Jump to content

Page:Mythsandlegends03skingoog.pdf/327

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Storied Waters, Cliffs, and Mountains

sting him to death. In appearance she is a lovely girl in all but her face, and that is shaped like the head of a monster snake. Her name is never spoken by the Indians, for fear that it will cost them their lives.

Michael Pauw, brave fisherman of Paterson, New Jersey, hero of the fight with the biggest snapping-turtle in Dover Slank, wearer of a scar on his seat of honor as memento of the conflict, member of the Kersey Reds—he whose presence of mind was shown in holding out a chip of St. Nicholas's staff when he met the nine witches of the rocks capering in the mists of Passaic Falls—gave battle from a boat to a monster that had ascended to the cataract, One of the Kersey Reds, leaning out too far, fell astride of the horny beast, and was carried at express speed, roaring with fright, until unhorsed by a projecting rock, up which he scrambled to safety. Falling to work with bayonets and staves, the company despatched the creature and dragged it to shore. One Dutchman—who was quite a traveller, having been as far from home as Albany—said that the thing was what the Van Rensselaers cut up for beef, and that he believed they called it a sturgeon.

STONE-THROWING DEVILS

THERE is an odd recurrence among American legends of tales relating to assaults of people or their houses by imps of darkness. The shadowy leaguers of Gloucester, Massachusetts, kept the garri-

305