Suddenly from the shadowy depths below, a voice cried, “Stop! The sunlight burns me! Go away, I grant you your lives.”
But the two men only worked harder, revealing a vast room under the courtyard. Peering into the spot where the shadows were deepest, Raiko saw a monster with many legs, covered with long, silky white hair. It had an enormous head, split with terrible jaws, and huge, black eyes that glittered darkly as it watched the two men.
“I am sick and in pain!” groaned the creature. “I will make you pay dearly for the suffering you have caused me,” It scuttled around the pool of sunlight that Raiko and Tsuna had created by prying away the chamber roof stone by stone.
Then Raiko dropped to the floor below and battled the monster, keeping always in the square of light. The creature charged and retreated and charged again, but it was afraid of the sunlight that glinted off Raiko’s armor and helmet and lay like a band of fire along his sword’s blade.
Still the battle raged for more than an hour, before Raiko dispatched the monster with a blow of his sword that sent the creature’s head rolling across the den. It came to rest beside a pile of human bones and skulls that showed how many unfortunate subjects of the Emperor had fallen victim to the monster.
Carrying the monster’s head on a pole between them, Raiko and Tsuna returned to the Emperor’s court, where they were highly praised and richly rewarded for their courage.
The Halloween Pony
(from a French folktale)
Grandmother put another log on the fire. Outside the little house which was not far from the sea, the wind was howling so fiercely that it set the windows rattling. “Listen to that!” said the old woman. “There’s a storm brewing for sure.”
She stirred the coals in the fireplace with a heavy poker until the new log caught and began to blaze. Satisfied, she turned to her three grandsons, who were sitting on the floor gazing thoughtfully into the flames. “Besides,” she added, “this is Halloween. Witches are abroad tonight, and the goblins, who are their servants, are wandering about in all sorts of disguises, looking for children to snatch away.”
But Tom, the eldest boy, said, “I won’t stay here, frightened of a little wind and old stories. I promised Colette I’d call on her tonight. She swore she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep, if I didn’t visit her before the moon had gone down.”
“I have to go and catch lobsters and crabs,” said the middle boy, Louis. “Not all the witches and goblins in the world will keep me from that.”
All three brothers announced they were going out for one reason or another and ignored the warnings of their Grandmother. Only the youngest child hesitated a minute, when she said to him, “You stay with me, my little Richard, and I’ll tell you stories of fairylands and magic animals.”
But he wanted to pick blackberries by the moonlight, and so he ran out after his brothers.
He caught up with them on the rise, beneath the old oak tree.
“Grandmother talks about wind and storm, but I’ve never seen the weather finer or the sky more clear,” said Louis, “I’ll bring home plenty of crabs and lobsters tonight.”
“See how big the moon is,” said Tom. “Perhaps I can coax Colette to go for a walk with me.”
Then Richard, who was starting for the blackberry patch, suddenly cried, “Look!” and he pointed to a little black pony standing quietly at the foot of the hill.
“Oh, ho!” said Louis, “that’s old Frederic’s pony; it must have escaped from its stable and is going down for a drink at the horse pond.”
“Now, now, my pretty little pony,” said Tom, going up and patting the creature with his hand, “you mustn’t run away; I’ll lead you to the pond myself.”
With these words, he jumped on the pony’s back.
“Take me, too,” called Louis, and his brother helped him up.
“Don’t leave me behind!” cried Richard, and his brothers helped him mount. Soon all three were astride the little black pony, which waited patiently till they had settled themselves. Tom clung to the pony’s neck; Louis held Tom’s waist; and Richard held Louis’s shirt.
“Now, giddup!” urged Tom, and the little pony headed directly for the horse pond.
On their way, each brother met a friend and invited him to mount the pony. Soon there were six boys, holding to one another and laughing. The pony didn’t seem to mind the extra weight but pranced merrily along under the brilliant moon.
The faster it trotted, the more the boys enjoyed the fun. They dug their heels into the pony’s sides and called out, “Gallop, little horse! You’ve got six of the bravest riders in the world on your back!”
Soon they were racing along through the grassy fields near the seashore. The wind rose, sending clouds scudding across the face of the moon and whipping the pony’s long black mane back across the eyes of the boys in front. Very close now, they could hear the waves pounding against the rocky shore.
The pony did not mind the noise at all. Instead of going to the horse pond, he circled around and cantered rapidly toward the seashore.
Louis, the middle brother, began to regret his wish to catch crabs and lobsters, and Richard, the youngest, found that he was no longer interested in blackberries. Both held onto their seats on the pony that was galloping at breakneck speed down toward the beach.
The eldest boy, Tom, seized the madly charging pony by the mane and tried to make it turn around. But he tugged and pulled in vain, for the pony galloped, fast as the howling wind, straight on toward the sea, pausing only when the first waves splashed over its hoofs.
The six riders thought to slip off the pony’s back, while it lingered at the water’s edge; but they found they were stuck fast to the creature’s back.
Then, rearing up once, the little black pony neighed loudly, ran back and forth through the sea foam gleefully, then suddenly charged into the billowing waves, while its riders cried out in terror.
“The pony is bewitched!” wailed Tom. “We should have listened to Grandmother’s warning.”
The pony advanced farther and farther into the sea; the waves rose higher and higher until they covered the children’s heads and the pony vanished beneath the swells.
Some say the children were drowned; some say the goblin pony carried them to a strange city of coral and pearl at the bottom of the sea. But they were never seen on dry land again.
Notes on Sources
THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM. This is a favorite tale from the Brothers Grimm, which has frequently been translated. I’ve shortened it a bit, edited a few incidents, but have kept the general thrust of the story intact.
JACK FROST. I have freely adapted this traditional Russian tale, including incidents from several variant readings. This “red-nosed” Jack Frost is not the good-natured sprite who paints traceries of frost on winter windows: he is the blood-chilling, potentially deadly embodiment of a fierce Russian winter, when icy winds, blinding snow, and remorseless cold threaten death by freezing to the unfortunate.
THE WATERFALL OF GHOSTS. The story was originally published in English under the title “Yurei-Daki” in Lafcadio Hearn’s Kottō: Being Japanese Curios with Sundry Cobwebs, first issued by the Macmillan Company, New York City, in 1902. Hearn (1850-1905) drew on old Japanese books for the ghostly tales in this volume. The writings of Lafcadio Hearn have been reissued in uniform paperback editions by Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, and Tokyo, Japan.
THE GHOSTS CAP. A retelling of an Icelandic folktale, “White Cap,” originally gathered by Jón Árnason (1819-88), a librarian and teacher who assembled the monumental Icelandic Legends (1864), translated by George Powell and Eirikur Magnusson, two volumes, second series, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1866. Reprinted in Scandinavian Folk and Fairy Tales (1984) edited by Claire Booss, New York: Avenel Books, distributed by Crown, New York. I have enhanced this story with material from parallel tales from the Scandinavian and Russian.
THE WITCH CAT. This is a favorite American tale of witchcraft, yet
another play upon the theme of shape shifting (see notes on the stories “The Loup-Garou” and “Brother and Sister”). Numerous variants of this story have found their way into folk literature; and I have drawn on several of the more interesting retellings for this version, including Nancy Roberts’s excellent account in her Ghosts of the Carolinas.
THE GREEN MIST. Derived from Mrs. M. C. Balfour’s account in her Legends of the Lincolnshire Cars, published in 1891, reprinted at length in Katherine Briggs’s An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, New York City, copyright 1976. (Originally published as A Dictionary of Fairies by Allen Lane, Penguin Books, London.)
THE CEGUA. I have created this original story around the horrific image of La Cegua, an apparition described in the tale of that name by Maximo Soto Hall (1871-1941), reprinted in Leyendas de Costa Rica, gathered by Victor H. Lizano, published by Soley & Valverde, San Jose, Costa Rica, in 1941. The name of this demon with an animal’s head suggests the Spanish verb “cegar,” “to blind’” that also has the metaphorical meaning “to darken the light of reason” or “to make mad.” It also suggests “yegua,” or “mare.” Such ghostly encounters (a man riding past a cemetery suddenly finds a skeleton seated behind him; a taxi driver picks up a spectre) form the basis of Hispanic folktales grouped under the heading “el pasajero del más allá”—“the passenger from the beyond.”
THE GHOSTLY LITTLE GIRL A much expanded version of an account found in Randall A. Reinstedt’s Ghostly Tales of Old Monterey. The city of Monterey was California’s historic first capital, and Mr. Reinstedt has explored its rich vein of ghostly lore in the work cited above and in his Ghosts, Bandits, & Legends of Old Monterey.
THE MIDNIGHT MASS OF THE DEAD. A considerably reworked and expanded version of a story collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-85), a lifelong student of Norse folklore, and first published in Norway in 1870 in Asbjørnsen’s Norske Huldreeventyr og Folksaga (1845), accounts of dealings with spirit creatures from Norse folk traditions. Experts cite some twenty-five variants of this legend in Norway alone—and versions are familiar throughout north-central Europe.
TAILYPO. This is my own version of a classic American story, sometimes known as “Tailypoe,” which has been retold countless numbers of times, with West Virginia or Tennessee as the preferred setting.
LADY ELEANORE’S MANTLE. This is a substantially edited version of the Nathaniel Hawthorne story of the same title, which was first published in The Democratic Review, December 1838. It was later included, in a much abbreviated form, in Charles M. Skinner’s Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, two volumes, Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott, first published in 1896. Reissued by Singing Tree Press, Book Tower, Detroit, in 1969.
THE SOLDIER AND THE VAMPIRE. A considerably reworked version of a traditional Russian folktale available in several translations. I have selected key incidents from various sources and have rearranged events and chronology to tighten the pacing and heighten the dramatic effect. For translations of the original tale, the reader might consult the version in The World’s Great Folktales, arranged and edited by James R. Foster, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953, or the version in Passport to the Supernatural, Bernhardt J. Hurwood, New York: Taplinger, 1972.
THE SKELETON’S DANCE. Originally published in Keigo Seki’s Nihon no Mukashi-banashi (Japanese Folktales), three volumes, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1956-57. The editor of the University of Chicago’s selection of translations from the complete work comments that twelve versions of the tale have been recorded in Japan.
SCARED TO DEATH. I have adapted Margaret Rhett Martin’s version of this story, which she has titled “The Leaning Tombstone,” from her collection, Charleston Ghosts, University of South Carolina Press, copyright 1963.
SWALLOWED ALIVE. This bit of Derbyshire folklore is adapted from the account John Bunyan (1628-1688) includes in his The Life and Death of Mr. Badman Presented to the World in a Familiar Dialogue Between Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Attentive (1680). In this work by the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, Mr. Wiseman presents the story of Dorothy Mately as an actual historic occurrence for the instruction of Mr. Attentive and a warning against “such wickedness [as] cursing and swearing.”
THE DEACON’S GHOST. Retold from a tale, “The Deacon of Myrké,” in Icelandic Legends by Jón Árnason (see note on “The Ghost’s Cap”). According to Icelandic folklore, white wizards lived in the north, where they continued to practice pagan magic, away from Christian settlements—presumably such a wizard finally laid the ghost to rest.
NUCKELAVEE. Adapted from Orkney Folklore and Traditions, a collection of articles by Walter Traill Dennison (died in 1894), who originally published them in the Scottish Antiquary in the 1890s. These pieces were subsequently gathered and edited by Ernest W. Marwick and are available in a reprint edition from Herald Press, Kirkwall, Orkney, 1961.
The name “Nuckelavee” translates as “Devil from the Sea,” (coming from the same root as “Old Nick,” the Devil). Dennison obtained his story firsthand from “Thomas,” who claimed to have survived this close encounter of the nightmare kind.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT Edited and adapted from Washington Irving’s Tales of a Traveller, first published in 1824. This selection is one of the supernatural stories appearing in the first section of the book, “Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman,” and is considered by some critics to be Irving’s most terrifying tale. The story, he wrote, was “founded on an anecdote related to me as existing somewhere in French,” but he admitted he was never able to discover its source.
BILLY MOSBY’S NIGHT RIDE. I have elaborated considerably upon the account entitled “Francis Woolcott” in Charles M. Skinner’s Myths and Tales of Our Own Land (op. cit.).
THE HUNTER IN THE HAUNTED FOREST. A combining and reworking of three brief Teton Sioux tales originally included in Myths and Legends of the Great Plains, selected and edited by Katharine Berry Judson, A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1913.
BROTHER AND SISTER. In retelling this favorite African traditional tale, I have borrowed from variants of a story popular in Kenya, Zambia, and Malawi, fleshing out my version with details from collateral readings. I have changed the familiar ending, where the brother causes a drum or wooden bowl or a miniature boat to float into the air while he and his sister hold on to it and escape the werebeast, in favor of a pursuit and escape that relies on human abilities rather than inexplicably acquired magical powers.
THE LOVERS OF DISMAL SWAMP. My own version of a classic American folktale dating back to colonial times, set in and around the Dismal Swamp, near Portsmouth, Virginia. I have combined several accounts of the tale, including elements from the Irish poet Thomas Moore’s poem “The Lake of the Dismal Swamp,” composed during a visit to the United States in 1803, and Charles M. Skinner’s similarly titled prose version in his Myths and Legends of Our Own Land (op. cit.).
BONELESS. An original story suggested by several brief, historic accounts cited in Katherine Briggs’s indispensable An Encyclopedia of Fairies, (op. cit.).
THE DEATH WALTZ. Retold from Myths and Tales of Our Own Land by Charles M. Skinner (op. cit.).
THE GHOST OF MISERY HILL. Expanded from the tale “The Spook of Misery Hill,” included in Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, by Charles M. Skinner (op. cit.).
THE LOUP-GAROU. A French-Canadian legend adapted from an 1894 account in dialect originally published in Danvis Folks, by Rowland E. Robinson, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York. It has been reprinted in B. A. Botkin’s A Treasury of New England Folklore, Crown Publishers, copyright 1947, 1965.
The term loup-garou comes from the Old French leu garoul: leu = wolf + garoul = werewolf.
THE GOLEM. This is my own “Golem” story, based on a reading of several of the medieval Jewish tales of the clay figure brought to life, which has formed a popular theme in legend and literature.
The two most popular accounts are the Golem of Chelm, which tells how Rabbi Elijah of t
hat town created such a creature, but was so appalled by its destructive tendencies that he removed the magic parchment he had placed in the creature’s forehead and it crumbled into dust. The second account, the Golem of Prague, tells how Rabbi Yehuda Loew brought the clay being into existence, to protect the Jews of that city from persecution. When its work was done, the rabbi returned it to a lifeless clay statue again; according to legend, it remains hidden in a synagogue in Prague, waiting to be summoned to life when it is needed again.
The Hebrew word golem refers to anything incomplete or not fully formed, since the creature was never completely human. Some critics have suggested that legends of the golem contributed to the background of ideas Mary Shelley drew upon when writing her 1818 novel Frankenstein, but no clear-cut evidence has surfaced to indicate she was familiar with this body of folklore.
LAVENDER. This popular American ghost story pops up in versions all across the United States, from New Jersey to California. A prime example of “urban folklore,” the events are frequently presented as having happened to someone the storyteller has known personally.
THE GOBLIN SPIDER. A Japanese traditional story, one of many built around the legendary hero Raiko, whose exploits are widely anthologized. This particular variant of the well-known “Goblin Spider Episode,” is loosely based on a summary in Myths and Legends of Japan by F. Hadland Davis. Mr. Davis prefaced his account with the comment, “This version appears in the Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum by Dr. William Anderson.” I have no date for the latter work.
THE HALLOWEEN PONY. Freely adapted from “The Goblin Pony,” a French folktale retold by Andrew Lang in his The Grey Fairy Book, originally published by Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1900, and reprinted by Dover Publications, New York, in 1967.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert D. San Souci is the author of four previous children’s books for Doubleday. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in English from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California, and then completing two years of graduate study in education, Mr. San Souci pursued a career in publishing. He now writes full time from his home in the San Francisco Bay area of California.
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