Wood sorrel

“ But this dreadful phenomenon is ascribed to the fact that the wicked man, with his vile companions who had robbed the poor widow of her wood, have been condemned to burn in the forest which they stole, under the form of fiery pines, and roll in their agony through the forest, vainly seeking to release themselves from their everlasting punishment. ”

“ What are they doing now in that forest? Merciful heavens, perhaps the wolves have already eaten them! A monster you must be to lose your children in this way!'
[p. 37]
'A good dame opened the door'
[p. 39] At last the wood-cutter lost patience, for she repeated more than twenty times that he would repent it, and that she had told him so. He threatened to beat her if she did not hold her tongue. ”

“ But the dark wood with its sepulchral fir-tops and mysteriously spreading beech-trees was full of formless terror, and once the girl screamed as the birds flew with an awful sound through the dark undergrowth. A gloomy wood by night has terrors for the bravest, and it was only the certainty that she was leaving girl-life—chaperons, waltz-tunes, and bitter sneering, for ever—that gave courage to proceed. ”

“ Not so; perchance, within its hairy body fell Is man or maid transformed by magic spell. O, brothers, heedful be, and careful tread Lest magic gin should catch and strike us dead! O would my grannam might go with us here. Since, being witch, she doth no witchcraft fear.” So came the three at last to Haunted Wood, Where mighty trees in gloomy grandeur stood, Their wide-flung boughs so closely interweaving Scarce space between for ghostly moonbeams leaving ”

“ Step by step the child would advance into the shadows, cautious as a wood mouse, timid as a rabbit. Suddenly a swift rustle and a thunderous rush of something from the ground that first set the child's heart to beating wildly, and then reached his heels in a fearful impulse which sent him rushing out of the woods, tumbling headlong over the old gray wall, and scampering halfway across the pasture before he dared halt from the terror behind. ”

“ In the great primaeval forest he feels ill at ease, for well he knows the choleric temper of the spirits who inhabit the giant trees of the wood, and that were he to excite their wrath they would assuredly pay him out in one way or other, it might be by carrying off his soul and so making him ill, it might be by crushing him flat under a falling tree. ”

“ She read the chiseled word again, softly and reverently, then backed the sorrel away and once more rode on rapidly, making for the railroad and sitting her horse with the tense erectness of a trooper on parade.
All at once, a little way out on the prairie, a terror seized her, and she began to lash the sorrel with all her might. The black hillock behind, with its graven head-mark, had borne to her heart a new fear that perhaps her mother, too, would soon sleep upon the hillside. ”

“ He had watched passionately for the blossoming of the scarlet sorrel. “That’ll be my time!” he said, talking to himself as he lay rocking in his boat. “I’ve got to wait till then. Some person seems to hold me back from helping myself before then; maybe I’ve got to know what it’s like all along the line; maybe it’ll be some help to some one over yonder, and I hope it may, for it’s small comfort to me. Like as if my mother held me back. But, when the sorrel is red, I guess they’ll give me my pass; they’d be hard folks if they wouldn’t. ”

“ What do you want?”
“I have come from your brother to ask whether you can tell me about the three doves which used to bathe in your brother’s pond.”
“My dear lad, I know nothing about them, but as soon as you get up in the morning I will call my apprentices, to find if any one of them knows anything about the doves.”
In the morning they got up and went into the forest. The sorcerer blew a whistle, and at once hosts of devils appeared, such a multitude that they darkened the whole forest.
The lad was frightened, but the sorcerer said: “Don’t be afraid; not a hair of your head shall be harmed.” ”

“ William Peabody was about to answer, it was nonsense for a man only sixty and in sound condition of body and mind to think too much of that, when his eye, ranging across the fields, espied in shadow as it were, through the dim atmosphere, the mist clearing away a little in that direction, an old sorrel horse—a long settler with the family and well-known to all its members—staggering about feebly in a distant orchard, and in her wanderings stumbling against the trees.—"Is old Sorrel blind?" ”

“ In the house adjoining the one in which he resided, there lived a stout little man, a shoemaker, famous in the village for his great wit and his very considerable knavery. His jokes were mostly practical, and some of the best of them exceedingly akin to felonies. Poor Wood could not understand his wit, but, in his simplicity of heart, he deemed him honest, and would fain have prevailed on the neighbours to think so too. ”

“ No household furniture should be made of Elder-wood, least of all a cradle, for some evil will certainly befall the child sleeping in it.
The Elder-tree has been credited with possessing a peculiar fascination for witches and elves, who love to lurk beneath the shadow of its branches, and who are wont to bury their offspring at its foot. On the other hand, the tree has been said to exercise a protective influence against the attacks of witches and wizards, and similar evil-disposed persons ”

“ Wood was usually a match for most demons, whom he would change into animals and thrash with his whip; but one more cunning than the rest defied him, by taking the shape of an unknown coal-black bird, and perching on the church tower, from whence during divine service he made all sorts of queer noises, disturbing the congregation, and inciting the irreverent to laughter. ”

“ The woodman, a bold and hardy fellow, rendered desperate by the danger of his child, kept it at bay for a quarter of an hour, "the beast all the while endeavouring to fly at the girl, and they would both inevitably have become its prey if some horned cattle which the father kept in the wood had not fortunately come up, on which the beast was terrified and ran away." ”

“ A procession sets out from the village to the tuck of drum to find and bring home the strayed soul. First goes a person bearing a basket which contains cakes of rice-meal, rice dyed yellow, and a boiled fowl's egg. The sorcerer follows carrying a chicken, and behind him walks a man with a black, red, and white flag. A crowd of sympathisers brings up the rear. On reaching the spot where the lost soul is supposed to tarry, they set up a small bamboo altar, and the sorcerer offers on it the chicken to the spirit of the place, the drums beating all the time. ”

“ For I gazed on the red and the scarlet and the beaten silver and gold, And blithe were their noble faces and kindly to behold, And nought had I seen of such-like since that hour of the other day When that warrior came to the oak glade with the little child to play. And forth now he came, with the face that my hands had fondled before, And a battle shield wrought fairly upon his arm he bore, And thereon the wood-wolf's image in ruddy gold was done. ”

“ They drive a sorrel horse. The cows eat grass. The Gauls flee before Cæsar. The swallows all fly into the chimney at evening. They forsake the cause without any reason. Cæsar gives them no answer. They get no money for their services. ”

“ But, after all, life in the forest is one danger following another. We must eat. We must find food, and that is difficult enough. Meanwhile the Earth Mother who has always cared for us will look after her people. There is no use in worrying about to-morrow. For many years men have hunted us, and yet we live.’
Raphael muttered, ‘The Sorcerer will be more terrible than man.’
The bear stirred restlessly. ‘Well, perhaps as you say, some day we may go. It is quite true that life is growing harder for us. ”

“ Wood professes to be, and who expresses so edifying a horror of licentiousness, could reconcile it to his conscience to keep in the bosom of his family so depraved, as well as so troublesome a character for at least thirteen years, and confide to her for long periods too the charge of his house and the care of his children—for such I shall shew to have been the facts? ”

“ Are they fearing lest the kindreds should grow too fair and great, And climb the stairs of God-home, and fashion all their fate, And make all earth so merry that it never wax the worse, Nor need a gift from any, nor prayers to quench the curse? Fear they that the Folk-wolf, growing as the fire from out the spark Into a very folk-god, shall lead the weaponed Mark From wood to field and mountain, to stand between the earth And the wrights that forge its thraldom and the sword to slay its mirth? ”

“ Here, as in the case of the avaricious and the wrathful, the spirits of other sinners take a part in the infliction of the punishment. The wood is inhabited by the souls of those who had wasted their substance in life, and these are constantly chased through it by hounds, with much destruction of leaves and twigs. ”

“ Brother Wood is a man of excellent spirit—is as jovial as he is earnest. His life has been temperate and chaste, and he is approaching the death shadows and the tomb with triumph and in peace. He has occupied good pastorates and honorable places in the associations. ”

“ Mary mother, I know not why the rule was made; but it has been so, ever since bishop Godshaw's visitation in 1361."
"I suppose he found the young sisters fond of tripping in the green wood with the fairies of nights," answered the woodman, with one of his short laughs; "but however, you are not forbidden to tell those who are not of the sisterhood; otherwise, lady, you would not have told me."
"Nay, that does not follow," rejoined the abbess. "The head woodman always knows, as the cell is under his charge and care, ever since the poor hermit died. ”

“ The sorcerer dies a terrible death. Many dogs bark and run away and come back; they look like fire, but they are not; they are the evil thoughts of the sorcerer. The river, too, makes a greater noise as it flows, as if somebody were dipping up water and pouring it out again. Uncanny, weird noises come from every part of the house, and all the people in it are much frightened. ”

“ The whole town thereupon turns out and accompanies the doctor to the tree, where the strongest men are deputed to break off the branch in which the soul of the sick man is supposed to be lodged. This they do and carry the branch back to the town, insinuating by their gestures that the burden is heavy and hard to bear. When the branch has been brought to the sick man’s hut, he is placed in an upright position by its side, and the sorcerer performs the enchantments by which the soul is believed to be restored to its owner. ”

“ While he lives, you cannot hope to inherit the Earth, for his people multiply and spread all over the world. The time has come for us to attack him, attack to save the places we live in and in which our ancestors lived.’
The animals made assent each in his own tongue and pressed closer, the deer timid and trembling, the moose shoulder to shoulder with the elk, the great bears and the mountain lions, the wolves and the coyotes, brothers in one common purpose.
Then Raphael called for scouts to discover if possible where the Sorcerer lived and where Cassandra was. ”

“ Something happened to my brain, then. I became as a wolf—a brother to these of the Black Forest to which I fled when I escaped.
"They have feasted, my brothers, on all who lay in my tavern—all except this one who now clashes his bones, this magician from Russia. Lest he come stalking back through the black shadows when night is over the world, and slay me—for who may slay the dead?—I stripped his bones and shackled him. His sorcery was not powerful enough to save him from me, but all men know that a dead magician is more evil than a living one. Move not, Englishman! ”

“ You even assume—playfully, of course—that the big sorrel understood your promise about the clover field.”
“Why should he not? Dumb animals understand a great deal more than people think. Your sorrel understood, at any rate, that I regarded him with affection and pity. That in itself was to him a promise of good treatment, and just now good treatment means to him rest in a clover field. So, while he may not have understood the exact meaning of the words I used, he understood my promise. I am not so sure even about the words. Animals understand our words oftener than we think.” ”

“ When a man was sick against whom the sorcerers had a grudge, they set up these soul-snares near his house and watched for the flight of his soul. If in the shape of a bird or an insect it was caught in the snare, the man would infallibly die. In some parts of West Africa, indeed, wizards are continually setting traps to catch souls that wander from their bodies in sleep; and when they have caught one, they tie it up over the fire, and as it shrivels in the heat the owner sickens. This is done, not out of any grudge towards the sufferer, but purely as a matter of business. ”

“ 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. ”