In 1692, Invisible Witches Danced in Boston on Christmas Day

Christmas fast approaches, bringing with it Santa Claus, presents, eggnog and... dancing witches? 

As I mentioned in a recent post, the Puritans who colonized New England really hated Christmas. They believed it had no basis in the Bible, and disapproved of how it was celebrated with drunken carousing and public disorder. In 1659, the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony even enacted a law called "Penalty for Keeping Christmas," which fined anyone who celebrated the holiday. 

The law was repealed in 1681 under pressure from the British king, but the Puritans still did not embrace Christmas. They thought it was a holiday for heretics (like Catholics and Anglicans) and for witches, who apparently, liked to celebrate Christmas with dancing. 

We know this fact about witches from A Brand Pluck'd Out of the Burning (1693), the Reverend Cotton Mather's account of the torments of Mercy Short. Short was an orphaned Boston serving girl who became tormented by invisible witches after mocking Sarah Good, an accused Salem witch being held in Boston's jail. After seeing Sarah Good and making fun of her, Short was stabbed by invisible pins, burned by unseen flames, and at times made deaf and blind. She also shouted profanities and claimed to see the Devil and witches hovering around her. Her torments lasted for many months. 

Merry Christmas?

Reverend Mather treated Short's afflictions with prayer and Bible readings, with mixed results. Groups of people would often join Mather in Short's room to witness her torments and to pray over her. No one except Short ever saw the spectral witches that allegedly assaulted her, but on Christmas Day, 1692, the following occurred:

On the twenty-fifth of December it was, that Mercy said, They (the invisible witches) were going to have a Dance; and immediately those that were attending her, most plainly Heard and Felt a Dance, as of Barefooted People, upon the Floor; whereof they are willing to make oath before any Lawful Authority. 

If I should now venture to suppose, That the Witches do sometimes come in person to do their Mischiefs, and yet have the horrible skill of clothing themselves with Invisbilities, it would seem Romantic. And yet I am inclinable to think it...

It probably seems strange to a modern reader that anyone believed evil invisible witches danced around an afflicted teenaged girl on Christmas Day, but this incident just demonstrates how much the Puritans hated Christmas. In their minds, it was literally a Satanic holiday. 

Some details about Mercy Short's life can provide more context. Prior to living in Boston, Short had lived in New Hampshire with her parents and siblings. In 1690 their family was attacked by indigenous Wabanki warriors. Short's parents and several siblings died in the raid, and Short was sold into captivity in Quebec. She was eventually freed and made her way to Boston, where she found work as a servant. 

Significantly, Mercy Short claimed the Devil looked much like a Wabanaki man. Modern psychologists who have studied her case suspect she suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which was caused by seeing her family killed. Concepts like PTSD didn't exist in 17th century Massachusetts, so she processed her anguish using the concepts she did have: Puritan theology, witchcraft, and the Devil. 

I don't want to end this on a grim note, since it's almost Christmas. So here are the positive aspects of Mercy Short's alleged witchcraft affliction. First, although she claimed some neighbors were among the invisible witches, no one was formally accused of witchcraft and no one was executed. Cotton Mather thought demons could easily impersonate a living person and therefore felt neither he nor Short could be sure if any neighbors really were afflicting her. 

Second, Short said a radiant bright spirit told her that her torments would end on March 16, 1693. And you know what? They did. Her afflictions ended as suddenly as they began. She was free from pain.

Finally, it is socially acceptable to celebrate Christmas here in New England. So take off your shoes and dance like a barefoot witch on December 25 if you want!

Slipperyskin: Bear, Monster, or Spirit?

If you've ever encountered a bear out in the woods you know they can be pretty scary. But do you know what's even scarier than a bear? A super-intelligent bear. One that is sly, tricky and really hates humans.

People in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom were supposedly harassed by such a creature in the 1700s. The Wabanaki Indians called him Wejuk or "wet skin" because he always slipped away when they tried to capture him. Following the Wabanaki lead the the English settlers called him Slipperyskin.

Slipperyskin caused a lot of trouble. He knocked over fences, terrorized livestock, and ruined cornfields. Those are probably things any ordinary bear might do, but Slipperyskin was no ordinary bear. He was a very intelligent and tricky bear, so he also put rocks into maple syrup buckets and farm machinery. He once rolled a log at hunters who were chasing hime. He even threw stones at small children walking to school. Bears don't have opposable thumbs so I'm not sure how he accomplished this.

It was pretty obvious Slipperyskin didn't like humans. The feeling was mutual and many attempts were made to catch or kill the pesky bear. None were ever successful but at least one was quite humorous. In the early 1800s Vermont governor Jonas Galusha came up with a scheme to trap Slipperyskin. The governor doused himself with female bear scent and walked into the woods, hoping to lure Slipperyskin into a clearing where hunters waited with rifles. Mere minutes after heading into the woods the governor ran into the clearing chased by an amorous Slipperyskin. The hunters fled in panic at the sight of the giant lustful bear. Governor Galusha escaped with his life but sustained severe damage to his dignity.

Although he was quite a terror Slipperyskin never killed anyone but he was once accused of eating a minister. One day a group of ministers were picnicking on the shores of Westmore's Lake Willoughby when the bear emerged from the bushes with a furious roar. The holy men fled in all directions as the ursine horror attacked their picnic lunch.

After Slipperyskin departed they returned to the picnic ground. All of the ministers were present expect one. The ministers looked with dread upon the picnic blanket where a mass of torn clothes and amorphous biological matter hinted at the grim fate of their missing companion. It was clear the bear had killed and devoured him. However, closer examination later showed the disgusting mess to be half-eaten cheese and not a human corpse. Their missing companion was later found alive and well. Under the cover of the bear attack he had secretly fled an unhappy life in Vermont and set up a new one in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Vermonters stopped seeing Slipperyskin in the early 1800s but his legend lives on. Some of the stories about him, like those with the governor and the ministers, are pretty humorous and I wonder how seriously we're supposed to take the stories about this clever and infuriating bear. Was he even real? After all, bears don't normally do the things Slipperyskin did. 

Some Bigfoot researchers think the stories are really garbled accounts of Sasquatch encounters but I'm not entirely convinced. I think the Wabanaki would be able to reliably identify a bear, as would the English frontiersmen who were settling in Vermont. And besides, does it make sense to explain away a legendary bear with a legendary hairy humanoid?

There's a big chance Slipperyskin might just be a tall-tale people told to amuse each other. Still, folks in New England have been encountering weird things in the woods for centuries, and often those weird things throw rocks and cause mischief. They ruin farm machinery and cause trouble in bars. At different times people have called them witches, demons, poltergeists, Bigfoot, or even Slipperyskin. Maybe they're all just different manifestations of some strange phenomenon associated with this corner of the country.

Think of it this way. Perhaps Slipperyskin was just one manifestation of the New England genius loci, which is a Latin term meaning "spirit of a place." Maybe this clever bear was just a particularly cranky version of the spirit of this stony and wooded corner of the country. Then again, does it make sense to explain away a legendary Vermont bear with a concept from ancient Roman religion? Maybe not but it's interesting to consider. 

*****

I first learned about Slipperyskin in books by Vermont's Joseph Citro. A great source of information about him is this article in The Northland Journal. 

Glooskap and the Giant Frog

A few weeks ago I borrowed a copy of John Hanson Mitchell's 1984 book Ceremonial Time from the library. It's a fascinating book that tries to tell the history of one square mile of Littleton, Massachusetts over 15,000 years. 

Let's face it, 15,000 years is a long long time. Littleton probably only has about 300 years of written history, so Mitchell turns to some unusual methods to unearth what happened in the past. For example, at one point he encounters what he thinks may be the spirit of an ancient Paleo-Indian shaman in the woods near his house. To help him understand this experience he enlists the help of some local American Indians.

One of them, a woman named Tonupasqua, tells him several stories about Glooskap, the mighty culture hero of the New England Algonquins. I've written about Glooskap before. He's a gigantic, super-strong, ancient magician who helped make the world safe for mankind. Sometimes he's a little bit dim, but in other stories, including this one from Ceremonial Time, he's a trickster.

A state of Glooskap in Nova Scotia.

According to the story, a long long time ago when the world was young a gigantic frog lived in New England. He was quite greedy, and built a huge dam to contain all the water in one enormous lake. This lake flooded the land where the humans lived, but they were powerless against the gigantic frog.

Unfortunately, the frog wasn't the only monster people had to deal with. There was also a giant bear whose favorite meal was human flesh.

The humans asked Glooskap to help them with these monsters. Glooskap tried several times to fight the frog, but whenever he got near it it would hide in the lake.

One day while it was sitting underwater the frog devised a sinister plan. Glooskap lived nearby in a large cave - why not hide at the back of Glooskap's cave and eat him when he came home? So it hopped out of the lake and hid at the back of the dark cave.

Glooskap came home from hunting, but hesitated outside his cave. He could sense something was wrong.

"Cave, are you glad to see me?" he said.

The frog said nothing.

Glooskap said, "Magic cave, are you glad to see me? Every evening when I return home you greet me. If you don't greet me I'll know something's wrong."

This was, of course, a lie. His cave never said anything, but the frog didn't know this. Pretending to be a magic cave, the frog croaked out, "Welcome home Glooskap!"

His suspicions confirmed, Glooskap quickly rolled a giant boulder across the entrance and trapped the frog inside.

At this point, the monstrously huge man-eating bear came strolling along. It said, "What's in the cave, Glooskap?"

Glooskap said, "Sweet, tasty humans who are hiding from you. I'll roll back this boulder so you can go inside and eat them. Sound good?"

The bear thought this did indeed sound good, so Glooskap rolled back the boulder.

The bear stuck his head in the cave, and the frog immediately shot out his giant sticky tongue and pulled the bear into the darkness. As the two giant animals began to fight Glooskap once again rolled the boulder across the entrance.

The bear and the frog fought for a long time. They fought so hard that the earth shook violently, which caused the frog's dam burst, releasing all the trapped waters. Finally, the two giant animals died, each mortally wounded in the battle.

When Glooskap told the humans what had happened they rejoiced, and the land once covered by water became fertile land where they could garden and hunt without fear of the giant bear.

There are several different versions of this myth, but I like this one. It definitely provides a different perspective on our landscape! 

A Story for Bear Hibernation Day

A black bear - photo from this site.

According to The Old Farmer's Almanac, today (November 8) is the day when black bears return to their dens for the winter. Hmmm. I wouldn't go walking in the woods covered in cheese just yet, though. I'm sure bears really decide when to hibernate based on things like temperature and food supply, not the calendar.

I wouldn't really be surprised if bears did have calendars, though, since they're the most human-like animals in New England. They can walk on two feet like us and they're omnivorous like us. That's one reason bears appear in so many fairy tales and folk stories.

The Wabanaki tribes of Northern New England have plenty of stories about bears. Many of them are variations on this story, "The Bear Abductor", which I found in Frank Speck's 1935 article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs." (FYI, the Penboscot are one of the five tribes that make up the Wabanaki; the others are the Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Micmac).

The story goes something like this: once upon a time, a little boy and his parents were out looking for berries in the woods. They searched for quite a while, but didn't have much luck. Finally, when they found a rich berry patch, they put the boy down so they could pick the berries. After all, what harm could befall him in the woods? But when they were done, they were horrified to see their son had disappeared. They had only turned their back for a few moments, and now he was gone.

They searched for days but couldn't find him. Eventually they gave up and assumed he was dead. But he wasn't dead. Instead, a bear had taken him while his parents weren't looking. It carried the little boy off to his den, and raised him like his own child, teaching him how to hunt, how to forage for food, and how to run on all fours. For seven years the boy lived happily as a bear.

One day the bear father told him they were being tracked by hunters, and that they would catch and kill the bear. Before this happened, he returned the boy to his human parents. Before letting him go, he made the boy promise to never kill a mother bear. The boy solemnly swore this and ran into his old house on all fours. The hunters caught up with the bear and killed him.

The boy's human parents were overjoyed to see him, having thought he was long dead. They were a little puzzled that he walked on four legs and couldn't speak like a person, but in time he re-learned to be human. However, from his time as a bear he still remembered two things: how to hunt, and the promise he made.

Eventually the boy became a man and got married. Because of his hunting skills, he provided well for his wife, who feasted on every type of game the forest provided. But there was one thing she craved she never got to eat: bear meat.

"Why won't you kill a bear for me? They're so tasty, particularly mother bears! If you love me, you'll kill a bear", she said. She pleaded and taunted, until he promised to kill a bear for her.

He searched through forest for quite a while, but didn't have much luck. Finally, he sighted a bear. A mother bear. He thought briefly of the promise he made to his bear father, but let the thought go. He had made the promise as a child, and was now a man. He pulled back the string of his bow. He released the arrow, which found its mark in the bear's heart. She died quickly. And when she died, the boy disappeared, never to be seen again.

Cannibal Giants of the Snowy Northern Forest

A wendigo from a BPRD comic.

The holiday season has come and gone, but we still have two months of winter to get through. What better symbol of the coming cold months than the cannibal giants of Algonquin mythology?

Many people have heard of the wendigo, the cannibal monster found in American Indian folklore across much of the northern US and Canada. Wendigos have been featured in movies, comic books and TV shows. In northern New England, the five Wabanaki tribes talk about a similar creature, known either as the chenoo, the giwakwa, or the kiwakwa. You should avoid it no matter what it's called!

According to Frank Speck's 1935 article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs" in The Journal of American Folklore, the word "kiwakwa" means "going about in the woods." If you don't want to see one of these monsters stay out of the woods during the winter.

The chenoo/giwakwa/kiwakwa is a human being who has been transformed through dark magic into a cannibalistic giant. Much like the Incredible Hulk, they get larger as they get angrier, and often tower above the tallest tree. Unlike the Hulk, they are emaciated, have enormous fangs, and often have eaten their own lips in hunger. They are always hungry, and their scream will kill any human who hears it. Sometimes, a dead shaman of great power may return from his grave as a chenoo. Chenoos usually appear in the winter.

Chenoo get their evil powers from a lump of human-shaped ice in their stomach. There are several tales where clever people make a chenoo vomit up the ice lump, which returns it to human form. In some stories, making a chenoo eat salt will melt the lump.

Chopping a chenoo into many small pieces is the only way to be certain it won't regenerate, and even after it's killed people will avoid the spot where it died.

There are many chenoo legends online. The Girl Chenoo tells how a young woman is turned into a monster by a rejected suitor; it's a downer! A story with a similar title but happier outcome is The Girl and the Chenoo, which tells how a wife saved her family from being eaten.