THE GORBEYS

He started for the landing,

one morning quite late,
But little did think
of his terrible fate.

Down came two bluejays,

a gorbey and took
The mortal remains
of that ignorant cook.

Now its young folk take warning

of the birds be aware;
of bluejays and gorbies
that pepper the air.

When you go out a-walking,

be armed and keep look
for the damndable critters
That haunt Beaver Brook
Anon1

"The Man Who Plucked the Gorbey" has been the most common tale
brought back from the woods-camps of New Brunswick and Maine.
Folklorist Edward Ives collected more than one hundred variants of the
legend, each attested to be the truth, with the human culprit named.

The word "gorbey" is no longer much used, but the Anglo-Normans of

Britain understood "gorb" to describe any fledgling bird; one which had not
yet developed its flight-feathers. Alternately, a gorb was an adult bird
whose feathers had been plucked. We would guess that the word came to
England with the Normans, the Old French form being "corbel", from the
Latin "corvus". Since Roman times, birds have had an important place in
augury, the forecasting of the future through observation of the
interactions of flocks, with black birds being the preferred focus of this
art.

1Foranother version, see Edith Fouke, Explorations In

Canadian Folklore, p. 176.
 The blackest of birds (figuratively speaking) comprise the family
still known as the "Corvidae". These are: the Gray or Canada Jay, the Blue
Jay, the Raven and the Crow. Robie W. Tufts has said that the Gray Jay has
no peers for boldness and impudence. "It is a common practice for it to
enter a camp to steal food when the camper's back is turned. The fur
trapper hates it whole-heartedly, for the very good reason that it steals
the bait from his trap lines, often before he is out of sight when making
his rounds..."2 This explains the designation "camp-robber". Described as
"a magnified chickadee" this bird "will eat absolutely anything. It will
peck at a deer carcass...make off with soap and candles that have been left
around the camp, and the Indians claim it will eat mocassins and fur
caps. 3 Among them, this bird was the "wiskidjak", which the white men
interpreted as "whisky jack". The wiskidjak coveted moose-meat as much
as stale buscuits and whisky, and was always willing to guide people to
this animal in exchange for meat from the carcass. In the elder days, the
Abenaki hunters said that a powerful spirit lived within this bird, and
when they hunted they listened for his cries of "Gee! Gee! Hungrrry!"
Following them through the woods they would ultimately spot game. At
other times, they did not welcome his company, and Fannie Eckstrom, said
that the natives "hated Whisky Jack, and a bullet was their usual greeting
(for him). 4 In my grandfathers day, white men followed the gorbie in the
same belief, but they claimed his cry was "Jesus, Jesus, cold!" In any
event, neither group of hunters made serious attempts to shoot these
birds (unless the shot was silver). When Eckstrom offered two dollars
each for specimens of eggs, she was surprised that there was no rush at
her door, and concluded that, "there may be some superstition connected

2Robie W. Tufts, The Birds of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1961, p.

308.

3Edward
D. Ives, "the Man Who Plucked the Gorbey, as
quoted by Foukes,

4Edith
Foukes, from "Concerning the Bad REpute of Whiskey
John", 1902, quoted in Edith Foukes book, p. 186.
with (it)." 5 It was in fact frequently suggested that gorbies might house
the departed souls of dead woodsmen, but there were worse suppositions.

In a typical run-in, a Gray Jay watched while lumbermen gathered

wood, built a noon-day fire, melted snow for tea and popped open the tops
of lard-buckets, which contained their lunches. Instantly, there was a
whirl of gray and a biscuit snatched between hand and mouth. All of the
jays were universally fearless, and after they fed, would harass
woodsmen, dashing under a coat-tail or up a sleeve or pant-leg. Most men
laughed at these antics, and gladly parted with a bit of food in exchange
for the show, and these referred to the jays as the woodsman's friend.
Others insisted it be called a moose-bird, meat-bird, grease-bird, or
venison hawk, because of its seemingly bottomless stomach and thievery.
Ives claimed that one camp cook threw out stale doughnuts, and watched
aghast as a bird looped one over his left foot, another over the right, and
flew away with a third in his beak. In Britain men, who were voracious or
greedy in their eating, or other habits, were once called gorbs after
similar black birds. A man with an expanded waist-line was called a
gorbelly. Gorbies never seemed to tire of feeding, earning them the local
nickname "greedy gorbeys". In every lumber camp, there seems to have
been at least one thin, puritanical man, who disliked their gluttony.

Gorbeys were not easy to catch but according to legend they might
be entrapped by soaking a buscuit in whisky and offering it to them. The
greediest of the lot became intoxicated and so drunk he could no longer
fly. A humane woodsworker might tie a shoe-lace or baloney wrapping
about the neck of a gorbey as chastisement, but ill-humoured men plucked
the feathers from such birds and left them to the elements. This was
considered ill- omened since most lumbermen knew that any injury done
to a gorbey reflected on the person who did the damage. Those who
plucked the gorbey often lost their hair if the bird survived. Those who
injured the wing or leg of this black bird soon suffered damage to an arm
or a leg, and those who killed a gorbey had a short life-expectancy.

Charles Sibley of Argle, Maine told Harold Ives that Archie

Stackhouse was one man who denuded a gorbey: "...he picked him, all but
his wings. In February. Picked him all off...and he said, "Go you you son of
a bitch and get a new coat." And they said the next morning he woke up,

5Ibid, p. 187.
and his hair laid right on the pillow, every Goddamned bit..." 6

Ravens, Robie suggests, "possess uncanny powers, not only in the

matter of detecting the location of food, but in being able to pass the
word along to other members of the tribe, even though widely separated
from one another. This is borne out by the following incident...After
dressing a deer that had been killed the first morning out (a hunter) hung
it ona clump of thick spruces, and boughs from the same were draped over
the carcass in order that it might be concealed completely from any Raven
that might be passing that way, though none was seen during the
operation. Returning to pick it up two days later, he found the carcass
was picked almost clean, and perched on the boulders and trees in close
proximity were 40 to 50 heavily glutted Ravens." 7

Ravens are not fastidious eaters and neither is the common crow.
Tufts says that "few persons have anything good to say of this bird. Its
call note is discordant; in spring it is known to steal eggs and young from
the nests of valuable songbirds; it plagues the farmer by pulling up newly
sprouted corn, and it has been found guilty of pecking holes in ripening
pears and apples...Crows are not protected in Canada, but they require no
protection, being well able to fend for themselves despite men's
hostility..." 8 Tufts recalled that a crow once aborted a duck hunting
expedition he was taking part in by voicing "caws", which were correctly
interpreted by ducks on a pond as a signal of danger. He also noted their
tendancy to gang up on solitary owls, "cawing" to attract members of their
tribe and mobbing their common enemy.

The word "crawe" (crow) originated with the Anglo-Saxon people

who displaced the Celtic-speaking Gaels, Gauls and Cymrians of Britain.
Imitative of the sound made by this black bird, it is from "crawan", to
crow. Akin to the Danish "kraai" and the German "kraahe" it referred to the
crowing of a cock as well as the voice of the crow. The cock has almost
as bad a reputation as the crow, its voice constituting a bad omen when

6Edith Foukes, p. 177.

7Ibid, p. 311.

8Ibid, p.. 313.

heard at an uncharacteristic time. In the Victorian era, to "have a crow to
pluck" was still understood as being under the necessity of having a
disagreeable conversation, or being faced with having to settle an
embaraasing matter.

Our "rude forefathers" believed in the spirit world as much as the

Micmacs and the Woolastooks. The Gaels of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle
of Man referred to their carrion crow as a "bhaobh", or "baobh", but this
word may also identify a human hag, a witch, a wizard, or "several other
female supernaturals of very evil omen." A favourite saying among them,
used to descibe a "sticky" situation was "eadar a 'bhaobh 's a'bhuarach."
Roughly, this indicates a person caught "between the Devil and the deep
blue sea," but more literally, between a gorbey and a "fettered cow". The
Celtic speakers were never a literary people. As a result, their spellings
used to vary with regional pronunciations; thus, bhaobh, or baobh is also
seen written as maobh, mebd, or maeve. Capitalized, the last form
recognized one of the Gaelic goddesses of battle. This "carrion crow" had
the uncanny habit of appearing on the battlefield before men who were
destined to die, thus destroying their lust for battle and hastening their
end. She was allied with the peoples of southern Ireland and seems to
have had a human counterpart in Queen Maeve. At the pass to Ulster this
mature warrior-woman met the northern hero Cuchulain, shape-changed
into an eel which wound itself about his legs trying to overthrow him.
Failing this she turned into a snarling rabid wolf, frightening herds of
cattle which nearly trampled him. This is one of the few cases where the
crow-wolf queen failed, perhaps because Cuchulain had invisible
protectors, who were of the warrior-magician clan known as the Daoine
sidh (little people).

The raven was the totem-symbol of the viking Scandanavian peoples,

especially the Danes, who commenced to ravage England and Scotland
starting with 793 A.D. They used this black bird as a symbol on their
pennants, wore black armour, sailed black-hulled ships and declared
themselves "the messengers of Odin." The Anglish, or English, understood
this symbolism, their ancestors having been devoted to this same god
Wuotan. They
remembered that "the king of the gods" could become a gigantic eagle, but
more often sent two ravens, from his shoulders to seek information of the
wider world. When Hugin (thought) and Munin (memory) returned at
nighfall, they whispered into Odin's ears news of all they had heard and
seen in their daytime travels. Interestingly, Odin also kept two hunting
wolves, which were considered a good omen to this people, as they once
were with the southern Irish.

As we will see, totem-animals were once considered more than

simple symbols. The troubles that various European peoples had with the
viking Norsemen (among other things) led to their association with evil
creatures in medieval mythology. Caym, "the grand-master of hell" was
described as a great trickster, "the cleverist sophist in hell, who through
the astuteness of his arguments, can make the most skilled logician
despair... Martin Luther had a famed encounter with him (and said that)
Caym understands the songs of birds, the bellowing of oxen, the barking of
dogs, and the sound of the waves. He knows the future. At times he has
revealled himself as a man adorned by a tuft and a peacock's tail, but he
generally reveals himself as a black crow." 9

Malphas, "the president of hell" often appeared as a conventional

man, but he often preferred to appear as a crow. His voice had the rasping
sound of the latter animal. Further, Pierre Delancre is supposed to have
noted that when sorcerer-priests elevated the black host and black
chalice at the sabbat of the witch they called out: "Black crow! Black
crow!"

Many of the people of Atlantic Canada are descendants of those who

opposed the various "crow or raven-folk", which explains the fact that
fishermen will return to port if one of these birds crosses their bow on an
outward voyage. Some feel that spitting will avoid harm, or turning the
boat in three circles in the direction of the sun, but others consider this a
sure omen of heavy weather at sea or a loss of life. We are not sure of the
reasoning behind the verse that begins: "One crow sorrow..." but spitting
was perhaps considered a remedy because this was the traditional means
of concluding a Norse treaty. Where former enemies gathered, they spit
into a common container. It was believed that something of the spirit of
each participant intermingled with the saliva, making it magically
impossible to break solemn vows. We know of a few people who are still
bothered when they return home and find a crow perched on the ridge pole.
In ancient times, that crow was probably a crow-standard, or flag, and

9Collin de Plancey, Dictionary of Witchcraft, p. 37.

indicated that the household had fallen into the hands of dangerous people.
There is a connection between witches and the Norsemen, and our folk
probably feared the "familiars" of witches, who travelled as crows, after
the viking peoples were long forgotten.

The crow-spirit could be a tangible force, as Helen Creighton makes

evident in a tale of witchcraft said to have taken place at French Village,
Nova Scotia in 1870: Samuel B. Culaw was referred to as "the father of
witches" because he was a "witch-master", the patriarch of a witch-clan
in Cape Breton, an individual available for hire, where his neighbours were
unable to fend off the effects of bewitchment. In that year, he agreed to
assist Daniel H. who had refused a witch bread and milk. Afterwards
Daniel noticed that his cattle suffered night-sweats, appearing so wet in
the morning they seemed to have spent the night in a lake. This would now
be deduced as caused by bacterial or viral fever, but in those days animals
were thought to have been "hag" or "fairy-ridden".

In Romeo And Juliet, Shakespeare refers to:

...that very Mab (from Mebd)

That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul slutish hairs,
Which once entangled, much misfortune bode.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them...

Thus the crow and the hag are related in the lore which Shakespeare
borrowed from the folk of Middle England. In The Mad Pranks and Merry
Jests of Robin Goodfellow, which predates Shakespeare, an anonymous
writer had a charcter named Gull, the fairy, say: "Many times, I get on men
and women, and so lie on their stomachs, that I cause them great pain; for
which they call me by the name of Hagge or Night Mare." 10

10Anon, The Mad Pranks And Merry Jests of Robin

Goodfellow, ed J.P. Collyer, 1841, p. 42. Said first between 1584
and 1588, although references in it to the use of tobacco (which
was not yet in use) suggest that the second part is of later date.
 The night elf, or fairy, or hag was said to sit on the chest or back of
the sleeper and ride thim through interminable dreams, his hands gripping
his "mount's" hair as if they were reins. "Night-Elves also ride animals,
leaving their hair so tangled and matted that it is impossible to comb out."
In Acadian parts, this creature was the lutin:

Ou il y a belle fille et bon vin

La aussi haute le lutin.
Anon. proverb

A house goblin, he was said to be equally fond of children and horses,

and to give both good things to eat, but "to whip and pinch them if they
were naughty." Although he generally cared for the farm horses, he was
known to gallop them at times and lutinize their manes, "i.e. plait or twist
them in an inexplicable manner."

It was never suggested that the horses or cattle were liberated from
their stalls when they were galloped, but rather that their "spirits" were
taken for night-rides by these night mares. Prespiration was not the only
sign of such abuse; cattle were sometimes found displaced in their stalls,
turned front to back in confines which would not allow them such
movement without supernatural intervention. In the worst cases of witch,
or fairy-craft, an animal might be found upside down in its stall, the legs
pointing roofward. There have been reports, in Atlantic Canada, of night-
rides which have supposedly left animals with broken legs or even a
broken neck.

Daniel H's hag-ridden cows were not this severely tormented, but he
was forced to wipe them down in the morning before turning them out into
the pasture. On the second day, he found the entire herd liberated, their
ties remained unknotted in the barn. Assured by this that something
uncanny was afoot, he went to visit Mrs. W., the local "crow-woman", and
promised her that counter-action would be taken unless she stopped her
"troubling". The cows were not bothered for ten more days, but on the
eleventh night they were again at liberty. Hearing them at large in the
dark, he tried to round them up he found them entirely spooked, running
about the land as if the devil persued. He finally got control over the two
most docile animals and the rest followed back into the barn. The next
morning he asked for the help of Sammy Culaw.
 Sammy recommended that the counter-measure should be a "witch-
bottle". As Gillian Tindall has noted: "These illustrate most clearly the
fact that no qualitative distinction can be drawn between witchcraft and
the anti-witch devices ordinary people employed when they thought they
had been overlooked."11 In medieval times Tindall noted that it was
suggested that one should take, "three small-necked stone-jars; place in
each the liver of a frog stuck full of new pins and the heart of a toad stuck
full of thorns from the holy thornbush. Cork and seal each jar. Bury in
three different churchyard paths seven inches from the surface and seven
inches from the porch. While in the act of burying each repeat the Lord's
Prayer backwards. As the hearts and livers decay, so will the witch's
power vanish." 12

The witch-master intended something more potent; most of his kind

considered that a proper witch-bottle would reflect the powers directed
against men or cattle back at the witch. Often some of the victim's blood
or urine, together with hair or nail parings, was substituted for frog
parts. The inclusion of urine might be intended to "stop up" the witch,
making it painfully difficult for her to pass water. Sometimes the urine
was buried, boiled, or sunk in the ocean, hoping for equally drastic results.
In the most extreme situation the witch was expected to drown, swell to
bursting, suffocate or die of a raging fever, but before that happened she
usually appealed to her victim for mercy.

Culaw told Daniel that he should go to the barn and draw off a half
pint of urine from an ailing animal. He then told him to place this in a
wooden chest and leave it to evaporate: "As it dries up, she'll dry up, and
when it's gone she'll be done and you'll be free of her."

Daniel was in the habit of driving to Halifax, always stopping on the

way at Fourteen Mile House, near present day Bedford. One morning, he
took Culaw along for company and at sunset, the two of them spotted a
huge black bird silhoutted against the sun near this watering-hole. In
those days ravens and crows were shot on sight, so Culaw was suspicious

11Gillian Tindall, Handbook On Witches, p. 115.

12Ibid, pp. 115-116.

of the brazeness of the bird. Daniel fired two rounds of shot at the
animal, but it remained on its branch silhouetted against the sun. Finally,
sensing the nature of the black bird, the witch-master took his jacknife,
shaved silver from a coin and added it to the shot, saying: "I'll fire the
next load!" This time, the crow tumbled from its perch into the brush.

When they searched for the body nothing was found, so they went on
their way. At Halifax Sammy turned to Daniel and said, "That was old
Mother W. presenting herself here this morning in the shape of a crow. All
the bullets from here to Jericho would never have any effect upon her, but
when she got that load I fired she dropped...When you go home yopu'll find
her in bed sick...she'll be sending (to you) for a loaf of bread or a quart of
milk...Don't give her one thing. She'll come every day begging and starving
to death. The very minute you give her a loaf of bread or a quart of
milk...she'll be all right again and she'll have you just where she want's
you!"

True to the prediction, Mother W. sent one of her boys to Daniel

asking him to visit. At her home she asked for milk and bread, but Daniel
put her off. When she was back on her feet she came looking for potatoes,
but the farmer said: "...I might as well be plain with you. I'm determined
you're in the place where I want you and you're staying there. Never come
to me or my wife or none of my family again. Beg from somone else for a
while."

Afterwards, the witch commenced to lose weight and Daniel looked

periodically at the evaporating urine in the witch-bottle. When the
contents stood at a spoonful, Mrs. W. sent for him one last time. "She had
dried up almost like a stick" but her imperious voice was firm as she
warned him that the counter-charm had to be removed if she was to live
more than a forenight. When he explained that he had not set the spells
but that it was one placed by Samuel Culaw, she was appalled and knew
that her end was near since she expected no favours of "that old scorpion".
When the bottle went dry it was said that she dried out with it.
Samuel came to see her buried, and afterwards commented: "Now Dan'l to
you warrant I can handle these fellers?"

An explanation of these events cannot be found in Christian theology,

but can be worked out in terms of the pagan "Dawn Religions" of western
Europe and America. Contrary to popular belief, monotheism was not the
sole property of Christians. At the earliest stage, most men seem to have
been too busy to have time for more than one creator-god. Among the
eastern woodlands Indians he was Kjikinap, a great spirit who some
claimed rested within the oldest trees of the forest. Among the Innuit, he
was Kaila. The Celts named this god Nathir, the Scandinavians, Alfadur,
and the English the Allfather. The last three names are complete
synonyms, and when the Christian missionaries came to the north they
translated the Hebrew "Jahweh", or Jehovah, as "Father". In Atlantic
Canada, Creighton was repeatedly told that the words "Father, Son and
Holy Ghost" were the "holiest" in the Bible.

In the elder theology, the "breath of life" was considered the gift of
this prime-spirit to his creations, each sharing a small fraction of that
belonging to the Allfather or creator-god. The Anglo-Saxons called this
animating force "gast", and later it was called "ghost". It will be noticed
that the "Holy Ghost" is one third of the Christian trinity, each fraction
having (by the old rationale) one third the power of the "One God". After
the Normans conquered England in 1066, their word "spirit" was
substituted for "ghost", so that reference is now also made to the "Holy
Spirit". The prime business of ghosts or spirits was to cause movement,
and it was observed that all animals and plants moved, thus the pagans
theorized that they must be spirited, those that moved least having less
spirit than those that were far-ranging in their activities. It was also
noticed that the air, fire and water were rarely at rest, leading to
suggestion that their were elemental-gods. Usually these pagan gods
were named for the elements they controlled, thus in Europe, one notes the
Teutonic gods, Kari, Hler and Loki, whose names are synonyms for wind,
water and fire. In England these had counterparts in Carey, Eagor and
Lauger and in Scotland and Ireland, they were Myrddin, Ler and Lugh.
Perhaps a little later, it was observed that the earth was not an unmoving
entity and a fourth goddess evolved, variously called Urth, Wyrd or Danu in
Scandinavia, England and Celtic regions. In every case these elemental or
earth-deities were understood to be immortal divisions of the ultimate
creator-god. As such, they reacted without interest to the prayers,
supplications, bribes and threats of mankind, enveloping them in lava,
wind-storms and flood, earthquakes and mud-slides according to their
own whims and time-tables.

After men became agriculturalists, they had more time to consider

the supernatural and religions evolved from the rites directed at the
elemental-gods. In the older situation people shot flaming arrows into
the overcast sky hoping to catch the eye of the sun. Similarly, they
sprinkled the earth with water hoping to encourage the water god to take
the clue. If they wanted wind they snapped a cloth in the air, hopung that
this minor disturbance might lead to something more widespread. The
spirit of Urth (earth) was suspected to dwell in all animals and plants
since they "fed" upon the soil of her being. It was widely held as late as
the 17th century that corpses, and the ashes of animals and plants
contained reproductive "seeds"; that a dead frog could engender living
frogs and that the ashes of roses falling on the ground produced new roses.
This was all sympathetic magic, based on the idea that like affects like, a
concept now largely (but not totally) discredited.

The earliest communities were busy places but every individual took
time to dabble in private magic, seeing himself as a shareholder in the
spirit of the ultimate god. These were rites of personal use to the farmer,
fisherman or hunter, more general rites to benefit the community being
finally given to professional magicians, who came to be known as priests.
The skills of this class might be directed towards healing diseases,
forecasting the weather, the future or the results of battle. However
impotent they were, they were relieved of the usual drudgery of earning a
living and became a pool out of which chiefs and kings developed. Their
place in society was extremely hazardous as old age, and failure at magic,
was seen as a diminishment of their spirit. Either event usually resulted
in their being burned to ash, their spirit thus being returned to the earth.
An especially lucky, or skilled, priest-king was often elevated to the
status of mortal-god, a position undiminished by his death.

Christianity had its own mortal-god so it was not a new departure in

this repect. C.S. Lewis has argued that Jehovah differed from the pagan
gods in not being a nature-god, like Mother Urth, or the various barley-
mothers, corn-fathers, cailleachs, winter-hags, and harvest-wolves that
developed out of her rites. He has described the One God as one who "is
not the soul of Nature nor any part of Nature. He inhabits eternity: He
dwells in the high and holy place: heaven is His throne not His vehicle,
earth His footstool not his vesture. One day he will dismantle all and
make a new heaven and earth. He is not to be identified with the "divine
spark" (spirit) in man. He is God and not man..."13 Unfortunately for his

13C.S. Lewis, Miracles, London, 1988, p. 119.

argument he was comparing apples with oranges, and the above is an
accurate portrayal of any of the earlier creator-gods, such as the
Allfather, the Orlog who commenced the movement of the heavenly bodies
and time itself and has promised to harvest all the spirits of the universe
at the end of time. The chief differences between the old religions and
the new was the latter's rejection of the idea of reincarnation of the
soul, and the concept of everyman harbouring a minute fraction of god-
spirit. In the older theology men might aspire to god-hood in the current
life, or a future reincarnation. In the new, they might only look to union
with God after death.

The soul was once considered a physical embodiment of the spirit,

and in the Bible there is no suggestion that it might be expected to survive
following death. This concept was entirely pagan, adopted by Church
theologians who disliked the idea of personal identity being swallowed in
the God-entity. The Abenaki Indians spoke of the "skitekmuj", or ghost
body, "a black shadow of a man or woman. It has hands and feet, a mouth,
a head, and all the other parts of a human body. It drinks and eats, it puts
on clothes, it hunts and fishes and amuses itself." Since all things were
animate and incarnate, animals also possessed individual ghosts or
spirits: "With a moose or beaver, it looks like a black shadow of the
animal." Fire, water, air, earth, and its subdivisions were all seen to
possess occasional volition and therefore known to have immortal life.
Their failure to move was thought due to spells which limited them, but it
was said that, "the various bodies of nature are verily living tombs of
diverse spirits." Snowshoes, cooking pots and sleeping mats all possessed
shadow-counterparts.

A man who had been to ghost-world said that the "skitekmujk"

(ghost people) were punished if they acted badly in earth-world: They are
made to eat only rotten bark. They are made to dance and leap without
stopping, for as many moons as the Guardian may decide. I have seen also
the "skitekumjk" who have conducted themselves as they should. Life is
good to them in Ghost World. They have canoes, snowshoes, they have
bows and clubs and sleeping-mats. The sun shines on their wigwams
twice a day. The fir boughs and cedar boughs in their wigwams are always
fresh and green...the Guardian watches over them, and they always have
meat to eat...Their chins are always dripping with fat." 14

The Innu also believed that "the soul exhibits the same shape as the
body it belongs to, but is of a more subtle and etherreal nature."
According to the Nootkas, "the soul has the shape of a tiny man; its seat in
the crown of the head. So long as it stands erect, its owner is hale and
hearty; but when from any cause it loses its upright position, he loses his
senses..."15

The soul-mannikin is a part of European legend, thus the Icelandic

Eddas mention the "flygiar", the attendant-spirit of every child that is
born. In the prose Eddas we are told that the "guardians" who come to
earth "to shape the life of the men and the gods" are of the race of the
(elemental) gods, who they called the Nornir. Norn was originally a single
goddess, corresponding with Urth and Wyrd, but in late mythology her
duties were divided bewtween Urth, Verdhandi and Skulld, symbolizing the
past, present and future. The destiny of men was admitted to be "shaped
very unequally." "Some have a good life and rich, but some have little
wealth and praise, some long life, some short...The good Nornir, and well-
descended shape a good life; but as for those who meet with misfortune, it
is caused by the malignant Nornir." 16

In England this same invisble little man was known as a shadow-

man, follower, runner, cowalker or fetch, and these designations are still
used in Atlantic Canada. On both sides of the Atlantic, a person born with
a caul, or "fylgie" (the amniotic sac present over the head at birth) was
considered blesssed by a powerful attendant spirit. The sac was
considered to have magical properties in its own right and in medieval
times midwives sometimes removed it and sold it magicians. In the latter
case, the shadow-man no longer protected his human double, who beacme

14Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Stories From The Six Worlds,

Halifax, 1988, pp. 207-208.

15Sir James George Fraser, The Golden Bough, NY, 1951, all
quotes in this paragraph from p. 207.

16Thomas Keightley, The World Guide To Gnomes, Fairies,

Elves And Other Little People, quoting the prose Edda, pp 65-65.
an easy subject for diabolical possession.

Such individuals were called the jonahs, or joners, in the sea-ports

of our provinces, while land-dwellers were referred to as jinxes, or
jinkers, or as "rent-payers to hell". In a few Gaelic-speaking regions they
were "droch-chromhalaichean" (adherents of the badly-twisted one; i.e.
the Devil). The Scots and the Irish also knew of the "currac-rath" (cap of
luck) and all Atlantic Canadians were wary of "the unlucky kind"
particularly when they appeared while men were working: "If they were
working with tools of any kind, whether it was a mill or whatever...when
things would begin to go wrong - as often happened - they would order a
certain man in the neighbourhood to journey over (vacate the premises).
They believed strongly that everything would (soon) be in order again...they
took it as a very bad sign altogether if the same man met them on the
road...The first person to meet anyone starting out on a particular journey,
they thought would bring them bad luck or not..." 17

In sea-port villages, Christian priests, ministers and women were

excluded from ships as bringing bad luck but these were not full-fledged
jonahs. The former were disliked as likely to attract the unwanted enmity
of the elder gods of the sea, while women were suspected as potential
witches. One of Helen Creighton's interviewees explained it as follows:
"There is often one man who is known as "a bad luck man", he never seems
to be able to get on to the fish. Boats are also sometimes known as bad
luck boats (since they might possess bad-spirits in their own right)":
"Some vessels don't make money though they've been tried by the best
skippers known. There seems to be no reason for it, but I've seen it many
times. (Port Medway, N.S.)" On the other had bad luck ships were often
attached to a jonahed master-mariner. 18

Creighton has also recounted the misfortunes of an admitted jinx,

who was trailed by the runner of her great-great grandmother, a woman
who had a reputation for witchcraft: "If I went on the road sixty times a
day I'd meet her. She'd always turn around and follow me with her eyes."

17Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales Told Until Dawn, Kingston and

Montreal, 1987, p. 211.

18Helen Creighton, Bluenose Magic, Toronto, 1968, p. 125.

Alma J, interviewed at Eagle Head, Queen's County, Nova Scotia in 1947,
claimed that she had had a spell placed on her as a child. The followers of
children were considered impotent in the first year of birth and one
robbed of a caul was defenseless.

When she married and lived at Lake Centre in 1927, she was no
longer pursued by the shadow woman of her grandparent, but met a
neighbour who bragged that he was a witch. It is a tenant of the craft
that those who have been a prey to bewitchment remain open to its force,
just as those who have been hypnotized are less able to resist later
attempts at hypnosis. While her husband was busy with work in the
winter-woods, Alma became the victim of this male hagge, witch or lutin:
"There was a knothole in our front door and every night after I'd go to bed
I'd hear a "cat" slide down through the hole and it would jump on my
breast. When I'd leave the lamp burning it wouldn't bother me." This made
it difficult to sleep and in time, "I began to get sick and couldn't work."

One of the common symptoms of being hag-ridden was the advent of

a dream-state: "...no matter how hard the dreamers try, they can't move a
finger or even scream. It is, as one writer has put it, like having tetanus:
a man is saved only if he can succeed in moving some part of his body..." 19
Sexual liberties were supposed taken with sleepers, which explained their
legarthy during daylight hours.

Frightened by the experience , Alma went to the woods to get help

from her husband. Fortunately, he had some knowledge of witchcraft, and
knew that that there were rites of prevention and expulsion which could
be used against night-riders. In the middle ages various plants were hung
about the room, or the sleeper wore amulets made of coral, diamonds,
jets, jasper, dried menstrual blood or a wolf's hide. More recently, knifes
have been driven into door and window frames, a horseshoe or cross placed
at entrances, a red cloth sew to clothing covering the chest, or the arms
and legs held crossed throughout the night.

In their case it seemed more practical to entrap the witch. Once a

"night-elf" had made an entry there were numerous ways to divert him, but
the experts agree that "the most effective method is to catch him."

19Nancy Arrowsmith, A Field Guide To The Little People,

New York, 1977, p. 123.
Because of his shape-changing abilities, this can be difficult unless his
escape routes are cut off. "If all the holes in the room are blocked, the
Night-Elf will be forced to remain, since he must always enter and leave
through the same hole...A curious method of catching him is to stopper a
bottle very loudly. Partly out of curiosity and partly out of an
overwhelming desire to urinate, (he) must open the bottle, making it very
easy to close him inside." 20

Thinking to exclude the witch, the husband patched and filled minor
openings in the home ending with the knothole in the door. As he was
pounding a "cork" into this opening, their neighbour suddenly materialized
in the bedroom. "What are you doing in there the wife called out? Come
out in the kitchen!" The witch did he was told, but pushed past the woman
in a manner that suggested annoyance. When they had him seated on the
flop-couch in the kitchen they could see that he had bruises on his arm,
representing every hammer blow the husband had taken against the bung.
They suspected that he had been an invisible presence within the house,
but had reacted too slowly to escape through his entry hole. When they
asked him how he had managed the injuries, he said that they had resulted
from injuries suffered while he was working in the woods.

Captured, the witch could have been bled, or pricked, for it was part
of the lore that he would be powerless to return if he lost nine drops of
blood. Some families passed down "handling gloves" which were supposed
to keep the witch at bay once he was ejected with them. It also used to be
thought that the power of a witch was resident in his, or her, hair, so they
might have given this witch a shearing, or simply grasped him by the hair,
naming it "horsehair", thus cutting their relationship with the night-rider.
The witch could also have been banished by locating one of his footprints
in the earth, and nailing his spirit to the ground with an iron spike driven
into the print.

The couple opted for a warning, and Alma was left untroubled for
two weeks. One evening while she and her husband were in bed, a piece of
scrap iron fell out of the air and rolled three times on the floor. They had
just put it to one side, and begun to sleep, when the same object fell with
more accuracy on the bed. The next night Alma was alone and this
happened twice more. When it fell a third time, she was braced for action,

20Ibid, p. 124.
and took a swing at the falling object which materialized on the floor as a
dog-like animal. It scurried away, and the next night the malevolence of
the witch centred on the family pig, which finally died under the constant
torment.

Completely annoyed by these happenings, the woman paid another

neighbour to butcher the pig. She then took the heart and stuck it full of
new pins. She placed the organ on a pan in the oven and stoked the wood-
stove, baking it slowly over a three day period. On this day, she was
pleased to haer that her enemy had succumbed to a mysterious fever and
was barely alive. She kept the heart in the heat for three additional days
and by week-end, the witch was a corpse. "I had just enough heat on to
make him suffer good and well; after he died I burned the heart in the
stove." This last act followed the general suspicion that some of the
witch-spirit remained resident in the counter-charm, which had to be
completely destroyed for fear the magic-maker might use it as a focal
point for regeneration and rebirth.

Because Alma had been jinxed as a child, her troubles were not put
to flight by this action. Two years later she found herself visited by
another night-rider, who began to torment their heifer. That Christmas
she was given a crocheted pot-holder by a young female neighbour, and for
two months after found that she could not eat, sleep or work in any
reasonable manner. When the witch came to gloat over her handcraft, she
said: "Why, Alma, you look just like a witch. Somebody must have put a
spell on you." At this she replied, "There was a spell put on me when I was
a little girl. It was never taken off, so anyone can witch me."

Made suspicious of the nature of her illness, Alma slept with a Bible
beneath her pillow for three nights with little helpful effect. After that
she burned the pot-holder over the fire while making a "wish". A week
after this, she found herself forced to go "to the kettle" (thunder-jug,
chamber pot; these days the bathroom) three times. "I thought everything
in me was coming out. That was the spell coming out..."

Nevertheless she was again assaulted by a night mare three days

later. This time she opened the Bible to appropriate verse treating
witchcraft and placed it squarely before her bedroom door. She heard an
invisible creature attempt to pass bult it made an aborted sound, which
she said sounded like "waalk". Alma cried out: "You son of a bitch, you
can't come any further because you see what stands before the door." The
next night the witch, and her cohorts, were heard beyond the door, and
they made further attempts, but each night the sounds of visitation were
more distant and finally vanished. After that Alma found that an opened
Bible served to protect her from the dark world.

Jinxes and jonahs were not held personally responsible for the
damage which sometimes fell on mates, family or neighbours, the problem
being credited to the lack of a guardian. Infrequently, they were happy to
have this infliction: "This is what happened to a man whose wife died and
who married again and had one daughter from the first marriage. The
daughter and stepmother did not get along very well at all. They were not
very friendly. And one day as her stepmother was going to the store or
somewhere, the daughter met her at the door. She said to the daughter,
"Won't it be too bad for you unless I have good luck, since you are the first
one met on my journey." But said the girl, "I am known to be droch-
chomhalichen. They don't consider me lucky for anyone to meet!" "Indeed,"
replied the stepmother (in an unbelieving voice). "Oh yes indeed," said the
daughter, "I was (after all) the first one to meet my father the day that
he was going to fetch you, and he was indeed, unlucky!" 21

The concept of humans being followed through life by a guardian is

very ancient. Cuchulain, the great hero of the northern province of Ulster
once defended the pass from the south from "Monday before Samhainn
(Hallowe'en until Wednesday after spring-beginning," with nothing more
than the assistance of his two invisible alter-egos (especially important
individuals were allowed up to three guardians). In this action he was
opposed by Queen Meb, who as a last resort called for the help of
Cuchulain's foster-brother Ferdiad, who had "horn-skin armour", which
was considered impenetrable. The two had trained together under
Scathach, a witch-woman, who gave her name to the Isle of Skye. In an
unguarded moment Cuchulain was wounded in the chest with "a tuck-hilted
blade". Hard-pressed he called upon Dolb and Indolb to support him. "One
of them went on either side of him and they smote Ferdiad, the three of
them, and Ferdiad did not perceive the men from the fairy-mound. Ferdiad
felt the increased weight of attack on his shield and cried out: "Not alike
was our foster-brotherhood, O Cuchulain!" "How so?" asked the antagonist.
"Thy friends of the fairy-folk have succored thee, and thou didst not

21Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales Until Dawn, Kingston, 1978, p. 211.

disclose them to me before,"complained Ferdiad. Nevertheless, Ferdiad
maintained his advantage and Cuchulain noted; "Why complainist thou...thou
hast the horned-skin whereby to multiply feats and deeds of arms on me..."
In the end, Cuchulain was only able to win be calling for the "gae bulga" a
many bladed weapon, which he threw beneath Ferdiad's "iron apron",
sending barbs into every part of his body.

Dolb and Indolb were the Celtic equivalent of the Scandinavian

Nornir. The Eddas said: "(Some) are of the race of the gods; but others are
of the race of the Alfs (elfs); and the third of the race of dwarfs." They
assisted at the birth of eminent people, bestowing gifts of good or evil,
and sometimes foretelling the future of the new-born. The word elf
exists in most northern languages. The Danes render it as "elv (plural
elve); the Swedes as elf (plural elfvar m, elfvor, f.). Oaf and Olof are
based on it, the word originally identifying a youthful, inexperienced elf.
This race corresponds with the "sidh" of Celtic regions. The elf has faded
from German mythology, but they retain "alp" to distinguish the creature
we call the hagge or night mare.

Of additional interest is the fact that "engel", or angel, was used to

replace "alp" in most proper names after the coming of Christianity to
northern Europe. Thus "Alphart" was transformed into "Engelhart" and
"Alprich" became "Engelrich". This did not end the important functions of
"guardian angels".

On the Island of Iona, the Christain saint named Columba retired to

pray at "the hill of visions" near Port-na-Curiach. Until recent times the
villagers said this was a dwelling-place of the little people, "and at
certain seasons the farmers would gallop their horses three times about
it for luck..." 22 The Gaels called it "Sidhchaillinn", the hall of the sidh.
More significantly, Saint Patrick is supposed to have been allowed two
guardian angels, who he consulted on every important career move. In
432, Patrick founded a mission at St. David's Head in Wales, a place
central to the Gaelic kingdoms, but he moved from here when his angel
explained that this place had been reserved for David, who would be born
in thirty years' time. "When Patrick showed signs of sulkiness, the angel

22Leighton Houghton, In The Steps of the Anglo-Saxons,

London, nd, p. 168.
appeased him with the promise of Ireland instead." 23

The guardian, or follower, continues to have a place in the affairs of

men. The folklorist Helen Creighton has expressed belief in "a guiding
spirit": "One day in Halifax I knew I should cross to the other side of the
street. There was no apparent reason and the side I was on was less
congested and more pleasant. Nevertheless the urge was strong and...I
obeyed. The reason was given immediately, when a friend got off the tram
and upon seeing me looked greatly relieved and said, "I've been trying all
day to get you on the telephone." The message was important.

Since then, Creighton claims to have reacted to all "hunches". "If I

go my own stubborn way I soon see my mistake." She has described this
"gift" as a "fortudinous thought", or sense of advisibility, rather than a
directing voice or vision. She says the experience have been rare, and that
obedience to an implanted suggerstion, does not mean that one no longer
thinks for oneself, but is, instead, reacting to "advice from a higher
source", working "with this guiding spirit as a team."

In 1917, Creighton's spirit-guide strongly suggested that she duck

under the bedclothes. There was a tremendous noise, and the breaking of
glass, and she emerged to find the window casing on her pillow, nails
ripped into the cloth where her head had been a few moments before. A
munition's ship had collided with another in Halifax Harbour and the Great
Explosion had taken place.

FORERUNNERS AND HINDRUNNERS

Among the Anglo-Saxons sight was "gesihd", the Gaelic form being
"selladh". From early times, those with foresight, were said to have the
second sight, which the Scots identified as "an dara sealladh". In the
pagan philosophy, each man possessed a guardian, or runner, so called for
his abilities to protect people and to run into either the past or the future
on their behalf. By implication, the "first sight" was an ability to have
visions of the past. We still use the word foresight, but it is no longer
credited as a function involving the spirit-guide called the forerunner.
Backsight is an unused word, as is aftsight, but hindsight is occasionally
heard although it is not credited to the hind or backrunner, who makes

23Ibid, p. 65.
forays into times past. The forerunner and hindrunner were not separate
spirits, but the same "fetch" (using another local name) sent out on
separate missions.

It was considered that the strength of the runner was reflection of

the spirit of his human. Those who had low spirits were unlikely to
perceive anything unusual in a lifetime shared with their invisible
companion. If the runner attempted to communicate useful information
concerning either the past or the future, the average citizen detected
what should have been seen or heard as faint "static", which took the form
of hunches or feelings of impending disaster.

Highly spirited people were identified by being born with a caul,

eyes of different colours, which melded into a single colour before the
first year; the "devil's peak" in their hairline, a "cow-lick" or double-parts
of the hair. The devil's peak was a downward pointed triangle of hair
growing between the eyes. A cow-lick was any unmanageable outgrowth
of hair, which refused to lay flat when combed. All these genetic-
conditions were once thought to relate the possessors to the magical sea-
giants of western Europe, cannibalistic shape-changers, who were the
overseers of the elfs and the sidh. These Fomors (undersea-dwellers), or
Vana, have become stand-ins for Satan, the Hebrew Prince of Darkness,
the antagonist of men and God, or at best are now identified as "demons".
Those with powerful guardians were considered to be protected against
drowning, death by fire or lightning, and had some capacity to see their
runner. Creighton has noted that babies born with the caul were subject
to convulsions and that these might be alleviated by giving it colt's tongue
tea. Aside from this minor inconvenience, there was the fact that "caul-
people" were subject to involuntary visions, often centering around
cataclysmic events, such as the death of a loved one.

Creighton has questioned whether the ability to see the past or

future should be termed a "gift" since the gift-bearer was emotionally
entrapped in a vision and was always left exhausted by the process. The
gift has been described as belonging to "the double sighted" since it was
observed in two dimensions, the ethereal past or future being seen as an
overlay on the present. Those with foresight usually saw the events of
their perception acted out in every detail within a short time, but there
are tales of Maritimers who observed events many decades in the future.
Many individuals have had a single exposure to one of the two sights, but
there have been noted seers, who have been able to summon their runners
at will. While most people observed events directly related to their own
lives, others saw panoramic visions of unrelated happenings from the past
or the future. In either case, it has been noticed that the visions were of
short duration, and could be pre-empted by refusing to look directly at
them.

It was assumed that views of other times were managed through the
"second-soul" of the runner. If there was an invisible humanoid
counterpart for all living men and women it was reasoned that it must
have an independent, or external soul, of its own. The internal soul, in the
body of a man, was suspected to be inextricably linked with that of the
runner, doppelganger, or shadow-man, the death or damage done to one
quickly reflecting on the other. Men slept, fell into comas and died, and
these events were seen as the temporary, or permanent, absence of the
internal soul. Such disengagements were thought dangerous since the
wandering soul left the body the prey of hostile disembodied spirits which
might enter, as the soul had left; through the nose, mouth, ears or any
other body opening. On the other hand, certain pagan magicians
deliberately united their internal soul with its external counterpart and
hid both in a safe place assuming this would protect the body against
death, which might not occur without the loss of one of the souls. Visions
were thought to take place when the internal soul projected itself upon
the runner in either the past or the future. If the phenomena lasted long it
left the man or woman in a stage of minimal, or soulless, disfunction.
Some researchers have suggested that witches were never physically
present at sabatts, their souls travelling through the air to distant
gathering places within disembodied spirit-guides, or runners. While this
occurred, their physical bodies may have been home in bed.

The object of deliberate "running" was fortune-telling, which the

Anglo-Normans referred to as divination. In some cases the "clairvoyant"
observed events but there were other possibilities: "There was a woman
in Mira (Cape Breton) who could see a funeral ahead of time, even
sometimes before the person had taken sick, and she knew whose funeral
it was. When it happened she would be walking along the road and would
be pushed to one side by the crowd following the hearse..." 24

24Helen Creighton, Bluenose Ghosts, Toronto, 1976, pp. 69-

70.
It is for this reason that Maritime Gaels avoided walking the centre of
country roads. "In such cases everybody (on the road) might feel what was
passing but only one could see it. That one would tell the others to step to
one side as he did" and all would bow their heads or raise their hats in
respect for the dead.25

What the runner felt was frequently relayed to the human. Thus a
Cape Bretoner might say, "I feel the itch of a kiss (or a dram of whisky)
today." Another might note an itchy right palm, which was taken as an
omen that he would soon shake hands with a stranger. If the left palm
reacted to a future event, this meant that money would come to hand. The
quivering of the left eye in sympathy with that of the shadow man
indicated good news, but the left foreshadowed bad news. A heating of the
left ear was another poor augury which suggested people were making
excuses for the person who suffered in this way.

In contrast to clairvoyance, men used to speak of clairaudience,

hearing sounds which had been, or were yet to be: "On Cape Breton's north
shore, tools have been heard rattling before death just before they would
be required to make the coffin..."26 Men who had never seen their runner in
life were said destined to see and hear him immediately prior to death.
Occassionally, the shadow man appeared briefly either going before or
following his human. There was no harm in this but when he turned, so
that his face was clearly seen, this was considered a certain indication of
immediate death. Further, a person due to die by violence was often seen
to have a bloodied
double, and banshee screams preceded his death. The "gifted" often heard
a shrill sound "like a bagpipe but within the ear", and knew they might
soon expect news of a death in the village.

In other times, it was considered bad-mannered to shut the door

hastily, for fear of parting shadow men from their humans. People who
are extremely awkward are still described as capable of "tripping over
their own shadows." This is now dismissed as a figure of speech, but
those with the two sights insisted that this actually happened. It was the

25Ibid, p. 70.

26Helen Creighton, Bluenose Ghosts, p. 7l.

duty of runners to travel before their counterparts into strange places to
assess potential dangers: "And people might hear a sound as if somebody
were on the threshold. (There was no one) hitting the door at all you
understand; there was no knock on the door, but you would hear the
stamping as if somebody put his foot on the threshold though no one was
there. And they would say, "It won't be long before a stranger comes to
the house. Did you hear that footfall?" 27 Infrequently, the doppelganger
materialized as a full-blooded double, explaining curious legends of people
being seen in two places at the same time. More often, the shadow took
the form of a totem animal which might cry at the door for admittance;
thus, in Cape Breton, a rooster crowing at the threshold was considered to
presage the arrival of a stranger.

The forerunners who brought back sounds of the future often

prevented disaster: "At Jordon Falls the story is told of a vessel that
was supposed to sail out of Shelburne with a crew of eighteen or twenty
men. One Ephraim Doane was lying in his berth when he heard the
mainmast fall. He got up to investigate and found the mainmast intact, so
he took this as a warning, and the vessel sailed to Boston without him. It
was December of 1888 and there was a great gale. The ship was lost off
New England with all hands... 28

Playful runners sometimes opened and swung on doors, while others

knocked violently on the inner or outer walls of houses. Then there were
the "knocky balls" of Maritime Canada, invisible callers who came to
announce a death. The name is a corruption of the English knocky bohs (the
latter word corresponding with "boo", an interjection meant to startle).
This variety of runner always knocked three times on the door: Harold G.
Bond was fifteen years of age when he hosted a friend name Ned Dixon at
their farmstead on Belleisle Bay, New Brunswick. His parents were in
Saint John attending his mother's brother, Charles Odell who was
hospitalized. The boys had been in bed an hour when theyu heard theree
sharp knocks, "the kind if you heard them at your door, you'd say someone
was in trouble." Half a minute later this was repeated and then, a third
time. "I looked from the upstairs window - even took the screen off and

27Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales Until Dawn, p. 210.

28Creighton, Bluenose Ghosts, p. 13.

looked down -but there was nobody. Ned happened to glance at his watch
and said it was exactly eleven o'clock. Next day, when my parents
returned, we learned that Charlie Odell had died at that hour."
Significantly, such happenings are still called "forerunners". 29
The runner had one other duty, and that was to supply telescopic
sight of present-day events for gifted individuals. Sir Kay, the seneschal
of King Arthur was mentioned in the medieval romances as one of those
who could live for many hours under water, and observe the activities of
his enemies although they were many miles distant. There have been
numerous cases of people in our provinces describing approaching visitors
in great detail before they actually knocked at the door, and these have
been taken as instances where distant scenes have been viewed through
the superior eyes of the runner.

When people died the internal soul was supposed to leave. Some
suggested it returned to the sea, the prime source of all spirits; others
said that it united with the external soul and went to Valhalla, or Hell, or
some other appropriate afterworld. One departure has actually been
described: "Tancook Island, where the people are largely of German
descent, reported this amazing phenomenon, "When Sebastian died, when
his last breath came, the whole shape of him came out his mouth like he
was a young man, no longer old and wrinkled, and it went out the door.
Just before he died, three little taps came to the door, just a couple of
minutes before...""30

In the elder days, death was never oblivion and spirits did not wait
for a Christian ressurection at the end of time. Most of our pagan
ancestors seemed to have agreed that the prime law of the universe said,
"everything is eternal, but nothing is constant. They expected that men
would turn to dust, and dust reconstitute itself as men. The Abenaki
actually possessed an absentive case-ending, to be applied to the dead,
those who were out of sight of the speaker, but still capable of animation.
The second law of the elder universe insisted that, "any portion of being
encapsulates the whole." Men knew that where any fraction of their

29StuartTrueman, Ghosts, Pirates and Treasure Trove,

Toronto, 1975, p. 11.

30Creighton, Bluenose Ghosts, p. 79.

person survived death, the whole might be reborn from it. Thus, when the
warrior Kikwaju was in danger of being crushed by a rock he shouted out,
"Let my backbone be preserved1" In all, this Abenaki warrior was killed
four times, but willed himself back to life, remaining in the spirit world
only as long as rest and recreation demanded.

"This ability for the part to become the whole...underlies the Micmac
teaching that all the bones of animals must be treated with respect and
preserved. Thus not only will the animal wish to re-inflesh itself...but
will be able to do so, because the bone is there - a channel through which
it can come once more into matter. The converse of this is that every part
of an enemy must be obliterated. Kikwaju tries to eradicate permanently
his foe the Rock Person. He burns that stone (which is Rock Person's
shadow-man), cracks and crushes it to powder. Even then there is life in
it, but by flinging the grit into the air and transforming it to blackflies
Kikwaju preventys this Person from reassembling himself. In the same
way, Kitpusiaqnaw grinds up the bones of his dead Kuwkwes (giant) father,
to deny him further life." 31

Since all animals harboured gast or spirit it was universally agreed

that they might reanimate themselves and reconstitute a soul. The North
American Indians were never alone in respecting the bones of their
ancestors and game animals. The Lapps regularly laid aside the bones,
eyes, ears, heart, lungs, sexual organs, and flesh from each limb. "Then,
after eating the remainder of the flesh, they laid the bones and the rest in
anatomical order in a coffin and buried them with the usual (death) rites,
believing that the gods to whom the animal was sacrificed would reclothe
the bones with flesh and restore the animal to life in Jabme-Aimo, the
subterranean world of the dead." 32

Primitive men had no means of distinguishing ash from seeds and

throughout Europe, during the seventeenth century, it was still held that
the ashes of animals and burned plants were reproductive seeds. Dead
frogs were thus thought capable of reconstituting themselves, while the
ash of a rose could lead directly to the growth of a new plant. Collin de

31 Whitehead, Ibid, p. 11.

32 Fraser, Ibid, p. 613.

Plancey noted that French peasants believed that a Christian who had
eaten seven bushels of ashes might ascend directly to heaven without
passing Go. This relates directly to the idea that these remains were
imbued with spirits of the dead.

Diviners, or fortune-tellers, were not unknown in the North

American wilderness. They Abenaki called them "nikani-kjijitekewinu",
those who know in advance. According to Whitehead there were many
classes of Indian magicians capable of forseeing coming events, warning
of dangers yet to be: "Precognition plays a part in many tales, and various
methods of divination are depicted. When Plawej falls on his face by the
bowl of water, he enters a trance, empowering the water to speak to him.
And it does. It becomes blood. The appearance of blood - in a bowl, in a
tobacco pipe, or on a Power-robe - is a frequent device in Micmac stories.
It is always an announcement of death." 33

Divination of death or good fortune was also the chief occupation of

the witch or baobh, and it is notworthy that the former corresponds with
the Latin word "video", to perceive or see. Witch derives more directly
from the Anglo-Saxon verb "wit", to know or be wise. It is also a synonym
for the Welsh "gwydd" which evolved through phoentic change from the
earlier form "vid". The means of divination in every case was the creature
known as the familiar. Properly, the runner of the witch was called a
familiar spirit, the modifying word distinguishing it from the shadow-
men generally gifted upon ordinary folk.

33Whitehead, Stories From the Six Worlds, p. 9.

 TOTEM ANIMALS AND FAMILIAR SPIRITS

The totem animal is a North American invention that corresponds

exactly with one of the materialized forms of the fylgiar or runner. The
word "totem" is probably from the Ojibwa "odem", family mark. It appears
to relate to "wutohtimouin", that which belongs to a person or place. The
totem is defined as a natural class of beings, usually animals, having an
intimate relationship with a group of human beings, typically a single
clan. The word also describes symbols drawn or inscribed to represent
the animal.

James G. Fraser, expanded these ideas by saying that the totem

might be "a plant or animal, between which and himself the savage
believes that a certain relationship exists...Whatever... (this) may be, it
generally leads the savage to abstain from killing or eating his totem.
Further, the group of persons who are knit to any particular totem by this
mysterious tie commonly bear the name of the totem, believe themselves
to be of one blood, and strictly refuse to sanction the marriage or
cohabitation of members of the group with each other. This prohibition is
now generally called exogamy. Thus totemism has been treated both as a
system of society and religion." 34

By Fraser's definition, the ancient tree which "the Savages in the

neighbourhood of Acadia (the Maritime Provinces)...loaded with offerings"
was as much a totem as the animal familiars of the puoin: "The Sea having
laid all its roots bare, it supported itself still a long Time against the
Violence of the Winds and Waves, which confirmed the Savages in their
Notion (that it was venerable); and the seat of some great Spirit; Its fall
was not even capable of undeceiving them, and long as there appeared
some Ends of the Branches out of the Water, they paid it the same Honours
as the whole Tree had received while it was standing." 35

This is not different, in any essential, from the oak-worship of the

Celts and the Germans. The latter considered this species the chief of
their holy plants and it was dedicated to Donar or Thunar, the quivalent of
the Norse god Thor. It was suggested that this god of thunder
occassionally entered the largest trees when he was tired of dealing with
the concerns of the gods and men. James George Fraser has noted that, "a
god of the oak, thunder, and rain was worshipped of old by all the main
branches of the Aryan stock in Europe." Lesser trees of the forest might

34
James G. Fraser, The Golden Bough, as quoted in
Webster's New International Dictionary, Springfield, 1912, p.
2176.

35 Pierre-Francois-Xavier de Charlevoix, Histoire st

Description Generale de Nouvelle France, 1744, English
translation of 1746.
not be treated to gifts, but all were considered animate and some were
suspected of harbouring the souls of men. Fraser quoted E. Wyld Esq. as
noting that felled oaks emitted "shriekes or groanes that may be heard a
mile off." The Ojibwa had similar ideas and "very seldom cut down green
or living trees, from the idea that it put them to pain." 36. Among the
ancient Europeans, the interplay between men and the trees is suggested
in a short prayer offered before cutting: "Oh tree, lend me thy limbs; for
when I have returned to forest floor and tree thou shall have mine!" The
Teutonic peoples said that men were created from driftwood; the man
from ash and the woman from elm. This corresponds almost exactly with
Abenaki Indian belief, the spirits of the people having been liberated from
the brown ash trees when the bark was penetrated by Glooscap's magic
arrows. The souls of the dead were said to return to these trees and
indicate the pending death of one bearing their totem by tapping from
within the bark.

Since tree-spirits were the relatives of men they were usually

considered beneficent and were offered libations of blood or liquor. The
May-pole or May-tree was considered a symbol of human and crop fertility
and the Germans used to "set up May-trees, or May-bushes at the doors of
stables because they were thought to promote the fertility of farm-
animals. The Irish-Celts had a similar fancy, fastening a May-bought
against the farm-house to ensure "plenty of milk that season." If this
appears too remote in place and time, it may be recalled that Maritime
mummers, various called the Callithumpians, belsnickers, santy clawers,
janneys, or first-footers, often left a sprig of greenery as their New
Year's Eve calling card.

Our more remote descendants, in Britain, were certain that the trees
housed spirits and that the physique of the tree was reflected in its
totem-people. Men of the oak were expected to be as gnarled and stout as
their birth tree, while birch-people were invariably tall, thin and of pale
complexion. In the very earliest days a tree seed was planted at the birth
of children, and its success or failure was taken as an omen. The inter-
relationship between the two was considered a very close one, the death
of one leading very quickly to the loss of the other. This being the case
the mistreatment of trees was once regarded as a criminal act, and those

36James G. Fraser, The Golden Bough, both quotes in this

paragraph from p. 130.
who debarked one, frequently found themselves flayed and their skin
wound about the "wound". Aside from this, trees were suspected of being
able to take their own revenge, blinding those they disliked through the
whiplash of a branch. Sionce they could not make physical moves of
revenge, the trees more often released their spirit against enemies,
blighting their cattle, killing their chickens, and causing the illness of
children. If a man suspected that the trees were attacking his offspring
he would come to one with an offering of wool and bread, saying: "Here, I
give to eat and spin, release thou my child!"

As recently as the last century, a resident at Maugerville, N.B. openly

told his neighbours that his prosperity was in the hands of "three green
landies", a trio of elderly trees that stood on his property. At Midsummer
Eve (June 21), he never failed to offer a nosegay to them. After his death
his youngest son continued this strange tradition, but this oldest son
disliked this paganism and chopped down one of the three trees on that
evening. A third brother chopped a second tree in the next year, and both
died shortly after. The surviving lad continued his practise and lived a
long and prosperous life.

Helen Creighton discovered a similar situation among people on

Dalhousie Mountain, N.S.,who used to to consider it good luck to sing and
make a wish while passing a certain venerable tree that once stood at the
roadside. At nearby Scotsburn "on the Mackay property", there was an elm
tree with seven crowns. Children of the district thought that wishes
would be fulfilled it they climbed through and touched each trunk. There
is also a local superstition that friends should never pass on opposite
sides of a tree, in case the tree-spirit might cause them to quarrel.

In Britain, a tree frequently associated with religious cults was the

yew. Like the oak it had the capacity to live to a great age, and any group
of people who considered themselves psychically attached to it, assumed
that their adherents would endure longer than those who associated
themselves with shorter-lived trees such as the elm or ash. It is
noteworthy that the evidence against Jeanne d'Arc included the fact that
she was supposed to have danced about a "fairy tree" after garlanding it
with "ribbands". Jeanne admitted she had taken part in roundels, but
insisted that the tree central to her worship had been one blessed by "Our
Lady of Domremy. Obviously, some antique tree-cult had managed to
survive the Christianizing influence in France.
 From the standpoint of mobility, trees and smaller plants, were not
particularly useful as guardians. This explains why witches carried rods,
staffs, or wands cut from their totem tree. It is reasoned that magic,
divining, or witching wands operated by acting as focal points for the
combined energies of her internal and external soul. The animal familiar,
had the advantage of being able to act as a runner.

James I of Scotland, who became king of England in 1604, passed the

first act demanding death as a penalty for witchcraft, which was defined
as necromancy (consulting spirits of the dead), the laming and wasting of
men's goods and bodies and the harbouring of familiar spirits. One of his
first victims was Isobel Gowdie of Morayshire, Scotland, who was hanged
after admitting (among other things) the power of her coven members to
shape-change into hares or cats. She said that she had once been chased
by dogs and only barely escaped a bad mauling.
In British legend, the black cat has traditionally been the most
common familiar spirit, but in our country it was far less evident. The
Abenaki spirit-masters employed local species, notably the black birds,
owls, groundhogs, squirrels, chipmunks, wolves, foxes, or whatever
happened to be their totem-animal. Typically they carried a skin of their
familiar in their deer-hide pouch, animating it whenever it was needed.
The creature might wander far afield gathering information for its
master. When it had finished a task it was folded back into the medicine-
bag until it was again needed.

The European witches who settled in Atlantic Canada often favoured

local animals since farm settlements did not at first include pets. The
crow or raven was preferred, not only because it was a traditional bird of
death and augury, but because it was easy to tame and had the amusing
ability of being able to imitate the sounds of other birds and animals.
Sundry small rodents were never demanding of the food supply and were
easily caged until tamed. Toads, or frogs, were popular because their
spittle was useful as a component of many spells, and other body parts
could be preserved for similar use if they became a nusiance, or died of
fungal disease. Witches also liked snakes, and it was generally known
that the cast skins were prophylactic against accidental fires. Although
the witch had one familiar-spirit she sometimes kept a menagerie of
attendant birds and animals, a source of suspicion in the colonial world,
where most small animals were considered pests.
 The word "familiar" comes ultimately from the Latin "famulus", a
servant. This word is also basic to "family", although the relationship of
the male "master" and his "servants" is now somewhat altered. Familiar
still connotates an intimate relationship, sometimes one that is
essentially unhealthy, unduly close, or dangerous. The question of what
constitutes a familiar-spirit has been confused by the fact that medieval
witches claimed that the Devil appeared before them as a dog, cat, ram,
goat, wolf or crow. These apparitions were not familiars, and neither
were animals sacrificed in the interest of creating spells. The familiar-
spirit was defined by the medieval Church (and some witches) as an imp,
or small "d" devil, in the form of a domestic pet. The Anglo-Saxon "impa"
at first designated a graft, scion, slip, bud, or shoot added to a plant in
order to change its flowering and fruiting characteristics. Later, the
word became attached to youthful people, children and inferior devils, all
of which were related. A few witches claimed to have received their
familiars as gifts from the Prince of Darkness himself, but most admitted
that they were family pets, supposedly longer-lived than average, and
often handed down from one generation of witches to the next. Jennet
Dibble, one of a company of witches who lived at Fairfax, England in the
seventeenth century had, "her spirit in the shape of a great black cat
called Gibbe, which hath attended her now about forty years." Another of
this same gang had, "a deformed thing with many feet, black of colour,
rough with hair, about the bigness of a cat." 37

The cat, the swallow, and the cuckoo were sacred to Freya, the Norse
goddess of love before she was ousted by the Christians about one
thousand years ago. This lady was reputed to be the most beautiful and
loving person in northwestern Europe; in fact, Loki once ruefully
commented that she had "loved and wedded all the gods in turn." A
fertility figure she sometimes travelled in the chariot of her brother Frey,
the god of agriculture and the sun, but just as often she was pulled about
the sky behind a coven of cats. These were her favourite animals,
personifyinhg her own character, "emblems of caressing, fondness and
sensuality, (as well as) fecundity." The Old Norse men toasted Freya's
health along with that of Woden, Niord and Frey, but after she was
demoted this toast was transferred to the Virgin Mary or Saint Gertrude.
Having been declared a demoness, or possibly a powerful hagge, Freya was

37 Tindall, Ibid, p. 95.

banished to a mountain peak. In Germany, this peak is Brocken, the general
trysting place for her followers, who flood out over the land on Walpurgist
Night. Since the cat kept such questionable company they are sometimes
still considered to have demoniacal attributes and to be suitable company
for a witch.

Whatever the species, the familiar-spirit was considered engrafted,

a replacement for the guardian, which had been the individual's birth-
right. Christians said that the Devil confiscated the true soul and
supplied this counterfeit, but the witch probably regarded it as garden-
variety runner. Pagan gods, giants, little people, and their human
associates (including the witches) were often upbraided for being
soulless, and thus interacting poorly with real men and women. In his
Ecclesiastical History of Iceland, Finnus Johannaeus has noted the
following of the "genii, or semi-gods, called in our language Alfa and
alfafolk (elf-folk): "Authors vary respecting their essence and origin.
Some bestow on them not merely a human body, but an immortal soul;
others assign them merely mortal breath (spiritum) instead of a soul,
whence a certain blockhead calls them our half-kyn." 38

It was also suggested that many of these people kept their souls at a
distance, enabling them to gain long, if not eternal, life: "If the safety of
the soul can be ensured during its absence, there is no reason why it
should not remain absent for an indefinite time; indeed a man (or god, or
giant, or witch) may, on a pure calculation of personal saftety, desire that
his soul should never return to his body..." 39 This was suggested as an
explanation for the long lives of giants, the gods, the little people, and
successful witches. Since the soul was envisioned as a material thing it
was thought capable of being stored in a box, jar, egg, hollow tree, or an
other container,animating the living body from a distance. There was
danger in this, since it was noticed that people long-separated from their
souls were apt to become violent and cruel. In addition, there was always
the possibility that an enemy might find the soul-container. If it was
crushed, the soul was lost, and the death of the body occurred
immediately.

38 Keightley, Ibid, p. 159.

39 James G. Fraser, Ibid, p. 774.

 The Witch of Mull River, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, was said to have
been "a very bad old woman who died at the age of one hundred and
eighteen. After she passed the century mark she grew two horns on her
forehead, which increased a quarter of an inch each year. It was
suspected that her soul might have been contained in "a large canvas bag
bound with iron". After she was safely buried, the neighbours decided to
burn down her hovel. Two men acting on their behalf entered her
windowless one-room house and spied her "witch-bag" in a corner. They
piled her furniture and other flammable materials in the centre of the
floor, threw the bag on top, and torched it. To their horror "...a terrible
explosion shook the hut and the bag shot out through the chimney and rose
up into the sky. Then it descended to the earth intact. Since they could
not burn it, they decided to bury it. As they left the country shortly
afterwards, the knowledge of its location has been lost." 40

It was sometimes said that witches did not actually travel to their
periodic meetings, their souls alone being transported instantly to the
esbats and sabats while their bodies remained at home. When they were
spiritually absent, their body was capable of incomplete animation, and
was at risk, as the following makes clear: "I knew a woman who was a
witch and I used to go to her house three or four times a week. She would

40Mary L. Fraser, Nova Scotian Folklore, pp. 65-66. Credited

to "a man who spent his childhood and boyhood at Mull River."
Although a curiosity human horns are not unknown in medical
history. In 1588 Margaret Vergh Gryifith of England, who was
sixty years of age, developed a horn in the centre of her
forehead which grew to a length of four inches. The Widow
Dimanche, a resident of Paris in the ninettenth century,
sprouted a downward growing horn which ended several inches
below the level of her chin. A seventy-eight year old
Philadephia mariner had his case recorded in 1878. His doctor
said that he sported gnarled, horny growths that periodically
dropped off his face, to be replaced by new ones of a similar
material. See Mike Parker, The World's Most Fantastic Freaks, p.
116.
be there herself but her soul would wandering. Well I was at her house
one evening with two or three other men and her husband wasn't home.
While she was sitting there she went to the stove for to make a fire. "My
gosh", she said, "I've got an awful pain in my side", and she put her hand to
her side...Half an hour afterwards her husband drove up and come to the
house. He said to her, "I drove over you (i.e. her familiar) just beyond
Sherses' place". The very time he said was the time she had the pain. She
was a witch that woman." 41

THe use of runners in this way was never believed limited to

witches. Malcolm Campbell said it was a bad business "to wish yourself
in such and such a place...because sometimes people had done that and
something had happened to them.

41Helen Creighton, Folklore of Lunenburg County, p. 47.