It happened that Sigurdur, a man of evil temper, who was also skilled in the black arts, wanted to wed Gunna. He hoped to add her land to his own. Sigurdur proposed to her many times, and every time she refused him. Finally he warned her that if she turned him down again, things would go badly for her.
Gunna refused his final proposal; but she was prudent, and put herself on her guard.
Her fears proved well founded. One summer afternoon, she was alone in her kitchen, preparing supper for her farmhands. As Gunna worked, she became aware that an unnatural stillness had fallen over the house and over the yard beyond the open window. In spite of the warmth of the day, she suddenly shivered, as if a wintry breeze had invaded the room.
Turning, she saw a shadow, as soft and black as smoke, hovering just outside the door. But there was no one around to cast such a shadow. Scarcely daring to breathe, Gunna peered more closely at the dark shape: a single spot of white glowed at the inky center of what she could now see had the dimensions of a real man.
She backed toward the larder. At the same time, the pitch-black figure glided in through the kitchen door. Then it began drifting toward the larder. She was trapped inside.
Backing more deeply into the storage space, Gunna felt with her hand for the knife she had been using to slice mutton a short time before. Quietly, she let her fingers close around its handle. She knew that creatures of air and darkness have no love for an honest iron blade.
Suddenly, with a movement almost too fast for her eye to follow, the horror flew forward at her. Bravely she struck out with her knife at what she knew was the sending’s only vulnerable place—the white spot where a human heart would be.
Gunna shouted as she drove the blade home, and felt it bite into something hard. The knife was wrenched from her hand as the shadowy figure spun back and away.
Then, to her amazement, both her attacker and the knife vanished. Seeing that her way was now unblocked, she ran to the kitchen door and shouted for the farmworkers, who came running. When they heard her story, they began a search of the kitchen floor and the yard outside.
Very soon, one of the men poking through the dust and stone of the yard cried out, and picked something up. He brought it inside and placed it on the table. There the stalwart woman and the other workers saw what the man had found: a splintered human bone, with Gunna’s knife stuck through it.
Fearful that the thing might still be dangerous, Gunna sent for a sorcerer from the north. When he came, he pulled the bone free of the blade, all the time chanting as the bone twisted like a living thing in his fingers. Finally he cast it into a fire, from which curling black smoke arose. When he caught some in a glass jar and sealed it, the smoke became a fly that buzzed angrily inside its glass prison. But the magician told Gunna that the insect was actually a demon. “You must return this to its sender,” he said, “or more evil will befall you.” Then he told her what she had to do.
The next morning, Gunna put the jar in a beautiful box of beaten gold. She put on her finest gown, and saddled her best horse. Then she set out for her wicked neighbor’s farm.
Sigurdur’s surprise at seeing her alive turned to delight when Gunna said, “I have reconsidered your offer of marriage. If you will have me, I will be your wife. And the gift I have brought you will be a token of our betrothal.”
So saying, she produced the pretty gold box and lifted the lid. Greedy Sigurdur, eager to see what treasure it held, drew close. Quickly Gunna pulled out the jar and threw it, so that it broke on the stone floor at the man’s feet.
Thick smoke boiled up and poured into Sigurdur’s ears and nose and mouth. His body began to swell; his face grew brutish; his skin turned bluish black. He became a mountain troll, bellowing and grabbing clumsily at her. But agile Gunna eluded his grasp. With a triumphant cry, she fled the house into the daylight, for trolls cannot abide the sun’s rays. As she rode away, she heard the sun-cursed creature roaring angrily, helplessly after her.
The Hand of Fate
(British Isles—Wales)
Walter Vaughan was lord of Dunraven Castle, which brooded over a dangerous stretch of Welsh coast. Many ships had been wrecked on the rocks below its battlements. The castle itself had fallen into disrepair, for Vaughan was a spendthrift who had wasted his inheritance. A widower with no friends, he had only one joy in life: his son, Andrew.
But when Andrew grew older, he decided to seek his fortune in foreign lands, since the family money was gone. His father begged him to stay; when Andrew would not be persuaded, Lord Dunraven placed his own gold signet ring on the young man’s finger. “Promise me that you will return this to me in your own good time,” he said.
“I promise,” said Andrew. Then he set out for the nearest port to become a sailor on a merchant ship.
Shortly after father and son had separated, a cargo ship was wrecked near the castle. Though all hands drowned in the churning waves, several chests and barrels filled with valuable goods washed ashore. Tradition said that such property “cast up by the sea” belonged to the lord of the manor. In this way, fate gave Vaughan unexpected riches, but also snatched away his last shreds of decency.
Still grieved by the absence of his son, and by the ruin he had brought upon his estate, Vaughan decided to rebuild his failed fortunes by luring other ships to disaster on Dunraven’s rocky shore. Then he could become wealthier than ever, restore the Dunraven name, and call his son home.
To help with this scheme, Vaughan sought the help of a disreputable man known as Matt-of-the-Iron-Hand. This wretch had captained a pirate ship many years before. On one occasion, his vessel had been seized by the order of Vaughan, then a magistrate. A desperate struggle had erupted in which Captain Matt had lost one hand, later replaced by an iron hook. From that day, the evil ex-captain became a wrecker, who used a variety of tricks to lure ships onto the rocks so that they could be plundered.
Captain Matt had never forgiven Lord Dunraven, whom he blamed for his ruin. But drawn into Vaughan’s scheme, he put aside his hatred for a time. Though Vaughan and this ruffian were never seen together in daylight, they were constant companions by night. Vaughan spent the nights in a cave below his castle, from which he had a clear view of the western ocean. When he spotted the lights of a cargo ship, he signaled to Matt-of-the-Iron-Hand, who lit a series of lanterns. Thinking these were harbor lights, the crew of the unlucky ship would steer coastward. Rocks and treacherous waves soon caused the vessel to founder and break apart. Whatever salvage came their way, the two criminals divided. If any crewmen or passengers survived, they were quickly done away with by the ex-pirate.
As ill-gotten gain filled his coffers, and dreams of his son’s return filled his head, Vaughan grew more uneasy in his dealings with Matt-of-the-Iron-Hand. But his attempts to part company with the ex-captain were met by sneers and threats.
Vaughan increasingly feared discovery by the magistrates, and he suffered from the taunts of Matt-of-the-Iron-Hand, whose contempt grew daily. The strain aged Vaughan. He spent every day watching the horizon for ships—not to wreck them, but in the hope that one would carry his son, Andrew, home. In the old man’s mind, all would come right when he and his son clasped hands again.
One stormy evening, he saw a ship making its way slowly up the channel, as though her crew were on the lookout for some inlet where temporary shelter could be had. But the gloom of the worsening storm soon hid the vessel from sight.
Vaughan felt unexplainably anxious about the ship; more than ever, he was aware of Matt-of-the-Iron-Hand’s hatred, as the wrecker busied himself in the night.
The wind rose, accompanied by drizzling rain. Vaughan’s worry grew as the false lights of the ex-pirate threw a lurid glow across the breakers. Soon Vaughan heard, above the howling wind, the crash of a ship breaking up on the rocks, and desperate cries for help. Then there was silence.
Some thirty minutes later, Matt-of-the-Iron-Hand entered the cave and told Vaughan that all but one member of the ship’s crew had drown
ed. The sole survivor, Matt said, turned out to be the captain, who had said that he was a Welshman and a native of Dunraven.
“Did he tell you his name?” asked Vaughan.
A devilish laugh was the only answer as the wrecker thrust a death-cold hand into Vaughan’s own. Vaughan recoiled in horror as the torchlight lit up the familiar gold signet ring on the dead finger, and the father knew he clasped the hand of his only son, Andrew.
The murderer slipped away into the night, laughing like a madman. But the sound was drowned by the howls of horror and loss torn from the throat of Vaughan. Dropping to his knees, the distraught father clutched the dreadful object to his chest, aghast at what his crimes had cost his son and himself.
Old Raw Head
(United States—the South)
There was a conjure man down South named High Walker. He could make the bones and skulls in a graveyard rise up, shake themselves, dance around, and lie down again. He lived by himself in the woods. His only companion was a wild razorback hog, which would come down out of the hills and root through his leavings. Sometimes High Walker swept spilled goofer dust and herbs and conjure powder onto the trash heap, and the hog ate them. Gradually, that hog got to where he could walk on two legs and talk like a man. He grew fat, too; that was his undoing.
Turned out there was a hunter nearby. When he saw the size of the hog’s hoofprint, his mouth began to water at the thought of all that pork roaming the woods. So he tracked the big old razorback and surprised the hog in a forest clearing as it was on its way to the conjure man’s cabin.
The hunter was so excited to have caught up with the hog, his first shot went wild.
The hog reared up on its hind legs, looked across the clearing, and said, “What do you want?”
“I want to eat the jowl and ham and chop of you,” said the man. He fired again, and that was the end of the razorback. The hunter stripped all the meat off the carcass, and left only the raw head and bloody bones scattered on the forest floor.
Late in the day, the conjure man, wondering what had become of the hog, stumbled across the skinned head and peeled bones. Right away he called, “Bloody Bones, get up, shake yourselves.”
So the ghastly remains pulled themselves together, stood up, and rattled themselves. Then Raw Head and Bloody Bones walked into the woods.
As he stalked along, he recollected some of the magic he had digested from the conjure man’s trash pile. He conjured himself as tall as, or taller, than a pine tree. He saw an owl and conjured himself eyes as big or bigger. He saw a mountain lion and conjured himself fangs as sharp or sharper. When he saw a bear, he conjured himself claws as fierce or fiercer. When he spotted a raccoon’s tail, he conjured himself a tail as bushy or bushier.
Through the moonlight, Raw Head and Bloody Bones stalked until he stopped outside the hunter’s cabin.
There he took hold of the chimney and rattled it.
When the sleeping hunter woke up and peeked out the window, he exclaimed, “What do you need such big eyes for?”
“To see your grave,” Raw Head and Bloody Bones answered.
“What do you need such a big old tail for?”
“To sweep your grave.”
“Why do you need such long, fierce claws?”
“To catch you and take you deep in the woods.”
“And what do you want with such sharp teeth?”
“To eat you, jowl and ham and chop.”
The hunter slammed and barred the door, and closed the window shutters, but none of this did a lick of good. Raw Head and Bloody Bones just lifted up the roof, snatched the hunter out from under the bed, and stalked off with him into the night.
Nothing more was seen of the hunter. But Raw Head and Bloody Bones is still around. Sometimes, on a moon-shiny night, people around those parts hear strange clickity-clackity, rattlely-clattery sounds, deep in the piney woods. This means Old Raw Head and Bloody Bones is dancing and stalking about. Then, good Christian folk had best say their prayers, and pull the bedclothes up, and hope that morning comes real soon.
Notes on Sources
APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA. One of the world’s best-known tales has been retold in many versions over the years, but it never loses its ironic impact. The Middle Eastern story underscores the folly of trying to escape one’s destiny. The Koran, the scripture of the Islamic faith, teaches that Allah has created both life and death, that the time of death has been “written” (predestined) for all people, and that death will reach a person anywhere, so flight is useless. One variant I consulted was that in The Enchanted World: Ghosts by the Editors of Time-Life Books (Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, Inc., 1984). Death is widely personified as a woman. (See “Sister Death and the Healer,” in More Short & Shivery, as an example from Mexico and Spain.)
DEER WOMAN I have retold this Native American story from a version in American Indian Mythology by Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Inc., 1968), retold in abbreviated form in American Folklore and Legend by the Editors of Reader’s Digest General Books (Pleasantville, New York: The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1978). “The Ponca were primarily farmers but engaged in seasonal buffalo hunts. They are part of the Siouan linguistic family, and their name has been interpreted by some authorities as ‘That Which Is Sacred.’ ” —Plains Indians: Dog Soldiers, Bear Men, and Buffalo Women, written and illustrated by Thomas E. Mails (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1973; reprint, New York: Promontory Press, 1993). I incorporated details from such books as Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend: An Unabridged Edition of the Original Work with a Key to Place Names, Cultures, and People, edited by Maria Leach (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1949, 1950, 1972; paperback reprint, Harper San Francisco, 1982), Indians on Horseback by Alice Marriott (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1948), and Mystic Warriors of the Plains: The Culture, Arts, Crafts, and Religion of the Plains Indians, written and illustrated by Thomas E. Mails (New York: Mallard Press/BDD Promotional Books, 1991; reprint of a book originally published in 1972).
THE MAGGOT. I have retold this story from a brief account in “A Quartet of Strange Things,” by Bernhardt J. Hurwood, included in Ghosts: A Treasury of Chilling Tales Old & New, selected by Marvin Kaye with Saralee Kaye (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1981). Hurwood claims the story is a true one. He told the story rather differently as “The Monstrous Maggot of Death” in Monsters and Nightmares (New York: Belmont Books, 1967). “The Flyin’ Childer” and “Sam’l’s Ghost” in Legends of the Lincolnshire Cars (1891) by M. C. Balfour show the dead as huge worms. The concept of the maggot may derive from the ancient Roman belief in an evil ghost called a larva, which frightened people and worked ill against them. It also seems connected with the notion of ectoplasm, a ghostly, milky-white substance supposedly produced at séances, which can shape itself into spirit limbs, faces, or bodies.
WITCH WOMAN. A retelling of one of the better-known African American folktales. Among the variants consulted were “Skin Don’t You Know Me?” in American Negro Folktales, collected by Richard M. Dorson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1956, 1967; paperback reprint, New York: Fawcett World Library, 1970); “De Witch-’ooman an’ de Spinnin’-Wheel” by Mrs. M.E.M. Davis (The Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. 18, July–September, 1905), reprinted in A Treasury of American Folklore, edited by B. A. Botkin (New York: Crown Publishers, 1944), and “De Witch Woman” in The LIFE Treasury of American Folklore by the Editors of Life (New York: Time Incorporated, 1961). In the American South and the West Indies, such creatures as vampires, loogaroos (from loups-garous or werewolves), or witches could be destroyed if their hidden skin could be found and salt and pepper poured into it or pounded in with a mortar. The creature would then be unable to resume its human shape and would perish miserably in the sunlight.
THE BERBALANGS. Retold from “Cagayan Sulu, Its Customs, Legends, and Superstitions” by Ethelbert Forbes Skertchley, published in Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. 45, Part 3, Anthropology and Cognate Subjects (Calcutta: Asiatic Society/Baptist Mission Press, 1896); the substance of the article has been reprinted in full, along with extensive commentary, in “The Berbalangs of Cagayan Sulu,” a chapter of Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts by Rupert T. Gould (originally published in London: 1928; revised edition, London: 1944; reprint, New York: Bell Publishing Co., 1965). The Filipino berbalangs are part of the nightmarish Asian troop of hunting heads that includes the kephn of Burma, a demon in the form of a wizard’s head with its stomach attached, which devours souls; the vampiric Malay penaggalan, a head that glides along with its dangling intestines gleaming “like fireflies”; and the Japanese goblins in “Rokuro-Kubi,” retold in the present volume. Tiny Cagayan Sulu Island sits in the Sulu Sea, which is bordered by the Philippine Islands and Malaysia.
THE DANCING DEAD OF SHARK ISLAND. Adapted from an account in Ancient Legends of Ireland, compiled by Sheila Anne Barry (New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1996). The material comes from Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, & Superstitions of Ireland and Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland, both by Lady Wilde (1826–1896). The connection of the ghosts with fairies is here hinted at by the dead dancing on a hillside (fairies reportedly lived in hills or mounds) to elfin music. Fairies were often discovered dancing in fairy rings; it was dangerous for a mortal to join in such a dance. A “fairy stroke,” a harmful spell cast by a fairy, was believed to cause illness or death in victims. Some thought fairies were ghosts or dispossessed spirits that were lost between heaven and hell.
“THAT I SEE, BUT THIS I SEW.” Retold and expanded from a brief account in The Highlands and Their Legends by Otta F. Swire (Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1963). Swire comments that there is, indeed, the ruin of an old church near the Scottish village of Beauly (originally named Beaulieu, French for “beautiful place”), identified as the setting for the story of this brave little tailor. Swire also notes that the tailor’s reply, “That I see, but this I sew,” became a saying used by a person who refused to turn aside from what he or she had set out to do. Another local saying was “The great grizzled one catch you,” meaning the Devil, whom it was unlucky to name.
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