Chapter X: Six Short Tales of Witchcraft

[_Passamaquoddy_]

_Kʾchi Joe Benoit mʾdeaulin
Kʾchi kʾnokwchil pohégunul._[56]

Old Joe Benoit, a friend of mine,
Was full of all unholy skill and power.
He quarrelled with a man who like himself,
Was wizard and a guileful, crafty foe.
A giant turtle’s form Joe Benoit took;
The other changed himself into a snake;
The twain then met and fought in combat dire
Within the waters of a little lake
Which since that time has ever borne the name
Of Neʿseyik, which means “the muddy lake,”
Because their strife had stirred up all the soil
And weeds, and roiled the waters of that pool.
Joe Benoit slew his foe, the giant snake.

* * * * *

Old Lacote was a wizard made a trap,
A deadfall trap for bear off in the woods.
When he had set the trap all fast and firm,
He crawled within to test the prop-stick stout.
But by the magic arts of wizard foe
Through old Sabatis’ guile who owed him hate,
The prop-stick fell and let the great bear-trap
Drop full upon old Lacote’s head and back.
His son was there and dragged the old man forth.
But Lacote knew to whom he owed ill-luck.

* * * * *

When I was fifteen years I saw a man
Who had become a demon of the wood,
A Miʿkumwess with power to change his size
And art to sink into the rocky soil
Up to his ankle-joints or knees as though ’twere sand.
I saw myself the tracks where he had sunk
Into a soil all full of rocks and roots.

* * * * *

My father was a wizard and had power
To call unto his partner miles away.
I’ve often heard him singing in the night
All low and weird, and when the morning dawned,
He’d tell me what his partner’s luck had been.
I never knew his magic skill to fail.

* * * * *

My brother told me, many years ago,
Some wizards had a quarrel, and they slew
One of their number, took his corpse away
And ate it on the isle of Grand Manan,
Sitting upon a ledge above the sea.

* * * * *

Two men were hunting on an inland lake
When suddenly they heard a fearful whoop
As of a man in agony, who ran
Adown the lake along the farther shore.
They went out in their barque and there they saw
Him come right up to where their shanty lay.
Returning to the shore they begged him then:
“Pray stay and eat,” but he, with accents wild,
Cried: “Nay, I may not stop in this warm place.
I must away, away unto the North,
Where ice and snow shall cool my bounding blood.”
This man was a Kiwaʿkw, a demon ghoul,
Ice-giant--of that race which loves to prey
Upon the tender flesh of man and babe. P.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Old Joe Benoit the wizard changed himself to a great turtle.