[Material for this compilation, with the exception of Mr. Morris’
accounts published in the Freeport Facts and Mrs. West’s folk tales,
was supplied through the Editor.]
The mysterious music in the San Bernard River at Music Bend in Brazoria
County is not so haunting as the siren strains against which Ulysses
waxed his ears or as the luring song of the Lorelei. But perhaps all
that it lacks is its Homer or its Heine. This Texas music, if less
enchanting, is less deceptive. It draws no one on to his destruction.
The legend of the San Bernard is widely known and, like all truly
popular legends, as yet unfixed by a master’s using, has many forms.
The account most expressive of the folk that has come to my notice is
that supplied by Mrs. West of Velasco. This account is chiefly
concerned with the character of the music and with the apparitions that
appeared to Mrs. West’s mother and brother. According to Mrs. West, the
music never plays for those who laugh at it or doubt it, but those who
row out over Music Bend with an open mind may hear music sweeter than
any played with hands. It sounds, she says, like the music of violins.
Sometimes it is preceded by a very dreadful noise, resembling the
sounds made by a steer which, having been knocked in the head, falls,
kicking and beating the ground and bellowing in pain. After the noise
has passed, the violins begin to play. Mrs. West is the only one of my
authorities who mentions the dreadful noise. Mr. Eugene Wilson, Jr.,
writes in “Mysterious Music on the San Bernard,” The Gulf Messenger,
Volume VII, December, 1894: “It has been likened to a number of musical
instruments, by a few to the soft, sweet notes of the Aeolian harp.”
This last is the sound most frequently heard by Mr. J. W. Morris of
Freeport, though he also mentions the violin, the flute, and the human
voice.
There is equal variation, indeed contradiction, in accounts of the time
when the music may be heard. Mrs. West, who grew up on the San Bernard,
says that the music may be heard by day or by night, though not
continuously or regularly even by those who “believe in it.” This
testimony is corroborated by Mr. F. D. Letts, an abstract of whose
article, published years ago in the Galveston Daily News, has been
supplied by Mr. E. G. Littlejohn. Mr. Wilson, in the article referred
to above, states that it is audible at night only, and can be heard
most distinctly when the moon is full. Miss Lorene Cook, who lived for
a time at the mouth of the river, limits the music strictly to the time
of the full moon, between the hours of twelve and one. Mr. Morris, in
three separate accounts, published in the Freeport Facts, 1922, records
impressions of the music at night, but does not expressly state that it
cannot be heard during the day.
One point of interest, to which several auditors testify, is the
permeating quality of the music. Some of them, in attempting to
describe this quality, fall back upon other senses than hearing. Mrs.
West says that she could almost see the sound, which began softly, as
if at an elevation, and slowly came down to the boat. Miss Cook reports
that the sound was “so close at times that I felt as if I could touch
it with my hands.” Mr. Wilson’s article contains this sentence: “On
first coming within its limits, one can easily perceive that it
proceeds from under the water, but in a short while it is impossible to
locate it, as it gets under the seats, in the bow and in all parts of
the boat, overhead and around; in fact, it seems to pervade the
atmosphere.”
I have heard of no apparitions in connection with the music except
those seen by Mrs. West’s mother and brother. However, as they
illustrate very well the workings of folk imagination, I record them
here. Mrs. West’s mother, Mrs. Mary Ducroz, was one of a considerable
party rowing at midnight on the river. Just as the boat drew over Music
Bend she saw a man, with a bridle over his arm, come down to the water,
turn, and go back into the woods. She could see only the upper part of
his body. He seemed not to walk but to glide. He was not visible to any
other member of the party, though Mrs. Ducroz tried very hard to make
the others see him. She is quite certain about having seen him herself,
as the moon was very bright. At another time Mrs. West’s brother, then
a boy of fourteen years, was riding horseback at night when he saw
before him a man and a woman sitting in the middle of the road. They
did not seem to see at all a very large ant bed just in front of them.
The boy had seen the ant bed many times in passing along the same road.
Now he saw the most beautiful horse he had ever seen, dappled gray,
tied with an extremely large and knotted rope to a tree at the side of
the road. The horse evidently belonged to the man and woman who were
sitting in the middle of the public way. The boy urged his horse
forward, but the horse refused to go. Then the boy remembered that he
was just above the ghostly Music Bend, and turned his horse about.
To Mrs. West I am also indebted for a relation of the effect of the
music upon some of those who have heard it. When she was a child, an
old gentleman boarded for a time at her father’s house. The old
gentleman used to row out over the Bend day after day on the chance of
hearing the music, and return at night to tell his hosts that surely
they imagined the music. They knew that they did not imagine the music,
but thought that perhaps the old gentleman could not hear it, as it is
not given to all to hear such ghostly music. One evening, however, he
came back in terror. Suddenly, as his boat was over the Bend, he had
begun to tremble as if in a chill, and his hat seemed to rise from his
head. At once he had begun to hear the sweetest and most terrible music
that ever he had heard. He never wished to hear it again. In 1920—Mrs.
West is again my informant—two girls were drowned in the San Bernard;
and when the searchers told of finding the bodies, they told also of
hearing the most beautiful funeral music that ever they had heard. But
it was music that they hoped never to hear again.
The real legend of the music is the story of its origin. The several
versions have only one point of identity: that a fiddler who played on
the bank in life plays on in the waters in death; and in one version
the fiddler played from a boat. One common story is that two men who
froze to death beneath a tree at Music Bend were fiddlers. As Miss
Lorene Cook has heard the tale, an old hermit fiddler was murdered by
pirates who sought refuge in the San Bernard River during a storm. Mr.
Wilson’s account explains: “The negroes really believe it to be a
ghost. They say that many years ago, on a dark and stormy night ... a
sloop with two sailors aboard ... was forced to seek shelter in the San
Bernard; that one of the sailors was a fiddler, and that as soon as the
winds began to lay, he began to fiddle for joy; that his mate, desiring
to sleep, was so enraged that he attempted to stop him by force, and
that in the scuffle the fiddler fell overboard and was drowned; that
the other sailor, while angry, threw the fiddle and bow into the river;
and that on that very night the ghost of the dead sailor played so
touchingly that the living mate could not sleep, and that every night
since then it has played the same tune, again and again.”
In most of the stories the musician lived alone at the Bend. The most
romantic of them is that retold by Mr. J. W. Morris in the Freeport
Facts with certain variations. “In life the musician lost his fiancée a
few hours before they were to have been married. She walked to the
river to pluck a white water-lily to braid in her shining hair for the
marriage, but as she reached for the flower, a snake head sprang forth
and bit her on her white neck and she fell dead in the water.” The
musician then threw himself, with his violin, into the river. According
to another account of Mr. Morris’ the lover moved to a small island in
the stream, and there lived. At his death his violin and bow were
buried with him, and still he plays strange, sweet music.
Another version of the love legend has been contributed by Miss Sarah
S. King of San Antonio, who heard the story from Miss Arline Rather. In
it the maiden was accustomed to go to the stream each evening for
water, and there to meet her lover. One day an arrow struck her down.
Her lover, approaching, called and played his liveliest tunes, and then
found her dead in the waist-high ferns. As in the preceding account,
the musician then flung his violin and himself into the river.
The version supplied by Mr. E. G. Littlejohn has considerable
circumstantial detail. According to this account, the young hermit, son
of a wealthy Eastern gentleman, had been jilted in a love affair, and
had come to the lonely hut on the San Bernard in hope of forgetting his
grief. This was long before Texas gained her independence. The young
gentleman was a violinist of so much repute that the officers of a
military post in Central Texas sent two troopers to engage his services
for a ball. They found the violinist lying dead upon the floor, and
near him an ax covered with congealed blood. His murderer had taken
from the shack everything of value, even wearing apparel, except the
violin, which hung still in its accustomed place on the wall. The
troopers buried the body under an oak tree, and took the violin and
private papers to the commanding officer of the fort. But on a spirit
violin the young hermit has played for a century.