Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms

by Bob Curran

  Another mystery connected to an underground realm can also be found in the southern tip of Peru, not far from the Chilean border and near a small pueblo village named Ila. This is a great rock monolith, standing alone on a hill (which is supposedly hollow), which bears all sorts of strange markings, some of which are vaguely reminiscent of the Judaculla Rock in North Carolina. This stone, which is composed of lava, was supposedly raised by a race that emerged from an underground kingdom and colonized the surface for a brief period before being driven back below ground again by the surface tribes. It is said that anyone who can decipher the writings on the rock will learn the entrance to a tunnel system that extends from one side of the South American continent to the other, and the location of a fabulously wealthy kingdom lying far underground. Madame Blavatsky, who visited the site in the late 1800s, appeared to concur with the legend and claimed that the monolith had been raised by a “superior race” of great intelligence and power. That race, she asserted, was still down in the darkness, awaiting contact.

  Legends concerning tunnels to the upper surface from some country far below have sometimes transferred from South American legend into North American folklore. Usually, there are sinister overtones in such tales, and many concern people who have been spirited away by the denizens of such dark places. Perhaps this is because the Underworld has been viewed with awe and suspicion by the North American mind. The area directly beneath the surface of the Earth is often the domain of the dead. In New England, for example, the religious followers of Shadrack Ireland constructed artificial “hills” throughout the landscape during the early 1700s to house great stone-lined underground crypts where their dead could lie. Part of Ireland’s belief was that the dead “Brethren of the New Light” (those who followed his teachings which he claimed came directly from God) should not be buried in the ground, but should lie in communal chambers until the Day of Judgement when they could walk out whole and uncorrupted to face the Lord. When Ireland’s cult collapsed in the mid-1700s, it must have been rather disconcerting for those living in eastern New England to know that beneath their feet and in the hills close to their homes, ranks of dead people were lying in a series of interconnecting chambers, ready to rise up at any time. This may well have affected the folklore of the area.

  Indian legends too may have played their part in the belief. Stories of dead Indians who returned from some other subterranean world were found in the lore of many tribes, and old Indian mounds scattered throughout North America may have re-emphasised this belief. Such mounds, it was said, were the actual entrances into these netherworlds. Thus, those living close to such places may have felt slightly ill at ease. And, of course, there is also the baffling mystery of the “balds” in places such as North Carolina.

  Balds

  “Balds,” as they are known, are curious rounded hills upon the summits of which no vegetation, not even grass, will grow, leaving them completely “bald.” Such phenomena sometimes appears in New England, in locations such as Massachusetts or Rhode Island, but they certainly seem to congregate in the Appalachian chain in the northwestern corner of North Carolina. Here on a number of “balds,” no tree will grow, and although grass appears on the crowns of some of them, it is a thin, wiry, unhealthy growth that does not seem to last long. Others hold a shrub-like grass that spreads across the top like a fine covering. It is said that at least some of these “balds” denote the entrances to underground worlds, and that this prevents surface-world growths from sprouting or from taking hold there. It is said that these balds have existed since records began—there are tales of them among the Indians who will not approach some of them for fear of ancient powers lurking there—but none can truly explain them. There have been a number of explanations, such as strange soil composition to the activities of an insect known as the twig-gall wasp, but none of them truly hold up. On the top of some of the barren balds, long-range observers have thought they have seen faults, and landslips appear to have revealed small caves. Expeditions have been sent out to such caverns, only to find that they have disappeared. On Rambling Bald in the Lake Lure area of northwest, North Carolina, a large cavern appeared to exist—it was viewed through binoculars from some mountains nearby, but once again when searchers set out to find it, there was no trace on the mountain slopes. No trace of it was subsequently discovered, although several people claimed to have seen it.

  It has been said that the balds are hollow inside, and may contain tunnels that lead down to subterranean kingdoms or may indeed contain a world within themselves. Their gently sloping roundness has led to suggestions that at least some of them may have been artificially created. The “caves,” which seem to appear and vanish, are in fact access and exit points of these interior worlds, which are opened and closed from within. Who or what comes and goes through them is unknown. Occasionally, sounds will be heard echoing through the neighboring valleys, emanating from the balds. These sounds vary between dull roars—like falling rocks—or the steady motion of machinery, rising and falling in volume. A more fanciful explanation is that these are the sounds of underground engines operated by a subterranean race for some as yet unspecified purpose. Others have replied that these are simply the echoes of geological movements far underground, and that they are purely natural phenomena.

  And yet, stories concerning these “hollow hills” still persist in the folklore of the region. Local farmers will tell tales of animals who are mysteriously spirited away while grazing on the lower slopes of these bald mountains, and from time to time there are stories of humans who have also vanished in the vicinity of the North Carolina heights.

  The most famous of all such North Carolina fireside tales is that of the Reverend W.T. Hawkins, a 73-year-old retired Methodist minister who vanished one blustery evening in the 1930s in the Sapphire Hills on the South Carolina border. Tom Hawkins, who had the nickname “The Shepherd of the Hills” (presumably after the famous book written in 1907 by Harold Bell Wright, which centred on Ozark folklore), was a much loved and much respected figure throughout North Carolina. His disappearance became a talking point all through the hill country, and was linked to peculiar lights that were seen in the area at the time, and to rumors of a mysterious underground race.

  Around 5:30 p.m. on a dull and windy evening in March 1930, there was consternation in the household of Joe Wright, the Reverend Hawkins’s son-in-law with whom the old man lived. A family cow had been grazing up above the house on Timber Ridge, and now seemed to have disappeared. A creature of habit, she would usually come down the slope lowing to the door to be milked and put in for the night. This time it hadn’t happened and Joe Wright was worried. However, it was a miserable evening and Joe was warming himself by the open fire. He didn’t really want to go out again and look for her. Besides, there had been tales of strange lights—“Indian lights,” as local people called them—up along the Ridge and up into the mountains and Joe was just a little scared. His father-in-law, Tom Hawkins, had no such reservations. Leaving his daughter with her pots and pans, and his son-in-law still warming himself, the old man pulled on a coat and went up onto Timber Ridge to look for the animal. On the way up, he passed a neighbor heading home and bade him a cheery “good night.” He walked into the twilight and was never seen again; nor was the family cow. Somewhere up on the Ridge both of them disappeared forever.

  As his supper grew cold on the kitchen table, Tom Hawkins’s daughter began to worry. By now the gloomy twilight had given way to darkness and she grew more and more uneasy. Goblin tales that she had heard from some of her neighbors about queer lights moving along Timber Ridge began to creep into her mind. There was an old story about a girl who had allegedly vanished somewhere near the Ridge while berry picking there in the late 1800s. Some said that she had been carried away by beings of a subterranean race who were supposed to dwell in caverns deep below the Sapphire Hills, but who sometimes came up to the surface in order to hunt. There was supposedly some sort of underground city below the Hills, a
nd from time to time odd noises would drift down to those below. These were just old Indian tales, and her father had frequently chided her for listening to them and had dismissed them as nonsense. At the time she’d agreed with him, but now she wasn’t so sure. She looked at the table; Tom Hawkins hadn’t returned.

  Joe tried to reassure her—although the same sorts of stories were preying on his own mind. The old man had stopped off by the store, he said, and was gossiping with some of the neighbors. He had forgotten the time. She asked him to go down to see, and if the old minister was there, to bring him home. Joe walked down to the store. There, men often gathered in the evening to talk, swap stories, and whittle, but Tom Hawkins wasn’t among them. Several of the men had seen him pass by on his way up to Timber Ridge—a couple had called out to him as he had passed—but no one had seen him come back down again. There had been lights running along the Ridge, one said, and that meant only one thing: “them that live below are huntin’ again” and all should stay away. Joe Wright turned home again, his anxiety growing.

  And as the hours crawled past and the meal still remained untouched on the table, that anxiety turned into alarm. The next day, when Hawkins still hadn’t returned, Joe went around to his neighbors. His rational mind told him that the old man had probably fallen into a hollow or ravine and was probably lying seriously injured somewhere; yet another part of him remembered the old Indian tales of an underground race who had supposedly carried off a little girl to their own dark domain back in the 1800s. Not far away lay Whiteside Mountain with the sinister Devil’s Courthouse on its slopes. This was supposed to be the entrance to a subterranean world from which creatures emerged every once in a while. Stories of mysterious beings from the depths were all too common in this region, and made him feel extremely uneasy.

  News of the disappearance spread, and search parties were organized. The “Shepherd of the Hills” was such a popular figure that no effort was spared in bringing teams together, several with a number of experienced woodsmen who knew the Sapphire region well. But although Timber Ridge was combed again and again, not a trace of the missing clergyman was found, nor was there even a clue to the whereabouts of the cow for which he himself had been searching. It seemed, observed one of the searchers, “as if the ground had opened up and swallowed him.” Given the folklore of the region, there may have been more truth in the comment than was intended.

  Despite having the crack woodsmen in their group, the parties came down day after day with no word. Not even so much as a belt buckle had been found. A couple of the woodsmen admitted to finding “queer tracks” up along the Ridge, made by “not quite human feet” and drag marks through the foliage as if something bigger than a man (a cow?) had been taken along there. One of the woodsmen said that he’d seen similar tracks once before—up by the Devil’s Courthouse on Whiteside Mountain. Maybe, one man observed, Hawkins had come on the underground hunters as they were carrying off his cow, and they’d taken him as well. It was a fantastic theory, but might it be true?

  Some thought that Hawkins might have fallen into Lake Cashiers and the local authorities had the lake partly drained, but again nothing was found. Others said that the shepherd might have been whisked away in an automobile, but the roads up on the Timber Ridge were particularly bad, and few motor cars visited the area in which Hawkins lived. He could have been robbed and murdered, and his body removed from the area, but his daughter confirmed that he had nothing of any value on his person when he left. He’d simply pulled on a coat in order to go and fetch a cow. Had he run across moonshiners up in the hills who had killed him in order to protect their stills? But if that had happened, someone would have heard about it, and though the parson certainly disapproved of whiskey, he was known not to be an informer. There was also the theory that he had climbed up to investigate a nearly inaccessible cave, high up above the Ridge, and had somehow fallen and fatally injured himself. This theory was discounted as he had been going out in the twilight. However, it added to the idea that the aged minister had somehow been abducted by an underground race. Stories and hearthside tales began to flow back and forth across the region.

  After two weeks, the search for the missing minister was abandoned. No one could determine what had happened to the shepherd of the hills and on dark nights, lights were said to be moving again up along Timber Ridge. Men were rapidly becoming afraid of going up there, especially as dusk was falling. A service was conducted in the old man’s honor in the small Cashiers Valley church, in the churchyard of which his wife and mother both lay. The family gave up any hope of ever finding his body. But there was one last sinister twist to come.

  One night, as the Wright family lay asleep, their home was suddenly and inexplicably enveloped in flames. The family escaped, but the house was completely destroyed; they were able to save very few valuables and were left virtually destitute, relying on the kindness of neighbors. Nobody knew how the fire started or why it had been started. However, one of the investigating police officers found odd tracks close to where the house had stood; tracks which a woodsman later identified as ones he had seen up on Timber Ridge after the old minister had disappeared. This led some to speculate that Hawkins had been murdered and that his murderer was now trying to kill Joe Wright and his family. Maybe somebody held a grudge against them all. And yet, at night, the moving lights up on Timber Ridge were seen once more, coming and going in the darkness. Could the two be connected? Others rubbished the idea and said that the fire had been started by a spark from the fire catching the tinder-dry shingles of the building. If there was any connection between the two events, it was never discovered.

  Is there a lost land lying somewhere under the American continent? Certainly there seems to be a wealth of folkloric evidence from all over the continent that there is and, though the cynics may scoff, who knows what mysteries the distant hills may conceal?

  Conclusion:

  Whispers From Somewhere Else

  The world is full of hints, rumors, and speculations. In early days, men and women looked out toward the horizon and wondered what lay beyond it. It was then that human guesswork and imagination took over, and that stories, tales, and suggestions began to circulate. Some even claimed to have been there, either in actuality or in dreams and/or visions; others merely guessed at what might lie out there. And what they described was only limited by their own imaginations. What lay out there were wondrous countries, inhabited by the gods or by mystical beings, where there were magical places such as a fountain that bestowed eternal youth or a palace that conferred absolute contentment upon those who dwelt there. Out there, too, lay centers that could bring peace and stability to the world—the influence of which could be felt all across the planet. It is possible, then, to argue that some of these places were actually an abstraction or symbol of peoples’ hopes and dreams, and gave them something upon which to focus.

  As time went on, and people actually did travel to distant lands and locations, they brought back to their own communities interpretations of what they had seen. And certainly some of the things that they had seen were vastly unlike anything they had ever experienced before. Once again, imagination began to play a significant role. They sometimes described the inhabitants, customs, and cultures of distant lands in exaggerated and wondrous terms, blending some of the things that they had seen with folktale and legend in order, perhaps, to make them even more spectacular to their listeners. Thus, anything that was remote or far away began to acquire a certain enchanted, mystical quality, in the common mind at least.

  History also began to acquire some similar attributes. As life sometimes became harder and more complex, it was tempting to look back at some wonderful, less-complicated age where everything had been wonderful and much more simplistic. This might have been a perfect native state (as in the Garden of Eden) or some relatively advanced civilization in which life was much easier (such as Atlantis). These places always seemed to exist somewhere in the past—even today there is a tendency to loo
k back to the “good old days” of an idyllic yesteryear—which made them as unattainable as some of the far-off lands about which travelers told. It was in fact the sheer inaccessibility of such places that allowed imagination and speculation to run riot. Whether it was some unreachable island lying in uncharted waters or some almost forgotten realm now lost to history, the impulse was the same—to imagine and to speculate.

  This is not to say, of course, that such locations certainly did not exist. Indeed, as we have seen, some of the legendary places may well be rooted in actual historical and geographical fact, but it is human imagination and speculation that have given them both their color and mystique. In this respect, they have been partially created by the human mind, and to some extent by human yearnings.

  Exploration, too, opened up new vistas for the human imagination to investigate. As previously unknown continents began to yield their secrets, they sometimes posed more questions than they answered. Had great and vanished civilizations once flourished there? Had now extinct cultures held a knowledge that was now lost to the world? Had others actually been there before, leaving at least some traces of their presence behind? During the early 19th century, explorers such as Mungo Park brought back stories from the then “dark continent” of Africa concerning stone cities deep in the dense jungles while at the beginning of the 20th century, the occultist and explorer Alexandra David-Neel returned from the Himalayas with tales of lost mystical kingdoms ruled by monks somewhere among the towering peaks. Whether or not such kingdoms existed (and some of them certainly did), they all added to the idea of mystery and romance that surrounded the concept of such an isolated place.

  Because of the almost limitless scope of the imagination surrounding distant and “lost” locations, it has only been possible to give the briefest outline of such a topic in this book. Indeed, any one of these locations could warrant a book on its own. Some of them may simply have been concepts, a struggling to visualize somewhere beyond a largely static society; others may have been interpretations of places or events far away, but all have stirred and stimulated individuals. Even if such places do not actually exist outside the human mind, they are an important part of our culture and of who we are in relation to the wider world. They are, in fact, the summation and the crystallization of all our own (and our society’s) hopes and fears in a “tangible” and concrete form. And while they may never appear on any map or chart, they are unquestionably there in our minds and hearts; maybe that is their true location.