Myths and Legends of Our Own Land | Page 7

refuge, the giant
staggered into the hollow of a pine-tree, where the farmers lost sight of
him. There, however, he was found by Gertrude, bolt upright, yet dead.
The unwedded widow brought her dusky children to the place and
spent the remainder of her days near his grave. Until a few years ago
the tree was still pointed out, but a railroad company has now covered
it with an embankment.

THE BAKER'S DOZEN
Baas [Boss] Volckert Jan Pietersen Van Amsterdam kept a bake-shop
in Albany, and lives in history as the man who invented New Year
cakes and made gingerbread babies in the likeness of his own fat
offspring. Good churchman though he was, the bane of his life was a
fear of being bewitched, and perhaps it was to keep out evil spirits, who
might make one last effort to gain the mastery over him, ere he turned

the customary leaf with the incoming year, that he had primed himself
with an extra glass of spirits on the last night of 1654. His sales had
been brisk, and as he sat in his little shop, meditating comfortably on
the gains he would make when his harmless rivals--the knikkerbakkers
(bakers of marbles)--sent for their usual supply of olie-koeks and
mince-pies on the morrow, he was startled by a sharp rap, and an ugly
old woman entered. "Give me a dozen New Year's cookies!" she cried,
in a shrill voice.
"Vell, den, you needn' sbeak so loud. I aind teaf, den."
"A dozen!" she screamed. "Give me a dozen. Here are only twelve."
"Vell, den, dwalf is a dozen."
"One more! I want a dozen."
"Vell, den, if you vant anodder, go to de duyvil and ged it."
Did the hag take him at his word? She left the shop, and from that time
it seemed as if poor Volckert was bewitched, indeed, for his cakes were
stolen; his bread was so light that it went up the chimney, when it was
not so heavy that it fell through the oven; invisible hands plucked
bricks from that same oven and pelted him until he was blue; his wife
became deaf, his children went unkempt, and his trade went elsewhere.
Thrice the old woman reappeared, and each time was sent anew to the
devil; but at last, in despair, the baker called on Saint Nicolaus to come
and advise him. His call was answered with startling quickness, for,
almost while he was making it, the venerable patron of Dutch feasts
stood before him. The good soul advised the trembling man to be more
generous in his dealings with his fellows, and after a lecture on charity
he vanished, when, lo! the old woman was there in his place.
She repeated her demand for one more cake, and Volckert Jan Pietersen,
etc., gave it, whereupon she exclaimed, "The spell is broken, and from
this time a dozen is thirteen!" Taking from the counter a gingerbread
effigy of Saint Nicolaus, she made the astonished Dutchman lay his
hand upon it and swear to give more liberal measure in the future. So,
until thirteen new States arose from the ruins of the colonies,--when the
shrewd Yankees restored the original measure,--thirteen made a baker's
dozen.

THE DEVIL'S DANCE-CHAMBER.
Most storied of our New World rivers is the Hudson. Historic scenes

have been enacted on its shores, and Indian, Dutchman, Briton, and
American have invested it with romance. It had its source, in the red
man's fancy, in a spring of eternal youth; giants and spirits dwelt in its
woods and hills, and before the river-Shatemuc, king of streams, the
red men called it--had broken through the highlands, those mountains
were a pent for spirits who had rebelled against the Manitou. After the
waters had forced a passage to the sea these evil ones sought shelter in
the glens and valleys that open to right and left along its course, but in
time of tempest, when they hear Manitou riding down the ravine on
wings of storm, dashing thunderbolts against the cliffs, it is the fear that
he will recapture them and force them into lightless caverns to expiate
their revolt, that sends them huddling among the rocks and makes the
hills resound with roars and howls.
At the Devil's Dance-Chamber, a slight plateau on the west bank,
between Newburg and Crom Elbow, the red men performed
semi-religious rites as a preface to their hunting and fishing trips or
ventures on the war-path. They built a fire, painted themselves, and in
that frenzy into which savages are so readily lashed, and that is so like
to the action of mobs in trousers, they tumbled, leaped, danced, yelled,
sang, grimaced, and gesticulated until the Manitou disclosed himself,
either as a harmless animal or a beast of prey. If