Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/97

 Rh came on it in a thicket and tried to raise the stone, but failed. He went for help, but could not lead them back to where it was. Afterward a man looking for sheep or cattle discovered it; but he could not lift it either, and proved a bad pilot likewise. These men had described it as marked with very strange letters. Now in that neighbourhood there was a negro who pretended to that kind of magic which is commonly supposed to belong to Vaudos or other heathen rites, although most of those who practise it claim to be Christians. He determined to set his black lore against that of the foreigners; and succeeded not only in finding the stone but in partly lifting it also. Then there was a sudden rush of enemies whom he could not see, and he felt blows falling all over him as he was fleeing headlong down the mountain-side. Nobody has ever found the magically-anchored stone since that day.

Ghost-stories are attached to various houses in Washington as in other cities, but they are of recent date, or ordinary features, presenting nothing, so far as I know, that would interest a student of folk-lore. We are quite without any ghost-laying parsons, or any faith in such; and the services of our rather numerous scientific societies have not as yet been called into requisition. Across Chesapeake bay, in Queen Anne county, Maryland, there is an unique tale, of long standing, wherein a ghost appears by daylight, evidently from a very hot place, makes a demand for certain moneys on behalf of his children, and burns his finger-points into a fence-rail to attest the verity of his presence. This rail, I am assured, was actually produced in court as documentary evidence. But I am travelling beyond my proper bounds.

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Some elements of this are hardly less marvellous. Now and then they take a narrative form, though of course not confined to any places.

Of the mole it is said that he once had excellent eyes, but no tail. The other animals jeered at him for this deficiency. Meeting a creature, or being (of which I could get no more definite account), he bewailed his tailless condition. The offer was then made to him by