Tree Top Demons Of Our Pioneer Past, a Folk Tale?

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

A RECKONING WITH THE TREE TOP DEMONS OF OUR PIONEER PAST

A TWO PART FOLK TALE ABOUT HAUNTED PLACES AND STRANGE BEASTS IN THE FOREST

NOTE: This three part Hallowe’en series was created for Birch Hollow Antiques with art and photographic work provided courtesy Suzanne Currie and The Hodag, by Sarah Cole.  This is part two.

     There are many hundreds of time honored folk tales that had as a base, the District of Muskoka, dating back to the earliest settlers to brave the wild frontier of 1850’s Ontario. The problem for us, who adore these olden times yarns and family legends, is that most were orally told, and retold, and embellished, but never actually written down. What a shame that so much of our social / cultural heritage has been lost, for the lack of foresight, a reliable ear, a pen, and a few sheets of writing paper. It’s why I have read so many historical accounts, and pioneer period journals written in, and about Muskoka, retrieving even small amounts of story-line if it has something or other to do with the “outside the box,” unorthodox heritage of our region.

     Take for example some of the ghost-sighting tales that have been retrieved from the thin air of casual conversation with some older citizens I have known over the decades; such as the truly chilling story of the railway conductor who was killed on the C.N.R. line north of the hamlet of Falkenburg, (north of the urban centre of Bracebridge), and who, it is reported, comes back to the place of the accident in an attempt, like the famous headless horseman of Washington Irving’s creation, is searching for his lost crown. His head! Lost when, with his illuminated lantern, walking along the tracks that dark autumn evening, got too close to the passing cars, and was hit by something protruding, that sliced off his head. It has been said, and I mean this in the oral sense, that the railway employee can be spotted by the fact his lantern still swings, illuminated, in the deep black of the forest night, along that stretch of rail line. This by the way, is a ghostly sighting that is not limited to the rail line in Falkenburg. There have been many ghost-light sightings in many other communities and regions in North America and beyond, even to this day in this new century. Long since dead railway workers, who were killed on the job, in a most dangerous profession, carry on their employment apparently, with their own signal lights on desolate stretches of railway. Strange but true. Is it the ghost of a lost and forlorner railwayman? Or just an unexplained wavering light against the enclosure of night.

     As a hobby ghost sleuth, I’ve heard dozens of stories about wayward spirits, such as the one of a long deceased woman, who was seen, in a most ghostly white gown, trying desperately to exit from a Milford Bay cemetery; if not for the fact the hem of her flowing attire had caught on a big of downed wire fencing, holding her within the hallow ground. The witnesses were credible and were about to make a rescue attempt, and free the poor woman from entanglement, when she suddenly turned to witness their approach, and vanished into the night’s atmosphere. Was it a deceased inmate of the cemetery wishing to rejoin her past life in the community? Possibly. But it was obviously then, an impossibility, to escape the barrier of hallow ground, and thus, it might be expected, that a witness, one day again, will also come upon a damsel in distress, but be unable to free her back to the land of the living.

     Muskoka history is more than facts and hard realities. It is full of delicious folk tales, apparent hauntings, hobgoblin sightings, and yes, even encounters with the fabled beast of the virgin Muskoka woods, known as the tree-top “Hodag.” We asked Muskoka artist, Sarah Cole to provide us with a first ever image of what a “local” Hodag might have looked like, to someone from, say, the 1860’s. You will see this depiction if you view the companion video on our Facebook page.

     The macabre and the deliciously horrible, partnered, as it is social, on such enchanted eves as this, with scary clowns, witches, devils, ghosts and related hob goblins, to mix about in the cold night air, in that grand time honored tradition of “trick or treating,” for a bounty of candy treats as fair exchange.

     Ah, those Tim Burtonesque Halloween festivals that come to life in such fascinating shapes, colors and malevolence, overseen by the flaming eyes of carved pumpkins on house porches, to welcome the onslaught of seasonal spirits, unburdened of daily toils, to dance in the moonlight of the October candy-night.

     As a kid, traversing these town streets, on Halloween, regardless whether prevailing rain, snow, chill of wind or bluster of an autumn thunderstorm, we were part of a folk-culture that was also very social, at least back in my own childhood when I only got hit with tossed eggs two or three times out of dozen years of trick or treating. I was particularly tuned to the conditions of the nights Halloween fell on, each year, Saturday and Sunday being my least favorite, and I was even then, a student of local history. I took seriously the stories told by some of the local old-timers, who warned us, in our wayward potentials, to watch out for a nasty creature of considerable irritability, that was said to live high in the tree-tops throughout the Muskoka woodlands, awaiting a casual passerby to pounce upon, and most likely strangle to death. I assumed it was a tall tale but it seemed worthy of my attention, if nothing more than to use and embellish to scare my contemporaries. Funny thing, thought, because I still stare up at the tree tops on Halloweens like this one, wondering if there are any of these mythic creatures left, haunting the forests, if of course, they were ever actual entities. Or were they just the strange fictions concocted by story-tellers over the ages to make life a little bit more interesting.

     Looking up into the residential lamplight that has softly illuminated our urban neighborhood, the still falling, spiraling, tumbling down leaves silhouette in the pooling light, rolling along the laneway in the gusts of wind arising from the hollow of the lake only a block removed from our abode here at Birch Hollow. There is intermittent rain that at times gives every appearance of a light snowfall, but it doesn’t yet show on the sleeves of our outerwear. The moonlight wished for on such haunted nights as this comes and goes depending on the fast moving heavy clouds, and when it does emerge, it casts a perfectly eerie glow upon old pines and leaning birches of the woodland across the road. It is mesmerizing at times, watching the transitions of the prevailing weather pattern, that has certainly enhanced the magic of Halloween, and made distant and haunting the voices of approaching youngsters, candy bags in tow, shuffling in pleasant cheer through the windblown piles of maple and birch leaves rippling up and down the lane. These marching, half running, half dancing silhouettes add such a vigor of Halloween history and tradition, that it could raise a tear in the eye of the voyeur who remembers those same happy-go-luck jaunts with brothers, sisters, and friends, far back in time, and faded in memory; suffering in pangs of remembrance of those who have since passed and their faces and voices as thin now in fond recollection as a fleeting vapor, a spirit, a ghost without much more substance than a flickering and gentle affection. We might believe it is their voices we can hear resounding through the chill night air, but alas, it is the present, and that was the distant past.

     The shadows of Halloween’s magical nightcap enthrall us to re-live all its revelry and spirit, and recall the sensation of costume and plastic mask clinging tight, digging into the flesh of our upper ears, the heat making the wearer sweat from our brows to our underwear, and beyond, but we couldn’t find the ambition or cause to complain about our circumstance. We just pulled up our clown pants, or hobo overalls, refastened our hats from the wrong side to the right side, and did the best we could to keep the sweat out of our eyes. Then there were the youngsters carrying around twenty pounds of extra clothing, insisted upon by overly protective parents, my mother Merle being the champion at this excessive attention to my warmth, making the bearers fall back of the pack, and causing them to stop frequently to undress from what distressed them, tossing surplus sweaters into the candy bags for the return trip home. Eventually. Most of the youngsters in our neighborhood got home late, with stretched sacks (pillow cases) of candy and such, plus assorted items of clothing pulled off for reasons of Halloween flexibility. The idea was to get to as many houses and apartments as possible, and being weighted down by too much clothing on top of costumes, meant that our progress was severely limited, and thusly, a deficit to our abilities to harvest the treats being handed out to those who could do the mileage quickly.

     I always adored the first smoky scent of a candle-lit pumpkin, as the flame cooked the meat of the cut-out lid, and with thirty or forty of these icons of Halloween festivities, situated on pedestals and front porches, window sills and on brick walls, it was such a spectacularly appointed fiction, that cuddled us in the warmth of cultural legend and lore; momentarily giving us the splendid opinion of being part of an other worldly environs, where witches flew on broomsticks across the face of moonlight above the tall pines, and angels with outstretched wings glided to earth with silent grace, and mostly good clowns and sundry vampires pushed and shoved all in good fun, trying to arrive at the next homestead doorway ahead of the other, just in case the treat supply was getting thin. Ah, what a panorama it all was, as I can so clearly recall, and impose upon this same evening, awaiting the first trick or treaters to arrive at the old homestead, where our own boys once used to depart, in various theme and period costume, to meet up with mates out on the Halloween hustings. I miss those days most of all, and in the echo now of kids on the hillside above, I can’t help but to slip into my own paradise of fantasy, to imagine that both our sons are still of that magic age, that precious childhood electricity of imagination, to still believe in all the curious fictions, be it those fantastic places down this winding road, like the storied Narnia, Oz, or my choice, Neverland, where one never need grow up, or touch the very fingertip of adulthood. Forgive me for waxing nostalgic this moment, but I did so enjoy all those preciously enhanced Halloweens because of the youthful exuberance and celebration it all represented. It was a social, cultural thing, not a conflict against religion, as I often hear as a complaint today from those who believe there is really something malevolent going on out there during the several hours of trick or treating.

     It is an annual event for me; a now private occasion of quiet contemplation, while I sense, with some latent regrets, my own hourglass sands running thin, to enjoy in this save alcove against the night, at a keyboard on a desk overlooking the woodlands across the road, to recognize subtly, and without exaggeration, just how much I adored this life, so free flowing of interest to pursue such situations as Halloween, and why we need these cultural intrigues and adventures. As author Washington Irving once wrote, that while it is important that the biologist explore the existence and functioning of life, it would be such a detriment to the potential of imagination, to have every mystery of life exposed as a truth; without, at the same time, acknowledging that not everything can be explained by science, nor by the enchanter, spiritualist, or the soothsayer despite convincing arguments to the positive. The “what ifs” of life will never fail to attract me, and it is on nights like this, when I am most energized to imagine all the amazing possibilities of this old and dear earth and universe, and what we are yet to learn about ourselves and environs that we currently misunderstand and misrepresent.

     I am tonight, in the warming yellow glow of this trusted antique oil lamp, flickering at the side of my keyboard, reminded of that long ago fearsome cat-dragon-like creature that haunted the dark and misty primal forests of the north woods. Preying upon unsuspecting traveller, on foot, in horse-drawn carts and sleighs, hiding high in the tree tops, awaiting the perfect opportunity to jump down upon a victims shoulders, in order to wrap its claws and strong arms around the neck, soon rendering the individual unconscious from near suffocation. This is the stuff of legend, and it has taken until this time in Muskoka history, to have a good look at a mythic creature that was known to attack loggers working in the bush, during the lumber book in Muskoka of the 1870’s and 1880’s. But there are those old-timers who still won’t walk through the woods, even along familiar pathways, without studying the tree tops, in case one of these creatures has survived for all these years, to once again unleash its terrors upon the unsuspecting traveller heading this way and that!

     Please join me tomorrow evening, for the second part of this Halloween special story, when I will reveal the tree top monster, the attacker from above, known to these Muskoka woods as “The Hodag.” Legend? Folk lore? The real McCoy? I’ll let you decide. This is a recorded but under recognized part of our local heritage, and you will have the privilege of learning about a local mystery long forgotten, but having no less significance than when it first made the rounds of story telling by rural dwellers as far back as the 1870’s when log shanties were still stylish dwelling places, and the smell of woodsmoke, the sound of axe blades cutting into pine, and the hooves of horses filled the atmosphere that was, by any other name, pioneer times.

      Hope you will enjoy meeting a Muskoka legend, the Hodag.