Myths and Legends of Our Own Land | Page 8

he came in the former
shape the augury was favorable, but if he showed himself as a bear or
panther, it was a warning of evil that they seldom dared to disregard.
The crew of Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, having chanced on one of
these orgies, were so impressed by the fantastic spectacle that they gave
the name Duyvels Dans-Kamer to the spot. Years afterwards, when
Stuyvesant ascended the river, his doughty retainers were horrified, on
landing below the Dans-Kamer, to discover hundreds of painted figures
frisking there in the fire-light. A few surmised that they were but a new
generation of savages holding a powwow, but most of the sailors
fancied that the assemblage was demoniac, and that the figures were
spirits of bad Indians repeating a scalp-dance and revelling in the
mysterious fire-water that they had brought down from the river source
in jars and skins. The spot was at least once profaned with blood, for a
young Dutchman and his wife, of Albany, were captured here by an
angry Indian, and although the young man succeeded in stabbing his
captor to death, he was burned alive on the rock by the friends of the

Indian whose wrath he had provoked. The wife, after being kept in
captivity for a time, was ransomed.

THE CULPRIT FAY
The wood-tick's drum convokes the elves at the noon of night on Cro'
Nest top, and, clambering out of their flower-cup beds and hammocks
of cobweb, they fly to the meeting, not to freak about the grass or
banquet at the mushroom table, but to hear sentence passed on the fay
who, forgetting his vestal vow, has loved an earthly maid. From his
throne under a canopy of tulip petals, borne on pillars of shell, the king
commands silence, and with severe eye but softened voice he tells the
culprit that while he has scorned the royal decree he has saved himself
from the extreme penalty, of imprisonment in walnut shells and
cobweb dungeons, by loving a maid who is gentle and pure. So it shall
be enough if he will go down to the Hudson and seize a drop from the
bow of mist that a sturgeon leaves when he makes his leap; and after, to
kindle his darkened flame-wood lamp at a meteor spark. The fairy
bows, and without a word slowly descends the rocky steep, for his wing
is soiled and has lost its power; but once at the river, he tugs amain at a
mussel shell till he has it afloat; then, leaping in, he paddles out with a
strong grass blade till he comes to the spot where the sturgeon swims,
though the watersprites plague him and toss his boat, and the fish and
the leeches bunt and drag; but, suddenly, the sturgeon shoots from the
water, and ere the arch of mist that he tracks through the air has
vanished, the sprite has caught a drop of the spray in a tiny blossom,
and in this he washes clean his wings.
The water-goblins torment him no longer. They push his boat to the
shore, where, alighting, he kisses his hand, then, even as a bubble, he
flies back to the mountain top, dons his acorn helmet, his corselet of
bee-hide, his shield of lady-bug shell, and grasping his lance, tipped
with wasp sting, he bestrides his fire-fly steed and off he goes like a
flash. The world spreads out and then grows small, but he flies straight
on. The ice-ghosts leer from the topmost clouds, and the mists surge
round, but he shakes his lance and pipes his call, and at last he comes to
the Milky Way, where the sky-sylphs lead him to their queen, who lies
couched in a palace ceiled with stars, its dome held up by northern
lights and the curtains made of the morning's flush. Her mantle is

twilight purple, tied with threads of gold from the eastern dawn, and
her face is as fair as the silver moon.
She begs the fay to stay with her and taste forever the joys of heaven,
but the knightly elf keeps down the beating of his heart, for he
remembers a face on earth that is fairer than hers, and he begs to go.
With a sigh she fits him a car of cloud, with the fire-fly steed chained
on behind, and he hurries away to the northern sky whence the meteor
comes, with roar and whirl, and as it passes it bursts to flame. He lights
his lamp at a glowing spark, then wheels away to the fairy-land. His
king and his brothers hail him stoutly, with song and shout, and feast
and dance, and the revel is kept till the eastern sky has a ruddy streak.
Then the cock crows shrill