrated
underground water channels. These locations are across the water from
Meadow Green, a notorious haunt of the little people. There are sinkholes at
Dumore in the south, not far from the “Fairy Hill” at Upper South River.
According to a resident it was, “a round hill in the middle of a broad plain... If
you’d go inside you’d be entertainmed by the fairies for seven years, then
you’d be returned in good condition.” There are small deposits of cave-ready
material in Guysboro and Halifax Counties but no caverns have been reported
from these counties.

In Luneburg County, on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, there are

sinkholes and a disappearing stream at Indian Point, East Baybut the only
caves are The Ovens, a group of sea-caves six miles southeast of
Lunenburg. Open to the public as part of the Ovens Natural Park, they are
Nova Scotia’s only commercial caves. There are ten in all,, the largest
measuring 18 feet in height by 40 feet of length. Legend insists that men
have entered this cavern at low tide and have travelled (presumably through
solid rock) by underground rivers to exits on the Annapolis shore. This route
remains lost to modern men but the legendary gold of the region was found
abobe the entrances to the caves in 1861. About 1600 prospectors were
attracted to the place in the ensuing rush but only a few profitted from the
gold retrieved mostly from alluvial washings and beach sand. The richest
placers were recovered from Cunard Cove and Rose Bay.

Cape Breton is a world unto itself, and here (excepting Blomidon) are
found the most interesting mythological caverns in the region. There are no
true caves in Cape Breton County, where the famed Cape Breton coal is
mines. Richmond County claims “several small caves, one of them ten feet
high and seven feet deep.” These supposedly occur at Robinson Cove.

The situation in Inverness County, which occupies the northwestern

shore, is more interesting: Here there was said to be a cave at McAskill
Brook (1885) near the village of Creignish Hills. A second cave, described as
“accesible for about twenty feet,” and was located at Skye Mountain, “on a
branch of Brigand Brook.” This mountain is due east of Lake Ainslie. A
third cave, located in 1881, was described as three feet high and ten
square...west of the track from Marble Mountain to Mackenzie Creek.” This
region is north of West Bay, Bras D’Or Lake. Marble Mountain has a long
history for encounters with the wee folk (see Helen Creighton’s notes
concerning fairies in Bluenose Magic, pp. 102-104). There is karst
topography two miles south of Mabou village which is southwest of Lake
Ainslie. This last location is less than 10 miles from Inverness, which has
been described as the penultimate home of the little people in colonial times.

Victoria County is the site of the even more famous Fairy Holes, once
inhabited by Glooscap and his mikumweesaq companions. They are located on
a peninsula between Great Bras D’Or Passage and St. Ann’s Bay, at a
distance of a mile west of Cape Dauphin. At this place there is a fault in the
earth’s crust and along it a band of carboniferous limestone has been folded
down into the earth, with a coal deposit on one side and much harder rock to
the west. This limestone forms a band of surface rock that cuts across
the Cape Dauphine from north to south emerging at New Campbellton and
Kelly Cove. In some places it is only 250 yards wide and never attains a mile
of width at any point. There are two triangles of this same rock emergent
on the northern shore about a mile west of the community of Cape Dauphine.

In 1876 a visiting geologist said: “This limestone is worn by the action

of the atmmosphere and the waves into numerous caverns of greater or
lesser depth. Two caves of large size occur here known as the Fairy Holes.
One of these is about fifteen feet high and twenty feet wide at the entrance,
which is only accessible at low tides. Ity ramifies the interior into numerous
long narrow chambers of sufficient size to admit a man in a stooped or
crawling posture, but rapidly contracting (with distance travelled). The cave
ascends toward the interior and then descends and branches into
compartments. Large blocks of limestone are strewn along the floor, mixed
with white clay and soft earth. No water is met with, and the roof and sides
are covered with a thin vegetable mould. Nom stalacites occir. A brook falls
into the sea a few feet west of the opening, and from this the cave is
approached at low tide when the wind is off shore.”

Geologist C. Robb added that the second Fairy Hole was found “fifty
yards to the west of the former.” This cave proved narrower and lower than
the first, but he found it “more interesting,” as it contained “a great
multitude of stalactites and stalagmites.” This cavern enterance admitted a
man standing upright but soon became a crawl space. Robb followed it into a
wider innner recess “where one could proceed on hands and knees,” but cut
off further investigation when he found it impossible to go one without
“dragging oneself through an ice cold stream.”

Perhaps if Robb had continued he might have emrged within the

Glooscap’s domain, for it is described in myth as located “on the mainland
opposite Glooscap’s canoe.” This island is well-known as the place the French
called Isles Hiboux, which are now charted as Bird Islands. It is probably well
that he did not persist for it is said that only Indians are permitted entry
and that, “after a certain distance the air gets bad and no lights will burn.”
On the other hand, Robb may not have been in the ante-room to Glooscap’s
Cave for Micmacs who went there in the 1920s walked “for some distance on
a level plain, and then mounted a great many steps to another level, where
they continued their course for some time.” At that they did not
completely explore the place, which was barred from them when they ran
through half of the fourteen torches they brought with them. It should be
noted that the Fairy Hole stands before Kelly Mountain, which has a
reputation in Indian myth as the place where Glooscap took leave of men in
his “stone canoe.” The stone canoe which is Bird Islands is thought to be the
remnants of an earlier canoe which Glooscap destroyed when he exited too
quickly to the shore. The Micmacs were unable to prevent their white “kin”
from desecrating the mountain top with a road connecting New Minas Forks
with South Haven, but they have strongly resisted attempts to quarry it into
oblivion. “The Nova Scotia Speological Survey,” confused the Fairy Hole with
a cave which members found on the cliff face overlooking the bridge at Great
Bras D’Or Channel.

The Kelly Rock Company has recently decided to reduce the the
mountain's granite to aggregate, but they have been opposed by Dan
Christmas of the Union of Nova Scotia Indians. At the urging of this group, a
federal government environmental assessment board has been set up to
review the quarry proposal and decide whether development will damage the
mountains religious significance. The union insists that the company should
consult the three thousand Micmacs living in the region about the importance
of leaving the place intact. The Kelly Rock Company says they will hire 100
men in an economically depressed region and Christmas says that the Union
has moderate expectations for preserving the site unscathed. At the same
time, there is a minority of natives who remember that the Fairy Hole is off-
limits to whites and say that the mountain must be protected "at all
costs".25

TRICKSTER

An earth-spirit addicted to practical jokes.

Middle English, possibly from the Danish trek, a deception: any sly,
destrous (left-handed) procedure meant to puzzle, amuse or cheat;
sometimes a mischievous or rougish act; a spell of duty (usually two hours)
at the wheel of a ship; the customer of a whore (who usually purchased an
equal amount of time).

25"TheTelegraph Journal", Jan. 11, 1992, p. 28. Elaine Flaherty

(Southam News).
 This spirit was at the opposite end of the scale from the jinxer or
hoodo, being an individual with too much spirit for the good of his community.
The trickster is represented in Micmac mythology as Lox, the creation of the
evil-god Malsum. The Gaels called him "cleasi" (pronounced cla-see); he was
superficially just that, an artificer, a cunning crook, a word magicain, who
used jugglery, sleight of hand and every con-mechanism to get his end. He
was also known as the "gille-nan-car", or servant of the twisty one, thus an
artful dodger or fraud. His models must have included Loki, the Teutonic god
Laugar and the Gaelic god Ogma. The last of these was said to have a golden
cord through his tongue which was always tied to the minds of his listeners.
He was the patron of pagan orators, politicians and clergymen, and perhaps
he is still honoured by some of these. A trickster was known as one who
promised much but never delivered, thus in the language of prostitution the
customer is known as a trick, mark or john (see Main John).

As Joe Neil MacNeill has commented, "The fox has no tricks unknown to
the hunter." AS evidence you may wish to consult his tales of "Crazy Archie"
and "The Farmer's Big Lad" in Tales Told Until Dawn. With less space we give
you the Hammond Vale trickster, a man who lived without encountering
penalties "from deal to deal" to the end of his shady life. Early in his career
he talked a neighbouring into loaning a prize bull for breeding purposes,
placing a worthless creature with the farmer for security. He immediately
sold the better animal and claimed it had died of disease. Having provided
"security" he made no effort at recompense. He next sold a mowing-machine
to three separate customers, and talked his way out of reimbursing two of
his neighbours. His high spirit was also evidenced when he managed two
successful insurance fires. In the first instance he started the fire in the
attic and removed the furniture at a leisurely pace. The second time around
he discovered that furniture could be insured, and removed it well in advance.
This time he spread a layer on coal oil in the cellar and when neighbours
volunteered to help him remove the furniture he declined noting that it would
be too dangerous, particularly on a foggy night. "he was supposed to have
been away (during the fire) but he sat on a bench near the house and
watched it burn..." At the time of the fires, the trickster had been in danger
of going to jail for non-payment of a mortgage, so this "ggod fire" saved him
embarassment, kept him out of jail, paid off the mortgage and gave him new
debt-free accomodations. In addition to stealing fire-insurance money, this
gentleman took hydro-electric power. In the early days hydro was not
metered, the customer being charged monthly on the basis of the number of
outlets within the house. The trickster had one, which ran down into the
kitchen. He plugged a maze of extension cords into this single socket and
into each other, supplying clandestine energy to every room. He was always
careful to shield all but the kitchen windows.

The most notorious member of this tribe was, perhaps, the Reverand
Johnathan Lunt, whose real-life villainies were recounted in fictional form in
The Playfair Papers, published in 1841. In all versions, the Reverand Lunt is
described as "a smooth-cheeked, sleek-locked" man "with beard and whiskers
closely shaven," clothed in black, "with a white handkerchief round his neck
and no collar to his shirt." He entered New Brunswick from the United States
in 1838 and immediately took to the business of saving souls.

"The people of distant villages abandoned their occupations to hear so

extraordinary and eloquent a preacher. He was so intimately acquainted with
the geography and administration of the empire of fallen angels that he
fairly turned their heads, especially those of the women. He drew celestial
landscapes, but these were serene , very cold and colourless, while his
infernal landscapes glowed with all the sublimity of fire, brimstone and
devils."

The people might have been suspicious of this first-hand knowledge of

the evil-empire, but they were not and collections were taken for his benefit.
Horses were sent to transport him from one community to the next and
"wives persuaded their husbands and the girls their lovers , to interest
themselves in his behalf."

Persuaded by his own publicity and the growing strength of the

trickster-spirit, Lunt began to state that he possessed the gift of prophecy
and said that he could overlook the thoughts of every person who sat before
him. To illustrate this power, he would publically allude to the sins and crimes
of individual parishoners, and these revelations were considered remarkable
enough to support his contention that he was a prophet of God. As such he
came to be feared as much as he was trusted.

This was his place in the community when he came to the home of
Archaleus Hammond and his daughter Sarah, who lived alone on a farm about
twenty miles above Fredericton, New Brunswick. Lunt was easily accepted as
a night-visitor in this home as he had already preached in the vicinty "his
holiness and miraculous powers being previously acknowledged." Lunt found
Mr. Hammond disposed to believe in miracles and to forward this aspect of
his reputation the younger man practised upon him the tricks formerly
known as "animal magnetism" but now called, "hypnotism" and
"ventriloquism." CONTINUE FROM GRANT

TROW

Middle English troll from the Old Norse trold. A dialectic form used in
northern Scotland, confers with trough, any container hollowed from wood,
for example a butter bowl. From this we have trow, a boat carved from
wood and trough, the hollow of a wave. The word troll from the German
trollen, to wander in far places, is confluent. The Scottish word trow has
been used to identify devils and the Devil, but it is properly applied to the
more or less malignant spirits of the northern Scottish islands.

The trows of the sea are known as haafs (which, see). Those of the
land are, "of diminutive stature, and usually dressed in gay green
garments...They inhabit the interior of the green hills...They marry and have
children (and) are fond of music and dancing...The trows are not free from
disease but they are possessed of infallible remedies, which they sometimes
bestow on their (human) favourites...When they want beef...they betake
themselves to the Shetlanders scatholds, or townmails, and with elf-arrows
bring down their game. On these occasions they delude the eyes of the
owner with the appearance of something exactly resembling the animal whom
they have carried off, and by its apprent death by some accident...Lying-in
women and bairns they considered a lwful prize. The former they employ as
a wet-nurse, the latter they rear as their own. In case of paralysis
Shetlanders hold that the trows have taken away the sound member. They
even sometimes sear the afflicted part, and for want of sensation in it boast
of the correctness of this opinion."

Middle English troll from the Old Norse trold. A dialectic form used in
northern Scotland, confers with trough, any container hollowed from wood,
for example a butter bowl. From this we have trow, a boat carved from
wood and trough, the hollow of a wave. The word troll from the German
trollen, to wander in far places, is confluent. The Scottish word trow has
been used to identify devils and the Devil, but it is properly applied to the
more or less malignant spirits of the northern Scottish islands.
 The trows of the sea are known as haafs (which, see). Those of the
land are, "of diminutive stature, and usually dressed in gay green
garments...They inhabit the interior of the green hills...They marry and have
children (and) are foind of music and dancing...The trows are not free from
disease but they are possessed of infallible remedies, which they sometimes
bestow on their (human) favourites...When they want beef...they betake
themselves to the Shetlanders scatholds, or townmails, and with elf-arrows
bring down their game. On these occasions they delude the eyes of the
owner with the appearance of something exactly resembling the animal whom
they have carried off, and by its apprent death by some accident...Lying-in
women and bairns they considered a lwful prize. The former they employ as
a wet-nurse, the latter they rear as their own. In case of paralysis
Shetlanders hold that the trows have taken away the sound member. They
even sometimes sear the afflicted part, and for want of sensation in it boast
of the correctness of this opinion."

UGMUG

The sea-spirit found in tidal races and whirlpools.

Wabenaki, meaning unknown. Elsewhere, it was noted that there was

once a general upwelling of waters near the island of Miscou, and this place
was favoured by the Gougou. The Ugmugs were similar monsters, who
sought out turbulent waters. There are plenty of these in the vicinity of the
world's highest tides.

One place that comes to mind is the Wolves, which lie east of White
Horse Island and the West Isles of Passamquoddy Bay. A visitor to Deer
Island characterized these small islets as "the angry Wolves, on which, if you
visit them, you may be imprisoned for days by the wild surf that pounds
hungrily against their gaunt sides when there is the least provocation of wind
or water." Commenting more generally, Grace Thompson (1908) said that
the passages through the many islands of the West Isles were a complex of
"tides, eddies. ledges and whirlpools." The same could be said for the shoaler
waters of Campobello, and those of Grand Manan and Briar Island. There is a
great tidal rip off Cap D'Or and a similar situation across Chignecto Bay at
Cape Enrage. Within the Saint John River one finds the Reversing Falls, one
of numerous spirited places in the Bay of Fundy.

Whirlpools were said to be caused by the spiral swimming motions of

 241

Ugwugs who took the form of sea-serpents. These shape -changers were
never restricted to that form and also occured as huge, visible or invisible,
sea-people, as mer-folk, or as an ideterminate species of marine animal.

The best known Ugmug lived within the shifting Reversing Falls
whirpool. Stuart Trueman has said that local tribeman considered this spirit
embodied within "a perpetually spinning log in a giant whirlpool", but that's
difficult to envisage since the fall's "whirpool" is really a complex of
constantly assembling and disassembling swirls, which disappear completely
at slack tide. He is probably referring to the Micmac habit of launching a log
into the falls to assess the temper of the resident mentou (spirit). As the
log drifted into the whirpool, or whirpools, it was shot full of arrows bearing
small gifts of propitiation, including the required pouch of smoking tobacco.
The log was watched very carefully from the shore to see how the gifts were
received. If the log passed through the fury of the reversing falls and
emerged with the gift pouches removed it was considered safe to launch
canoes on that part of the river. On the other hand, the log was cometimes
convulsively "clutched" by what appeared to be gigantic submarine hands, and
was upended, scattering presents on the water. In this event, the Micmac or
Maliseet watchers assumed that the god-spirit governing this stretch of
water was in bad humour and found themselves another means of recreation
or work for that day. If the gifts were not scattered when the log was
drawn down this was considered a favourable notice, especially where they
were seen to have been removed when the log re-emerged within Saint John
Harbour. If the log simply disappeared this was thought to be a warning.

UKTAN

The ocean personified.

Penobscot. The most distant parts of the earth were always seen as having
the best potential for magic, chaos and danger. Chief among these was
uktan, the word the Penobscots used to describe the “ocean-sea,” which
comprised the most remote waters of the world, lying in the east, beyond
the dawn. This was the place most paquatanec, “out of the way, off the
road,” or “far from the haunts of men.” Embayments, or thoroughfares
were seeburessek , or “confined,” by land and here men safely piloted their
canoes if they avoided collisions with epukunikek, “the things one must go
 242

around,” and ebagwidck, “the spirits floating between.” Similar to this last
is the Micmac word abegweit, “an island lying upon the stream close to the
mainland, thus Abegwait or Eppaygett, “a thing anchored on the waves,”
Prince Edward Island anciently carried this name, and a number of ferries to
the mainland have been called the Abegweit..

Glooscap appreciated the strength of the sea-spirits and cautioned his

people to stay away from the open ocean. About 20% of the waters of the
Bay of Fundy originate in the Gulf Stream, a warm mid-Atlantic gyre of water
which ultimately washes, and moderates, the shores of Britain. Although
Maritime Canada is in the same latitudes it is a much colder place because
the remaining waters of the region pour in from the Labrador Current, which
feeds upon northern glaciers.

This current starts travelling at the surface between Baffin Island and
Greenland and flows southeastward from there. Off Labrador it strikes the
dense, saline waters of the Stream and is deflected south-westward; part of
its mass joining a slow moving underwater “river” at the base of the
Atlantic, the rest streaming out over the continental shelf. One arm of
water moves due south along the eastern shore of Newfoundland, the other
intrudes through Belle Isle Sound entering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Just off
the extreme edge of the Newfoundland Shelf the Labrador Current comes
into turbulent contact with water from the Gulf Stream. The differences in
water temperatures create rough waters and the fog banks for which the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland are famous. This is the northern apex of
something very like the Bermuda Triangle, a place where there has been
great loss of shipping. Rogue waves are generated here by tsunamis aroused
by earthquakes at sea, and there are compass anomalies in addition to the
fog, so no supernatural forces are required to explain the marine disasters
which have taken place in the region.

“Blunt’s Pilot” says that this part of the Atlantic is “a

maelstrom of currents, large and small, many of them flowing against the
wind.” In the earliest days their complexities could only be learned through
recurrent disasters. The Labrador Current is extremely quixotic southwest
of Newfoundland, sometimes its northern edge wanders only 250 miles south
of Halifax, but at other times it is 500 miles distant as it snakes its way
toward the Gulf of Maine. when it curved far from the shore it often took
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sailors within the waters of Sable Island. The Rev. George Patterson could
not recommend this place, saying: “currents round the island are terribly
conflicting and certain sometimes being in the opposite direction to the
prevailing wind, and sometimes passing around the whole circuit of the
compass in twenty-four hours. As currents of water, like currents of air
meeting from different directions, produce eddies, these produce marvellous
swirls around the island, making the circuit several times, and the same is
the case with bodies from wrecks.” And there were wrecks, for as Franklin
Russell has said, sailing ships within these waters”became victims of a wild
mixture of contrary currents that almost always took them to their
destruction.”

There is another matter known as “cabelling,” the immediate effect

of huge collisions between the Labrador Current and the Gulf Stream.
Sometimes they intrude gradually upon one another but sometimes they have
the effect of an immovable force hitting an irresistible object. When this
happens huge eddies are produced and submarine bubbling occurs. This
extreme mixing has the habit of bringing microscopic fish food to the
surface, but as some scientists have noted water infused with air has little
buoyancy. No one can predict quite where these collisions might occur but
they may be responsible for loss of ships under conditions not otherwise
explicable.

UKTUKKAMKW, UKTAMKOO

The Micmac Beginning Place, the site of Creation.

Often identified as present-day Newfoundland. In European mythology gods of

life and light invariably died and so did the Indian culture-hero named
Glooscap. It was said that his first residence was the island called Aja-lig-un-
mechk, located at the mouth of the Saint John River in New Brunswick. Here,
after a time among men, the Patridge Clan plotted to kill the god and in this
interest abducted the Bear Woman and Martin, and fled with them into the
forest. They had been gone for a month and a half, before Glooscap
returned home and peered into Martin’s birch-bark dish. Following faint
tracks to the shore he was confronted by a co-conspirator, Win-pe, the giant
of the north wind. Seeing his family in a distant canoe Glooscap tried to
rescue them but was blow back to shore by the wind. He followed a decaying
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trail to Grand Manan, and some say that it was here that he sought the dark
lands. Others insist that he crossed over to Kespoogitk (Yarmouth) and
slowly guided his canoe along the southern coast of Nova Scotia until he
came at last to Uktukkamkw, the Beginning-place. At the gates to the
Otherworld Glooscap meditated for seven years before pursuing the dark
lord. When the time had come for action, he pointed his canoe into the
caverns of the Word Beneath Earth, where he found and rescued his friends.
On the outward journey, however, he passed through places where men were
not meant to go, so that Marten and the grandmother both died of fear. But
on the other shore, at home again he said Numchashse! arise! and they were
reincarnated. This incident of the “sun” passing through the caverns
beneath the earth, emerging again to light the day, is a common theme in
world myth. Here as elsewhere the conquest of darkness was seen as giving
the god power over death.

There is a similar legend concerning Grand Manan Island. Here, the god
Glooscap was stranded here by his enemies, and only escaped from the by
swimming through the underworldclinging to the tail of a magical fox. In the
process, he gained the magic that allowed him to overcome death. Although
Grand Manan was not forbidden to men, its waters represented one of the
entrances to the Otherworld. It is of interest that all of the death-gods
sported dog-like totems: For Odin these creatures were wolves, and the
same holds for Glooscap. The Celtic “day god” known as Crom commanded a
similar pair of gigantic dogs and it will be remembered that Hel’s kingdom had
a similar guardian at its entrance. The same be said of the Grecian
underworld, which was protected by the creature named Cerebus. On of the
best known mythic creatures of the outer islands south of Grand Manan is a
jet-black dog, as tall as a horse with fiery red eyes. Nearby are the
appropriately named Brazil Shoals.

The early colonists did not settle Grand Manan, and the only Indian
habitation was on the north west coast at a place called Indian Point. Marc
Lescarbot has said that the body of a famous Micmac named Panoniac was
“carried to a desolate island, towards Cape Sable (not The Sable Island),
some five and twenty miles distant from Port Royal. Those isles that serve
these people as graveyards are secret amongst them, for fear some enemy
should seek to disturb the bones of their dead.”
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There may have been a taboo associated with Grand Manan, which
caused it to be left uninhabited until after the Revolutionary War. It is known
to have been given as a Seigneury during the French period, but the land
grant was not taken up. Further the northwestern shore, where the Indians
gathered once each year was the place where they obtained the pipe-stone,
whose mythic worth was such it was traded all over the northeast. The
Indians had oblique alternate names for the island such as “the most
important island,” and “the Sentinel.” Now the latter name points quite
directly at Papkutparut “the Guardian” of the dead lands, “the master of
life and death.” He is, we suspect the other-worldly form of Glooscap
himself! Those who approached him were advised to “be respectful and
polite” and give themselves up to “his justice.” It was suggested that they
say, “If anything remains of the people within Your heart, any compassion or
tenderness, accept these my gifts brought to you from that Living World,
and receive me and mine as friends.”

My brother, Arthur, who is a trained biologist, and not liable to fudge

his observations, spent a summer on Outer Wood Island trying to gauge the
effect of the last ice-age on small mammal populations. One day he visited
Castalia beach on Grand Manan proper. It was a clear summer day, strangely
free of fog or cloud, and he was watching the horizon between Long and
White Head Islands when smoke began to pour from the surface of the water
between his location and these islands. The column went straight up and
thickened for a half hour before it dispersed. There are a number of
interpretations: The accidental detonation of an old World War II shell laying
on the bottom; the escape of volcanic gases from an underwater vent; or
possibly smoke signals from the World Beneath Waves or even the
Underground itself.

As with An Domhain, ending places are also considered beginning

places: Thus the island of Newfoundland was sometimes spoken of as the
ultimate “Indian Island,” the “first place” of the tribes of the east. The
“sentinel island” of Grand Manan may have had similar status in the
mythology of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians. In all there are
eight islands bearing the designation “Indian Island” in New Brunswick alone,
and each is considered a magical microcosm of larger, more generally known,
islands. Islands of this sort, set aside for ceremonial purposes, were
relatively small and within reach but large enough to accommodate the first
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patriarchs of the tribe as well as every related Indian. Unfortunately for the
Indians, these islands were often strategically placed from the standpoint of
white settlers.

During my childhood it was still understood that Navy Island, which

faced the town of Saint Andrews was one of these sacred places. The
Indians were first disturbed by the erection of a small habitation in 1704 by
French settlers, but this was nothing compared with the depredations of
James Chaffey who arrived in 1760. This strong-willed character overcame
the objections of the Indians by turning their place into a profitable centre
for trade. Before long he had twelve schooners berthed at a time, and his
interests drew other businessmen, including a man who denuded the island in
the interest of fuelling fires to convert sea-water into salt.
The once-treed island became a barren rock and the People withdrew from
their tradition meeting-burial grounds.

The “Indian Island” in Richibucto Harbour has retained its name and an
aboriginal presence since its “discovery” by the whites in the seventeenth
century. When government surveyor Moses Perley went there in the 1840’s
he was puzzled by the “great fondness” which the natives showed for this
place, “where they have held their annual festival on Saint Anne’s Day (July
26).” Perley recommended that the New Brunswick Legislature give the
Indians clear title, but a committee replied, advising him to cease
“interference with Indian Affairs.”

Like neighbouring Shediac Island, “Richibucto” Island is nothing more

than a wooded sandbar barely two miles in length. The channel between it
and the mainland is just deep enough to dissuade casual visitors and this has
helped to preserve ancient ceremonial markings in the earth of the island.
Something a little more powerful seems to be directed against violaters of
the sacred preserves: A clam-digger who invaded the tidal flats of the island
was dead by drowning before he could return to encroach on the Indian’s
diggings. A second clam-digger turned up within the week but, “the spirits of
the waters must have been strongly offended” for within the week, this
young healthy man was found dead of a heart attack. A little later an aerial
photographer attempted to record the spirit of the island. His flights back
and forth over the place were without result as his sight began to fail before
his aircraft landed, and before the photographs could be developed he was
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blind.

In 1762 Surveyor-General Charles Morris said that “the island opposite

Aukpaque” was called “Indian (or Savage) Island.” He went on to say that
this was the place where the Maliseets held their annual council, at which “all
differences and disputes were settled. and hunting grounds allotted to each
family before they began their summer hunts.” Their year-round village was
on the mainland at the mouth of the Keswick, a tributary river to the Saint
John. W.O. Raymond says that the proper written name for the place was
Ekpawhawk, indicating a place “at the head of the tide.”

Long Island, the largest, longest and highest island in the Saint John
River system was originally Quebeet-a- wasis-eek, “the Beaver’s cradle.”
This prototypical beaver was the animal which Glooscap made as large as a
lion. In the early days Quebeet constructed a dam across the Saint John
River near its mouth. This turned the land to the north into one huge lake or
jimquispam, and caused the People to send for Glooscap. He broke the dam
with his huge club (not unlike that of the Celtic Dagda) and sent the water
rushing through a new channel to the sea. Partridge Island, was called
Quakmkanik, “the piece cut away from the rest.” The mid-water projection
which created the Reversing Falls, just below the cut, was called Quabeet-
a-wasis-sogado, “the beaver’s rolling dam.” Glooscap’s club thrown after
the retreated spirit-animal became Split Rock, which is still seen just below
the old Suspension Bridge. Glooscap followed the beaver into his lodge (the
underworld) near East Riverside and killed him there. Seeing that beavers
were dangerous to men, Glooscap reduced the tribe to its present size. The
beaver’s nest then became Glooscap’s summer-place. A similar tale is told
of the Minas Basin and its flooding by a giant beaver.

Miscou Island, the one-time dwelling-place of the formidable Gou-gou, was

Musqu in the Micmac dialect, and the word marks it as “low and boggy.”
According to Nicholas Denys this island was settled by Jesuits between 1635
and 1662, its trees reduced to ashes by an accidental fire before he set up a
seigneurie on the island in 1652. The Jesuits concluded that “the soil is not
good, the water not wholesome, the trees lacking in beauty.” The fact that
half the island has always been “unfit for human habitation” due to its bog-
like character never troubled the cannibalistic Gou-gou. The native people
told Champlain that this beast carried off their people and that its voice was
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often heard on the barrens. Le sieur Prevert de Saint-Malo, who cruised the
area looking for minerals assured Champlain that he and his crew had also
heard the beast. Allison Mitcham theorizes that its “rumblings” may have
been “the bubblings of that unusual fresh-water fountain which Denys
discovered welling up in mid-ocean several hundred feet off the island. In
1906 W.F. Ganong went to the island and searched for this fountain but did
not find it. This is not surprising as underwater vents are sporadic in their
timing and effect. The trees on Miscou did not recover from that early fire,
and because Miscou sits low in the water, it is gradually being eroded and
weathered to oblivion in spite of the attempts of residents to turn back the
sea.

Isle Haute, at the head of the Bay, is not out of the running as a Celtic
or Indian entry-point for the netherworld, for it is high as the name Hy-Bres-
il demands. The cliffs there are nearly perpendicular and 320 feet in height.
The tale of Glooscap’s enlightenment is also told of Isle Haute and it also has
reputation among mariners as a “floating-island,” after the fashion of the
islands of imagination in Celtic and Norse myths. Those who have come to
Fundy Park from the northern Caledonian Highlands will know of this islands
strange appearance. It seems always detached from the stream of water on
which it sits. Like Grand Manan it is a place of aberrant compass readings,
and it seems to slip here and there in the fog.

There are a good many malignantly-named islands, and even mainland

locations, which might be considered attached to the land of the dead: There
are dozens of places called Dead Man’s Island, Deadman’s Harbour, the Devil’s
Gate, the Devil’s Half Acre, the Devil’s Cauldron, or the Devil’s Head within
Atlantic waters, and any of these might be thought suitable for docking
Manan Mac Ler’s ship of souls. Notice also the Penobscot Hobomocco, which
the English interpreted as “Hell.” The current Hockamock Point on Arrowsic
Island, Maine is derived from this word. A little above this spot, modern
maps identify Upper Hell Gate; and a little below Lower Hell Gate. There is a
place with a similar name on the barrens of north-western New Brunswick.

URISK

A fresh-water spirit similar in appearance to the classical

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Pan.

Gaelic, uruisg, from air + uisge, literally a supernatural of the water.

Macbain defines this creature as "a Brownie" but he is, rather, one of the
bocs, or he-goats, having a female conterpart in the glaistig, who is also
human from the waist up and a goat from there down. A creature
reminiscent of pan and the satyrs. The word confers with the English word
water, the lowland whisky and the Latin unda, a wave. All allied with the
English word wash.

The bucks were field spirits, representative of the old Celtic earth
gods such as Dagda, Lugh, and Kernow. Their spirits were overwintered in
the last sheaf of the season which was kept in the croft kitchen to be
returned to the soil at the first planting. This infusion was thought
necessary for the growth of the corn, or grain, whose height always
paralleled that of the animal thought present in the crop. In watching the
wind bend the grain crofters would say, the goats run through the field.
Children were warned against wandering there on penalty of being kidnapped,
molested or killed. When a harvester fell ill or lagged behind the others it
would be guessed that he was under psychic attck from the bucks. The last
shaef cut in the harvest was frequently called "the horned goat", and the
person who cut it was sometimes similarly named. The position of harvest
goat was not sought-after since it was an omen of failure, burdening the
recipient with the duty of "boarding the old man" (i.e the Devil) through the
winter. The urisk was a solitary member of this clan, a creature who
preferred a small but deep pool to the summer fields.

VAMPIRE

A bloodscuking spirit, or one of the undead renewed by

feasting on blood.

Anglo-Norman, also vampyre, French through Slavonic tongues,

ultimately connected with the Turk. uber, witch. Perhaps similar to the
Anglo-Saxon, wamm, defilement, impurity. An night-wanderer, emergent
from the grave at night, that feeds on the blood of men leading to their
death. It was once held that vampires were the spirits of people who died
unbaptized, without bennefit of clergy, through trauma, or by the curtse of
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parents or the church. This belief was its height in Hungary about the year
1730.

For a time between 1870 and 1900 South County, Rhode Island had a
reputation as the “Vampire Capital In America.” In the Rhode Island
cemetary is plot #2, the gravestone of Nelly L. Vaughn of West Greenwich.
She supposedly died in 1889 at the age of 19, but her inscription bears the
cryptic message: “I am waiting and watching for you.” A local university
professor claims that nothing “not even the slightest vegetation or lichen
grows upon Nellie’s grave” in spite of numerous attempts to sod it over or
otherwise improve the looks of the lot.

Of even more interest is the grave of Mercy Brown, the 19-year-old

daughter of George and Mary Brown who died in 1883. She was preceded by
her mother Mary, and a sister Mary Olive, and about to be followed by her
brother Edwin, when community leaders decided that a spirit more
malevolent than simple consumption was abroad at night. On a chilly March
afternoon, George and his neighbours entered the Chestnut Hill cemetary and
began exhumation of the bodies, suspecting one of those interred was
undead, and that she must be “quieted” before young Edwin could recover.
The earlier bodies were found properly decmposed but Mercy, who had been
in the grtound for two months, appeared a little two life-like, her cheeks
flushed, her nails and hair longer than when she had been buried. When the
men prodded the corpse they observed that it was still filled with fresh
blood. As a result, the girl’s heart was removed and burned on a nearby
rock, and the ashes added to Edwin’s medicine. In spite of this, the boy
continued to decline and died.

WANAGAMESWAK

Wabenaki, Penobscot dialect, wanagames (sing.) “Rock Elfs” or

“Water Elfs.” A race inhabiting the crevasses in the steep sides of narrows
in rivers. “Only a few inches tall, they made little teapots and put marks
(pictograms) on the rocks to indicate the canes (and other things) which
passed.

Lewey Mitchell noted that the Indian name for Roque Bluffs, Maine was
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Humalatskihegan, “the place where there are many carvings on the rock. He
noted, “they were supposed to have been made by Wanagameswak.” These
were “a little human being very seldom seen, escept in their works.” Similar
markings with a similar history are located in the Hampden Narrows and in
many places bearing the designation Fairy Lake, Fairy Stream, or Fairy
Lookout, or something similar in one of the Algonquin dialects.

Fannie Eckstrom said that their “larger conferes were the

Mikumweesak,” the latter “correponding with the English Puck or Robin
Goodfellow. I recall when I was a child my father showed me marks - reddish
as I remember - on the ledges in Hampden Narrows and told me the Indians
believe they were made by fairies. The Indians believed that certain marks
on the ledges told the exact number of canoes going up and down the river.
(PNOTMC, p. 6).

These are the creatures sometimes referred to in the old tales as

“the elves of light,” and the tale of their coming to the northlands was said
to go back to the days when Atlantic Canada was locked in ice. Then
Glooscap stood alone on the land, but once he wandered over the ice cap until
he came to the wigwam of the giant named Winter. This supernatural
creature greeted him with greatbhospitality, filled his pipe with tobacco, and
entertained him with tales of the distant past. As he listened Glooscap
became aware that he was becoming drowsy and fearing the frost-sleep, he
roused himself and journeyed south. In that far land he found the little
people dancing before their queen in a pleasant and trackless forest. As she
was exquisitely beautiful Glooscap decided to steal her, and fashioning a
magical noose of moose hide, secured it about her and led her away to his
northern land. The tiny folk ran after her, pulling frantically against the
cord, but they could not resist Glooscap’s magic. Finally Glooscap threw
most of them off and came again to the wigwam of Winter. Outside he
secreted the little queen within his clothing just above his heart and then
entered. The old giant greeted him again but soon began to show distress
for the queen was Summer, and the heat of her presence began to melt the
ice and revive nature. In the end Winter had to flee to the far north,
because the queen and her people took up residence in clefts of the local
rock. At that the old man made yearly excursions into his old territory
forcing the light elfs to take temporary refuge in more southern places.
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The summer-queen confers with Samh in Gaelic myth and with Freya in
the Norse tales. She is obviously also the equivalent of Muskrat-woman who
obtained the grain of sand from which the creator-god Hare refashioned the
earth after the world-flood. The woman became the mate of sun-god Hare
and matriarch of all the tribes of men. The sorcerer named L’kimu , a
resident of Prince Edward Island, told the Abbe Maillard (ca 1740) that his
people took special care to preserve their fire through the winter: “We
would entrust the care of fire to our war-chief’s women, who took turns to
preserve the spark...When it lasted the span of three moons it became
sacred and magical to us, and we showered with praise the chief’s woman
who had been the guardian of fire in the last phase of the third moon. We
would suck in the smoke (from pipes lit at the fire) and puff it out into the
face of the woman who had last preserved the spark telling her she was
worthy to share the benign influence of the Father of Light, the Sun
incarnate...” Here again, a human personifies the spirit of a supernatural, in
this case the fairy-woman called Musquash.

WARLOCK

A human magician or his familiar.

Anglo-Saxon, warian, to occupy by force + loc, a lock or enclosure,

after the fire-god Loki. The English war, treason, or sedition + lock .
Correspondence of this last word is through the Anglo-Saxon loce to the
Danish lok and the German loke, the hair of the head, also a wig and as a
verb to twist or wiggle out of a difficult spot. This has special reference to
Loki's substitution of a depilatory for a hair-lotion. He gifted the bottle on
Thor's wife Sif, who promptly went bald. Thor very nearly killed him, but Loki
made good by replacing the hair with a golden wig crafted by the dwarfs.
Warlock is now understood to be the equal of our word wizard (the high wiz
or wit). As we have mentioned elsewhere the "wits" were the wise men of
Anglo-Saxon England, the "witan" being the council to the ruler or "maeg-
cyning" (literally the may-king).

Carole Spray has made William Lolar of the Miramichi region of New
Brunswick the best known resident warlock. While he was called "Wild Bill", he
probably preferred his designation as "The Wizard of the Miramichi". Like his
counterpart the Nova Scotian witch-master and bodach named "Daddy Red
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Cap", Bill "Lawless", Lawlor or Lolar was devoted to the arts. Spray said:
"Will could do the work of a hundred men, and a dozen tractors, if he wanted
to. All he needed was his magic book and some help from his friend...the
Devil." Will at first lived with his brother on the family farm, and once found
found himself alone in tyhe hay fields while his brother was in the nearest
village getting a hitch repaired so that the horse could be tied to the hay-
wagon. While he waited the lead-grey clouds gathered, and sensing rain, Will
jumped to the top of the empty wagon, pulled out his black book and
addressed words to the ground. At the first crack of distant thunder, the
wheeled vehicle started to roll forward clattering across the field at a
remarkable pace. As it did so, the grain bundles leaped into the air and piled
themselves within the wagon. "Before the first drop of rain had fallen, the
field was emptied and the barn was stuffed to the rafters with hay."

Will next appeared at a lumber camp on the Southwest Miramichi where

he was hired as a chopper. In those days a capable man could split ofifty
logs a day. Lolar was seen as a man of ordinary physique but he managed
one hundred and fifty logs. Men admired his productivity but were troubled
by the fact that the "wizard" never worked up a sweat. As whispers went
the rounds that Will was allied with the "Devil" the main john transferred him
to watering down the winter roads to create an ice path for the sledges.
Once day Will and a teamster were "swamping down" the roads and paused
for tea. When the younger man offered to get kindling to place under the
kettle, Will snapped his fingers together and created a roaring flame, but his
partner did not wait for the water to boil. Soon after horse bells were heard
approaching the camp, but no horse and sleigh was seen, and this was taken
as a potent omen of death. Afterwards, Will claimed he had been warned to
beware of the nineteenth day of January by a black bird that was neither
crow nor raven. On that day a stomach "flu" afflicted the camp: "Many died,
one man became stone deaf, and another lay ill for two years." Will was
blamed for the trouble and dismissed. He cursed the camp-owner's horses
on leaving, and they were drowned the following when they fell through thin
ice the following spring.

WATERSPOUT

The sea-going or lake-travelling hurleywain.

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“The waterspout is “a funnel which contains an intense vortex,

sometimes destructive, of small horizontal extent and which occurs over a
body of water.” In Arabia these spouts were thought to be the physical
manifestation of the jinne, while locally the Indians thougfht of them as a
manitou gioing about its business.

In North America waterspouts are clasified as tornadic or fair-

weatrher spouts depending on their formative processes. Storm spouts are
often bona fide land tornadoes which have wandered into the water. Often
dangerous, they drop down out of thunder clouds, squall lines or from the
leading edge of cold fronts. They are characterized by enormous black
turbulent “parent clouds” and when fully developed are capable of wide-
spread destruction. Fair weather spouts are more common, arise from the
water on convection currents of air, and are relatively harmless in their
effects.

In our hemisphere, tornadic waterspouts form where warm and cold air
masses collide. The Grand Banks is one such location and the Gulf of Maine,
another. In both places the threat of ice or fog is sometimes accompanied
by an ocassional rogue waterspout. The spouts travel counter-clockwise in
these parts, and usually considt of a single tube although double-walled
examples have been observed. The speed of rotation may be up to 130 miles
per hour, and they treat on-lookers to a wide variety of manigfestations
including colourations of the tube ranging from black to blue-black to hues of
blue and green. Auditory effects may include humming, roaring, grinding, or
crashing sounds separately, or subsequently, or in some combination. Like
all good manitous these spirited things have been seen to assume fantastic
shapes, and pass through improbable gyrations. The funnel shape is usually
attained, but knotted, spiral, and hour-glass forms have been seen. The
most eerie manifestation is the “luminescent spout,” which one spotter
described as “flooded with an earthly glow gliding across the ocean like a
wandering pillar of light.” The most dreaded is the so called “white squall,”
which occurs when the air contains little moisture although all other
conditions necessary for tornado formation are at hand. In the old days
these “bull’s eye storms” were greatly feared as they rose in calm weather
out of a clear sky, often with disastrpous effect on ships below.

In the sixteenth century British mariners crossed steel swords at the

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bow of their shipo hoping to discourage the waterrrspout. A French traveller

of the next century says that men would symbolically “cut the air towards
the spirit” hoping to deflate it with cold steel. Some men tried to break the
continuity of the spout by blasting it with buckshot, or sprinkling it with
vinegar. These exercises usually proved little more helpful than stamping on
the deck to create a noise which might frighten this sea-spirit.

Sometimes the passing of a funnel left spectacular effects in its wake,

most notably the frutta del mare, or “fruits of the sea.” Live or dead fish
sometimes rained down, as did tadpoles, turtles, rats, mice, lemmings,
periwinkles, or birds, all probably gathered from some nearby marsh.
Occasionally there was an alarming rain of “blood,” usually nothing more
fateful than red mud carried aloft and very thoroughly homogenized with
water.

On May 4, 1761, a large waterspout hit Charleston Harbour and

marched toward the land and a squadron of ships “sinking five ships and
dismasting several more.” The 500 foot wide anti-cyclone hit the Lillian
Morris whose body was seen “blown about the poop (deck) like a piece of
paper.”

Locally we were visited by “The Great Waterspout of 1896,” at

Cottage City, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. It formed six miles off
shore and “just seemed to stand there,” a column 144 feet thick, and 3,600
feet tall, terrminating in a black parent cloud estimated to have been 16,000
feet high. The spout disassembled and reappeared three tim,es within 45
minutes. Except for this local cloud surrounding regions were sunny and the
adjacent seas clear and blue. Remarkably, no sound was heard and no injury
was sustained in any of this.

In 1902 a steamship was passing off Cape Hatteras when a large

waterspout was observed on a collisioon course. The captain order all hands
below, and followed himself just as the 50 foot wide entity struck amidships.
Emerging afterr the attack the captain of the “Hestia” saw two large hatch
tarpaulins and a plank, eight ffet long by 10 inches wide twirling in the air.
There too he saw a rope from the taffrail suspended in the air in imitation of
the Indian rope trick.
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WEE FOLK

Anglo-Saxon, waeg, wave + folc, an extended family or tribe.

The same word as maeg, son, a kinsman; maegen, having strength,
capacity, virtue, force; mighty, a person at the beginnings of his or her
power; thus morgen, morning. Similar to the Gaelic Mhorrigan, a see deity
(See mhorga). The English word way originally applied to sea-travellers,
those who followed the sea-ways. Later it was applied to those who travelled
the highways, main roads, and the byways, or secondary roads. Ultimately
used in a derogatory fashion and confused with small. NB, St. Stephen,
Grant, p. 87: Gypsies. "...scores of anxious listeners seek the hidden
mysteries of the future. It only cost "a quarter" to be told the wonderful
things which will never happen."

WEREWOLF

An earth-spirit shape-changer; half man, half-wolf.

English, from the Anglo-Saxon, wer, a man + wulf, wolf. Similar to
mere, and the Latin merus, a body of water, particularly a lake; and also,
moor. Perhaps from the Gaelic mor, wide or great and their word muir, the
ocean. Similar to the Norse mooer, famous or powerful. See mhorga, who
was frequently described as the "wolf-queen."

A person transformed into a wolf in form, and usually in appetites.

The transformation was either permanent or periodic, and sometimes
controllable. Confers with the Anglo-Norman word lycanthrope. The original
shape-change was usually conferred as a diabolical enchantment. In a few
cases the wolf-form was assumed voluntarily to indulge a taste for human
flesh. Werewolves in this latter category were able to alter their form at
will. This creature is not specific to Gaelic mythology but the Fomorian
giants were known as shape-changers and flesh-eaters.

The werewolf was the "loup garou" (wolf man) of Acadian communities.
Chaisson says: "Another form of sorcery known in Acadia involved
werewolves, who had sold their souls to the devil and were transformed into
beasts at night and prowled about the villages terrorizing the inhabitants. In
most areas...these unfortunates could not be released until they were
wounded and a drop of their blood shed; while at Baie Sainte-Marie, on the
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other hand, such an event would make it impossible to escape their

condition."

The Wehr Wulf of Lunenberg village was Hans Gehardt, a "finely built
German lad" whose family moved to Nova Scotia as part of the British
"solution" to the "Acadian problem" of seventeen fifty-five. Hans married
Nanette, a blonde French girl who had found refuge with the Micmac Indians.
The two had a daughter, but Hans was distinctly jealous of the child and
would often walk away into the night without explanation. As the situation
worsened, the two began to sleep apart. As his nightly ramblings increased
in frequency, Hans cautioned his wife against questioning him about his
doings, saying that any meddling would cost her dearly. About this time,
people began to speak of a berast-spirit that walked the settlement, staring
through the small window-panes at night, and lurking within roadside copses.
Young men returning to their home from a visit with neighbours told of being
pursued by a moster that sometimes ran erect like a man but also pursued
on four feet like a wolf. Afterwards, farmers began to find dead lambs in
their barns. Traps were set, and bear-hunts organized to end the
depravations. Hans went with the posses but no lamb-killer was ever tracked
down.

The conclusion to this story came in summer when Hans and Nanette
went picking blueberries leaving the child asleep on the kitchen setee. Hans
finished picking his first pail before Nanette and went to the house to empty
it into a larger container. He was gone an unusually long time, and the wife's
generalized worry became terror. She rushed to home and found the child
gone from its place. She rushed to a neighbouring field and unburdened her
fears on a group of men who were breaking the land. They organized a
search party and found Hans Gerhardt in the woods beside a stream that
was red with blood. At the approach of his neighbours, Hans sprung at them
with animal-like growls, but the stronest men quickly took him down and
bound him. They found no remains of the child, but the father's linen shirt
was fully splattered with blood and Nanette was sure of what had happened.

Hans was taken to Lunenburg, tried and sentenced to die for murder,
but after the sentence Gerhardt was found dead in his cell, his wrist veins
torn open by powerful canine teeth. He was buried in unhallowed ground on
Gallows Hill, and as far as our research can determine, his kind have never
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been seen in the Maritime Provinces since that happening.

Note also the following item from the “Quebec Gazette,” December
10, 1764: “Kamouraska, Dec. 2. We learn that a WQare-wolfe, which has
roamed this province for several years, and done great Destruction in the
District of Quebec, has received several considerable attacks in the Month of
October last, by different Animals, which they had armed and incensed
against this Monstre, and especially the 3rd of November following, he
received such a furious Blow, from a small lean Beast, that it was thought
they were entirely delivered from this fatal Animal, as it sometime after
retired into its Hole, to the great Satisfaction of the Public. But they have
just learn’d, as the most surest Misfortune, that this Beast is not entirely
destroyed, but begins to show itself again, more furious than ever, and
makes terrible Hovock whereever it goes - Beware then the Wiles of this
malicious Beast, and take good Care of falling into its Claws.”

WEYADESK

The spirit of the northern lights.

Wabenaki, Micmac. One of the combatants (the other was

Wosogwodesk in a race around the earth. This spirit was the loser since it
was noted that the borealis was not able to race in every climate.

WHITE WOMAN

A female water-spirit found in both salt and fresh water.

Anglo-Saxon, wic, a dwelling or encampment on a bay; a male or female

living in a costal location. Confers with wicing (the Norse word viking), a
costal pirate. The same word as wicca (m.) and wicce (f.), a witch, and the
English words white, weather and witch. + woman, the female of our
species. In the mythology of the sea the white women may be identified with
the Old Norse waeg, or wave-women, sometimes referred to as the billow-
maidens. Nine in number, they were the children of Hler and Rann, the chief
deities of the ocean. They also confer with the Celtic mhorga (which, see).
Some are said to be the befind, or runners, of women killed on or near the
sea.
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As we have noted the Cailleach was the "geamir" (huntress) of Ireland

and Scotland, her season, from November first to May first, being termed
the "geamhradh", or winter. Remarkably she was transformed into a virginal
woman entitled the Samh at the time of the fires of Beltane (April 30), and
event which marked the beginning of the "samhradh" (summer). In this new
form, the goddess wore the white linen unisexual, long-sleeved, high-necked,
skirted garmet known as which the ancient Celty called the "albus". Alba is
the Gaelic name for Scotland, while "alb" or "alp" still describes anything that
is white in colour.

Frau Gode, or Wode, was known as Brechta, Bertha, or the White

Woman of Germany. She too was rumoured to be a great huntress and lead
the Wild Hunt from the back of a white stallion, her usual attendants being
changed into beasts for this Yuletide happening. Unlike the arrival of the
Cailleach, the coming of this goddess was taken as a harbringer of
prosperity.

In parts of Cape Breton the gathering of human cailleachs (old women)

is still considered to predict storm, and this is particularly true if they
gather on a beach. Seeing a mermaid on a beach also indicates an imminent
storm as does the materialization of a woman in white.

On Brown’s Bank in 1871, , the Gloucester schooner “Sachem” was

leaving for George’s Bank when the cook, John Nelson, approached Captain J.
Wenzell, begging him to turn for home. He had had a dream, he explained,
and it it had observed “women, dressed all in white, standing there in the
rain.” The captain was not swayed but by one-thirty a.m. The wind had
freshened and the ship had to hove to under a reefed foresail. From the
forecastle one of the sailors reported flooding of the foreward hold and the
captian went below and found six inches of water. Shortly after the crew was
forced to abandon ship and by two o’clock the “Sachem” had slipped from
sight.

In our century, in the waters near Shippigan, New Brunswick, a father-

son fishing team were lost in the darkness and storm off Tracadie LIght.
"We looked and there was a woman in white, torch in hand, her two feet
dragging canted against the wind. My father took the wheel and followed her
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for twenty minutes and as she went out of sight the Light came into view...I
don't know who she was but I guess she saved our lives."

One of these spirits of the river haunted the Reed's Point ferry on the
Saint John River in southern New Brunswick. The cable-ferry operators,
Frank and Dyna Pitt periodically halted the ferry on the water to let
passengers have a better view of the resident fay, "a woman all in white,
carrying a light, crossing an open space at dusk." The Reverand Noel Wilcox
was out shooting at Evangeline Beach when he encountered a woman in a
white dress walking ahead of him on the sand. Afraid she might be
accidentally shot by his hunting companion, Wilcox hurried to warn her but
she disassembled into a fog and vanished.

The white woman have been described as shape-changing crones who

frequent ravines near the seaside, blocking the path of travellers and
entreating young men to dance with them. Those who tried to by-pass these
"favours" were sometimes transformed into animals. Like the sea, she was
quixotic but could appear in an attractive form when offering sexual favours.
She sometimes guided lost travellers, changed flowers into powerful
amulets, aided women in childbirth, showed men where to find gold and silver
and abated the fury of storms.

On the other hand. the woman in white who haunts Partridge Island at
the mouth of the Saint John River in New Brunswick has no particular
occupation except that of carrying a head under her arm. She was spotted
by a guard posted to that island during World War I. In an agitated state he
fired three times at her but when he was revived from his faint, there was
no sign of additional blood-shed. According to legend, this sea-witch was
generated at the death of an elderly lady who fell off the cliff whicle
resident at the old marine hospital which used to be located on the island.

A noteworthy phantom was supposed to have been the the wife of Dr.
Copeland, the surgeon to the Seventh Regiment, which was stationed at
Halifax. She and her husband were lost at sea when the ship "Francis" went
aground on Sable Island in 1799. Nothing more might have been told of her
except that the brig "Hariot" came to the same end in 1801. Captain
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Torrens of the Twenty-Ninth Regiment staggered ashore with the remnants

of his troops and made bivouac on the beach. On a preliminary tour of the
island Torrens came upon a shore building which had once been the haunt of
mooncussers and wrackers (see entries above). Entering he noticed that his
dog was seized with an uncontrollable shaking motion stood barking at a
darkened corner. In the gloom from his firebrand the captain spotted "a lady
sitting by a fire, with long dripping hair hanging over her shoulders, her face
pale as death, and having no clothes on but a loose soiled white dress, weta
as if it had come out of the sea with sand sticking to it..." This is the classic
white woman, befind or mermaid cast ashore, but Torrens recognized her as
the counterpart of Mrs. Dr. Copeland. He could get no conversation from her
but she did hold up a ring finger, cut away at the root. "Murdered for the
sake of a ring?" enquired Torrens. The wraith nodded and the man promised,
"Then, I'll find your murderer to the death." At that, the ghost smiled, its
fire faded and it slipped out the doorway past him, vanishing at last into the
sea. Torrens did as he had promised and restored a 136.9 carat ring to the
Copeland family. Afterwards it was sold in France and mounted in Napoleon's
sceptre and is now located in the Louvre, Paris, France.

Another case, entirely, involved the appearance of women in white who

represented a much larger loss of life at sea. Early on the morning of
October 7, 1859, a man living closest the church of St. James, at
Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island heard the bells tolling. A curious
person, he went to investigate, and as he walked from home was joined by a
neighbour. Standing in the churchyard, the two heard the bell toll eight more
times. After that the doors were thrown open by a uncommon burst of wind,
and within, the men saw three women all dressed in white. As the curiosity-
seekers stood dumbfounded, the bell sounded one more time and then the
doors closed on the ladies. The duo rushed to the door but found it locked.
Peering in a window they could see one of the women ascending the stairs to
the belfry. Now, the minister and the sexton arrived, and being told that
there were strangers in the church, they moved to unlock the doors. When
the four entered there was absolutely nothing to be seen, so they
approached the belfry on a narrow set of stairs. At the bell room, the leader
had to lift a trap door, and as he paused to do this, the bell rang again.
Expecting to see three women pulling the bell rope, the men went up through
the hatch and found the bell-pull tied firmly to a beam. Nothing more was
seen of the women in white although the four men searched all of the church
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from the bell-tower to the basement. This strange affair was quickly the
subject of general conversation but no one could offer an explanation for
this supernatural sighting until the steamer "Fairie Queen failed to make
port on her journey from Pictou, Nova Scotia.

This ship was new to the Northumberland Strait and was berthed that
morning at Pictou taking on mail, cargo and passengers. When she had sailed
out of her mainland port the weather had been clear of storm clouds. The
next day search-vessels went out looking for the "Fairie Queen" but nothing
was sighted of her and no wreckage ever drifted ashore. Recalling the
women in white, Charlotteown residents began to guess that these were the
fetches, or forerunners, of some of those lost at sea, who had come to
shore to announce a disaster at sea. Others recalled that the pagan sea-
spirits were said to be offended by misrepresentations of their names, and
suspected that the "Fairie Queen" had been a jonah. Remember that the
Faeries were named after the fee, the Celtic witch-women who originally lived
on an island off the coast of Brest, France. They can be shown as the
adherents of Mhorrigan, the sea-goddess who was the daughter of Dagda.
Like the Norse goddess Rann, she was a vain-glorious individual, who would
not easily accept the presence of a competitive fairy-queen on her waters.
Recalling this, it was noted that the "Fairie Queen" had succeeded another
vessel bearing the same name, and she had had also gone down six years
earlier.

Not all white women represented unemployed runners of the dead.

Some were simply sea-spirits given the chore of informing men of serious
storms expected on their coast. One of these was seen by the Reverend
Noel Wilcox when he was out shooting birds on Evangeline Beach, on the Fundy
shore of Nova Scotia. The minister had a companion with him, but the two
had separated and Wilcox was playing the role of "beater", hoping to flush
game birds from hiding. Seeing a woman dressed in white walking through
the beach grasses, Wilcox set out after her, afraid that his friend might
shoot her by accident. As he hurried toward her she kept her distance, and
when it seemed he was outpacing her she simply vanished like fog in sunlight.
The minister thought this was quite uncanny, but when he bent to the wet
sand where he had last seen her he was even more puzzled as there were no
footprints. He hailed his companion and told him what had happened, but his
hunting-mate was not especially surprised. "That was the lady who walks the
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storm, "he was advised, "Come on were getting out of here. There'll be wind
coming up from behind."

A little west of New Haven, Prince Edward Island, another spook,

centred its attentions on the bridge that spanned Rogerson’s Brook. She was
“an unusually tall, heavily veiled woman” who paced two and fro, one hand
raised above her head. The drivers of Edwardian carriages said that their
horses invariably balked at crossing the bridge whether this figure was
present or not. To coax the horses on the drivers usually had to get down
and lead the animal by bridle. Foot travellers also had difficulty at this place
complaining that passing the central part of the structure was like walking
against an exceptionally strong wind.26

WIGHT

An earth-spirit, often the familiar of a witch.

Anglo-Saxon, wiht a creature or thing; akin to the Danish wicht, a

child. A supernatural being, confering with the following short list of related
words: wig, long hair; wiggle, to stagger or dance; wighel, to divine the
future, wig-wag, writhing or twisting, whit or wit, a variant of wight or
wiht; with, the English word white; wit, a wise person, a councillor to the
king; witeage, a sage, prophet or soothsayer; witless, blameless;
withercraft, witchcraft; wither, weather; confering with widder, widow;
withy, the willow tree; wicker, twigs of wicker used in Anglo-Saxon basket
and house construction; wicked, an evil wicker-worker; wic, dweller on a
creek or embayment; wicig. or viking, a pirate; deab-wic, place of the
dead.

These words are obvious forerunners of the Anglo-Saxon wicce,

feminine and wicca, masculine, later combined in the Middle English word
wicche, which became witch. These confer with the Friesian wikke, a
witch; the Low German, wikken, to predict; the Old Norse vitki, a wizard,
and vitka, to bewitch. The ancient holiday of the wights, or whites, was

26Devereux, Joseph, “Of Haunts and Spectres,” Weekend Guardian

Patriot, Sat., Dec. 17, 1994, p. 5C.
 264

hwitasunnadaeg, or whitesunday, a moveable feast that fell near the

Beltane (May 1). This was followed by the whitsuntide, a time for the
whitsunales, a week of festivities presided over by the whitsunlord and
whitsunlady. Finally, "Wight, answering to the German wicht, seems to have
been used in the time of Chaucer for elf or fairy, and also for haunted
houses...Thus also our words aught and naught from anwiht and nawiht."

The Whitsun ales, was a rustic festival imported to Atlantic Canada

and practised as late as the eighteen nineties. In one of those years the ice
was a little earlier leaving the Saint John River than usual and the Fredericton
newspaper reported that the Maypole, or whitsuntree, had been swept away
before it could be used. The Whitsuntide was three days in all, and followed
soon after All Fool's Day, the principal celebration of the April Fool. April
Fool"s Day is no longer a well developed set of rituals, but enough remains to
suggest that it once reflected the high jinks of the unfortunate chosen to
serve as the king's stand-in at the April thirty-first Beltane fires.

As originally conceived, the Whitsuntide (white sun time) consisted of

three days: Whitsunday, Whitmonday and Whittuesday, the first devoted to
the sun god, the second to the moon goddess and the third to Tyr, god of
war and destruction. The first spirit was represented in the Whitsunlord,
the second in the Whitsunlady, and the last in the king's April fool. In late
practise, the festival was associated with the Christian Pentecostals which
were held fifty days after Easter. At that, the latter were said to represent
the descent of the Holy Spirit to the earth, which is not unlike the
revitalization of the soil with the old pagan god-spirit. We suspect the
whitsun ales were partly a fund-raiser for whatever religion happened to hold
sway, and the earlier name for the festival suggests one popular product
that may have been offered for sale. Where they survived in Atlantic
Canada, these Pentecostals became little more than a church bazaar, with
any drinking forced into secluded corners of the church-grounds. The
"whitsun-farthings" that used to be picked up at gaming tables and at the
booths of merchants and marriage brokers became "pentecostals" in the
less secular version of this celebration. Phillip Stubbes of London noticed
that this was one of the "moveable-feasts" "Whitsonday" being celebrated
"close against May." A disgusted Christian, he noted that men and women of
his day still "ran gadding over night to the woods, groves, hils and mountains,
where they spend all night in pleasant pastimes." In the morning they came
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back and decorated there homes whith "birches and the branches of trees."
He identified the "Great Lord" of these festivities as "Sathan, prince of hel",
noting that this fertility god was symbolized in a Maypole, hauled home behind
"fortie yoke of oxen." "Thus reared up, they bind green boughs about it.
Then fall they to daunce about it...I have heard it credibly reported that of
fortie, threescrorce, or a hundred maides going to the woods overnight,
there had scarcely returned the third part of them undefiled." Exact
practises, in either the old world or the new, are conjectural but it can be
noted that the Anglo-Saxon "whit" or "wiht" became the English "wight" and
the modern "white". Keightley said that "wight" corresponds with the German
"wicht", the later used in Chaucer's time to describe an evil elf. He has also
noted that all these words are the equivalent of "witch" and that the eve of
May Day was one of their celebrations.

WILLIE, AULD

The Devil or a devil of the Devil

Anglo-Saxon, willa, Old Nose, villi, a state of object of desire,

particularly one of carnal pleasure. Vili was one of a triumvirate of mortal-
gods, the others being Odin and Ve. They were all born of the god Borr after
he impregnated the giantess Bestla. At the creation of men, Odin gifted
them with souls and Ve gave them blood and the spirit of life, while Vili
contributed motion and the senses. When Odin was absent from Asgard, his
brother gods usurped his power and even espoused his wife. On his return
Odin put them to flight, an event celebrated each year in May Day (i.e.
Beltane) celebrations. In Sweden, the May Ride saw a flower-decked May King
route a fur-enshrouded Winter-King (representing either Vili or Ve), pelting
him with blossoms until he was finally repulsed. In England a similar fate
awaited other representatives of death and winter. In Scotland the male
equivalent of Vili was their nathair, who had his equivalent in the female
Cailleach. Auld Willie, the modern Devil, has also been characterized as Ill-
willie or Stinking Willie (see Auld Reekie). The Sandman is spoken of as Wee
Willie Winkle, identifying him as a diminished devil.

WILL O' THE WISP

A light-carrying water-spirit usually found in marshy

 266

situations.

Anglo-Saxon, wiht, creature + of the + Old Norse, visp, a broom-

like collection of fibres carried as a torch. The first word resembles the
Anglo-Saxon gewil, one who follows his own drummer, and confers with
wicca and wicce, a witch.

Will-o'-the-wisp is a personalization of the gopher light which our

English ancestors claimed represented the cowalkers of a special breed of
men: boundary-stone movers, usurers and swindlers. They confered with the
Swedish "lygte men" and the German "luchtenmannikens", and resembled the
lowland Scot's spunkies, except that the latter were supposed to be the
runners of unbaptized children. The same origin was suggested for the
Russian "rusalky" who are somewhat like the Italian "fuochi fatui" except that
the latter were spirits of people in purgatory. Ball-lightning, or gohpers at
sea, were locally termed the fetch, and some men said these were the souls
of those who had drowned. Fire carriers such as Will O' The Wisp were not
really the souls of the dead but their earth-bound cowalkers. Nancy
Arrowsmith has elaborated: "The flames were not the elves, but the lights
they carried. These elves are animated by the (daed) souls of men, women
and children. As such they come closer to being ghosts than any other fay
people." Ghosts were not earth-bound, but spirits usually confined in the
underworld. Their materializations above ground were rarely repeated.

The will-o'-the-wisp has sometimes been confused with "foxfire",

sheets of light caused by the bioluminescent effect of certain fungi found in
rotting stumps and vegetation. The latter is perhaps the "lambent light"
that the Old Norse saw guarding their tombs. These were certainly the lights
the Micmacs provided at burial sites "to give light and company to the
nigelwech (ghosts)." By contrast, the Will O' The Wisp was always in motion.

One of these appeared periodically at Zinck's Point, near Rose Bay,

Nova Scotia: "There was a vacant house out there where a light came down
the shore and it was like a man carrying a lantern. It came down to the
beach and then went up the height of two vessel spars, jumped around, came
down and took a short cut back to the house. It acted just like a man." A
Blandford resident explained that ghost lights appeared over a house in the
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village where "an old man had died". These remained on guard as long as
descendants of this person lived in the house.

The development of a will-o'-the-wisp that enveloped an entire house

was uncommon but there are incidents on record. In at least one case the
phenomenon was blamed on the construction of a dwelling using driftwood
from a ship lost at sea. On the appropriately named Devil's Island, located in
Halifax Harbour, Helen Creighton was introduced to the case of Henry
Henneberry, the one-time owner of a very mysterious home. When that
gentleman drowned his runner came back to the house at the exact time of
his death, and left the wet footprints of his high-topped waders in fresh
paint which his wife had just laid on the kitchen floor. After that, the lights
started, "five or six blue flames." Surprisingly, people who came near were
not burned by them and found they could place their hands against cold ship-
lap that appeared to be alive with fire. Thoroughly frightened by this, the
surviving members of the family decided to isolate it from the surrounding
fields by placing it on a new foundation. When this was done the "fires"
simply moved from the outer walls to a position under the eaves. As
experiment a member of the family brought back one of the "evergreen
palms" which used to be blessed in the Church on Palm Sunday. He pinned to
a place where flames typically sprung up and was fascinated to note that
they burned all about this Christian relic without incorporating it.

Malcolm and Sadie Campbell of Glendyer Mills, Cape Breton, saw the
ultimate manifestation of this ghost, a land-based equivalent of the fire-ship.
Malcolm observed it in midwinter at midnight: "This was a house where after
nine o'clock you'd never see a light, they'd all gone to bed. We had a horse
and sleigh and stopped at the brook to water the mare. I looked up at the
house and just joking with her (Sadie) I said, "This old lady...she must have a
bridge club or something tonight. The house is all lit up." It was a strange
thing because we passed there hundreds of times and they never kept a
light. (But this time there was light) in every window...but an eerie light."

For her part, Sadie suggested that what they had seen was the last
phase of a forerunner, typically described as "a ball of light with a bit of a
tail on it." Sadie noted that "once it drops to the ground it lights up the
whole building on the outside." Hugh added that this seems to have been the
nature of this light since, "a very short time later the old lady died and it
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came a snowstorm. She had a son away and a daughter and they waked the
body for four or five nights, perhaps a whole week...And that was a very
unusual thing because it was two nights usually...and there were lights on
every night, all this time. People coming to the wake. The house was lighted
up every night."27

At Clyde River, Prince Edward Island, wavering lights in the air

appeared, signalling "something serious in the wind. "In the late fall of
nineteen ten these lights appeared almost nightly on one end of the bridge.
They would gradually drift up from the bridge and beyond the church, to the
intersection of the Bannockburn Road, where they would gradually fade...In
that year Mr. and Mrs. Paul MacPhail died in a fire...the light had appeared
over their house."

On an island in the Saint John River, two miles below Hartland, there is
a barn which periodically bursts out in flames and the volunteer fire
department has been called out several times to find nothing out of order.
Men and women who have seen it engulfed in the night have been puzzled to
return by dawn when they found not a single ember of blackened board.
Stuart Trueman attributed this will-o'-the-wisp to the spirits of French and
Indian fighters burned out by the hostile English. He says, "whatever the
reason, Indians of bygone generations refused to go near the island."

The phenomena that plagued Sacrifice Island, in Lunenburg County,

Nova Scotia, were attributed to a similar loss of life in colonial times. One of
these happenings was a light that "graw larger and larger, and when it got
nearly the size of a puncheon head, it was known to be a dead light...there
wasn't any fire to it, and it expanded and grew to be fairly light (bright)."

Some of the lights persisted long after they were first generated, and
in many cases the causative agent was unknown. Thus, at Mount Franey,
Cape Breton, the Edwardian writer Frank Hatheway found "A Mrs. Dolan, who
lives near Middle Head, (who) told me last week that she saw a steady, bright
light, larger than a planet. It appeared on the very top of the mountain. I
was up there myself last week. There's no house, or barn, or any
appearance of a fire up there." Again at Conquerall Banks fishermen

27Caplan, Ronald, Down East, pp. 30-31.

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routinely spotted "lights coming down the wharf. We could only spot them on
real dark nights." Sometimes the will-o'-the-wisps were uncannily helpful. At
Myer's Point, Head Jeddore, Nova Scotia, a group of pond-skaters knew
themselves to be in the haunt of ghostly lights. The night was intensely
dark, and in jest one of the crowd shouted out, "Ghost, light up your pond so
we can put our skates on." Unfortunately, for those gathered there a slow
and persistent glow spread from a single sphere to incorporate the entire
neighbourhood.

WITCH

A mortal earth-spirit incarnate, for good or evil, among

men. Often equated with the "little people."

Middle English, wicchen. See wight for explanation of the linguistics.

The Whitsuntide is not as far in the past as some might wish and
neither are witches. The word is Teutonic-Scandinavian in origin, leading to a
suspicion that the original "devil" of the witch coven might have been one of
the pagan gods of northwestern Europe, most likely Allfather Odin, but
possibly the older Thor who was said to prefer tall evergreens as a rest
station for his spirit. The word from which "witch" derives was the Anglo-
Saxon "wic", having the meaning of a dwelling place, particularly one on an
ocean inlet. Later, "wicca" came into use to identify a male dweller by the
sea, while "wicce" described a female of this same type. There were no
nasty connotations in the beginning the related word "wit" describing a wise
individual and the "witan" being the Anglo-Saxon king's high-council. The
Anglo-Saxons lost Angland, or England, to the Normans in ten sixty-six and
after that the language was subverted to the interests of the new rulers.
Wits became "nit-wits" and "wicing" came to describe a pirate rather than an
uassuming harmless sea-side resident. Forced from their usual lines of
work, the Anglo-Saxons turned to "wicked", "withering" pursuits including the
"witless" business of "witcraeft", which we now name witchcraft. The first
witches were heavily involved in wicker-weaving of baskets and homes and
were weather forecasters, the old Anglo-Saxon word "weder" being an
exactly synonym for "wither" and thus witch. Another spelling for weather
was, anciently, "wodder" and this relates to a whole group of English words,
woad, wood, would and wed, and of course Wodensday, or Wednesday, leading
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to the pretty certain conclusion that he was the first "lord of the dance" to
the witch tribes.

The witches did not remain in Europe when men moved to North
America, but little was heard of their activities because the burning-season
had fizzled out in Europe. In Atlantic Canada we had nothing as spectacular
as the witch trials in Salem, New England in 1692, but one French witch was
burned alive at Point de la Flamme, near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
in the colonial period. As near as we can determine the last witch to be done
down by her neighbours was Mrs. Tennant, a ninety year-old woman who lived
in the Barter homestead at Tennants Cove, on the Kingston Peninsula, in New
Brunswick. She appears to have been guilty of little more than "mutterings
and strange actions" but she was made the subject of a trial by fire, her
spirit being symbolically imprisoned in an iron horseshoe. When this was
thrust in an open fireplace flame, she reacted spectacularly, shrieking and
screaming as if she were burned. She was generally assumed to have been
guilty of causing apples to shrivel on trees, killing cattle, creating
spontaneous fires, and encouraging fences to collapse allowing cattle to
trample the grain. She died shortly after her trial by ordeal. There have
been many other notable Maritime witches, the most senior having been the
notorious Witch of Mull River (Cape Breton) who lived in a windowless shack,
ate tallow candles, and grew horns at the age of a hundred, their length
increasing by a half inch during the remaining seventeen years of her life.

When Will R. Bird visited Tusket Forks in the late 1940s, he heard of
Granny Doucette who lived “along the shore” and was “a weather prophet of
more than average ability. So correct were her predictions that couples
planning to wed would consult her about fine days. She also knew the best
time for planting different seed, and knew all the moons when the fish
arrived; the May moon, for sowing different kinds of grain; the June moon for
luck with boat launching; the July moon when berries were ripe; the August
moon meaning eels in the sand, and the September moon, the time for moose
hunting. She cured everything from boils to kidney trouble with herbs she
gathered from the woods and fields.”28

WIDOW MAN, WOMAN

28Bird, Will R., This Nova Scotia (1950) p. 135.

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A witch-man or a witch-woman.

Anglo-Saxon, weddow, or wedew, literally a weder-man, or weather-

man. Confers with witch (see, above). Note also the Anglo-Saxon wodiere,
a woodsman, akin to Woden and to the English words, weather, wind and
wood. As noted elsewhere, Woden was the supreme diety of the pantheon
of north-western European gods, displacing Thor as the chief among the Old
Norse gods. Used locally to distinguish a widow or widower, especially
individuals who had managed to outlive a number of mates. Thus a person
with supernatural help.

WINPE

The wizard-warrior who ruled the northern sea.

In European mythology gods of life and light invariably failed and this was so
with Glooscap. It was said that his first residence was the island called Aja-
lig-un-mechk, possibly located at the mouth of the Saint John River in New
Brunswick. Here, after a time among men, the Patridge Clan plotted to kill
the god and in this interest abducted the Bear Woman and Martin, and fled
with them into the forest. They had been gone for a month and a half,
before Glooscap returned home and peered into Martin’s birch-bark dish.
Following faint tracks to the shore he was confronted by a co-conspirator,
Winpe, the giant of the north wind. Seeing his family in a distant canoe
Glooscap tried to rescue them but was blow back to shore by the wind. He
followed a decaying trail to Grand Manan, and some say that it was here that
he sought the dark lands. Others insist that he crossed over to Kespoogitk
(Yarmouth) and slowly guided his canoe along the southern coast of Nova
Scotia until he came at last to Uktukkamkw, the beginning-place. At the
gates to the Otherworld Glooscap meditated for seven years before pursuing
the dark lord. When the time had come for action, he pointed his canoe into
the caverns of the Word Beneath Earth, where he found and rescued his
friends. On the outward journey, however, he passed through places where
men were not meant to go, so that Marten and the grandmother both died of
fear. But on the other shore, at home again he said Numchashse! arise! and
they were reincarnated. This incident of the “sun” passing through the
caverns beneath the earth, emerging again to light the day, is a common
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theme in world myth. Here as elsewhere the conquest of darkness was seen
as giving the god power over death.

WISKIDABES

A natural stone pillar thought to encompass the soul of an

unfortunate.

Passamaquoddy, “the Dishonoured One,” located on the western shore not

far from a sea-cliff. This pillar is now called The Friar’s Head. According to
local legend this is all that persists of a warrior who had the misfortune to
be conquered by a woman “long ago, in the historic age.”

WIWILAMEQ

A mortal sea-spirit incarnate as a horned serpent.

Passamaquoddy dialect. Also seen as weewillmekq' and as

weewilliahmek in the Penobscot tongue. Charles Leland has guessed that
this creature, which he describes as "an alligator or some kind of a horrible
water-goblin," was misidentified with a similarly named Micmac worm, which
was more often found in dried wood than in the sea. Later accounts make it
clear that a similie was intended, the creature being like this two or three
inch worm in body shape, but capable of of altering its size to that of a
horse. It was agreed that this kind often took human form, and could move
with equal ease through land and water.

John Gyles was captured by a Malseet and brought to live in this region
in 1689. While there, he was told by tribemen of a woman of such beauty
she could not be suitably mated. Her family lived beneath the shadow of the
White Hills, then called Teddon, at the headwaters of the Penobscot River.
One evening the girl was seen to be missing and her parents could not locate
her. After much time and effort Gyles says they found her "diverting herslf
with a beautiful youth, whose hair, like her own, flowed down below his waist,
swimming, wshing &c., in the water; but they vanished on their approach.
This beautiful person who they imagined to be one of those kind spirits who
inhabit the Teddon, they looked upon as their son-in-law; and according to
custom they called upon him for moose, bear, or whateverr creature they
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desired; and if they did but go to the water-side and signify their desire, that
animal would come swimming to them."

Lucy Pictou of Lequille, Nova Scotia, told a similar story (1923) in

which a girl married a "horned-snake". In this case, the girl first saw her
loved one sitting within a spring, deep under the water: "He sits there quietly
cross-legged with his arms folded across his chest." In this case the couple
remained among the Micmac until a child was born, then all three were seen
to remove their clothing, and as the tribe watched, their bodies were seen to
thicken and length as they shape-changed into horned serpents. Afterwards
they disappeared into an adjacent lake. John Newell of Pictou Landing
recounted the dangers inherent in consorting with the sea-people (1911). In
his tale, a man lay within a jipjakamiskwa track and was converted into a sea-
serpent He followed the spoor of a female into the world beneath the water.
A magic worker told the man's brother that he was surely lost to the world
of men "if he has slept with her under the same blanket." Apparently he had
not, for the puoin was able to set a death trap for the female serpent and
retrieve the human from the carcase of the beheaded male. John Neptune, a
chief of the Passamaquoddies (1880), fought the final battle of his life
against a wiwilameq. Neptune identified this destructive serpent as the
familiar of a chief of a neighbouring Maliseet tribe. Neptune characterized
damage at a Passamaquoddy camp-site as, "the work of the inch-long worm
that can make itself into a monster as big as a deer." Having concluded this,
the "old governor" went through a complex ritual and "drank medicine" in
order to call his enemy to battle. Neptune struggled with his adversary at
the edge of Boyden's Pond on the reservation at Perry, Maine. Afterwards,
the marauder ceased his rampages but the pond was permanently polluted.
The lake, which is about four miles from Point Pleasant is even yet named
Neseyik, “the muddy lake” or Nesseik, “the place oppf the roiled water.”
Eckstrom says she was told that Chief Neptune took the form of a giant eel
in order to overcome this ancient enemy.

WOKWOTOONOK, WOCHOWSEN, WUCHOWSEN

The windblower, a giant who controlled the north wind of

winter.

Wabenaki, “wind-blow.” one of the kukwees, similar to the god Odin,

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who was also entiled the Lord of the Northern Mountains. It is said that when
this wind spirit was at his most destructive men hid in the caves of the earth
or took refuge beneath the evergreens of the inner forest. Wokwotoonok
often plotted with the giants Winter and Frost hoping to eliminate Glooscap’s
people, but he was thwarted by the fire-spirit and the goddess of Summer
who allied themselves with men. Leland described him as sitting “on a great
rock at the end of day. And it is because he moves his wings that the wind
blows.” He was described as “the grandfather of men,” but he had little
interest in them, so Glooscap “tied both his wings,” and diminished his danger
to men.

WOMBE

The fog-spirit.

Passamaquoddy, “white devil.” The spirit which some call a mistpuffer.

While one may by-pass the shoals and rocks of the Bay, there is no escaping
the wombe, which Eckstrom assures us had nothing to do with Englishmen,
but was a name applied to incarnate sea-smoke or fog. Some men have said
that the Fundy fog resulted when Glooscap threw out his ashes from the
point of land at Blomidon.

The Bay of Fundy is a funnel for wind as well as water and those who choose
to live nearby cannot escape from the effects of the collisions of warm and
cold air masses. In our part of the world the prevailing wind is from the
southwest, the ground-level air masses being dragged in this direction by
the overhead jet stream. In many places the air from the southwest
encounters hills, and the winds are reduced in velocity, but those headed for
Atlantic Canada are driven through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian
Chain and emerge with greater speed than might otherwise be the case. This
means that very hot air sometimes intrudes very quickly on the cold air that
typically blankets the Bay and where these different masses come together
fog is an inevitable by-product.
In the summer months, there is fog more often than not, and it fills
the north of the Gulf of Maine, shrouding all of the Western Isles (excepting
perhaps their westerly faces). The upper reaches of the Bay sometimes
blow free of fog, but everything from St. Martins west in usually deep in the
white stuff. At Yarmouth there are about 20 days of fog in July and 19 in
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August; at Saint John, the count is 17 and 14, with warm southwestern
winds driving it most of the time. In the summer the Bay of Fundy waters
have an average temperature of 14 degrees, which is precisely that needed
to precipitate water out of the moving air.

“Sea-smoke,” “steam fog,” or “Arctic frost smoke,” is the

meteorologic term for what locals call “the vapours,” and this phenomena
is “ying,” to the “yang” of fog. In the winter the temperature of the bays
and harbours behind the Gulf of Maine falls to about 9 degrees Centigrade,
but the winds from the Canadian Arctic are often far colder. The slosh and
roll of the waves, and the roiling of the tides bumps water particles into the
air just as it does in summer. This local air is not really very warm, but it is
relatively warmer than the air masses moving in from the north. It is also
warm enough to accommodate small droplets of moisture. When the invading
air falls across it, what moisture there is squeezed out as a fine earth-
bound, or water-bound cloud. The ledged and indented “drowned valleys” of
this part of Atlantic Canada are superbly suited to generating summer fog
and winter vapour. The Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy are great winter
heat-sinks, cauldrons which hold the heat of summer a little past its season;
in this sense sea-fog is a ghost of summer.

George Lowell, a fisherman who worked out of Prospect Harbour, Maine

(1992), said that “vapour can be awfully thick. But it’s not ever as bad as
the fogs we fished in off Great Wass Island or off the banks of Grand Manan
Island in summer. It’d get so thick out there that we had to put a watch up
on deck so we wouldn’t run into another boat. I don’t remember ever being
frightened of vapour or fog. It was dangerous, I guess, but you didn’t talk
about it...When the vapour freezes (however) it can be a job to sail through.
Sometimes it will freeze right to your oilskins. You’ll be going through it in
the boat and your oilskins will be turning white. Then you do this. It cracks.
It falls right off.”

Because the droplets of water in sea-smoke are supercooled, they

freeze became ice when disturbed by contact with anything in motion. The
washboards, gunwales, and masts of ships can then became layered with ice
to such an extent they begin to list. If they are left undisturbed they will
overweight a craft and sink it, and I have seen losses of this sort in St.
Andrews Harbour. This is unfortunate in view of the fact that this ice is not
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really solid, but somewhat crumbly and easy to knock away with an axe or
hammer.

Another Maine seaman, Sherman Merchant, noted that vapour was

frequently channelled, so that one could see through it and get some sense
of direction. “I’ve never been lost in vapour. But in fog one summer, I went
round and round before I was forced to give up. I took my canvas (sleeping
bag) out of the bow of the boat and went ashore to sleep for the night. Fog
in summer can be big and heavy (and dangerous). And it’s always wet. I’ve
seen vapour out on the water as late as April and as early as November...”

Clarence Bennett who lived at nearby Vinalhaven, Maine (1988) says

that sea vapour that appears at sunrise, “leaping up into fluffy, deep red
smokes,” always promises two to three additional days of severely cold
weather. The spirit of fog has also been observed to have a few predictable
habits. Former airline pilot Carmine Capolla had a mentor, “an old sailor who
instinctively knew the tides for Boston,” who showed him how to make the
approach to Boston airport in the deepest fog. “hE told me that about an
hour before high tide, regardless of how thick the fog, the ceiling would rise
and the visibility would increase. He didn’t know why, but it was reliable...
(Knowing this) I have since amazed many copilots and crew at my
“supernatural” ability to predict weather conditions at the Boston airport.”
(OFA, 1994)

The local Indians might have explained the backing away of the fog as a
courtesy on the part of the spirits of the air. They understood that the
clouds of the sea might take lives, and perhaps represent a shape-changer.
Along the Maine coast, just north of Olamon Island is an island, presently
unnamed, which used to be called Wombemando, “White Devil’s Island.” This
place was never inhabited by white-skinned men, but was named for an Indian
who committed some atrocities at that place about the year 1750. He must
have been a virile spirit and a great magician for he is reported to have come
back from living among the Micmacs to rejoin the Penobscots in 1930.

As we have noted there are two great islands of fog that still bedevil
Atlantic Canada, one within the Bay of Fundy, the other shielding the
continental shelf of southern Newfoundland. It may be remembered that
Cuchullain found his Fomorian opponents in a blanket of fog near the sea-
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islands of Hy Falga and Dun Scaith; and it is perhaps not chance that gave
another part of the Otherworld the Gaelic name, “the Land of Two Fogs.”
Bear in mind, also the fact, that men often chanced on the Netherworld by
simply wandering into a land-based European fog. The Celtic voyager Bran
explored the island of Airgtheach, “The White House,” and that called
Argadael, “The Silver Cloud,” appropriate names for any of our ocean-
islands.

Since the constantly active Bay rarely cools to the -2 degrees C.

necessary to freeze salt water, the place usually remains ice-free, in
contrast with most other waters in the region. Some parts of the most
eastern upper bay do form ice on the shallows, but the tides quickly crush
them into ice cakes, which then shift before the winter wind. Sometimes
they pile up on shore or beach themselves on the tidal flats, but the high tide
inevitable refloats these “spirits on the water,” which show their temper by
ploughing across gravel and mud beaches as they drift seaward. On cold
days we have seen the Chignecto Bay entirely sheathed in white, from one
side to the other in seemingly solid ice, but at the next turn of the tide this
same area is seen as blue-black water, the ice only persisting as a faint
white band against the cliffs on the far shore.

WOODS-WHOOPER

An underground-spirit, the gatherer of souls of the dead.

Anglo-Saxon, wudu, woods from Woden, the Old Norse Odin + Middle-
English, houpen, a hooter or caller, from the Norman verb houper, an
interjection of surprise or exhaltation, a halloo. To whoot in the fashion of
an owl. A creature synonymous with the German hoihoiman and the English
hooter; one whose occupation is the diversion of travellers from their path.
The whooper is a shape-changer and an artist with rain, hail and snowstorm.
The whooper often leads men to their death in the deep woods, but at the
very least mocks their unease with an echoing whoop or laugh.

The earliest prototype of the whooper is Woden who led the Wild Hunt,
which travelled the winds of Yule gathering the souls of the dead. Those who
saluted the whooping cries from the air were sometimes rewarded with a
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quarter-section from a horse, which turned into gold over-night. Those who
mocked the sounds of thunder or shouts from the sky were sometimes
carried off, still living, to join the ranks of the spirits in their eternal hunt. In
either case, the action was accompanied by a crytic laughing sound. Old
Saint Nicholas derives from Nicolaus Woden, and Good Saint Nick shares his
interest in distributing presents to his favourites, sometimes chastizing evil-
doers. Santa Claus, whose name is a contraction of Nicholas, also announces
his leaving with an enigmatic "Ho! Ho! Ho!" The arrival of Woden's Wrath was
seen as an omen of bad luck, pestilence and war, but his wife Friggga
sometimes took charge, leading the host as Mother Gode, or Mother Wode. In
this case good luck usually followed, excepting poor house-keepers, whose
flax-wheels were sometimes broken or who were unceremoniously carried by
a whirlwind and dumped into a fouled ditch. Various humans have been
associated with the Wild Hunt since Woden's death. It was called the
Herlathing in England, after their mythical King Herla; in northern France it
was the Mesnee d'Hellequin, after Hel, the northern goddess of death. In the
Middle Ages it was Cain's Hunt or Herod's Hunt and in central France the Wild
Huntsman was variously seen as Odin, Charlemagne, Barbarossa, or
Rodenstein, all men with volatile characters. The last appearance of this
whooper was in the form of le Grand Veneur de Fontainbleau, who rode out on
the eve of Henry IV's murder, his cries an omen of the forthcoming French
Revolution. In the Gaelic-speaking lands, the soul-gatherer was sometimes
said to be the cailleach bheur (winter hag) or the nathir (serpent).

Lesser members of this tribe were the various Hey-Hey men, dwarfs
and elfs, who maintained the tradition after all these god-kings had gone to
their graves. They were once found inhabiting the remote woods, from the
forests of Bohemia to the mountains of Romania. The hooters of England
and the houpoux, of France, from which our whoopers are descended, were
seen in costal locations or in swamps and bogs. The duin-glas (grey-men) of
the Gaelic highlands has been active on Ben Macdhui in recent decades and in
1980 was encountered by climbers on Mount Helvellyn in the English Lake
District: "We had finished a snow climb...Conversing we suddenly became
aware of some audible footprints behind us. Turning around, we heard
muffled crunches coming from the imprints of our own footsteps in the
snow...I would be the first to admit that it is one thing to meet up with this
peculiar phenomenon in visible conditions and quite another matter when one
is alone on the tops at night, and in cloud and snow circumstances..." G.B.
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Elliott. The original "Grey Man" of Celtic myth was Finn MacCoul, the "giant"
who constructed the crystalline basalt "Giant's Causeway", an underwater
link between Ireland and Scotland. His personality merged with that of
Manannan Mac Lir, the Fomorian storm-god of the Tuatha daoine, a powerful
entity now reduced to stirring up minor blizzards to confuse travellers,
creating sounds to discomfort them, and laughing aloud when he has
succeeded.

Woods-whooper was the white-man's name for a very noisy spirit which
we think corresponds with the "underground panther". The Upper Canadian
tribesman called this creature the "wendigou" and it may confer with the
sea-going giantess who the Micmacs named "Gou-gou" or with the jipjakamaq,
the “horned-serpent people who were there kin. This "dragon" probably
originated in the dark regions of the earth but it spent much of its time in
the deepest most remote woods of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. While
"Gou-gou" confers with our word "earthquake", "wendigou" or "wendigo"
translates as "cannibal". The whooper has been represented as a
personification of hunger that stalks individual men in order to capture and
consume them. It sometimes occured "in the form of a giant cannibalistic
Indian breathing flames" but it also appeared as "a beast with a heart of ice
that flies through the air breathing flame and searching for a victim to quiet
its lust for human flesh." Like Balor of the Evil Eye, the whooper had the
capacity to frighten men to death, or it could simply attack with fangs and
teeth slaughter its victim amidst a bath of blood and gore. The woods-
whooper had no need to be subtle, but frequently illustrated a wry sense of
humour by attracing men to his deep-forest lairs with the smell of fatty
food. Those men unaffected by this sense were often led astray by a shape-
changed whooper in the form of a woman, who seemed to offer sex. Any of
the other senses could be assaulted, giving subtle signals that confused or
blinded the individual's befind or guardian spirit.

The parallels between this god-spirit and Odin-Uller are remarkable:

The whooper was particularly active in the winter months when he gathered
like-minded spirits to follow him in a Hunt through the woods. As the
whooper emerged from the underworld within the darkest forests, he
brought with him giants, carnivorous animals, evil mentous, and those of the
mikumwees, or little people, who were not friends of men. Among the
Chippewas, some of the latter were termed the "weeg", spirits of sleep, who
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subdued lost men and the souls of the dead, closing the eyes of mortals on
last time "by tapping them on the foreheads thus knocking them to sleep."
This describes the Norse Asagarderia as well as the Celtic "unsely (unsilly)
court", the latter being under the charge of the Nahair, or serpent-man. Like
the other two organizations, the aboriginal Hunt travelled on the north wind
in counter-clockwise circles and evidenced itself to men by announcing its
passage in fierce winds and the sound of thunder. Those who shared the
attitudes of the whooper were passed by and might even receive a "gift" of
human flesh flung down at them out of the sky. Men who shouted defiance
at the sky were often lifted up and forced to join the undead, who hunted for
an eternity in the skies of northern New Brunswick.
In the summer the Hunt was disbanded and men and beasts of evil-
intent were forced to retreat to a disreputable corner of ghost world. There
people who were without virtue were given "only the bark of rotten trees to
eat" and were made "to dance and leap without stopping." Those who lived
the good life could not be taken by the Hunt and went "to a place above the
sky".

In our mythology frequent reference has been made to uncanny woods

dwellers, particularly those with terrifying voices. Mary L. Fraser has given
publicity to a Nova Scotian woods-whoopers. located on Meadow Green in
Antigonish County. This beast was a resident in the aptly-named Dagger
Woods: "The usual manifestation was a series of cries. A cry was first
heard in the distance; then nearer, and consequently louder; and then just at
hand...It was a human cry, but a hundred voices could not produce its
volume." In this same vicinity, on the road between St. Andrew's and
Heatherton, a number of watchers were scattered by a "dreag", which
appeared as "a big pot spouting fire that passed through the air towards
them." Here again other observers thought that they saw a hollowed log
floating through the air gouting fire from two opened ends. One unhappy
woodsman described the voice of the whooper as "absolutely soul-rending"
and noted that it forced his horse to the ground where it lay immobilzed
"pouring sweat".

This cry is also descriptive of the Dungarvon Whooper. The origin of

the name "Dungarvon" is uncertain, but it does translate from Anglo-Saxon
sources as "the place of the evil warrior". There is a place in New Brunswick
called Dungarvon but this whooper was first reported at Clearwater Brook, a
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tributary of the Southwest Miramichi, in the winter of eighteen sixty-nine.

At its cry "horses snorted, neighed, stomped and reared in fright." After
eighteen seventy-four it was quiet but reappeared to vandalize a number of
woodcamps fifteen years later. The woods-whooper caused lumber men to
lose control of their animals and extinguished their lamps in a swirl of cold
wind. He laughed derisively at every inconvenience which he created, and old-
timers said that he was heard precisely at sundown, the screams of pain or
terror following for ten minutes. This was taken as an omen of death. Mern
who did not understand the nature of this spirit sometimes identified him as
a ghost of the dead and in the nineteen twenties the Revereand Edward S.
Murdoch made an abortive attempt to exorcise him. We know this was
unsuccessful as a young student heard him again when he attempted a
"wilderness experience" on Cain's River in the nineteen fifties. After hearing
its poenetrating shriek and the sound of breaking wood in the early morning
darkness, this Doaktown resident quickly launched his canoe and paddled to
the middle of Valentine's Lake. As day dawned he heard more distant callings
on the opposite side of the lake and got back enough courage to paddle along
the shore-line. As day progressed he forgot his terrible experience until the
arrival of an uneasy dusk. As a land fog fell, he again heard the whooper and
quickly beached his canoe and loaded his car. Showing great initiative, but
little common sense, this lad searched the brush for signs of the whooper's
passage earlier in the day but could find nothing. We are reminded here of
the English Robin Goodfellow, who also frightened men with his screams and
sometimes "took the form of a walking fire."

WOSWOGWODESK

Lightning personified.

Wabenaki, Micmac, the winner of a race with Weyadeask, the “Northern

Lights,” a creature tied to the polar regions.

WRACKER

A sea-spirit committed to destroying men and their ships.

Anglo-Saxon, wrecca, a wrecker, a miserable wretch; confers with

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wrecan, punish, avenge and wraec-sith, an exile, outsider. Wreckers,

those who deliberately set false lights on the shore to lead ships upon the
rocks so that they might profit from flotsam and jetsum. The prototype
was the Celtic goddess Morgan and her Norse counterpart Rann, who set
their "nets" to ensnarl the ships of men. These latter sought gold and the
souls of the dead.

In times past when ships were ravaged by storm or ran aground in

narrow passages, they were considered the prize of anyone who happened to
live on the closest bit of land. In some cases these craft were plundered
before the ship's owners or the insurance companies had declared them
written off. The law frowned on the practise but wracking was a way of life
in the vicinity of shoaler water. The earliest wrackers sometimes went
beyond mere scavenging, killing men and women who managed to escape from
the wreck to assure "a good shipwreck", where there would be no witnesses.
In L'Anse Amour, Labrador, many of the houses are furnished and decorated
with costly woods that are not from the trees of that mainland. This is
because the "Nanet" piled up on rocks in 1954. Her lumber was destined for
the European market and the locals reasoned it would be totally lost by the
time the insurance claims were decided, so they carried it home.
Nevertheless all of them were treading a fine line between legality and an
illegal act, and sometimes men relieved ships of their stores before they
were truthfully abandoned.
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