The Moodus Noises: Part II

This is my second post about the mysterious Moodus noises. You can read part one here.

Once the English settled in Connecticut they developed their own theories to explain the mysterious subterranean noises. They of course didn't believe in the Algonquin god Hobomok, although some thought he might really be a demon of some kind or perhaps just the Devil under another name.

But they did believe strongly in the Devil, who was often blamed for strange occurrences and misfortunes. And if the Evil One himself wasn't the responsible party, then perhaps it was witches, who were his earthly minions. And someone sinister just had to be behind the terrifying booming Moodus noises.

It was a strange mix of things in East Haddam: Indian legends, weird sounds coming from a mountain, religious beliefs about Satan and witchcraft. Strange but I suppose quintessentially New England, and from that mix emerged the following story, quoted here from Charles Skinner's Myths and Legends of Our Own Land (1896):

It was finally understood that Haddam witches, who practised black magic, met the Moodus witches, who used white magic, in a cave beneath Mount Tom, and fought them in the light of a giant carbuncle that was fastened to the roof...

If the witch-fights were continued too long the king of Machimoddi, who sat on a throne of solid sapphire in the cave whence the noises came, raised his wand: then the light of the carbuncle went out, peals of thunder rolled through the rocky chambers, and the witches rushed into the sky.

I love the idea of good witches battling it out with bad ones. It's a theme is found often in continental European folklore. The historian Carlo Ginzburg documents many variants of it in his book Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches Sabbath. Some cultures believe troops of good witches fight bad ones, while others think the fight is between packs of good werewolves (!) battling evil witches, or gangs of good shamans against evil spirits. Usually the benevolent supernatural beings live in the village of the person telling the story, while the bad ones live in the village next door. Funny how that always works out. It's kind of the supernatural version of Red Sox vs. Yankees, I suppose, except in these stories the fight is usually over the fertility of the land rather than the World Series.

 
In European lore these battles are often presided over by one dominant supernatural being, such as a goddess or mysterious military leader. That role is filled in Moodus by the "king of Machimoddi," who is the spirit of Machimoodus, the original Algonquin name for the area. But who is he? Is he Hobomok, the Devil, or someone else entirely? This king seems strangely ambivalent for the Devil, who I can't imagine would just sit idly by during a battle of good and evil.

I don't know where or when this story first originated. Perhaps it was brought to Connecticut by someone familiar with European lore, or perhaps it was developed independently by the people of Moodus.

It is significant that the cave was supposedly lit by a giant carbuncle. We don't hear that word often now, but it's an old terming meaning any red gemstone. This giant gem features prominently in the next legend about the Moodus noises.

In the 1760s an elderly man named Doctor Steel arrived in East Haddam, claiming he had been sent to Connecticut by King George to stop those pesky Moodus noises. He also claimed the cause of the noises was the giant carbuncle which, depending on the legend, either illuminated the cavern where the witches fought or blocked the entrance to the cave. Like a dentist removing a bad tooth, Doctor Steel was going to remove the bothersome gem.

After building a small house on Mount Tom the good doctor locked himself inside. Curious passersby noticed strange smells and sounds emanating from within. Several weeks after his arrival, Doctor Steel was seen to emerge from his house and make his way to the entrance of a cave that led deep into the mountain. Several hours later, people in the village saw a bright red light illuminate the mountain top. It was the glow of the carbuncle! Dr. Steel had successfully removed the giant gem.

In the morning the villagers went to congratulate the doctor, but found that he had already departed for England by ship, taking the giant gem with him. Unfortunately, he never arrived back in England. The carbuncle was filled with uncanny supernatural power, and a storm destroyed the ship and drowned all its passengers. The gem sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.

The gem carried with it an evil fate, for the galley sank in mid-ocean; but, though buried beneath a thousand fathoms of water, the red ray of the carbuncle sometimes shoots up from the sea, and the glow of it strikes fear into the hears of passing sailors. 

The Moodus noises stopped for a few years after Dr. Steel's operation, but eventually they began again. The local Indians nodded wisely. A new red gem was growing in the cave...

Geologists now claim the Moodus noises are caused by micro-earthquakes that occur underneath Mount Tom. I suppose that's a scientifically accurate explanation, but it's not as appealing as the earlier legends. I like idea of a cave deep beneath the earth, illuminated with a red glow, and presided over by a mysterious king. If you ever find that cave let me know.

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Note: In addition to Charles Skinner's book, another good source for Moodus legends is David E. Philips's Legendary Connecticut.

The Moodus Noises: Part I

Quite a few years ago I was reading The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories published by Penguin. I was reading pulpy stories of tentacled terrors, but since it was a Penguin edition they had footnotes so I could feel intellectual. I was having my cake and eating it too.

In "The Dunwich Horror," Lovecraft's tale of central Massachusetts wizardry and invisible monsters, the people of Dunwich are troubled by strange rumbling sounds that come from a hill in their village. The footnote indicates Lovecraft incorporated these noises into his story after reading about similar noises in Moodus, Connecticut. But while Lovecraft's story was fiction, the Moodus noises were real.

Dean Stockwell in the 1970 film of The Dunwich Horror. Is he blocking out the Moodus noises?

That's how I personally first learned about the Moodus noises, but people have been hearing them for centuries. Moodus, which is a small village in the town of East Haddam, was originally called Machimoodus, which means "Place of Noises" or "Place of Evil Noises" in the Algonquin language. The noises were recorded by early Puritan settlers, and continue even today. The Hartford Courant reported that the noises were heard as recently as March, 2011.

The noises are centered around Mount Tom, where the Salmon and Moodus Rivers come together. They sound like cannon shots or explosions, and when they happened in 2011 emergency responders rushed into action, looking for a fire or explosion. There was nothing to find. The noises had come from deep inside the earth.

Here's how a July 1891 Boston Globe article describes them. The noises had been heard in Moodus just a few days earlier:

They are heard intermittently. Sometimes the mountain is silent for 25 or 30 years, then suddenly the strangest sounds break forth, a deep sepulchral, voluminous sound, like the moaning of an imprisoned monster, that seems to boom in subterranean caverns of the earth, and is heard distinctly 10 or 12 miles away.

The noises begin with a seemingly far away low rumbling note that speedily swells in volume and intensity, and culminates in a vast rolling sound, like the muttering of distant thunder, and the ground trembles as if with the throe of an earthquake.

Another Boston Globe article from March 1940 gives a similar description:

Virtually every householder in Moodus rushed to the cellar last night just before midnight to see whether his furnace had blown up, and finding it hadn't called neighbors on the telephone. Thus it was learned that the famous Moodus Noises had returned after about four years.

... Moodus has been shaken at irregular intervals by strange subterranean concussions. The sounds are reported to emanate from the mouth of a great cave, high on a hillside in view of virtually every house in town. No one apparently has ever been at the mouth of the cave when the noises issued forth, however.

"You can always distinguish these noises from blasting; the concussion is so much greater," one resident said today.

They sound scary and kind of awesome, so I can understand why Lovecraft put them into one of his stories. The Algonquians who originally lived in Moodus thought they were awesome and scary too, and therefore ascribed them to their god Hobomok, who was also awesome and scary. The Indians who actually lived on Mount Tom were specialists in interpreting the voice of Hobomok and were consulted as oracles by other local tribes.

When the Puritans showed up in the 1670s they asked the Indians about the strange booming sounds. They responded that they were the voice of Hobomok, and that he was unhappy because the English had come to Connecticut. (He probably was.)

Of course, the Puritans had their own interpretation. They didn't believe in Hobomok and thought the Indians were actually worshiping the Devil. Stephen Hosmer, Haddam's first minister, wrote the following to a friend in August of 1729:

I have been informed that in this place before the English settlements, there were great numbers of Indian inhabitants, and that it was a place of extraordinary Indian Powwows, or in short, that it was a place where the Indians drove a prodigious trade at worshipping the devil. ... Now whether there be anything diabolical in these things (the noises), I know not; but this I know, that God Almighty is to be seen and trembled at, in what has been often heard among us.

Once the Devil gets invoked you know things are going to get weird. Next week I'll post some of the crazy Colonial era legends about the noises, which involve witches, alchemists, and underground battle caves. Stay tuned!

Update: the second part of this post is now up!