El Dorado - Poe

EL DORADO

circa 1849
By Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of El Dorado.

But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like El Dorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of El Dorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for El Dorado!"

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga
a Russian folk tale

SOMEWHERE, I cannot tell you exactly where, but certainly in vast Russia, there lived a peasant with his wife and they had twins — a son and daughter. One day the wife died and the husband mourned over her very sincerely for a long time. One year passed, and two years, and even longer. But there is no order in a house without a woman, and a day came when the man thought, "If I marry again possibly it would turn out all right." And so he did, and had children by his second wife.

The stepmother was envious of the stepson and daughter and began to use them hardly. She scolded them without any reason, sent them away from home as often as she wished, and gave them scarcely enough to eat. Finally she wanted to get rid of them altogether. Do you know what it means to allow a wicked thought to enter one's heart?

The wicked thought grows all the time like a poisonous plant and slowly kills the good thoughts. A wicked feeling was growing in the stepmother's heart, and she determined to send the children to the witch, thinking sure enough that they would never return.

"Dear children,"she said to the orphans, "go to my grandmother who lives in the forest in a hut on hen's feet. You will do everything she wants you to, and she will give you sweet things to eat and you will be happy."

The orphans started out. But instead of going to the witch, the sister, a bright little girl, took her brother by the hand and ran to their own old, old grandmother and told her all about their going to the forest.

"Oh, my poor darlings!" said the good old grandmother, pitying the children, "my heart aches for you, but it is not in my power to help you. You have to go not to a loving grandmother, but to a wicked witch. Now listen to me, my darlings," she continued; "I will give you a hint: Be kind and good to everyone; do not speak ill words to any one; do not despise helping the weakest, and always hope that for you, too, there will be the needed help."

The good old grandmother gave the children some delicious fresh milk to drink and to each a big slice of ham. She also gave them some cookies—there are cookies everywhere—and when the children departed she stood looking after them a long, long time.

The obedient children arrived at the forest and, oh, wonder! there stood a hut, and what a curious one! It stood on tiny hen's feet, and at the top was a rooster's head. With their shrill, childish voices they called out loud: "Izboushka, Izboushka! turn thy back to the forest and thy front to us!" The hut did as they commanded. The two orphans looked inside and saw the witch resting there, her head near the threshold, one foot in one corner, the other foot in another corner, and her knees quite close to the ridge pole.

"Fou, Fou, Fou!" exclaimed the witch; "I feel the Russian spirit."

The children were afraid, and stood close, very close together, but in spite of their fear they said very politely:
"Ho, grandmother, our stepmother sent us to thee to serve thee."

"All right; I am not opposed to keeping you, children. If you satisfy all my wishes I shall reward you; if not, I shall eat you up."
Without any delay the witch ordered the girl to spin the thread, and the boy, her brother, to carry water in a sieve to fill a big tub. The poor orphan girl wept at her spinning-wheel and wiped away her bitter tears. At once all around her appeared small mice squeaking and saying:

"Sweet girl, do not cry. Give us cookies and we will help thee." The little girl willingly did so.

"Now,"gratefully squeaked the mice, "go and find the black cat. He is very hungry; give him a slice of ham and he will help thee."
The girl speedily went in search of the cat and saw her brother in great distress about the tub, so many times he had filled the sieve, yet the tub was still dry. The little birds passed, flying near by, and chirped to the children: "Kind-hearted little children, give us some crumbs and we will advise you." The orphans gave the birds some crumbs and the grateful birds chirped again:
"Some clay and water, children dear!" Then away they flew through the air.

The children understood the hint, spat in the sieve, plastered it up with clay and rilled the tub in a very short time. Then they both returned to the hut and on the threshold met the black cat. They generously gave him some of the good ham which their good grandmother had given them, petted him and asked:

"Dear Kitty-cat, black and pretty, tell us what to do in order to get away from thy mistress, the witch?"

"Well," very seriously answered the cat, "I will give you a towel and a comb and then you must run away. When you hear the witch running after you, drop the towel behind your back and a large river will appear in place of the towel.

If you hear her once more, throw down the comb and in place of the comb there will appear a dark wood. This wood will protect you from the wicked witch, my mistress."

Baba Yaga came home just then.

"Is it not wonderful?" she thought; "everything is exactly right."

"Well," she said to the children, "today you were brave and smart; let us see to-morrow. Your work will be more difficult and I hope I shall eat you up."

The poor orphans went to bed, not to a warm bed prepared by loving hands, but on the straw in a cold corner. Nearly scared to death from fear, they lay there, afraid to talk, afraid even to breathe. The next morning the witch ordered all the linen to be woven and a large supply of firewood to be brought from the forest.

The children took the towel and comb and ran away as fast as their feet could possibly carry them. The dogs were after them, but they threw them the cookies that were left; the gates did not open themselves, but the children smoothed them with oil; the birch tree near the path almost scratched their eyes out, but the gentle girl fastened a pretty ribbon to it. So they went farther and farther and ran out of the dark forest into the wide, sunny fields.

The cat sat down by the loom and tore the thread to pieces, doing it with delight. Baba Yaga returned. "Where are the children?" she shouted, and began to beat the cat. "Why hast thou let them go, thou treacherous cat? Why hast thou not scratched their faces?"
The cat answered: "Well, it was because I have served thee so many years and thou hast never given me a bite, while the dear children gave me some good ham."

The witch scolded the dogs, the gates, and the birch tree near the path. "Well," barked the dogs, "thou certainly art our mistress, but thou hast never done us a favor, and the orphans were kind to us."

The gates replied: "We were always ready to obey thee, but thou didst neglect us, and the dear children smoothed us with oil."

"The children ran away as fast as their feet could possibly carry them"

The birch tree lisped with its leaves, "Thou hast never put a simple thread over my branches and the little darlings adorned them with a pretty ribbon."

Baba Yaga understood that there was no help and started to follow the children herself. In her great hurry she forgot to look for the towel and the comb, but jumped astride a broom and was off. The children heard her coming and threw the towel behind them. At once a river, wide and blue, appeared and watered the field. Baba Yaga hopped along the shore until she finally found a shallow place and crossed it.

Again the children heard her hurry after them and so they threw down the comb. This time a forest appeared, a dark and dusky forest in which the roots were interwoven, the branches matted together, and the tree-tops touching each other. The witch tried very hard to pass through, but in vain, and so, very, very angry, she returned home.

The orphans rushed to their father, told him all about their great distress, and thus concluded their pitiful story:

"Ah, father dear, why dost thou love us less than our brothers and sisters?"

The father was touched and became angry. He sent the wicked stepmother away and lived a new life with his good children. From that time he watched over their happiness and never neglected them any more.

How do I know this story is true? Why, one was there who told me about it.

---

Folk Tales From the Russian, by Verra Xenophontovna Kalamatiano de Blumenthal, [1903]
Sacred Texts
Like most witches, Baba Yaga can fly but she does not use a broomstick. Instead, she sits in a giant mortar (a bowl for grinding food) with her knees almost touching her chin. She drives very fast across or above the forest floor, and uses the pestle (the grinder) as a rudder held in her right hand. She sweeps away her tracks with a broom made out of silver birch held in her left hand. Wherever she appears, a wild wind begins to blow, the trees groan and leaves whirl through the air.

Her home is a hut deep in a birch forest, in a place that is difficult to find, unless a magic thread, feather or doll shows the way. The hut has a life of its own. It stands on large chicken legs and can move about. Its windows act as eyes and the lock is full of teeth. A post fence surrounds the hut. The posts are made of human bones and topped with skulls whose blazing eye sockets light up the forest. Very often the hut is guarded by hungry dogs, evil geese, swans or a black cat.

The hut can spin around and moves through the forest. It makes blood-curdling screeches. Most of those who go in never leave, as Baba Yaga washes them, feeds them and then sits them on a giant spatula, before putting them in her oven. In many stories, the fate of those entering her hut is in their own hands. A guest may, or may not, fit into the oven, depending on how they sit on the spatula. Although she eats as much as 10 men, Baba Yaga is very skinny and bony, like a skeleton. Her nose is very long and hooked.
http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/origins117-baba-yaga-and-vasilisa-the-fair.html

The Witch and the Toad

The Witch and the Toad

An old woman called Alsey - usually Aunt Alsey - occupied a small cottage in Anthony, one of a row which belonged to a tradesman living in Dock - as Devonport was then designated, to distinguish it from Plymouth. The old woman possessed a very violent temper, and this, more than anything else, fixed upon her the character of being a witch. Her landlord had frequently sought his rent, and as frequently he received nothing but abuse. He had, on the special occasion to which our narrative refers, crossed the Tamar and walked to Anthony, with the firm resolve of securing his rent, now long in arrear, and of turning the old termagant out of the cottage. A violent scene ensued, and the vicious old woman, more than a match for a really kind-hearted and quiet man, remained the mistress of the situation. She seated herself in the door of her cottage and cursed her landlord's wife, "the child she was carrying," and all belonging to him, with so devilish a spite that Mr. owned he was fairly driven away in terror.

On returning home, he, of course, told his wife all the circumstances; and while they were discoursing on the subject--the whole story being attentively listened to by their daughter, then a young girl, who is my informant - a woman came into the shop requiring some articles which they sold.

"Sit still, father," said Mrs. to her husband; "you must be tired. I will see to the shop."

So she went from the parlour into the shop, and, hearing the wants of her customer, proceeded to supply them; gossiping gaily, as was her wont, to interest the buyer.

Mrs. was weighing one of the articles required, when something falling heavily from the ceiling of the shop, struck the beam out of her hand, and both the falling body and the scales came together with much noise on to the counter. At the same instant both women screamed; the shopkeeper calling also: "Father! father!" meaning her husband thereby with great energy.

Mr. and his daughter were in the shop instantly, and there, on the counter, they saw an enormous and most ugly toad sprawling amidst the chains of the scales. The first action of the man was to run back to the parlour, seize the tongs, and return to the shop. He grasped the swollen toad with the tongs, the vicious creature spitting all the time, and, without a word, he went back and flung it behind the block of wood which was burning in the grate. The object of terror being removed, the wife, who was shortly to become the mother of another child, though usually a woman who had great command over her feelings, fainted.

This circumstance demanding all their attention, the toad was forgotten. The shock was a severe one; and although Mrs. was restored in a little time to her senses, she again and again became faint. Those fits continuing, her medical attendant, Dr. was sent for, and on his arrival he ordered that his patient should be immediately placed in bed, and the husband was informed that he must be prepared for a premature birth.

The anxiety occasioned by these circumstances, and the desire to afford every relief to his wife, so fully occupied Mr. that for an hour or two he entirely forgot the cause of all this mischief; or, perhaps satisfying himself that the toad was burnt to ashes, he had no curiosity to look after it. He was, however, suddenly summoned from the bedroom, in which he was with his wife, by his daughter calling to him, in a voice of terror:

"O father, the toad, the toad!"

Mr. rushed downstairs, and he then discovered that the toad, though severely burnt, had escaped destruction.

It must have crawled up over the log of wood, and from it have fallen down amongst the ashes. There it was now making useless struggles to escape, by climbing over the fender.

The tongs were again put in requisition, with the intention this time of carrying the reptile out of the house. Before, however, he had time to do so, a man from Anthony came hastily into the shop with the information that Aunt Alsey had fallen into the fire, as the people supposed, in a fit, and that she was nearly burnt to death. This man had been sent off with two commissions, one to fetch the doctor, and the other to bring Mr. with him, as much of the cottage had been injured by fire, communicated to it by the old woman's dress.

In as short a time as possible the parish surgeon and Mr. were at Anthony, and too truly they found the old woman most severely burnt so seriously indeed there was no chance that one so aged could rally from the shock which her system must have received.

However, a litter was carefully prepared, the old woman was placed in it, and carried to the workhouse. Every attention was given to her situation, but she never recovered perfect consciousness, and during the night she died.

The toad, which we left inside the fender in front of a blazing fire, was removed from a position so trying to any cold-blooded animal, by the servant, and thrown, with a "hugh" and a shudder, upon one of the flower-beds in the small garden behind the house.

There it lay the next morning dead, and when examined by Mr. it was found that all the injuries sustained by the toad corresponded with those received by the poor old wretch, who had no doubt fallen a victim to passion.

As we have only to deal with the mysterious relation which existed between the witch and the toad, it is not necessary that we should attend further to the innocent victim of an old woman's vengeance, than to say that eventually a babe was born, that that babe grew to be a handsome man, was an officer in the navy, and having married, went to sea, and perished, leaving a widow with an unborn child to lament his loss. Whether this was a result of the witch's curse, those who are more deeply skilled in witchcraft than I am may perhaps tell.

---

Footnotes
1 Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England
Sacred Texts

Vintage Postcard of the week...

The Witch of Willowby Wood - Bennett

The Witch of Willowby Wood

circa 1964
By Rowena Bennett (1896-1981)

There once was a witch of Willowby Wood,
and a weird wild witch was she, with hair that was snarled
and hands that were gnarled, and a kickety, rickety knee.
She could jump, they say, to the moon and back,
but this I never did see.
Now Willowby Wood was near Sassafras Swamp,
where there's never a road or a rut.
And there by the singing witch-hazel bush
the old woman builded her hut.
She builded with neither a hammer or shovel.
She kneaded, she rolled out, she baked her brown hovel.
For all witches' houses, I've oft heard it said,
are made of stick candy and fresh gingerbread.
But the shingles that shingled this old witch's roof
were lollipop shingles and hurricane-proof,
too hard to be pelted and melted by rain.
(Why this is important, I soon will explain.)
One day there came running to Sassafras Swamp
a dark little shadowy mouse.
He was noted for being a scoundrel and scamp.
And he gnawed at the old woman's house
where the doorpost was weak and the doorpost was worn.
And when the witch scolded, he laughed to her scorn.
And when the witch chased him, he felt quite delighted.
She never could catch him for she was nearsighted.
And so, though she quibbled,
he gnawed and he nibbled.
The witch said, "I won't have my house take a tumble.
I'll search in my magical book for a spell.
I can weave and a charm I can mumble
to get you away from this nook.
It will be a good warning to other bad mice,
who won't earn their bread but go stealing a slice."
"Your charms cannot hurt," said the mouse, looking pert.
Well, she looked in her book and she waved her right arm,
and she said the most magical things.
Till the mouse, feeling strange, looked about in alarm,
and he found he was growing some wings.
He flapped and he fluttered the longer she muttered.
"And now, my fine fellow, you'd best be aloof,"
said the witch as he floundered around.
"You can't stay on earth and you can't gnaw my roof.
It's lollipop hard and it's hurricane-proof.
So you'd better take off from the ground.
If you are wise, stay in the skies."
Then in went the woman of Willowby Wood,
in to her hearthstone and cat.
There she put her old volume up high on the shelf,
and framed her hot face with her hat.
Then she said, "That is that!
I have just made a bat!"

© Rowena Bennett

Jack-O"-Lantern's Story

Jack-O"-Lantern's Story

Ho, ho, little folks,
Do not be afraid.
I’m jolly Jack-o’-lantern,
Out of a pumpkin made.

When I was just a pumpkin fat,
Out in the field I lay,
Until a little laddie came
And carried me away.

He cut a slit out for each eye,
Another for a nose,
Then carved a great big, grinning mouth
With teeth in funny rows.

He put a candle in my head,
And let the light stream through,
And said, O Jack-o’-lantern,
Won’t I have fun with you!

All-Hallow Eve - Goodale

All-Hallow Eve
Dora Read Goodale (1866 – 1915)

She too grows old.
She does not know me any more,
Beneath my lantern’s yellow flare,
Till I have crossed the crooked floor
And stand beside her chair
To have my fortune told.

One room—all still:
The ceiling bulges, black with rains;
The straight walls tremble, loose and thin;
And through the six uneven panes
Remorseless night stares in
Across the sloping sill.

The lamp is lit—
A little lamp of ancient brass
With tarnished figures, quaint and tall;
It throws huge shadows as I pass
Against the rocking wall:
She draws close under it.

She stoops her head:
Her black gaze on the chimney-place,
She hears, stern-featured, all I say;
Winding around the grim, bent face,
In lines as hard as clay,
Her blanket-shawl of red.

From two gray hands
The heavy, low, black-cushioned chair
Springs backward with a double creak;
Dark-outlined, with the yellow glare
Against her crumpled cheek,
How tall and still she stands!

My palm in hers,
With nods and cries and baleful signs,
With ancient charms of mumbled phrase,
With hard brows bent in knott, lines,
With shrewed and fickle gaze
She muses and demurs.

We two alone:
I burn the chestnuts on the hearth,
I drop the homespun ball of blue,
I share her cracked, unlovely mirth,
And hear my fortune through—
Strange warning, crooked crone!

Our eyes have met—
I cross the seamed and crumbling floor
Worn by the feet of buried men:
And as I shut the low, red door
The knocker jars again—
It rains—the stone is wet.

My fate is told!
I stumble down the lilac way—
A narrow footpath, flagged with blue—
So soon—so soon—I dare not say,
But if I prove it true
I’ll tell you—when I’m old.

---

The Overland Monthly, January 1884

Is it haunted?

Scarecrow - Brown

Scarecrow
by Abbie Farwell Brown (1871-1927)

Rags and tags of what he was,
Topped with straw and stuffed with hay;
Balanced tipsily askew,
It grins to scare the crows away.

I saw Him first in that old hat—
It seemed the crown of a king to me.
I liked his careless swagger then;
Lord! He was straight and fine to see.

He courted me in that same coat—
He couldn’t meet it now, I guess.
That gay vest was the one he wore
When I walked bride in my silver dress.

He seemed as proud as I, those days.
I never dreamed, when we were wed,
I’d think the Scarecrow a better man,
With a broom for a spine and a pumpkin head.

Rags and tags of what he seemed,
Mocking me in the field all day.
What can I make a scarecrow of,
To drive the hungry thoughts away?

---

From Heart of New England, 1920

The Charge of the Crone - Garrison

The Charge Of The Crone

circa 1998
By Jim Garrison

Hear the words of the Dark Goddess
who stands within the crossroads,
whose torch illuminates the Underworld:

I am the Queen of Magic
and the dark of the Moon,
hidden in the deepest night.

I am the mystery of the Otherworld
and the fear that coils about your heart
in the time of your trials.

I am the soul of nature
that gives form to the universe;
it is I who await you at the
end of the spiral dance.

Most ancient among gods and mortals,
let my worship be within the heart
that has truly tasted life,
for behold all acts of magic and art
are my pleasure
and my greatest ritual
is love itself.

Therefore let there be
beauty in your strength,
compassion in your wrath,
power in your humility,
and discipline balanced
through mirth and reverence.

You who seek to remove my veil
and behold my true face,
know that all your questioning
and efforts are for nothing,
and all your lust and desires
shall avail you not at all.

For unless you know my mystery,
look wherever you will,
it will elude you,
for it is within you
and nowhere else.

For behold,
I have ever been with you,
from the very beginning,
the comforting hand that nurtured you
in the dawn of life,
and the loving embrace that awaits you
at the end of each life,

For I am that which is attained
at the end of the dance,
and I am the womb of new beginnings,
as yet unimagined and unknown.

© 1998 Jim Garrison