Just then, however, the wind shifted in their favor. Ola said, “The breeze is helping us now, and the current is strong. I think we can still outrun the dark.” So the oarsmen put even more effort into their rowing.
Indeed, landmarks along the shore showed that they were nearing home. With safety drawing closer, the youngest rower boasted, “I, for one, am not afraid of the draug. Let him throw his worst at me, I will throw it right back.”
At that moment, the boat heaved as something large slammed into it from underneath. Shrieks erupted from the water all around them. The rowers strained at their oars, while the sail belled in the rising wind. But they were unable to make any headway. Something was holding them back.
“Something has fastened itself to the rudder!” cried Ola. At the same instant, a horrified Solvy, turning back to look at her husband, saw that water was pouring over the stern of the boat.
The sturdy mast groaned and seemed in danger of snapping as it resisted the sail’s pull. The rowers churned the water with their suddenly useless oars. The boat remained in place as more water gushed over the gunwales.
“Ola! The boathook!” shouted Solvy.
Her husband grabbed the pole and began jabbing its metal point at the formless thing he could just make out under the surface. The sea seemed to boil all around the boat, and the air was filled with bloodcurdling screams. But the thing retreated from the sharp blade of the boathook. The vessel was released. It lurched forward, nearly pitching Ola out of the stern.
“Head for shore!” cried Solvy. “It’s our only hope!”
For a few moments it seemed that they had escaped.
Then a black shape exploded out of the water beside the boat. In an instant it had seized the youngest oarsman and dragged him into the sea with a splash. His companions frantically searched the water for any trace of him, but all they could see was a circle of bubbles like tiny pearls, surrounding a single dark curl of seaweed.
The others reached shore safely, and huddled beside their beached craft through the night. In the morning, the survivors found their way home. Shuddering, Ola said, “The draug has claimed one victim. Let us beg merciful God that no others will fall prey to this horror for a long time to come.”
The Vampire Cat
(Japan)
The prince of Hizen, in Japan, once fell in love with a beautiful and intelligent lady of his court named O Toyo. One evening, while the two strolled together in the fragrant palace gardens, the young woman noticed that they were being followed by a large black-and-white cat.
“How pretty!” O Toyo exclaimed.
But when she extended a hand to stroke the cat, it suddenly hissed at her, then ran away.
When they parted company a short time later, with soft murmurs of affection, O Toyo returned to her chamber. At midnight she was suddenly awakened by a strange sound. To her surprise, she discovered the black-and-white cat, grown to the size of a tiger, crouched in a corner, watching her. Before the frightened young woman could cry out, the creature leaped upon her. Breathing in, the demon cat drew the life out of O Toyo, and in an instant it took on her shape. Of the unhappy woman herself, nothing remained but perfumed ashes upon the bedclothes. These the false O Toyo blew upon and scattered.
In the morning, the prince greeted the creature whose soft voice, loving manner, and sweet laughter were O Toyo’s in every regard. They talked of plans for their wedding. Every moment, the prince’s love grew deeper and deeper.
But day by day, the prince felt his strength draining away. His face grew pale, his steps uncertain. He seemed to be suffering from some terrible, wasting sickness. The physicians and herbalists summoned by his councilors prescribed one treatment after another, but nothing helped. The young man grew ever more thin and ashen.
He suffered most at night, when his sleep was troubled by hideous dreams. They seemed so real that he told his servants, “Some demon slips into my chamber at night and steals a little of my life energy.”
To ease their ruler’s mind, his councilors appointed one hundred guards to sit up and keep watch over the sleeping prince. But curiously, on the very first night that the watch began, the guards were seized by drowsiness. Unable to keep their eyes open, they all quickly fell asleep.
In the morning, the councilors discovered to their dismay that the guards slept like the dead, and the prince had grown weaker than ever. The guards were punished for failing in their duty, and one hundred more were assigned to keep watch the second night.
But that night, the same thing happened. The prince was troubled by horrible dreams, while his guards slept helplessly all around him.
In despair, the councilors determined to sit up themselves, and see if they could resist the drowsiness that had overcome the prince’s soldiers for two nights. Yet for all their determination, they fared no better. One by one they dropped off to sleep, long before midnight.
The next morning the prince was so weak he could not rouse himself from his bed. His three chief councilors met to discuss the problem, but they could arrive at no solution.
It chanced, however, that one of the palace guards, a young man named Ito, overheard their talk. Since it was clear that even the prince’s wisest advisers were helpless, Ito determined to seek the advice of the priest at the city temple.
“Your purpose is a good one,” said the priest. “But surely witchcraft is involved.”
“If you will give me some way of resisting the drowsiness,” said the young soldier, “I will sit up with the prince’s guards this very night and try to discover the cause of his suffering.”
Then the priest gave him a bit of parchment with a prayer inscribed on it. He said, “Recite these words softly if you feel yourself growing drowsy.” Then he painted a magical sign on each of Ito’s eyelids, to help him stay awake.
That night, Ito took his place amid the circle of guards surrounding the prince’s bed at the center of the room. The ninety-nine others kept themselves awake with lively conversation or other amusements.
But as the hour of midnight approached, they began to doze off where they sat, in spite of all their efforts to keep each other awake. Ito also felt a great desire to sleep creeping over him, but he steadfastly prayed the sutra—prayer—the priest had given him.
His prayer and his strong will kept him awake, while the rest of the guards slept. Then, as he watched, the sliding doors of the prince’s room parted. Ito pretended to be asleep, but he kept his eyes open just enough to see. To his amazement, he saw the beautiful lady O Toyo glide into the room. Cautiously she looked all around; when she saw that the guards were asleep, she smiled an evil smile and approached the prince’s bedside. She knelt down as if she would kiss the sleeping man. But when her face was near his, she breathed in, drawing some life energy out of him.
At this, Ito stood up suddenly. The false O Toyo likewise rose, and turned to face Ito, who had his hand upon the hilt of his dagger. Ignoring the threat, she drew close and said, “I am not used to seeing you here. Who are you?”
“My name is Ito,” he answered. “This is the first night I have been on guard.”
“The other guards are all asleep. How is it that you alone are awake?”
“Prayer and a desire to help my lord,” he said.
“You are a trusty watchman,” she said. “I came to see how my lord fares this night. I will depart, knowing you are protecting him.”
“You will not depart, goblin!” cried Ito, drawing his dagger. “I saw you stealing the life from my lord.”
With a snarl, the beautiful woman was suddenly transformed into a monstrous cat that hissed and snarled and tried to rake Ito with its claws. But the soldier fought back with his dirk. For every wound the goblin cat inflicted, the man gave two in return. The sound of the fight began to rouse the sleeping guards.
Seeing that it was no match for Ito, and fearing the newly roused soldiers who were crying out alarms and drawing their own weapons, the giant cat suddenly fled the chamber.
> Ito, yelling to the others to follow him, pursued the creature until it reached the gardens. It bounded to the rooftops and escaped over the palace walls. From there it fled to the mountains from which it had come.
From that moment, the prince of Hizen began to recover from his sickness, though he mourned the loss of the beautiful lady O Toyo. When his strength was restored, he raised Ito in rank to commander of the palace guard and richly rewarded the young man.
For a time, reports came daily of the mischief the cat was making among nearby villages. At last, the prince ordered Ito to lead a great hunt. After many days, the soldiers cornered and killed the beast. Nor did any other goblin come to trouble Hizen or its lord after that.
Windigo Island
(Canada)
Go steady wit’ de oar!” shouted Cyprien Palache, leaning on the rudder. He was foreman of the crew of lumbermen paddling across Lake Manitou toward the island that would be their winter quarters.
The twelve men at their oars had been loudly singing “A-rolling My Bowl.” But the cheerful refrain
A-rolly poley,
My bolie rowlie
had died away the minute the island came into view. The clouds above were motionless; there wasn’t a ripple on the smooth lake. Yet it was said that even the strongest boats approaching the island were sometimes rocked by something unseen in the water.
Windigo Island was a hunters’ paradise: Otters swam freely in its pools; muskrats built their mud houses and beavers their dams with little fear. The Indians never set traps there, though sometimes powerful medicine men would come to the island on secret and solitary missions.
The place was said to be haunted by a Windigo spirit. This frightful being may take many shapes—a giant with a heart of ice, a whirlwind, a demon, or a cannibal monster. Most of the men were unhappy about the choice of winter quarters, but none dared challenge the strapping, foul-tempered Cyprien Palache. So they rowed on in silence, listening for they knew not what.
They beached the boat on the rocky shore, under the spruce and pine. Bawling orders and swearing, Cyprien set the weary men to repairing the shanty built the previous year. They worked quickly, aware of the big foreman watching every move with eyes as tiny and sharp as a weasel’s. If he saw a man doing something wrong or simply pausing to catch a breath, he would roar, “Hi dere, w’at you doin’?” and shake the unfortunate man until his teeth rattled.
If the men who had aroused Cyprien’s displeasure were out of reach, he would sound a few shrill notes on the silver whistle that hung from a chain around his neck, and point at them in warning. The men hated the sound of the whistle. The story was whispered around that Palache had bought it in Quebec from the devil himself, who had used it to pipe orders to the sinners in Hades.
When nightfall made work impossible, the men settled into the cabin, happy to be away from the pooling dark under the trees and the sound—so like soft voices—of the rising wind in the leaves.
Their good spirits returned when, after supper, Pat Clancy drew out his fiddle and Jimmie Charbonneau unpacked his concertina. The two played, and all sang. But Palache soon put a stop to the merriment, ordering the men to bed and putting out the lamp.
Now, the youngest of the party was a Cree boy the men called Indian Johnnie. The lumber gang had found him half drowned in a river eddy the previous spring. His mother and father had drowned when their birchbark canoe had been swamped by the swollen waters that followed the thaw. Somehow the boy had managed to keep his head above water and swim free of the current. Palache treated him little better than a dog, using him as a servant and scullion. But the other men were teaching him the lumberjack’s trade.
When the foreman wanted anything day or night, he would pipe three short blasts on his whistle, and Johnnie would come running. If the lad failed to appear before the whistle was sounded a second time, he would carry the bruises for days.
“How you stan’ it?” asked Jimmie Charbonneau. “Why you never run away?”
But the boy just shrugged and said nothing. Jimmie knew that Johnnie would never let anyone see him cry. Still, he could see the hatred in the boy’s face whenever the foreman appeared. Jimmie had the uneasy feeling that something bad was bound to happen. To his friend Pat Clancy he said, “Somebody surely die, long before de winter’s over, long before we lef’ dis place.”
Pat only nodded grimly.
One morning after first snowfall, Jimmie noticed the boy burying something on the shore. Later, scraping away the snow, Jimmie found the body of a rabbit that the boy had caught the day before. Beside it was a little blue tobacco pouch. He didn’t hear Palache come up behind him. “Hi dere, w’at you doin’?” snarled the big man, shoving Jimmie aside. “Dat’s my t’bac!” he roared, snatching up the pouch.
He grabbed Jimmie by the collar, demanding, “Why you steal dis?”
Before Jimmie could say a word, the Indian boy, who had appeared from nowhere, grabbed Palache’s arm. “I took dat.”
“You?” the foreman said, releasing Jimmie and staring at the Cree as though he had never really looked at him before. “Why?”
“For de Tin’g dat’s watchin’, watchin’ from de trees,” said the boy, so softly the big man had to lean close to hear.
“What Tin’g?” Palache snarled.
Jimmie realized then that the boy had left the rabbit and tobacco as a peace offering for the Windigo spirit. With a small shudder, he glanced right and left at the fringe of snow-dusted trees. “De boy mean de Win—”
But Johnnie suddenly reached up and stopped him from saying the word aloud.
“It ain’ safe for told its name out loud,” said Pat Clancy, who, with several others, had been drawn to the argument. “Dass de way it come—if it’s call by its name.”
At this, the foreman bellowed, “You can’ all be such fools to belef’ in Windigo!”
“Don’ you say dat name some more!” yelled Clancy.
“Me, I say dat name all I wan’!” bellowed Palache. “Windigo! Windigo!”
Indian Johnnie groaned and clasped his hands to his ears.
“Enough dat!” The foreman dropped the boy with a blow to the side of the head. “De res’ you fools get workin’. I don’ wan’ hear no more dis talk.”
Then he stomped off toward the shanty, while the men scattered to their various tasks. Only Jimmie lingered long enough to help the dazed boy to his feet. But Johnnie just pushed his hand aside and walked away. Watching him go, Jimmie felt more sure than ever that there would be big trouble before the spring thaw.
December brought record snows. The drifts piled up so high against the cabin that sometimes only the roof and chimney could be seen. Chilling winds hammered it continually.
One evening, as Cyprien was pulling off his snowshoes and coat, he suddenly began to screech, “I los’ my whissle.”
Jimmie and the others saw that the devil’s whistle and its chain were gone from around Palache’s thick neck.
He grabbed Indian Johnnie and told him, “You mus’ fin’ dat silver whissle an’ de chain it’s hangin’ by, or don’ ever show yourse’f here again.” Before anyone could protest, the foreman thrust the Cree through the door into the snow.
Now the wind outside grew louder. “Dat soun’ lak somet’ing cryin’ all aroun’ us ev’ryw’ere,” said Jimmie Charbonneau, shivering from more than cold.
Suddenly the fire in the stove dwindled and died.
“Charbonneau! Clancy!” yelled the foreman. “Go de woodpile before I freeze to deat’.” Palache, for all his bluster, looked cold and white.
“Non!” said Jimmie. “We ain’ afraid of not’ing, but we don’t like takin’ chance.”
“I hear some wil’ spirit raisin’ row dere,” added Pat Clancy. “You don’t ketch us on no woodpile—no, siree!”
Nor would any other man budge from the circle around the cold stove, in spite of Cyprien Palache shaking his fist and threatening each in turn. Finally the big man dropped onto his bed in the
corner and simply glared at his crew.
For a long time, nothing more was said. The men shivered and listened to the wind. Each one assumed that Indian Johnnie had been swallowed up by the storm—or worse.
Jimmie dozed a little. Suddenly he awoke when he heard something tap-tap-tapping at the window. He turned and, through sleep-fogged eyes, saw a face at the window. At first he thought it was Johnnie, but then he realized the face was too big: It filled the window from side to side. And the eyes were like blue-black chips of ice.
He gave a cry, waking the others. But when they looked to where he was pointing, they saw only the frosty window glass, with a crescent of snow like a half smile across the ledge.
With a shaking hand, Jimmie wiped a circle in the frost. Beyond, he could see nothing but a pine stump in the clearing, like a tombstone rising out of the snow. For a moment he thought he heard—as though across a great distance—the voice of young Johnnie.
Then the shanty began to shake as the wind slammed it with the force of a hurricane. “De shaintee, she’s gon’ to fall!” cried Jimmie. Wind howled down the stovepipe, scattering ashes all around.
Suddenly there was a thunderous knock on the door, followed by three whistle blasts that cut through the howling wind.
“Dat Johnnie fin’ my whissle!” cried Palache. He jumped up from his bed and yanked open the door.
Some men afterward said that the wind and swirling snow sucked him right out. But Jimmie Charbonneau swore that a huge hand, made of snow and tipped with nails of ice, grabbed the man and dragged him out into the storm. Then the door slammed shut.
By the time the lumbermen pulled it open again, not a trace of the foreman could be found.
In the morning, when the storm died away completely, the men found Johnnie, nearly frozen to death, huddled under the overturned boat. In the shelter of the tallest pine, Jimmie Charbonneau discovered the imprint of a single bare foot, with clawlike toes, about the size of a double sleigh. He called the others, but the wind and fresh-falling snow soon blurred the outline, leaving only a vague hollow in the snow.
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