retold by
S. E. Schlosser
Long ago, there were a number of lonely lumberjacks working in the center of a very large forest. They cut down mammoth trees and watched them crash into the thick snow in exactly the place where they said the trees would land. They would cut up the trees and haul them hither and thither. They worked hard, Mon Dieu, very hard indeed! But they were lonely for the women they had left behind.
On New Years Day, it snowed so hard no work could be done. The men huddled in their camp and spoke longingly of their home. They passed around the rum and drank toasts to the New Year, but finally Baptiste said what they were all thinking: "I wish to go home today and see my girl!" There were murmurs of agreement, but Jean replied: "How can we go home today? There is more than two meters of snow on the road, and more snow is falling."
"Who said we were walking out of here?" asked Baptiste. "I am going to paddle out in my canoe." Now the men all knew that Baptiste had a canoe with paddles out back of the camp. Baptiste had made a pact with the devil. If the devil would make the canoe fly wherever Baptiste wished, the lumberjack would not say Mass for an entire year. However, if Baptiste did not return the canoe before dawn of the day after he used it, the devil could keep his soul. While Baptiste and his companions were in la chasse-gallerie, they could not say the name of God or fly over a church or touch any crosses, or the canoe would crash.
Many of the men refused to participate in Baptiste's New Years scheme, but he managed to find seven companions to fly with him in the canoe back to their home town to visit their women. Baptiste and his friends got into the canoe, and Baptiste said the magic words: "Acabris! Acabras! Acabram!"
When Baptiste was done binding himself to the devil, the canoe rose into the air and the men began to paddle their way through the sky to their home. Their womenfolk were so glad to see them! They celebrated long into the night, drinking and dancing. It was close to dawn when the men realized they had to return the canoe to the lumber camp by dawn or forfeit their souls. They searched for Baptiste, and found him as drunk as a lord, lying under a table at the inn. They bundled him into the canoe, spoke the magic words, and paddled away. Knowing that Baptiste would start swearing if they woke him, one of the men tied him up and gagged him so he would not speak the name of God at an inopportune moment and crash the canoe.
When Baptiste awoke, he sat up, struggling with the ropes that bound him. He managed to loosen the gag, and shouted: "Mon Dieu, why have you tied me up?"
At the name of God, the canoe took a nose-dive, plunging towards the ground. It hit the top of a large pine tree and all the men tumbled out and fell down, down into the darkness just before dawn. They were never seen again!
You can read more Canadian folktales and ghost stories in Spooky Canada by S.E. Schlosser.
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retold by
S. E. Schlosser
Now there once was a man named Jean Dubroise who never did a lick of work, but his house and his barn and his crops were still the best in the whole land. This puzzled people, since Jean had no family and no hired men to help him. No one could figure out how he managed to have the best trapping lines in winter, and have fences and barns in perfect repair at all times with no one working his farm.
Odder still were the reports of a roaring sound that came from Jean Dubroise's property late at night when good, God-fearing people should be sleeping. His neighbors started avoiding the place, and folks in town would hurry to the other side of the road rather than meet Jean when they saw him coming.
One night, Dubroise's next door neighbor, Alphonse, had a bit too much to drink. Alphonse decided that he would dare the strange noises and take a short-cut across Dubroise's land to get home. As he was weaving his way through the fields, he heard a loud roaring noise from overhead. Alphonse threw himself flat on the ground and saw a huge canoe flying over him. The canoe landed on the ground in the clearing next to Dubroise house and the Devil jumped out with a whip in his hand.
At the sight of the Devil, Alphonse gasped and rolled under some shrubs at the edge of the field. From his hiding place, he heard the Devil shout: "Come out of the canoe!" and snapped the whip at the occupants. Twenty creatures with the shaggy coats of wolves but the upright walk of men leapt from the canoe. Alphonse recognized them immediately. They were werewolves (called loup garou); men who had neglected their religious duties for so long that they had fallen under the spell of the Devil. As the loup garou began plowing and mending fences and doing all the daily chores on the farm, Dubroise came out of his front door to talk and drink with the Devil. Alphonse knew then that Dubroise had sold his lazy soul to the Devil in exchange for the werewolves' work on his farm. Alphonse lay trembling under the bushes, praying the Devil and his minions wouldn't find him. At last, the Devil and the loup garou jumped back into the flying canoe and flew away.
As soon as it was safe, Alphonse hurried to the local priest to report what he had seen. When he heard about Dubroise's evil visitors, the priest came up with a plan to rid the neighborhood of the Devil. While Dubroise was in town the next day, the priest sent Alphonse and several of the parish men to Dubroise's farm with buckets full of holy water. The men sprinkled the holy water over Dubroise's house, his outbuildings, and all of his land. Then the men hid themselves in the bushes to keep watch.
It was midnight when the Devil and the loup garou came flying to Dubroise's farm in the huge canoe. They landed in the clearing next to the house and the the Devil leapt out of the canoe. As soon as his foot touched the holy water sprinkled onto the ground, the Devil started leaping about and shrieking in pain and rage. The werewolves were frightened and fled from the canoe.
The Devil was furious. He believed that Dubroise was trying to save his soul by driving the Devil away with holy water obtained from the priest. The Devil ran to the house and pulled Dubroise right out of his bed. He dragged Jean Dubroise outside, threw him into the canoe, and flew away in a blast of fire that scorched the ground for many meters.
The men of the parish collected the werewolves and brought them to the priest. The priest pricked each one with a knife, which is the only way to turn a loup garou back into a man. The restored men fell to their knees and begged the priest to forgive them for neglecting their religous duties. From that day on, the men were faithful to their parish and never more did any fall under the Devil's spell. But Jean Dubroise was never seen again.
You can read more Canadian folktales and ghost stories in Spooky Canada by S.E. Schlosser.
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retold by
S.E. Schlosser
A fisherman from Newfoundland was having difficulty finding someone to assist him. Help was scarce, and he couldn't find a soul to hire. Then one day he saw a handsome fellow in fancy city clothes walking along the docks. This was obviously not a man looking for work, but the fisherman still called out, half in jest: "Are ye looking for some work?" To his surprise, the city-man nodded and jumped into the boat.
They agreed to split the catch into three parts, one for the city-man, one for expenses, and one for the fisherman. Then they set out in the boat. At first, the skipper caught three fish to every fish caught by the city-man. He was quite disgusted with this performance. At this rate, he would have done better fishing alone. So he said: "Am I supposed to catch all the fish for you? Why don't you catch some?"
"Well then, if it's fish your looking for," said the pesky stranger. "How about these?" He grabbed the fish gaff and smacked the port side of the vessel three times. "Come aboard, fish!" he shouted. Immediately, fish of every shape and size came leaping out of the water on the port side and flopped into the bottom of the boat. The stranger then hit the starboard side of the boat three times, and fish came hopping and flopping in from that direction until the boat was so full the skipper could barely see the stranger over the mound of fish.
"Stop or you'll drown us both!" he shouted to the city-man. Well, that pesky city-fellow held up the fish-gaff and immediately the fish stopped jumping into the boat.
The skipper eyed the catch, and then grinned in delight at the city-man. "I wish I'd brought us a spot of rum!" he cried enthusiastically. "We should celebrate this fine catch!"
"A spot of rum, coming up," said that pesky fellow. He bore a hole into the mast with a little gimlet he took from his pocket and out poured enough rum to fill a mug. Then he bore a second hole into the mast and poured himself some whiskey.
By this time, the skipper was marveling at the magic produced by the pesky city-fellow, but he wasn't about to ask how he pulled off such stupendous tricks. He was just grateful to benefit from them. He topped off his rum from the hole in the mast and then turned the boat towards shore. The stranger wanted to steer, but the skipper wasn't sure where that pesky fellow would take the boat, so he politely declined the offer and the man grinned knowingly and poured himself some more whiskey.
When they reached the docks, the two men sat down and started dividing the catch between them. "Lay out one for you, one for expenses, and one for the Devil," the pesky city-fellow said with a lazy grin. So that was what the skipper did. He made three piles, and they kept throwing the fish one at a time into a pile, chanting: "One for me, one for expenses, one for the Devil," until the entire catch was divided.
The skipper put the Devil's portion on a wooden rack - called a stage - that was used for drying fish. "Much obliged," said the pesky Fellow with a happy grin. He kicked over the stage, leapt into the sea with his portion of the catch, and the whole kit and caboodle disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The skipper shook his head a few times. Then he went back to the mast to pour himself some more rum. But both of the bore-holes had disappeared along with the pesky Fellow.
You can read more Canadian folktales and ghost stories in Spooky Canada by S.E. Schlosser.
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retold by
S.E. Schlosser
When the new priest came to the poor parish, there was no house or church for him. A farmer took him in, while the men built him a small shack in which to live. The priest, a true saint with no false pride, was happy in his new parish. But the people wanted more for their priest, so they decided to build a church. The priest was pleased with their noble idea, but troubled because the work of hauling stone was back-breaking without a horse.
One night, the Virgin Mary appeared to the priest and offered him a horse to cart the stone for the church. She told him that the horse would be wearing a sanctified bridle. If anyone took it off, the horse would disappear forever.
When the priest awoke from his dream, he heard the sound of a horse pawing the ground outside his door. Running to the window, the priest saw a horse tied to the post by the house. It was a magnificent animal, pitch black in color, tall, sleek and rippling with muscle. It had a wicked gleam in its black eyes. The bridle of which the Virgin Mary had spoken was quite plain. But when he studied it closely, it seemed to glitter in the sunlight, as if its sanctity were being tested at every moment. The priest realized at once that this horse was evil; perhaps even the devil himself!
When the workmen arrived to begin hauling stone for the new church, the priest presented them with the horse, but warned them not to remove the bridle.
"What is the name of this horse?" one man asked.
"I call him Old Nick," the priest said.
The men harnessed Old Nick to the cart and put in a regular load of stone. Old Nick went off with that load as if there were nothing in the cart. The priest, who was watching, told them not to worry about Old Nick. He could handle much heavier loads. So they sent someone to fetch a larger cart. This cart they filled with so much stone it resembled a load of hay. The stone was so heavy that the wheels cracked. Old Nick didn't even break a sweat. In the days that followed, the men hauled so much stone that the plans for the church were moved up.
One hot day when were drawing stone from the far side of the river, a man unbuckled the horse's bridle so it could take a drink. Well, Old Nick gave one great shake, and was gone like lightning, leaving harness and cart. Old Nick was racing up the road as fast as he could go, when he saw the priest, who was on his way to visit a sick man. As soon as he saw the runaway horse, the priest drew the sign of the cross in the air. Old Nick reared up and threw himself away from the holy symbol. The horse sprang onto a rock overhanging the river. Immediately, there came a thunderous noise and the rock split in two, making a cleft that was six feet wide and that lead to a deep cavern into which Old Nick disappeared.
Thereafter, the cavern by the river became known as the Devil's Hole. Any Christian who passed the Devil's Hole would find that his horse went lame or that his wheel broke or that some other misfortune befell him. Animal's avoided the Devil's Hole and any horse that went past trembled and started as if it sensed a terrible presence within. Moans and horrible screams came from the hole at night, and several times a huge black wolf was seen coming out of the cavern with flames spouting out of its mouth. Only when the priest walked passed was the Devil's Hole silent.
You can read more Canadian folktales and ghost stories in Spooky Canada by S.E. Schlosser.
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retold by
S. E. Schlosser
| Story featured in Land of the Midnight Sun, a concert band piece composed by Vince Gassi! |
Long, long ago, when the world was still new, the Inuit lived in darkness in their home in the fastness of the north. They had never heard of daylight, and when it was first explained to them by Crow, who traveled back and forth between the northlands and the south, they did not believe him.
Yet many of the younger folk were fascinated by the story of the light that gilded the lands to the south. They made Crow repeat his tales until they knew them by heart.
"Imagine how far and how long we could hunt," they told one another.
"Yes, and see the polar bear before it attacks," others agreed.
Soon the yearning for daylight was so strong that the Inuit people begged Crow to bring it to them. Crow shook his head. "I am too old," he told them. "The daylight is very far away. I can no longer go so far." But the pleadings of the people made him reconsider, and finally he agreed to make the long journey to the south.
Crow flew for many miles through the endless dark of the north. He grew weary many times, and almost turned back. But at last he saw a rim of light at the very edge of horizon and knew that the daylight was close.
Crow strained his wings and flew with all his might. Suddenly, the daylight world burst upon him with all its glory and brilliance. The endless shades of color and the many shapes and forms surrounding him made Crow stare and stare. He flapped down to a tree and rested himself, exhausted by his long journey. Above him, the sky was an endless blue, the clouds fluffy and white. Crow could not get enough of the wonderful scene.
Eventually Crow lowered his gaze and realized that he was near a village that lay beside a wide river. As he watched, a beautiful girl came to the river near the tree in which he perched. She dipped a large bucket into the icy waters of the river and then turned to make her way back to the village. Crow turned himself into a tiny speck of dust and drifted down towards the girl as she passed beneath his tree. He settled into her fur cloak and watched carefully as she returned to the snow lodge of her father, who was the chief of the village people.
It was warm and cozy inside the lodge. Crow looked around him and spotted a box that glowed around the edges. Daylight, he thought. On the floor, a little boy was playing contentedly. The speck of dust that was Crow drifted away from the girl and floated into the ear of the little boy. Immediately the child sat up and rubbed at his ear, which was irritated by the strange speck. He started to cry, and the chief, who was a doting grandfather, came running into the snow lodge to see what was wrong.
"Why are you crying?" the chief asked, kneeling beside the child.
Inside the little boy's ear, Crow whispered: "You want to play with a ball of daylight." The little boy rubbed at his ear and then repeated Crow's words.
The chief sent his daughter to the glowing box in the corner. She brought it to her father, who removed a glowing ball, tied it with a string, and gave it to the little boy. He rubbed his ear thoughtfully before taking the ball. It was full of light and shadow, color and form. The child laughed happily, tugging at the string and watching the ball bounce.
Then Crow scratched the inside of his ear again and the little boy gasped and cried.
"Don't cry, little one," said the doting grandfather anxiously. "Tell me what is wrong."
Inside the boy's ear, Crow whispered: "You want to go outside to play." The boy rubbed at his ear and then repeated Crow's words to his grandfather. Immediately, the chief lifted up the small child and carried him outside, followed by his worried mother.
As soon as they were free of the snow lodge, Crow swooped out of the child's ear and resumed his natural form. He dove toward the little boy's hand and grabbed the string from him. Then he rose up and up into the endless blue sky, the ball of daylight sailing along behind him.
In the far north, the Inuit saw a spark of light coming toward them through the darkness. It grew brighter and brighter, until they could see Crow flapping his wings as he flew toward them. The people gasped and pointed and called in delight.
The Crow dropped the ball, and it shattered upon the ground, releasing the daylight so that it exploded up and out, illuminating every dark place and chasing away every shadow. The sky grew bright and turned blue. The dark mountains took on color and light and form. The snow and ice sparkled so brightly that the Inuit had to shade their eyes.
The people laughed and cried and exclaimed over their good fortune. But Crow told them that the daylight would not last forever. He had only obtained one ball of daylight from the people of the south, and it would need to rest for six months every year to regain its strength. During that six month period, the darkness would return.
The people said: "Half a year of daylight is enough. Before you brought the daylight, we lived our whole life in darkness!" Then they thanked Crow over and over again.
To this day, the Inuit live for half a year in darkness and half a year in daylight. And they are always kind to Crow, for it was he who brought them the light.
| LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN Follow Crow on his epic journey as he attempts to bring daylight to the people of the far north in Land of the Midnight Sun, a concert band piece by Canadian composer Vince Gassi, written for and dedicated to the Inuksuk High School Band in Iqaluit, Canada.
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You can read more Canadian folktales and ghost stories in Spooky Canada by S.E. Schlosser.
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from Kaska First Nation
retold by
S.E. Schlosser
A man and his family were constantly on the move, hunting for beaver. They traveled from lake to lake, stream to stream, never staying any place long enough for it to become a home. The woman sometimes silently wished that they would find a village and settle down somewhere with their little baby, but her husband was restless, and so they kept moving.
One evening, after setting up camp on a large lake, the young mother went out to net some beaver, carrying her baby upon her back. When she had a toboggan full of beaver meat, she started back to camp. As she walked through the darkening evening, she heard the thump-thump-thump of mighty footsteps coming from somewhere behind her. She stopped; her heart pounding. She was being followed by something very large. Her hands trembled as she thought of the meat she was dragging behind her. The creature must have smelled the meat and was stalking the smell.
Afraid to turn around and alert the beast, she bent over as if to pick something off the snowy path and glanced quickly past her legs. Striding boldly through the snowy landscape was a tall, barrel-shaped, long-haired creature with huge tusks and a very long trunk. It was a tix - a mammoth - and it looked hungry. She straightened quickly and hurriedly threw the meat into the snow. Then she ran as fast as she could back to camp, dragging the toboggan behind her. Her little baby cried out fearfully, frightened by all the jostling, but she did not stop to comfort him until she was safe inside their shelter.
She told her husband at once about the terrible mammoth that had stalked her and taken the beaver meat. Her husband shook his head and told her she was dreaming. Everyone knew that the mammoth had all died away. Then he light-heartedly accused her of giving the meat away to a handsome sweetheart. She denied it resentfully, knowing that he really believed that she had carelessly overturned the toboggan and had let the meat sink beneath the icy waters of the lake.
After her husband went to set more beaver nets, she prepared the evening meal. While it was cooking over the fire, she walked all around the camp, making sure that there was an escape route through the willow-brush just in case the hungry mammoth attacked them in the night.
The husband and wife lay down to sleep next to the fire after they finished the evening meal. The husband chuckled when he saw that his wife kept her moccasins on and the baby clutched in her arms. "Expecting the mammoth to attack us?" he asked jovially. She nodded, and he laughed aloud at her. Soon he was asleep, but the woman lay awake for a long time, listening.
The wife was awakened from a light doze around midnight by the harsh sounds of the mammoth approaching. "Husband," she shouted, shaking him. He opened his eyes grumpily and demanded an explanation. She tried to tell him that the hungry mammoth was coming to eat them, but he told her she was having a nightmare and would not listen. The wife begged and pleaded and tried to drag him away with her, but he resisted and finally shouted at her to begone if she was afraid. In despair, she clutched her little child to her chest and ran away from the camp.
As she fled, she heard the harsh roar of the giant creature and the sudden shout of her husband as he came face to face with the creature. Then there was silence, and the woman knew her husband was dead. Weeping, she fled with her child, seeking a village that she had heard was nearby. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, she heard the thump-thump-thump of the creature's massive feet stomping through the snow-fields, following her trail. Occasionally, it made a wailing sound like that of a baby crying.
The woman kept jogging along, comforting her little baby as best she could. As light dawned, she saw a camp full of people who were living on the shores of an island on the lake. She crossed the icy expanse as quickly as possible and warned the people of the fierce mammoth that had killed her husband. The warriors quickly went out onto the ice and made many holes around the edges of their village, weakening the ice so that the mammoth would fall through and drown.
As evening approached, the people saw the mammoth coming toward them across the ice. When it neared their camp on the island, the creature plunged through the weakened ice. Everyone cheered, thinking that the animal had drowned. Then its large hairy head emerged out of the water and it shook its long tusks and bellowed in rage. The mammoth started walking along the bottom of the lake, brushing aside the ice with his large tusks.
The people panicked. They screamed and ran in circles, and some of them stood frozen in place, staring as the mammoth emerged from the ice and walked up onto the banks of the island. The wife of the eaten man fled with her baby, urging as many of her new-found friends as she could reach, to flee with her. But many remained behind, paralyzed with fear.
Then a boy emerged from one of the shelters, curious to know what was causing everyone to scream in fear. He wore the bladder of a moose over his head, covering his hair so that he looked bald. He was a strange lad, and was shunned by the locals. Only his grandmother knew that he was a mighty shaman with magic trousers and magic arrows that could kill any living beast.
When the boy saw the hungry, angry mammoth, he called out to his grandmother to fetch the magic trousers and the magic arrows. Donning his clothing, he shook his head until the bladder burst and his long hair fell down to his waist. Then he took his magic bow and arrows and leapt in front of the frightened people and began peppering the beast with arrows, first from one side and then the other. The mammoth roared and weaved and tried to attack the boy, but the shaman's magic was powerful, and soon the beast lay dead upon the ground.
Then those who fled from the mammoth returned to the camp, led by the poor widow and her baby. The people whose lives had been saved by the bladder-headed boy gave a cheer and gathered in excitement around the boy. In gratitude, the people made the shaman their chief and offered him two beautiful girls to be his wives, though he accepted only one of them. The widow and her baby were welcomed into the tribe, and a few months later she married a brave warrior who became close friends with the shaman-become-chief.
And from that day to this, the people have always had chiefs to lead them, and no mammoths have troubled them again.
You can read more Canadian folktales and ghost stories in Spooky Canada by S.E. Schlosser.
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retold by
S.E. Schlosser
Once a Spanish soldier married a beautiful native woman and they had two children whom the soldier loved very much. However, the soldier came from a rich family. His parents and relations disapproved of his wife and threatened to disown him unless he married a Spanish woman. Not wishing to lose his inheritance, the soldier put away his native wife and sent for a bride from Spain.
The soldier's wife was filled with a terrible, jealous rage. To revenge herself against her unfaithful husband, she drowned their two children in the river. The soldier was horrified when he heard what she had done, and tried to have her arrested. But his wife, driven insane by rage, jealousy, and guilt, escaped into the wilds. She roamed through the land, searching the waterways for her children. But she could not find them. Finally, in agony of body and mind, she drowned herself in the river too.
But the woman's spirit could not escape to heaven because of the weight of her terrible crime. And so La Llorona, the Wailing Woman, spirit still wanders the earth, wailing in guilt and grief. She is condemned forever to search in vain for her children. But she will never find them, for they are no more.
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retold by
S.E. Schlosser
After getting the lay of the land, so to speak, frontier man Bigfoot Wallace moved from Austin to San Antonio, which was considered the extreme edge of the frontier, to sign up as a Texas Ranger under Jack Hayes. In them days, Texas was as wild as the west could get. There was danger from the south from the Mexicans, danger to the wet and north from the wild frontier filled with Indians and desperados, and to the east the settlements still had problems with the Cherokee Nation. General Sam Houston himself had appointed young Captain Hays, a hero from the battle of Plum Creek, to raise a company of Rangers to defend San Antonio. Hayes had high standards for his men. They were the best fighters in the west, and they had to be, considerin’ the fact that they were often outnumbered fifty to one. A man had to have courage, good character, good riding and shooting skills and a horse worth a hundred dollars to be considered for the job. Captain Hayes knew all about Bigfoot Wallace and signed him on the spot.
So armed with Colt pistol and a Bowie knife, Texas Ranger Bigfoot Wallace once more took on the Wild West, and quickly made his mark on Texas folklore. In them days, the Rangers tended to handle stock theft at the end of the rope, so to speak, stringing up the bandits, forcing a confession out of them, and then leaving the bodies swaying in the wind to deter other outlaws. Only it didn’t work, and the bandits kept right on stealing, sometimes passing right under the bodies of their fellow outlaws to do it.
Now Bigfoot’s fellow Ranger, Creed Taylor, had a big spread lay west of San Antonio, in the cedar hills clear on the edge of Comanche territory, and he was constantly losing stock to bandits and Indian raids. The last straw came for Taylor the day famous Mexican raider and cattle thief Vidal and his gang rounded up a bunch of horses from his ranch and took them south toward Mexico. Most of the Rangers were heading north to pursue some Comanche’s out on a raid, but Taylor and a friend went immediately in pursuit of the thief, and when they bumped into Wallace just below Uvalde, he joined them.
Bigfoot was always ready to hunt horse thieves and desperados, especially those of Mexican descent, never forgetting what happened to his brother at Goliad. Bigfoot decided it was time to put an end to Vidal’s gang once and for all. He would track the wiry Mexican bandit to earth. The three men located the camp where the horse thief and his gang lay sleeping, and snuck in from downwind, so as not to alert the horses. Vidal was wanted dead or alive, so all the thieves were shot and killed in the gunfight that followed.
That was when Wallace got an idea. Obviously, hanging horse thieves hadn’t gotten the message across to the outlaws raiding the ranches of the good folk of Texas. Perhaps a more drastic example of frontier justice would do the trick. Severing Vidal’s head from his body, Bigfoot and his fellow Ranger tied the body to the saddle of the wildest mustang in the stolen herd and secured the severed head to the saddle horn so that it would bounce and flop around with every step taken by the mustang. Then Wallace gave a shout and sent the horse running away with its headless, dead rider, hoping the gruesome sight would deter future cattle thieves.
What he managed to do was frighten everyone in South Texas. Folks would be peacefully walking down the road of an evening when a terrible headless rider would gallop pass on a midnight black stallion with serape blowing in the wind and severed head bounding on the saddle horn beneath its sombrero. Nothing could deter the terrible specter – not bullets, not arrows, not spears. It was years before a posse of cowboys finally grew brave enough to bushwhack the horse and release the withered corpse from its back.
But on moonless nights, the ghost of El Muerto continues to ride across South Texas to this day with his long black serape blowing in the wind and his severed head bumping on the saddle beside him.
You can read more Texas folklore and ghost stories in Spooky Texas by S.E. Schlosser.
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retold by
S.E. Schlosser
Bigfoot Wallace was as crazy an individual as they come. He could spin a yarn better than anyone, and while he was a dangerous foe to his enemies, he was also a jovial giant, who was always on the lookout for a good laugh. What with hunting and fishing and fighting Comanches and avoiding rattlesnakes, Wallace had the time of his life in Texas. Said he wouldn’t swap Texas for the whole shooting match that was the rest of the United States.
I heard tell of one time when the Comanches raided Wallace’s cabin back LaGrange way and took all of his horses in the night ‘cept one gray mare that was stake on the other side of the house. He was so plumb mad he jumped right on the horse and gave chase. Found them Comanches eatin’ his horses torturing and eating his horses over the next hill, which made him madder than a hornet. He stopped the gray mare in a hickory grove, tied off the cuffs of his pants and shirt, and filled his clothes with so many hickory nuts he was rounder than Santy Claus and better armored than one of them old-time knights. Then he crawled through the grass until he about a hundred from the Indian camp.
Taking aim, Bigfoot shot one of the forty-two Comanches in the camp, and then stood to his full height, his massive figure much enhanced by all them hickory nuts in his clothes. Took the Comanches more than a minute to recover from the sight of him afore they attacked, shooting him over and over with their arrows. ‘Course, none of them arrows could reach Wallace through all the hickory nuts, and the Comanches ran out of ammunition mighty quick. When they saw Bigfoot still standing, they let out a whoop of terror and ran for the hills! The arrows were three inches thick on the ground when Bigfoot untied his clothes and let the rest roll out. And wouldn’t ya know there wasn’t one hickory nut that hadn’t been split open! Being an enterprising fellow, Wallace came back later with his wagon, gathered up them nuts, and took them home to feed to his pigs.
You can read more Texas folklore and ghost stories in Spooky Texas by S.E. Schlosser.
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retold by
S.E. Schlosser
Turns out, the rough and tumble life of a Texas Ranger wasn’t enough to satisfy Bigfoot Wallace. No sir! He hungered for adventure, and he found it. First he fought against Mexican General Adrian Woll's invasion of Texas in 1842, then he volunteered for the retaliatory raid across the Rio Grande. When the raid ended, he joined the Mier Expedition organized to penetrate further into Mexico. Got himself into a mess of trouble then. The Texans in the expedition were surrounded and captured by a force ten times their size. They managed to escape a short while later, but were rounded up in the desert and Santa Ana ordered a decimation of the escaped prisoners – meanin’ that one man in ten would be executed. The Mexican soldiers put a mess of beans into a covered crock -- 159 white and 17 black -- and each Texan had to draw a bean in alphabetical order, starting with the Texan officers. Anyone who got a black bean was shot, and the ones who got a white bean went to prison. ‘Course Wallace had to draw near the end of the line, not good odds. And being a rebel, he ended up with a gray bean. Lucky for him the officer in charge decided the bean was white, so he didn’t get shot with the rest. Spent a couple years afterward doing hard labor in a Mexican prison before being released.
You’d think ol’ Bigfoot would have settled down after that last episode, but not him. He joined the other Texans in the Mexican-American War and fought with gusto, since he had so many scores to settle with the Mexicans who’d killed his brother and treated him so bad. At one point, he came face-to-face with that ornery coyote who held the crock from which the Texas Prisoners had drawn the white and black beans. Unfortunately, he was under a white surrender flag at the time, but it still took several fellows to restrain Wallace from shooting the man.
You can read more Texas folklore and ghost stories in Spooky Texas by S.E. Schlosser.
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S.E. Schlosser
Bigfoot Wallace – that wild and wacky Texas Ranger -- returned to the wilds of frontier life once the United States won the war with Mexico, and it suited him as nothing else could do. Soon he was freighting mail six hundred miles from San Antonio to El Paso, and it was the wildest stretch in the Wild West! Wallace was the only man who could do it. Anyone else who tried was scared off by attacking Comanche and Apache warriors or killed outright. It took a month of hard riding to make the trip, which ran right through the old Comanche Trail. Indians and Army soldiers all knew him as a reckless, fearless man. Any warrior who killed or wounded “Captain Wallacky” was sure of a heroes welcome in his tribe. But none ever succeeded, though there were times that Wallace would ride into an Army outpost with his mail coach so shot up he had to lie over for a few days to repair it.
When he wasn’t running the mail, Bigfoot still worked with the Texas Rangers, taming the untamable and keeping the peace. Took him another twenty years of busting desperados and dodging Indians before he decided to retire. Wallace lived out the rest of his days in the company of his good friends, the Bramlette family, and as an old man he lived with their daughter Fran and her husband, Doc Cochran, telling tales of his frontier exploits and and outwitting the antics of Fran’s very active boys.
Bigfoot Wallace died in 1899 and his final resting place was the State Cemetery in Austin. But the stories of his exploits live on to this day, and somewhere on the road to El Paso, the spirit of El Muerto still rides.
You can read more Texas folklore and ghost stories in Spooky Texas by S.E. Schlosser.
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S.E. Schlosser
Well now, Bigfoot Wallace was jest about the roughest, toughest Texas Ranger that ever rode west of the Pecos. Came to Texas bent on avenging the death of a brother and cousin who’d been massacred at Goliad by Santa Ana’s army, but by the time he got here the Revolution was won and Texas was a Republic. He might’ve gone home then, but Wallace discovered Texas was a hunter’s paradise, so he made his way to the extreme edge of the frontier, where he hunted the abundant game that he sold to the settlements.
Wallace soon learned that Austin was the place to be if you wanted to earn some good money. So he packed up and went north to Austin, which was the new capital of the Republic. Seems there was plenty of work with high wages for a man who could do construction, and Bigfoot was an expert with a broad-ax. Earned himself two hundred bucks a month plus board hewing logs for the buildings being put up along Congress Ave. Bigfoot partnered up with a fellow named Leggett who was as brave and crazy as he was. They head out into hostile Indian territory to get cedar and other lumber, and then they’d raft down to town. The native tribesmen in that area were so fierce most folks refused to leave the settlement, and forty men were killed in the short time Wallace lived there.
It was during this time that Wallace earned himself a nickname. There was a bloodthirsty Waco warrior living in the area, who stood six foot eight inches in his moccasin feet and weighed over three hundred pounds. Folks called him Chief Bigfoot because his moccasin tracks measured over fourteen inches in length with the right toe protruding from the moccasin. He’d been terrorizing the settlement for nearly twenty years, raiding the good people’s homes, stealing horses and killing any soul he encountered.
Well, one fine day Wallace’s neighbor came home to find his kitchen a mess and large moccasin tracks leading from his house next door to Wallace’s place that he shared with William Fox. Fellow came running over to accuse Wallace of entering his cabin since he knew the hunter always wore moccasins. Wallace had to drag the old coot over to the nearest tracks and put his much smaller moccasin foot inside the track before the feller would believe he hadn’t gone inside his cabin. William Fox was so amused by the incident he started calling Wallace “Bigfoot”, and the name stuck.
Sad to say, it was that same Waco chief who killed and scalped Fox a year later. Bigfoot Wallace tracked down Chief Bigfoot and shot him, but somehow the warrior survived. It was Westfall, a great friend of Bigfoot’s who managed to kill the huge chief in a ferocious hand-to-hand combat on the Llano.
You can read more Texas folklore and ghost stories in Spooky Texas by S.E. Schlosser.
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S.E. Schlosser
We didn't believe in ghosts, so when the fellow checking us in warned us that our room on the sixth floor was haunted, we just laughed. There were a lot of crazy people out there who believed in ghosts and wanted to stay in a haunted hotel, but Marie and I weren't two of them. I'd chosen the Mizpah for our weekend getaway because I'd like the description of the hotel and it amenities, not because it had a phantom.
Just for kicks, Marie asked the fellow who was supposed to haunt our room. He told us that it was a ghost called "The Lady in Red". She was a prostitute who was strangled by a jealous boyfriend and her tormented spirit still lingered in the hotel. She was said to follow guests around, and to play with the gaming equipment in the casino.
"A gambling ghost?" I asked laughingly. The boy glared at me, and I was sorry for making a joke about something he obviously believed in. We said a hasty good-night and went up to the sixth floor.
As we neared our room, Marie gasped and grabbed my arm. I stopped and looked at her. She pointed, wide-eyed, toward the far end of the hallway. Before our eyes, the glowing figure of a woman came hurrying toward us. I shivered superstitiously, my skin prickling in the sudden cold as she rushed passed us and walked right through the wall next to our room.
"Good lord, there really is a ghost in our room!" I gasped.
"I am not going in there," Marie said firmly. Her face was pale and her black eyes were wide with fear. "No way."
I didn't much feel like going in there either, but we had gotten a special deal for two nights, paid in advance and non-refundable. I didn't want to waste our money. In the end, I wrenched open the door, turned on the light, and investigated every corner, looking for the Lady in Red. She was gone.
Marie absolutely refused to set foot in the haunted room. In the end, I had to go down to the desk and request a room on another floor. The boy didn't say much when I told him we had seen the Lady in Red, but he gave me a know-it-all smirk that made me want to smack him, and assigned us to a room on another floor. Marie barely got a wink of sleep that night. She kept waking up, afraid that the Lady in Red would come walking through the wall and do terrible things to us. We were up at dawn and had checked out of the Mizpah by breakfast time the next day.
From that day on, Marie always booked our hotels, and she always made sure that there were no ghosts anywhere on the premises before she made a reservation.
You can read more spooky Nevada ghost stories in Spooky Southwest by S.E. Schlosser.
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