discordant noises. Once ... on a gusty November evening, when the
clouds were scudding over the moon, a hall-door had blown open
with a shrieking draft and a force that caused the floor to
tremble."

BUTTERWORTH: _Hallowe'en Reformation._

Elves, goblins, and fairies are native on American soil. The
Indians believed in evil _manitous_, some of whom were water-gods
who exacted tribute from all who passed over their lakes. Henry
Hudson and his fellow-explorers haunted as mountain-trolls the
Catskill range. Like Ossian and so many other visitors to the
Otherworld, Rip Van Winkle is lured into the strange gathering,
thinks that he passes the night there, wakes, and goes home to find
that twenty years have whitened his hair, rusted his gun, and
snatched from life many of his boon-companions.

"My gun must have cotched the rheumatix too. Now that's too bad.
Them fellows have gone and stolen my good gun, and leave me this
rusty old barrel.

"Why, is that the village of Falling Waters that I see? Why, the
place is more than twice the size it was last night--I----

"I don't know whether I am dreaming, or sleeping, or waking."

JEFFERSON: _Rip Van Winkle._

The persecution of witches, prevalent in Europe, reached this side
of the Atlantic in the seventeenth century.

"This sudden burst of wickedness and crime
Was but the common madness of the time,
When in all lands, that lie within the sound
Of Sabbath bells, a witch was burned or drowned."

LONGFELLOW: _Giles Corey of the Salem Farms._

Men and women who had enemies to accuse them of evil knowledge and
the power to cause illness in others, were hanged or pressed to
death by heavy weights. Such sicknesses they could cause by keeping
a waxen image, and sticking pins or nails into it, or melting it
before the fire. The person whom they hated would be in torture, or
would waste away like the waxen doll. Witches' power to injure and
to prophesy came from the Devil, who marked them with a
needle-prick. Such marks were sought as evidence at trials.

"Witches' eyes are coals of fire from the pit." They were attended
by black cats, owls, bats, and toads.

Iron, as being a product of fire, was a protection against them, as
against evil spirits everywhere. It had especial power when in the
shape of a horseshoe.

"This horseshoe will I nail upon the thresh