THE LEGEND OF THE DEMON WHO HAUNTS POINT MORANT IN JAMAICA.
Old Josiah Ward, for such was the name of my storyteller, recounted
the legend to about a dozen of us, as we sat in the lee of the
long-boat on the deck, the breeze blowing gently, and the ‘Saucy
Susan’ running slowly before it. Thus he spoke—
‘Just one score of years after the great Christopher Columbus
discovered the New World, there sailed westward, across the Atlantic,
a ship, or rather galley, of strange make and fashion. She was very
long, shipmates, and floated low and deep in the water, but her prow,
all carved and fantastically wrought, rose up above her deck curved
like the neck of a swan, and ending in a great eagle’s beak. This
head and beak were of iron. At the top of both her masts, for there
were two, this galley carried broad, swallow-tailed pendants, quite
black, except that there were in the centre of each an eagle’s head
and beak of red colour, just like the head and beak at the prow. The
galley sailed marvellously fast, and the wind that bore her was ever
fair. Yes, shipmates, weeks and weeks rolled on, and not a mariner on
board her had need to start sheet, or tack,—and yet tempests swept
across her path, and the crew of the galley saw Spanish caravals
founder in the great waves, not a bow-shot from their ship, while
they were speeding over water ruffled only by a gentle breeze. And
the reason was, shipmates, that an enchanted wind filled the galley’s
sails, and before its breath the natural storms of the air could not
prevail. There was always, as it were, a spot of fair wind upon the
ocean, running rapidly westward, and in the centre of that spot, the
galley swept across the waves, going with sails and oars.
‘The sailors who manned this strange bark were men of very fair
complexion, of light blue eyes and long flaxen hair, and the
language they spoke was the tongue of that far northern land—whence,
in the old days, came forth, each in his war-galley, the fierce
sea-kings—the Buccaneers of the North—shipmates, to plunder and
to spoil. These men were heathens and unbelievers—they worshipped
gods, called Odin and Thor, and each had a magic sword, the steel
of which was wrought by little demons who live under ground, and
in hollow places, which they scoop in great rocks and stones, and
where they forge such blades that no weapon, were it even welded by
the cunning makers of Damascus, could prevail against them. But the
strangest thing of all, comrades, was that the captain of this ship
was a woman—a woman of great stature, and fierce and lofty aspect.
Her name was Tronda, and she was a sorceress; she could make the
winds blow as she listed, and she had a crystal into which those
who looked could see the future. This Tronda, mates, was a witch of
great power, and she came from one of the northern islands, near that
huge whirlpool called Lofoden, which can suck great navies down into
the abysses of the sea. She wore a sea-green coloured tunic, with a
necklace of beads made of a pebble called adder-stone, which hath
strange virtues, and her head-gear was formed of the fur of the wild
cat. Likewise she wore a very broad girdle, on which were embroidered
strange words and letters in gold, and to it was attached a pouch,
in which she kept the charms and spells with which she conjured.
But her great power was over the elements, shipmates, for Tronda
was a witch of Lapland—that dreary coast of snow which mariners
skirt, sailing into the White Sea—and her name was known as a potent
trafficker in such powers as ordinary mortals possess not, and many
shipmen came to her and spoke her fair, and gave her money, and she
sold them fair winds to waft them on their course. But I have heard,
shipmates, that such was the nature of these unnatural breezes, that
they wrecked every seventh ship which sailed before them. Six would
go prosperously to their port, but the wind which the seventh had
purchased, would gradually swell and wax great and mighty, until it
became a hurricane, which tore sail and mast before it, and beat the
ill-fated ship down into the sea.
‘It was by certain rhymes, comrades, that Tronda and the other
Lapland witches ruled the air, and made the storm-clouds fly as they
wished. I have heard that she would stand high on a rock, or upon the
poop of a ship, when the sea was calm below, and the summer air clear
above. Then would she toss her arms above her head, and kneeling
down, with her fair hair streaming over her shoulders, sing the magic
song, which brought forth clouds upon the heavens, and unchained the
wind, to rush over the howling sea. No one understood this song, but
its name was _Vard lokur_—and it was in an ancient northern tongue
called Lap, many words of which have power over the swart demons, and
dwarfs, and elvish workers in metals, who live under the mountains of
Finland and Jutland.
‘Now, Tronda was a miser, and loved gold, and when mariners came to
her and told her legends about a new world lying to the west, far
across the ocean, and where the yellow metal and stones still more
precious glistened and shone, on every mountain and on every beach,
she said—“I, too, will depart and see that golden land, where there
is neither frost nor cold, but diamonds bright as icicles, and pearls
as white as snow.” Then she embarked in her galley, and raised a
magic wind, which bore her across the Atlantic, and at sunrise one
bright morning, she saw before her the land of the New World. But the
galley had not coasted far, when two caravals came forth and gave her
chase. The Spaniards knew little with whom they had to deal; Tronda
stood on the poop of her ship, and stretched her arms forth, singing
her magic rhymes in Lap, and straightway a squall came rushing down
from the land, and before the Spaniards could lower their sails, it
broke upon the caravals, and ships and crews sunk together in the sea.
‘So, the fame of Tronda, the Lapland witch, that could sell winds,
was noised abroad all over the Indies. She never went ashore—but in
her galley, with the eagle’s beak, she cruised among the islands and
along the main. The Spanish captains often went aboard the galley,
and humbled themselves before the witch, and bought winds to carry
them from isle to isle, and port to port, each wind being purchased
with a lump of gold. When the Inquisition, which was established in
Cuba, heard of this strange trafficking, they sent caravals of war
to capture the sorceress, but her powers baffled all their skill.
Sometimes, she stilled the air, so that all the ships lay motionless
together. Then, just as the Spaniards would get out their boats to
row to the Norse galley, a gentle breeze would fan her sails, and
she would glide deftly away, while Tronda, who took a pleasure in
tormenting her pursuers, would stand upon the poop, worshipping her
strange gods, and singing her unlawful incantations. At other times,
she would raise mists, in the midst of which the Spaniards would
grope for days, firing guns, and ringing bells—so that, at last,
the ships of war gave up the chase, and returned to the Havannah.
But no one who sought Tronda to buy a wind, had ever any difficulty
in boarding her galley. She received all such with fair words and
courteous bearing, and gave them, in return for their gold, each a
large stoup, or jar, the mouth of it sealed with wax, bearing strange
figures and signs. This jar each captain took with him, and directly
the anchor was lifted, Tronda would instruct him to break the seal,
when immediately the fair breeze would fill the sails, and the ship
would move gaily on her way. So, by this traffic, Tronda amassed vast
riches, and every week the galley sunk lower and deeper in the water,
with its increasing freight of precious stones and gold. But it was
not alone fair and gentle breezes which the Lapland witch trafficked
in. She sold adverse winds and awful storms to the enemies of
luckless mariners. She sold calms, too, which haunted a hapless ship,
chaining her, as it were, to the unruffled sea, until, drop by drop,
the fresh water was drunk out, and the sailors died on the deck, or
cast themselves overboard in their raving delirium of thirst. And so
many a customer came to Tronda to buy prosperous winds for friends,
and wrecking tempests for enemies. The smug merchant purchased a fair
wind for himself, and a baffling breeze for his rival in the trade.
The love-lorn maiden bought a prosperous gale for her sweetheart’s
ship, and the jealous dame paid gold for a tempest to wreck the bark
of a faithless lover.
‘Now, comrades, years moved slowly on, and the Norse galley was
so deep in the water with gold and precious stones, that, had it
not been for enchantment, she would have sunk outright. Then the
blue-eyed and long-haired mariners entreated Tronda that she would
allow them to look again upon the mountains and the Fiords of Norway,
and that she would raise a westerly breeze to carry them home across
the ocean. But the witch scoffed at their requests, giving them
foul words, and saying that she must have more gold. The chief of
the crew was a young man called Torquil, and he it was who sighed
most for home, because he had left a maiden there whom he loved,
and from whom he had been long parted. Therefore, after Tronda had
retired to the great cabin, where she lived alone, Torquil entered
it unbidden. It was quite dark, for the cabin was beneath the water,
and no light came down to it from the deck, but an ancient lamp of
bronze swung slowly from the beams overhead, and in this lamp burnt a
flame, although there was neither wick nor oil to feed it. The witch
was sitting in a great chair like a throne, and before her were
open boxes crammed with lumps of gold, which gleamed in the flicker
of the bronze lamp. On the table lay the magic crystal in which the
sorceress could see the future; and upon the high back of the antique
chair, in which she sat, perched two ravens, grey with age, both of
which uttered a low, hoarse croak as Torquil entered.
‘“Mother,” he said, for all who spoke to the witch so addressed
her—“mother, I would go home to my own country; I long again to see
the face of my father and of my betrothed. Therefore, I bid you raise
a favouring westerly gale; for, if you do not, neither I nor one of
my comrades will put hand to rope on board this galley again.”
‘With that the witch rose slowly to her feet. ‘Look you, Torquil
Randa,’ quoth she, ‘whoso in this galley disobeys my orders, the
elements, which are at my beck and bidding, shall overwhelm him.’
‘But Torquil stood erect, nothing daunted. “I know your powers,
mother,” he answered; “but as well be sunk in the sea as wander for
ever upon its surface, homeless and friendless. You heard what I have
spoken; I will not live longer away from kindred and home.”
‘And so saying, the bold mutineer left the cabin. Tronda followed
him on deck, muttering her Lapland rhymes, and waving her arms aloft
in the air. As she did so, great banks of black clouds began to
rise from out the ocean, and the sea-birds flew round the masts of
the galley, screaming with affright. There was a dead calm in the
air, and it grew so hot that the mariners gasped for breath. The
bright tropic day, shipmates, seemed to be changing into night, and
the clouds got lower and lower until they appeared to rest upon the
topmasts of the galley. All this time the witch was kneeling upon the
poop, chanting her accursed rhymes, and Torquil was standing alone
beside the mainmast, for his comrades were terrified, and slunk away
from him as from a man under a curse.
‘Suddenly the witch stopped, and shaded back from her eyes her long
flowing hair, gazing intently at the sky. In the next moment, a flash
of lightning—so bright that every one on board the galley, except the
sorceress, was dazzled and blinded by the glare—tore out of the dark
heavens; struck the main topmast of the galley; and with a crash,
like that of all the artillery in the world fired off in one salvo,
passed gleaming down the wood, shaking the ship as though she had
been lifted a hundred feet, and then allowed to fall splash into
the sea. The explosion was followed by a thick sulphurous smoke,
which seemed to come steaming up out of the inmost recesses of the
galley, and while the crew, blinded and almost choking in the yellow
sulphurous fume, were groping about the deck, they heard the loud
screaming laughter of the witch, followed by the croak of the ravens
from the cabin.
‘At length the smoke or mist gradually cleared away, and as it did
so, and the men recovered their eyesight, they saw Tronda standing as
usual on the poop, with her old aspect of haughty command. Her first
words, comrades, were—
‘“Fling that carrion into the sea, and take warning by the fate of
Torquil Randa how you dispute the will of such as I.”
‘So the sailors advanced, all trembling, to the foot of the mainmast,
where lay the body of the man of whom the witch spoke. He had been
struck by the lightning, comrades, but there was neither scaith nor
scar upon his flesh, only on the forehead a small round blue spot. So
the mariners lifted up the body, and while it was yet warm plunged it
over the side. It sunk feet first, and as the head disappeared, the
crew thought that the dead face frowned.
‘That night Tronda sat alone in her cabin, beneath the bronze lamp,
as she had done when her victim entered. The crystal lay upon the
table as before. All at once, the flame of the lamp flashed high up,
and then sank down into the bronze, so that the cabin was almost in
darkness, and the two ravens fluttered and croaked. Tronda lifted up
her head, and her livid face became as the face of a statue carved
out of blue and grey marble, for before her, standing as he had
already done that day, was the form of Torquil Randa, with the blue
spot upon his forehead where the lightning had struck it.
‘There was silence for the space of a minute, and then the form of
Torquil spoke.
‘“I am sent from the dead,” it said, “to give you a last warning.”
‘“Return to those who sent you,” answered the witch; “I take no
warnings.”
‘“I am bid to tell you,” said the spirit, “that the measure of your
iniquities is nearly full.”
‘The witch of Lapland rose erect, and stood confronting the
apparition.
‘“I have no fear of aught, either dead or living, spirit or flesh,”
she replied. “Get you gone, or I will call up the spectres of the
winds, who will chase you to the uttermost ends of the earth.”
‘The figure of Torquil Randa gave a sad smile, and stretching forth
its hand, touched the magic crystal, which immediately crumbled into
black dust. “The powers which are given to me,” said the spirit, “are
greater than yours.”
‘Tronda’s frame shivered as she saw this, but she lost no whit of
countenance, and looked her terrible visitant steadily in the face.
‘“There will be given you one last opportunity,” the apparition said.
“Will you repent?”
‘“No!” said the witch of Lapland.
‘The figure of Torquil Randa grew less and less distinct, and as
it disappeared, the flame of the lamp brightened up again, and the
ravens, which had nestled at Tronda’s feet, flew back to their
perches on her chair.
‘The next day, the galley meanwhile lying not far from Cape Tiberoon,
in Hispaniola, there came on board, in a small canoe, a Spanish girl,
who seemed, shipmates, to have hardly life in her to climb up the
low side of the galley. This girl was of a beauty rarely seen upon
the earth, but those who looked upon the bright red spot in her white
cheek, and the sickly flash of her black floating eyes, knew that
there was hardly a month’s life flickering in her bosom; so she went
slowly into the cabin, and fell upon her knees before the witch.
‘“Mother,” she said, “I am dying fast, as you can see. I have
a lover, my betrothed. He is coming across the ocean to bid me
farewell. Oh, that I might live to see him! I have little gold, but
for what I have, grant him a fair breeze, that his ship may come to
land before I die, and that I may give up my spirit in his arms.”
‘So saying, the Spanish girl held forth a piece of gold the size of
a walnut. Tronda had opened her mouth to speak, when a third woman
entered the cabin. She was a tall and haughty dame, and as she
observed the dying girl, a smile like that of a fiend passed over
her face. Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes glanced with the fire of
deadly spite. The younger girl started back at her aspect, and then
sunk all trembling and sobbing upon the floor.
‘Then the elder spoke thus—
‘“I hate that woman. She is my rival. She has won from me the man
I love. I would prevent their meeting. She is poor, but I am rich.
This, for a wind which will keep back his ship, until she be no more.”
‘With that, shipmates, the woman laid upon the table a lump of virgin
ore, as big as a cocoa-nut. The other girl said nothing, but still
held out her smaller offering. Tronda stood between them musing.
At last, she took the large lump, and dropped it into the great
chestfull at her feet.
‘“You shall have a baffling wind,” she said to the jealous rival. The
poor girl, who was dying, rose feebly, and passed out weeping; the
crew let her down with careful hands into her canoe.
‘But at the moment when Tronda had made her decision, the sudden moan
of a hollow sounding wind passed through the air, and the galley
rocked and laboured, as though an invisible hand had smote her. The
witch remained long musing in the cabin, until, hearing the dash
of oars, she rose and went on deck. The galley was deserted, the
whole crew, embarked in the boats, were pulling fast for the land,
while the horizon was again clouded as it had been when the witch
drew lightning from the heavens. Tronda mounted upon the poop, and
stretched forth her arms, to curse the faithless crew, when her eye
suddenly fell upon Torquil, standing as he had stood, beneath the
mainmast, when the levin bolt struck him. Then she forbore, and
remained with drooping head, gazing into the sea below. But what was
remarkable, was, that when the whole crew of the galley left her at
once, instead of rising, she sunk still deeper in the water; and as
a heavy swell began to lift and heave around, the ship rolled and
pitched with a strange sickly motion.
‘Then came another portent. Tronda still stood upon the poop, when
she started to hear a sudden pattering of feet, and a squeaking and
scratching all around her. Immediately there poured forth from every
hatchway a whole legion of rats—young ones and old—brown and grey—all
of them making for the side of the vessel, and then plunging with a
loud shrill squeaking into the sea, which was speedily dotted with
their little heads, all swimming merrily to land. When the last had
leaped overboard, the figure of Torquil Randa glided softly aft and
confronted the witch.
‘“Rats,” quoth the figure, “leave a sinking ship.” And, as he spoke,
the galley appeared to float in the water more heavily and deeply
than ever, while the swells rose in great rocking billows, and the
moan of a coming wind hurtled over the sea. Still Tronda confronted
the apparition with a lip which never quivered, and an eye which
never blinked.
“My ancestors,” said she, “were champions and heroes; one of
them—Eric Westra—descended into the tomb of Sigismund, the sea king,
and bore from thence the bronze sepulchral lamp which burns beneath,
although it was guarded by monsters and potent spells. What art thou,
then, that one in whose veins runs the blood of such a hero, should
tremble and quake before thee?”
‘But the apparition said—
‘“I come from a power which is mightier than that of Odin and of
Thor, and I am commissioned to pronounce to thee the doom thou shalt
undergo as a punishment for thy wicked sorceries, even until the end
of time.”
‘At that there rose a mighty wind, and the galley started away before
it. In vain Tronda bade the elements to cease their strife—in vain
she knelt upon the poop, and, with her drenched hair all streaming in
the tempest, sung her magic rhymes and screamed out her most potent
charms. The winds blew, and the clouds lowered, and the waves rose,
unheedful of her spells, and so at last she started up from the deck,
and cried in a lamentable voice—
‘“Alas! alas! my power is gone from me, and the elements obey me no
more!”
‘At these words there was a flutter and a croak, and the ravens,
flying from the cabin, soared up into the tempest-tossed air,
wheeling round and round the rocking masts of the labouring ship.
‘“And you too,” said Tronda, looking up at them, “leave me!”
‘The sentence, comrades, was no sooner spoken than the foul birds
darted off, each his separate way, and were speedily lost in the
darkness. Then the storm burst out with all its fury. Had it been a
bark manned by mortals, the galley would not have lived an hour in
that sea; but enchantment kept it afloat until it had finished its
destined course. For some space the Lapland witch and the figure of
Torquil Randa were the only forms visible in the ship. But as the
night fell, and the darkness grew intense, pale flashes of lightning
showed troops of phantoms upon the deck, who worked the ropes and
sails as mariners in a gale. These shapes, comrades, were the spirits
of the seamen whom Tronda by her incantations had drowned. But still
the witch stood erect and fearless through all this tumult of horror,
lifting up her unabashed forehead to the gale, and flashing all
around her wild grey eyes. The figure of Torquil stayed ever by her
side.
‘At length, comrades, in the thick of the roaring tornado, with all
the gibbering ghosts dimly seen flitting on the deck amid the flying
spray and foam, there was shouted from the prows, in a voice which
boomed like the tones of a church bell, “Land.”
‘At this the spectre of the Norse mariner turned to Tronda, and said—
‘“Now hear your doom. From this time forth you will haunt the cape on
which we are driving; and there you will have power over the winds
which blow. Your evil nature, which is as a mighty devil within you,
will ever impel you to retard rather than to advance the course of
mariners; but yet, for every moment of time a ship is hindered on her
course, will you pass a year of torment, such as it is not in the
breast of man to conceive. And this shall last even to the day when
the sea shall give up its dead.”
‘In a moment after, mates, the galley was crushed into splinters, and
not a vestige of her, or of her precious cargo of pearls, and jewels,
and gold, were ever seen by man. But Tronda, the evil spirit of Cape
Morant, still haunts that desolate beach and these stormy breakers,
and sometimes in wild mid-watches, the mariner has caught a glimpse
of her pale face and stony eyes, and floating locks, driving through
the scud of the storm, with her arms tossed above her head, as though
she were still singing the chaunt which raised wind and waves. I
never spoke, comrades, with those who saw her; but I have heard tell
of a sailor of Sir Francis Drake, who being, in a night of storm,
clinging to the end of the bowsprit furling a split sail, beheld the
ancient face of the hag, with her grey, fishy eyes, looking into his
own, and who came near letting go hold of the spar in his fright,
and tumbling into the boiling sea below. But he managed to make his
way, all pale and shaking, on board the ship, where he told what he
had witnessed; and certain old men of the crew said it was a most
evil omen, and that either the ship would be lost, or he who saw
the appearance would be drowned. Now, word being passed through the
ship of what had happened, it came to the ears of the stout-hearted
admiral himself; and presently Sir Francis appeared out of the main
cabin.
‘“What is this I hear, men,” says he, “that one of you has been
frightened by a demon?”
‘“It was the devil, Sir Francis!” said the sailor, by name James
Gilbert.
‘“And what if it were?” quoth the admiral. “He is but a coward. If he
shows his face to you again, pluck the grisly fiend by the beard. The
devil fears all who do not fear him.”
‘But for all these bold words of the admiral, the old sailors were
right. Before the ship had made Porto Bello, whither she was bound,
Gilbert was flung from the lee foretop-sail yard-arm into the sea.
After the first plunge, he never came to the surface, and the old
sailors knew that what had happened was in consequence of his having
seen the demon who haunts Point Morant.’