Bloodwood

“ The highest peak, which presents a buttressed face to the north, and overlooks our peaceful bay, is crowned with a forest of bloodwoods, upon which the jungle steadily encroaches. The swaying fronds of aspiring palms, adorned in due season with masses of straw-coloured inflorescence, to be succeeded by loose bunches of red, bead-like berries, shoot out from the pall of leafage. In the gloomy gullies are slender-shafted palms and tree-ferns, while ferns and mosses cover the soil with living tapestry, and strange, snake-like epiphytes cling in sinuous curves to the larger trees. ”

“ They waded waist-deep in the grass, in a compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst. Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a sharp arrow flying straight to the very heart of the land; and, as if by enchantment, streams of human beings—of naked human beings—with spears in their hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances and savage movements, were poured into the clearing by the dark-faced and pensive forest. ”

“ Some of them went into the forest and returned with loads of dry wood, leaves, and grass. All the Fire People drew in closer. While most of them stood by with bows and arrows, ready to shoot any of the Folk that exposed themselves, several of the Fire-Men heaped the dry grass and wood at the mouths of the lower tier of caves. Out of these heaps they conjured the monster we feared—FIRE. At first, wisps of smoke arose and curled up the cliff. Then I could see the red-tongued flames darting in and out through the wood like tiny snakes. ”

“ Even for these human bloodhounds, following the trail of the white man was no easy task. As they moved slowly across the glade, one man stiffened, grunted, and pointed with a flint-tipped spear at a crushed grass-blade where the path entered the forest again. All halted instantly, their beady black eyes searching the forest walls. ”

“ I could almost swear I opened my eyes. Something very atrocious surged back into the depths, carrying with it a thought of tangled woods, of big stones standing in a circle, motionless, white figures, the one form bound with ropes, and the ghastly gleam of the knife. Like smoke upon a battlefield, it rolled away....
I was standing on the gravel path below the second terrace when the familiar goblin garden danced back again, doubly grotesque now, doubly mocking, yet, by way of contrast, almost welcome. My glimpse into the depths was momentary, it seems, and had passed utterly away. ”

“ Near such a mass of vegetable corruption and reorganisation, lies the new-fallen tree with its twigs still full of sap. Around them stand the hoary fathers of the forest, whose fate will come next. They bear the scars and contortions of many a hard-fought battle with the storms that often sweep the narrow glen. Some are bent double, with their heads nearly touching the earth; and among other fantastic forms it is not unusual to see the trunk of some aged warrior twisted round and round, its outer surface resembling the strands of a rope. ”

“ During the night great fires of wood are built by the chiefs on the highest hills near the towns, and set on fire before daybreak. Oxen and sheep are then led three times round the fires, slaughtered, and left to be eaten by the birds and beasts of prey. This is distinctly a heathen custom, both the position of the altar and the mode of sacrifice designating clearly the fire-worshipper. When, therefore, the people awake in the morning after the fatigue and dissipation of the night, they find the whole country illuminated with these hill-fires. ”

“ Many of the younger barons were already mounted, and their horses were curvetting on the grass, as though they partook of the impatience of their riders, while every now and then the blast of the hunter’s horn, in the hand of some young squire, gave notice to those within, that the sun was already high. All was gaiety and animation, and boisterous mirth within and around Malwood-Keep, when a stranger was seen approaching through the forest, grave, [Pg 168] and yet in haste. ”

“ There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere. Who has been telling you such stuff?”
“Nobody,” confessed Anne. “Diana and I just imagined the wood was haunted. All the places around here are so—so—commonplace. We just got this up for our own amusement. We began it in April. A haunted wood is so very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce grove because it’s so gloomy. Oh, we have imagined the most harrowing things. There’s a white lady walks along the brook just about this time of the night and wrings her hands and utters wailing cries. ”

“ The wide-spread popular superstition of the vampire and of the ghoul, seems to be an outgrowth of this universal belief, that transfused blood is re-vivification. The bloodless shades, leaving their graves at night, seek renewed life, by drawing out the blood of [115] those who sleep; taking of the life of the living, to supply temporary life to the dead. This idea was prevalent in ancient Babylon and Assyria. ”

“ It sucked the blood of this unhappy being, transferring so much of its life to itself as a vampire could assimilate. Death was the certain consequence. If suspicion conjectured aright, and they opened the proper grave, the body of the vampire would be found perfectly fresh and plump, sometimes indeed of rather florid complexion;—with grown hair, eyes half open, and the stains of recent blood about its greedy, leech-like lips. ”

“ As to Wood-wise, he had given the Banner of the red-jawed Wolf to Stone-wolf, a huge and dreadful warrior some forty winters old, who had fought in the Great Overthrow, and now hewed down the Dusky Men, wielding a heavy short-sword left-handed. But Wood-wise himself fought with a great sword, giving great strokes to the right hand and the left, and was no more hasty than is the hewer in the winter wood. ”

“ In nearly all their courts there is a ju-ju tree growing in the centre, with a parasitic plant attached to it, and an enclosure of from two to four feet in circumference at the bottom of the stem, within which skulls are always placed, and calabashes of blood at times of sacrifice. At many of the gentlemen’s thresholds a human skull is fastened in the ground, whose white glistening crown is trodden upon by every one who enters. ”

“ It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were long past [pg 98] timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the acrid odour of decay.
Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked his progress. ”

“ On this account, when it is expected that a person will die, he is hurried down to the river, whether willing or unwilling. Sometimes the wood which the people bring to burn their bodies after death, is piled up before their eyes. O, how inhuman is this. After it is supposed that they are dead, and they are placed on the pile of wood, if they should revive and attempt to rise, it is thought that they are possessed with the devil, and they are beaten down with a hatchet or bamboo. ”

“ Although the vampire's capacity is limited, this little light-hating bat makes a circular incision in its slumbering victim's flesh with such precision and stealthy finesse that the sleeper rarely awakens. After the vampire laps up its fill of blood and flies away, blood usually continues to flow from the wound. It is this continuing flow of blood which ordinarily awakens the victim. By the time the victim becomes fully alert, however, he may have lost much more blood than the bat itself has actually absorbed. ”

“ The path led down to a secluded hollow in the midst of the thicket—a remote and lonely spot, far removed from human habitation, it seemed, and little liable to intrusion—a spot well chosen for a secret midnight rendezvous.
In the midst of the copse lay a small clearing, and in its center the three men came suddenly upon a group gathered around a smouldering fire, built of brushwood piled against a log. ”

“ The leeward woods are thick with a blinding, stifling smoke, through which all the wild creatures of the forest flee in terror, whither they know not—by chance to safety, by equal chance perhaps to a terrible death in the surging deluge of fire. ”

“ Balked by the absence of their victim the avengers of blood breathe out fire and slaughter, but content themselves in fact with smashing an old pot or two, knocking down a deserted hut, and perhaps felling a banana-tree or a betel-palm. ”

“ Further, the reason why uncharr’d Wood burns with a greater flame then that which is charr’d, is as evident, because those waterish or volatil parts issuing out of the fired Wood, every way, not onely shatter and open the body, the better for the fire to enter, but issuing out in vapours or wind, they become like so many little æolipiles, or Bellows, whereby they blow and agitate the fir’d part, and conduce to the more speedy and violent consumption or dissolution of the body. ”

“ Some people insert charred sticks and ashes from the bonfire in their sown fields and meadows, in their gardens and the roofs of their houses, as a talisman against lightning and foul weather; or they fancy that the ashes placed in the roof will prevent any fire from breaking out in the house. In some districts they crown or gird themselves with mugwort while the midsummer fire is burning, for this is supposed to be a protection against ghosts, witches, and sickness; in particular, a wreath of mugwort is a sure preventive of sore eyes. ”

“ When a victim was put to death by the sword, the Druids who investigated the deed, pretended to discover future events by the manner in which he fell, the flavouring of the reeking blood, and the quivering of the body in the agonies of death. ”

“ Their spears exhibited a degree of ingenuity, which deserts them in every instance of supplying the better wants of life. Into a piece of bamboo, six feet three inches long, is inserted a piece of heavy wood, two feet seven inches long, the junction being very neatly and firmly secured with grass and gum. ”

“ All over Bohemia bonfires still burn on Midsummer Eve. In the afternoon boys go about with handcarts from house to house collecting fuel, such as sticks, brushwood, old besoms, and so forth. They make their request at each house in rhyming verses, threatening with evil consequences the curmudgeons who refuse them a dole. Sometimes the young men fell a tall straight fir in the woods and set it up on a height, where the girls deck it with nosegays, wreaths of leaves, and red ribbons. Then brushwood is piled about it, and at nightfall the whole is set on fire. ”

“ As the savages have no matches, they obtain fire in a crude but very practical way. It takes several of them to do it, for they do not care to exert themselves much. In a piece of soft, very dry wood they make a small indentation into which they insert the point of a thin, round stick of ironwood or similar hard, close-grained wood three or four feet in length. ”

“ The Blood Root, too, will make her visit, and go away again, if you delay your ramble in the woods till the first of May. The blossom of the Blood Root is a very delicate white. Hundreds of exotic flowers are cultivated in our gardens, and very much admired, that are not half so pretty as this. The leaves that appear before the plant is in blossom, are oval, a little like those of the Adder's Tongue, which is in flower somewhat later, and like those of one species of the Solomon's Seal—the Convallaria Bifolia. ”

“ The effect of a strong fire in the woods at night is to give to surrounding space an appearance of ebony blackness, against which dark ground the gnarled stems and branches and pendent foliage appear as if traced out in light and lovely colours, which are suffused with a rich warm tone from the blaze. ”

“ Even at night, when all created beings should rest in peace, enormous vampires, issuing from the gloomy recesses of the forest, perch upon the backs of the sufferers and suck their life blood, all the while lulling them with the flapping of their spurious wings. ”

“ The horse was then made to ride about the cemetery and pass over all the graves. If the horse refused to pass over any grave, even in spite of repeated blows, that grave was believed to shelter a vampire. Their records state that when such a grave was opened it was generally found to contain a corpse as fat and handsome as that of a full-blooded man quietly sleeping. The finest vermilion blood would flow from the throat when cut, and this was held to be the blood he had sucked [16] from the veins of living people. ”

“ My father climbs, and we must join him on the summit. Come!”
She took his hand and raised him to his feet, and together they began the rough ascent towards the Crag. As they passed along the shore of the Tarn of Blood, he saw the fire reflected in the ink-black waters; he made out, too, though dimly, a rough circle of big stones, with a larger flagstone lying in the centre. Three small fires of bracken and wood, placed in a triangle with its apex towards the Standing Stone on the distant hill, burned briskly, the crackling material sending out sparks that pierced the columns of thick smoke. ”