by Steve Vernon
The Stormy Petrel drew closer to Captain Douglas as he swam toward his son. One crewmember threw a life belt overboard to him. The captain caught hold of the belt just as he reached his son. Captain Douglas wrapped the belt around Eddie and tried to keep the young boy’s head above the water as the men hauled them back toward the ship.
The crew fought the current for over half an hour to pull the captain and the boy back on deck. By the time they got the pair on board, it was too late. Little Eddie Douglas had drowned in his father’s arms. Captain Douglas tried his best to revive his son, but there was no use.
“Build two coffins,” Captain Douglas ordered the ship’s carpenter. “Build one small enough for my son and the other large enough to put the first coffin inside with a little room left over.”
The carpenter was terrified that Douglas intended to be buried alongside his son, but nevertheless, he built the two coffins exactly as he’d been ordered to. He soon saw the wisdom behind the captain’s instructions.
Then, after placing the boy’s body inside the small coffin, and in turn placing that coffin inside the larger coffin, the carpenter filled the space between the two coffins with sticky pitch in order to make it airtight.
“This will keep the bad air inside the coffin during our journey,” Captain Douglas explained. “I mean to see my boy is buried where he’ll sleep the soundest.”
When the Stormy Petrel sailed into Bordeaux, Captain Douglas placed his son’s coffin aboard a fast-moving steamer bound for New York and made arrangements for its safe carriage home. From New York, the coffin was shipped by railcar to Nova Scotia. Then a horse-drawn wagon carried the coffin to the Maitland cemetery, where little Eddie Douglas was finally buried.
Captain Douglas sailed the Stormy Petrel back to Maitland, then gave up the ship once and for all. He spent the rest of his days comforting his bereaved wife and raising their little daughter.
In the many years since Captain Douglas’s own death, people have often spotted a man’s figure standing over little Eddie Douglas’s final resting place. Some believe that it is Captain Douglas come back from the dead to keep watch over his son. Others believe that it is the sailor who was playing with the boy right before he fell overboard. Whoever it is, the spectre still appears every once in a while to watch over the boy’s grave and to remind people of the tale of the Stormy Petrel.
The “Lutin,” or “little people,” were a type of fairy-hobgoblin who reputedly came over to the New World from Old France with the first French settlers. They were believed to be both bad and good, and there wasn’t much of a rule as to how they might behave. It depended upon which way the wind was blowing, I suppose. On any given day, the Lutin might helpfully shave the master’s chin before he even woke from his bed, or they might shave his head instead.
The Lutin are well known in the French Shore region of Nova Scotia, where the old people still braid the manes of their horses to keep them safe from the Lutin, who are fond of tangling the horses’ manes into untamable elf-locks. However, this particular tale actually comes from Havre Boucher, a small village in the belly of St. George’s Bay, approximately ten kilometres west of the Canso Causeway.
Depending on who you talk to, the village of Havre Boucher is either named after its ice-locked harbour or Captain Francois Boucher of Quebec, who stayed here through the very harsh winter of 1759. Over the years, the village has served as a haven to many different groups, including a small band of surviving Acadians, a few French settlers from Arichat, and a handful of Irish families who arrived in the early 1800s.
According to legend, there was once a log chapel that sat on the western point of the harbour. The church was run by a group of French missionaries and was attended by local Mi’kmaq.
The candles were burning, the hymns were being sung, and the good missionaries were kept up the whole night long praying and practising their best exorcising techniques on the night that Liam went out riding with the Lutin…
A Nag Named Plodder
Many years ago there lived a young man named Liam, who resided in the little town of Havre Boucher.
“I have such poor luck,” he complained to anyone who was foolish enough to listen. “I live in such a very poor town in such a very poor province.”
It was true. Liam did not have very much luck to his name. He had a few sheep, some holes in his boots, and a pair of empty pockets. In addition to that, he had a rundown farm and a ramshackle barn and a tired old horse named Plodder, who was his best friend in the world.
Every morning, Liam would go to the barn to find Plodder looking more tired than ever. No matter how much he fed the old horse, no matter how much water he gave him, and no matter how long he let him rest, Plodder kept looking more tired by the day. Each day the horse’s rib bones spindled out a little farther beneath his ratty old hide. And each day his knees bowed in more and his legs lanked out more and his teeth drooped a little lower from his big flappy lips.
“Every morning the horse looks as if it has been out for a hard gallop all night long,” Liam said. “In a few more nights there will be nothing left of it but a rattling old horsehide sack wrapped around a bag of broken bones.”
Then, early one morning, Liam found that Plodder’s mane and tail had both been braided overnight. They were pretty braids, with long black ribbons of eel grass and ivy woven through them, but since old Plodder was built for nothing more glorified than pulling a dull plow, Liam just couldn’t see the point.
That is, until he talked to his next door neighbour, Old Man Levasseur.
“Your problem is simple,” Old Man Levasseur said. “Your horse is being ridden by the Lutin.”
“What’s a Lutin?” Liam asked.
“The Lutin are what we Acadians call faerie people,” Old Man Levasseur said. “The Lutin mostly leave us people alone but they have a love of horseback riding and a fascination with the tying of knots.”
“How long will this go on?” Liam asked.
“Most likely until your horse dies from exhaustion,” Old Man Levasseur replied.
“Isn’t there anything I can do about it?”
Old Man Levasseur shrugged and thumped his pot-belly three times fast. “Put a silver coin in a bucket and let the horse drink from it,” he advised. “It is the strongest protection against the Lutin that I know of.”
“And where would I find a silver coin?” Liam asked. “I barely have two brass pieces to rub together.”
“Then try sprinkling some salt on the ground,” Old Man Levasseur said. “The Lutin hate the salt.”
“Why waste good salt on the dirt?” Liam asked.
“If you pinch your pennies any harder, the queen will blush,” Old Man Levasseur teased. “Maybe you could just try setting a trap?”
Which is just what Liam did. The next evening, after putting Plodder into the stall, Liam laid seven rawhide rabbit trip-snares about the old barn in such a fashion that no matter how carefully someone approached the stall, he would be bound to catch his foot in one of the trip-snares.
However, on the next morning, Liam found that his trip-snares had been gathered up and braided into a very neat bundle. Plodder was leaning in the stall, looking even more tired than ever, with a long strand of blue jay and crow feathers woven into his braided mane and tail.
“Traps don’t work,” Liam told Old Man Levasseur.
“Of course they don’t,” Old Man Levasseur retorted. “The Lutin are far smarter than your average rabbit is.”
“So what can I do?” Liam asked.
“There is another way,” Old Man Levasseur said. “You’re bigger than the Lutin, aren’t you?”
“How would I know?” Liam said. “I’ve never seen a Lutin.”
“Well, why don’t you try catching him tonight?” Old Man Levasseur asked.
“And how do I do that?” Liam asked. “Is there a spell I sho
uld recite? Will I need to wear a crucifix or say the Lord’s Prayer?”
Old Man Levasseur shrugged. “A prayer never hurt,” he said. “But mostly I was just thinking you ought to sneak up and jump on his back.”
Which is just what Liam set out to do.
Man Versus Lutin
Plodder looked gaunter then ever by moonlight. It gave Liam a case of the bitter shivers as he stood there in the shadows of the stall. It was a good thing old Plodder was feeling so tired, because a good hard rearward kick from him might have crushed Liam’s ribcage in on itself.
“This is a bad idea, isn’t it, boy?” Liam whispered.
Plodder whinnied in agreement.
Going out of his way to antagonize something so magical and powerful as a Lutin certainly was a very bad idea. There was no telling what this Lutin might do to Liam if he had the notion to hurt him.
But Liam needed that horse. He was far too poor to even consider buying a new one. And besides, Plodder was the closest thing to a best friend that Liam had ever had. There was no way on this green earth that he was going to let the Lutin ride old Plodder into the dirt.
Suddenly Liam saw the tiny little Lutin creeping into the horse’s stall. He looked as if he had been built from mosquito bones and cat whiskers. He was thin and wiry, with a long needle nose that looked sharp enough to serve as a stinger. He had a nasty little sneer that looked to have been carved onto his tiny leather face. His skin was dusty grey, tinged with a hint of river moss. The only spot of colour upon the Lutin’s entire body was a bright red cap that perched nattily upon his head.
Liam waited patiently. He knew that he would only get one chance at catching this little man.
The Lutin tiptoed closer and then all at once he leaped upon Plodder and kicked him in the ribs with a pair of heels that looked as sharp as hunting knives.
Liam leapt too. He grabbed hold of the Lutin, but touching him was as painful as picking up a mid-summer hornet nest. Liam screamed and tried to pull his hands free, but the Lutin braided Liam’s fingers into Plodder’s mane in less time than it might take you to take a good deep breath.
“Help!” Liam yelled.
Suddenly, Old Plodder reared up and leaped clear over the stall gate, dusting the cobwebs from the barn rafters. The barn doors flew open before the horse, as if they’d been kicked.
Liam squeezed the Lutin harder. No matter how much hanging on hurt, he was determined not to let go.
“Set me free!” the Lutin shrieked.
“Leave go of my horse,” Liam said. “Or I’ll squeeze you until your eyes bleed.”
“Then ride with me,” the Lutin said in a voice that sounded like a pit saw crossed with squeaky chalk. “And I will show you a treasure beyond your wildest of dreams.”
And Plodder took off galloping.
Liam’s Long Midnight Ride
Liam had never seen a horse gallop so hard and so fast. Plodder hit the Strait of Canso and leaped over it. Liam took a panic stricken half-second blink at the water surging below him and braced for the impact of the inevitable landing to come. Only the landing never happened.
Old Plodder must have been crossed with mythical Pegasus himself, because instead of falling, the old nag rose higher and higher into the night sky, nearly flying headlong into a great horned owl.
“Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo,” said the great horned owl. “Whooo, whooo?”
“Me!” shouted Liam.
“Take a look down, why don’t you?” the Lutin asked. “And forget about your bird watching.”
Liam looked down in time to see a great beast rearing up out of a patch of ground so pitchy black that it seemed to suck the starlight out of the night sky. Three old hags danced at his feet.
“That’s the Bochdan of the Black Ground,” the Lutin said. “And his three sisters.”
And from underneath the shadow of the Bochdan purred a big fat old black pussy cat. “Hey, Mister Coal Shadow!” the Lutin called out.
The Lutin rode old Plodder even harder. The ground whizzed by below them.
“Slow down!” Liam called out.
“We’re only getting started,” the Lutin replied.
Farther up the coastline, Liam stared down at what looked to be a legion of devils marching down into a coal mine with picks upon their shoulders. Mermaids and selkies waved at him from the waves as he flew by. A sea monster roared up out of the water and playfully splashed him.
“Look over here,” the Lutin sang out and pointed.
Liam looked in wonder as the Capstick Bigfoot stepped out of the woods and blinked up at them with his big beautiful soft brown eyes. Farther along, a shape that was small, sad, and lonely waved a flipper their way from the storm-tossed waters off Port Hood.
“How’s that for a grand tour?” the Lutin shouted as they soared along over a stretch of the Northumberland Strait. The entire crew of the Phantom Ship toasted Liam, the Lutin, and Plodder as they passed overhead, raising great flaming flagons of hot spiced rum to the night sky.
Five babies waved their tiny thin-boned fingers from out of the dirt of the New Glasgow cemetery. The Favourite rose and sank again in the belly of Pictou Harbour. A bridge screeched at Liam and the Lutin as they flew past Parrsboro. The Kentville artist stood up and waved his paintbrush. Flames from Amherst and Caledonia Mills lit the midnight heavens. Curtains blew and ships sank and buried treasure twinkled from below and Ivy threw a spoon. The werewolf howled and Sophie’s ghost wailed and the spirit of Captain Kidd laughed out loud and danced a jig with the Lady in Blue.
“Here we go now,” the Lutin shrieked as they passed over McNabs Island and raced neck and neck with a galloping ghostly mare.
Then he turned the horse in a hard left and headed back up toward Cape Breton, where he pulled old Plodder down to the earth, just outside of Liam’s ramshackle barn.
“Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig,” said the Lutin.
“And where is my treasure?” Liam asked.
“Were you not looking as we flew?” the Lutin asked. “Were you that terrified that you closed your eyes tight?”
“I kept them open,” Liam said. “And all I saw was a bunch of old ghost stories.”
“That’s the life and breath of this land you live in,” the Lutin replied. “No greater treasure can be found beyond a country’s folklore.”
“Well that’s all well and good,” said Liam disgustedly. “But I’m still out a very good horse.”
The Lutin looked at Plodder, who was still gasping and wheezing and very nearly at death’s dark doorway.
“I don’t think he was all that much to begin with,” the Lutin pointed out.
“Maybe not,” Liam said. “But Plodder has carried me for many a year. He has pulled my plow and filled my larder. I have laughed with that old horse and I have cried with him and there are more stories than I could ever remember that begin and end with that horse, who happens to be my very best friend.”
The Lutin thought about that. “Fair enough,” he finally said. And then he stood up on tiptoe, somehow stretching his tiny body high enough to reach old Plodder’s left nostril. He blew a strong breath into the nostril and Plodder swelled up like an inflated bladder-float.
“Stop that!” Liam said in panic.
But the Lutin blew two more times. At the third blow in, Plodder snorted back out. He shook his body like a wet dog and every wrinkle and crease on that poor old nag flew off like it was nothing more than a handful of lint.
When the horse quit his shaking, Liam couldn’t believe his eyes. There, standing before him, was Plodder, only years and years younger, looking stronger and faster than he had been in a long, long time.
“There,” the Lutin said. And then he loaded two large sacks upon Plodder’s back.
“That’s all the gold that you will ever need to live off,” the Lutin said. “N
ow what I want you to do is to ride out across the province and tell all the stories that I showed you tonight on that long gallop of ours. I want you to tell each story the best way you can, and if you can’t remember a detail, feel free to make it up.”
And that’s just what Liam did.
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