# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/A Few Monsters

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A FEW MONSTERS
IN common with other parts of the continent, and the seas that wash their coasts, the Dominion and its waters have been peopled with strange creatures, some of them the more terrible because they evade sight, touch, definition, and bullets. Now and again the sea-serpent rears his head, snorting, from the brine, and puts for shore at a pace that shames our torpedo-boats, and elderly maidens at the watering-places convincingly resign themselves to hysterics. He—perhaps there is also a she, though it does not seem possible—usually proves to be a porpoise, a sunfish, a white whale, or an octopus; still, you can't generally 'most always tell, sometimes," and one of the times might have been when he was not a porpoise, but the sea-serpent. The largest devil-fish known, taken on the Newfoundland coast, had a reach of forty feet, and there is no doubt about him, for he was pickled and carried to the States. Either of his arms would have made a more than respectable snake. But all hope has not been abandoned of catching the veritable sea-serpent—the one with eyes like saucepans, with a grinning mouth set with stone-drill teeth, with a weedy mane, with stripes and spots more vivid than a mid-century fashion-plate, and with a braying voice like that of a mule or an agitator. Now and then he leaves his habitat and wallows overland to fresh water. He ​was seen, for instance, in Skiff Lake, New Brunswick, where he succeeded in stretching himself to a length of only thirty feet.
Rattlesnake Islands, in Lake Erie, indicate by their name what desirable places they must have been to live away from, but the snakes that remain, if, indeed, there are any, are as nothing to what they were when the early explorers visited the group, carrying their imaginations with them; for, said they, the islands bristled with a kind of snake that "blew from its mouth with great force a subtile wind," which whoso breathed must die.
There were some rare birds in this country, too, beside the Indian thunder-birds that flashed terrible glances out of their eyes and made the heaven resound when they shook their iron wings. There was an eagle of portentous size that preyed on human beings when it lacked fawns and bear-cubs. They will show you, beside the deepest reach of the Ottawa, a cliff falling for hundreds of feet into the river, with no beach at its foot. It is Oiseau Rock, and to its top this eagle flew with a pappoose, the frantic mother climbing after it and bringing the child away in safety. This, by the bye, is a legend that is common the world over.
It is a different sort of bird of which the Thlinkeets, of British Columbia, tell in their creation myth. This bird, Chethl, the Great Crow, is almost a deity. With his wings he beat back the rising waters. Then, when his uncle tried to kill ​him, he called on the floods and deluged the earth, flying up to heaven afterward, where he stuck his bill into a cloud and hung there till the water had gone down. At a later time he got hold of the three boxes in which were kept the sun, moon, and stars, wrenched the lids off, and let the contents shine into the frightened eyes of men.
In all Canada you shall not find a creature so fearful as the giant Gougou, who lived on the St. Lawrence, at Miscou. A ship's mast in our day would barely have reached to his waist, and, saving that he had two eyes, he was a very Polyphemus. He would wade into the river when men were rowing or sailing past, pick them up by thumb and finger, put them into his sack, go ashore, and draw them out to eat at his leisure. The shrill whistling that he made sometimes put the canoe-men on their guard, and they would hurry in at some wooded cove until he had fed or gone to sleep before they dared to resume their journey.
The devil, from whose machinations men will ever pray to be delivered, is master of a hundred subtleties, and changes his form to cheat men's senses. We meet him in "Faust" as the black dog; in "The Monk" as the terrific form with baleful eyes, bat's wings, and an air of malignant triumph; we find him tempting some men and bullying others; now he is the fiend, and anon the gentleman. But where else than in Canada will you find him working for the Church? St. Augustin, ​in the province of Quebec, is the one place on earth that he has favored in this fashion, and we are still in the dark as to why he did it. He took on the shape of a monster black horse, with the strength of ten usual horses in his thews, and hauled all the heavy stone for the foundations of the church that was built in that village in 1690. Was he looking for a chance to kick the priest? Did he expect that a mason or two would mount his back, that he might rush into the St. Lawrence with them? Did he intend to damage the foundations after he had helped to lay them, that the sacred edifice might tumble about the ears of his enemies? Anyhow, he did the work, and did it well, and that is not the first time that his designs against mankind have failed.
Belle Isle and Quirpon, in the icy strait between Newfoundland and Labrador, were peopled by so many devils that the French sailors would not go ashore unless they had crucifixes in their hands. There was a peculiar species of griffin, also, that was destructive, and that doubters of a later age assert to have been wolves, for as late as 1873 these animals were troublesome along the coasts of the strait, and several persons were killed by them.
Possibly some of the sprites on Prince Edward's Island have four feet, because the mice are troublesome there. There was a plague of these little animals in the seventeenth century, and one in Pictou in 1815. They ate everything, stripping ​the fields bare; then, for lack of other provision, they starved by thousands.
Richmond Gulf, on the eastern side of Hudson Bay, was the abode of water spirits or some manner of evil creatures who vexed the waves so that they boiled and tumbled without a wind, and it was a sad thing for people in light canoes to get across those waters. At certain stages of the tide a great whirlpool was seen, and the creatures sat on the bottom, among the grinding stones, under the roaring vortex, waiting with upreached hands for the hapless canoeman who should be sucked below the sea, that they might feed on him. Before rowing through the narrow entrance the natives performed ceremonies to appease these evil ones, after which they dropped tobacco into the water, believing that the monsters would smoke it and be calmed and grateful long enough to enable the boatmen to reach shore in safety.
In some quarters the ignes fatui, or will-o'-the-wisps, are lanterns carried in the hands of spirits or demons. At Grand Falls, New Brunswick, where it is claimed that these lights have actually been seen, the Indians declare them to be the uneasy souls of dead folks who are hunting for their bodies, which they desire to occupy once more, If you would be without fear of the goblin of the Jack-o'-lantern, in French Canada, you must stop squarely in his path and ask him, "On what day of the month falls Christmas?"
​The imp answers, in the Yankee fashion, by asking, "Well, what day is it?"
And if the traveller gives the date, the imp will fly before him, but if he does not remember, it were better that he had held his peace, for he will presently be torn in pieces.