Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-05-14
A LEGEND OF THE SATTILA,
by Maurice Thompson, Author of THE
Witchery of Archery, Etc.


HOWlng with many loops anu lUntHSulc,
serpentine turns, through the luXurant
woods and vast cane-brakes of south
eastern Georgia. Even now the country
known as the Sattla region is very sparse
ly inhabited and mostly by poor people
to whom the name Cracker" has attach
ed itself Here and there, where the
swamps give place to wide areas of pine
forests turpentine plantations, socalled,
have been made by .notching and pulling
the bark from space on the bole of each
tree a process which has given a CHASTITY
glimmer to the solemn monotony of the
landscapes. BY far the larger part of the
region, however, is arjungle like maze of
all the tangling vines bewldering thick
cts, dark groves and painless cane brakes
imaginable Here the sportsman, whose
zeal and energy is sufficient to overcome
almost insurmountablei obstacles, may
find bear deer, wild turkey and small
game to the full of his desire. Not un-
frequently, too, panther will cross his
path or cry with peculiar effect in the
dim, cavern-like hollow of the matted tus-
sock-growth.
One of the strangest features of all that
wild country is the abandoned plantation
Now and again you may find it. especially
along the river, readily distinguishable
by the old ridges, wherein the cotton long
ago grew, but which now bear large trees.
The remnant of cabin is sometimes seen
and numerous other traces of long de-
parted agriculture and a vanished domes-
tic centre.
AS early in the history of Georgia as the
days when General Ogethorpe lived on
70. lola lrtrf n
were plantations set at wide intervals in
the rich bottom lands of the Sattilla. AT
what date and why they were abandoned
is not known certainly, but it appears
not to have been much later than in the
first quarter of the present century and it
could not have been on account of any
faiure'of the soils fertility.
Nearly every one of these abandoned
plantations has its legend obscurely out
lined by tradition, if one can chance to
find it, IA legend as bloody, and as pictur.
eSque rs any of medieval times. What
with the Indians, the outlaws and the
feuds, there must have been wild scenes
along the Sattilla. Ones closest scrutiny
of records and most patient chase of ira
ditiOn, however, give us nothing more
than tantalizing glimpses of horsemen in
knightly or rather brigandish array, gal
Looping through the woods, or of skulking
figures, dark, saturnine, stealthy, in the
deepest meshes of the brakes, contemplate
ing some scheme of terrible revenge.
In the course of three winters and four
summers spent in studying the natural
history of the Sattilla region, ! tried in
dustriously and in vain to find one of
these legends sufficiently continuous in
outline TO be made the subject Of a sketch.
until at last by merest chance | stumbled
upon one which, although the best pre-
served any, was absolutely formless and
yet capable of being somewhat felt as
whole. 1t was the legend of Il three edged
knife, floating, variable legend, as re.
garded such details as | could get here
and there but constant as to its general
feature | pursued it, as n detective pur-
sues clue to some criminal mystery, get.
ting IA hint from this or that or another
source, patching and piecing with what
ever dizziness | possessed until every scrap
of material was exhausted. At the end
had nothing, in fact, but something APP,
preaching fact, an elusive, amOrphus neb-
ula floating just beyond the full grasp of
my understanding.
This legend of the threeedged knife
lowered about wild spot, on the north
place, where long ago had lived a family
of French creoes who had come from Lou
isiana. The La Fleurs must have been
very rich for they opened Il grand cotton
plantation stretching for miles along the
rive. They had many slaves, and, al
than rough rambling, log cabin, they
lived in princely style.
There was the perfumed trace of a love
romance appearing at intervals in the
broken story. a beautiful girl, two low
ers, a deadly teu1 between families a ter
rible revenge wreaked by a rejected sutton,
all these thrown together III picturesque
confusion.
The bodest figure of the shadowy group
of persons bearing part in the tragedy
of the Fleur place, was that of an old
negro, who took upon himself, as it would
appear, the task of dealing out punish
ment upon those who had harmed his
young mistress, the fair maiden of the
legend, Marie La Eleur.
The three-edged knife was the one bit
of cold realism in the story albeit it was
connected with the most preposterously
preternatural exploits ever recorded in
the history of supestitiOns or invented for
the purposes OF romance. This knife was
rusty, 1t had Il crOss-hilt (the cross hilted
knife runs through all the Southern leg
ends and it had mysterious weapon in
the hand of an invisible monster whose
deeds OF ASSASSINATION had tainted the air
OF the Sattllla region ever since the de.
structlon Of LA Fleur place. The waVer-
ing outlines of the legend will not admit
OF any clearer statement, and vet | have
III my mind, just beyond the reach of de
scription, the most touching, and at TIE
oililc tllllc Illt must HOIIlDlc picture ever
conlured up by floating suggestions and
disconnected hints Sweet Marie La
Fleur ! see her face now gazing at me.
with strange, sOrrOwful eyes, from the
gloomy, moss-hung. shadowy tangles of
those weird seml-tropic groves. a word
a phrase, a sketchy Bit of the legend. let
fall by some of the many persons who
had heard Of it, had now and again shaken
into my heart, as il We're, fragrance lin
gering Undesirable, like the bouquet of
forgotten, but almost remembered loves
and joys and hopes and kisses and, alas,
despairs,
Sweet Marie La Fleur What was her
fate ! know, but cannot quite frame
the knowledge in words Her pitiful sto-
ry just evades my grasp No imagination
can realize the haunting sense of failure
(Which is just line short of success) that
worries my mind as strive to find a way
to express what elusively and tantalizing-
ly slips away from my faculties. Let it
go. Poor Marie La Fleur, vanished like
the "snOws of last year" in the old French
refrain, has left an influence as sweet rs
it is subtle in all the basky dimness of
the Sattilla forests and in all the melod-
ions Win1inpg Of the littIa riNar I