Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-06-27
rather than that which has already

happened.
Even extreme forms of othodox reli-
gion have adopted the same popular IAN
cies. converting the sounds into the voices
the music come up in the valley on the
wind and Mr.. Baring-Gould tells OF
Yorkshire farmer who spoke of hearing
aagel Voices sn ea tpst nydg sT sa aS
they're bound to tax bairus' souls WI
en-" But German peasants caution their
children not to listen to these sweet cries,
or ley will be carried off by the forest
spirits. The listener interprets the sound
as he pleases; it speaks to him In the IAN
guage of his own country, in the language
the Jews it is the voice of Bathkol; to the
Greeks the harp of Orpheus or the song
of the Sirens. On Dartmoor 1t is the cry
Of the Wish Hounds, driving over morass
and lonely tor; woe be to the traveller who
huntsman What sport?''
Some, hearing the mysterious voices by
the side of the narrow seas or rivers, have
interpreted them as the voice of Deaths
ferryman and his shadowy passengers
Or earthly ferrymen themselves have been
| summoned to row an invisible crew across
from one side of river to another; seeing
| no man, but feeling the boat laden and
slow to move. Sometimes the cry is Of
witches, flying to keep their Sabbath. The
strange cries that sometimes come before
storm sound to the ears of the fisherman
i ike cries Oh SplTllS. 10 quote the WOTuS OIL
an old Kentish fisherman: Il heard 'em
| one dark night last winter: They came
over our heads all of a sudden, singing,
| Eve, eve and the men in the boat
wanted to go back. 1t came on to blow
and rain soon afterwards, and was an aw-
full night, sir. And sure enough, before
morning. boat upset, and seven poor fell
| lows We're drowned" Sometimes, even
when the nature of the sounds are under
| stood, they are still given a supernatural
meaning. Then the cry of the devil bird
terror by the natives This cry Is a shock
Of a peculiarly hideous kind, and the bird
| that produces it, though famaliarly known
as the devil bird. has not really been iden-
tilted.
| Evon an English owl will produce a
| blood-curdling cry on occasional cry not
by any means fifty reproduced by the "tu-
whit tu-whoo" OF the. poets; Loneliness,
| darkness, the solemnity Of night will
change the character of any cry so that
1t may not be easily recognized. Flocks Of
shores are quite. capable of making the
most uncanny of sounds. A writer tells
us how ''he was sleeping one night under
his tent in Iceland, when he was suddenly
| trumpet sounded high aloft. He scram-
bled out of his tent and looking up saw a
| night of swans gided by the midnight
sun, against translucent green sky. Such
| a note as that might well induce belief in q
| hunter galloping by and sounding his
horn Early travellers hearing and exag-
1
cal reports, but every poacher and night
| wanderer could easily reproduce such
tales today.
There are still strange and seemingly
| unaccountable noises to be heard by those
who listen in lonely places at night Even
In cities the sounds of night are often myS-
ferrous; In quiet hamlets, open stretches of
| moorland, solitary farmsteads. they are
doubly SO. Every woodland is like q mag
Is harp, responsive to the least touch of
the wind. Sounds heard on the seashore
1aiy Ill IN, 9th
er ways. The sea is combating the pent-
up ar OF caves, or perhaps some frag-
ment of beach is falling with strangled
cry Into the water. So it is said the pent
waters of freezing lakes will give forth
an unearthly crying. Little wonder that
Isupersutious fancy has given to all these
Things a definite Interpretation, and that
from the times of primitive myth and
saga to our own, the voices of night time
have perplexed and troubled listening hui
aa Snnd tbe oriG inG mythGloges have
Western folklore does much the same
me bushmen say The wind was for
merry person; he became a bird" AS
we have seen, he may become piper with
| Vafigated garments, and pipe away the
souls Of little children: or he may become
a phantom. doomed to hunt till the Judg-
told sin. '''''''' -'A 0oi''e oii-
On Furnish coasts listeners still hear the
cries OF the tortured Tregeagle, laboring
cries are those of De Tracey. the murderer
Beckett, whose curse the Church has not
yet seen fit to raise. In the Highlands of
water fiends; In Finland there is the
strange harp of Wainamoinen. This harp,
| like that of Orphens. can charm things
animate and inanimatc. In our own land
strains of fairy music used to be heard on
summer nights; perhaps our peasants.
taught by advanced educationalists, no
longer hear these things. Did not such a
strain heguile kilmeny away from her
nome? Country folk used to hear chimes
OF buried bells rising from the earth or
coming from the sea, In spots where
churchcs had been swallowed doubtless
the sounds continue, but the imagina ton
that SO Interpreted them may have gone.
me world Is no less romantic. 10 less
mysterious. than it was formerly. but we
90 not see that In 1t which was once seen,
or near that which was heard The
change is in ourselves. Yet the old idea
OF primitive superstition cling to us, dis
Town them as We will We cannot unite
Ishake off the ghost of savage man. There
arc still depths in us not amendable OF
modern credultics or incredulitics: and il
Is at night time, in lonely and desolate
spots that such depths find voice The
Il of yitrl,t