Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms

by Bob Curran

  Such a location lies in the North Carolina woods, where it is known locally as “The Devil’s Tramping Ground.” It lies in the woodlands about 10 miles to the west of Siler City in Chatham County off a rural highway near Harper’s Crossing. The “Tramping Ground” is an area of clear ground, set in a perfect circle and measuring about 40 feet in diameter on which nothing will grow. It is tucked away in the woodlands and is said to cover an entrance from which the Devil is said to emerge from the Underworld, from time to time, in order to march back and forth while he contemplates what wickedness he can do in the world. There is supposedly an underground chamber deep beneath this patch that leads directly to the Infernal Regions and the clear area is created by the sulphurous fumes seeping up from below. That is the tradition anyway. In old times, it was said to be a worshipping place for the Cherokee Indians who worshipped some ancient creature or deity there. This entity emerged from an underground lair, though exactly how it did so is not clear. However, it had the power to rip an individual to shreds if it so chose. The grassless area in the center of the clearing is said to be the result of thousands of mocassened feet dancing in honor of their “god.”

  The site has a particularly sinister reputation, perhaps allied to the eerie creature from the depths, together with a dark history. It was from somewhere in this area that the notorious David Fanning led his attack on the Guilford Court House during the Revolutionary Wars of the mid-18th century. He was backed by a band of ruthless pro-English “Tories,” who both laid waste to and terrorized the Chatham countryside. Perhaps he is the “monster” that was said to abide in the area and is somehow connected to subterranean caverns that are said to exist there. There is, however, no real evidence, other than folkloric fable, for such caves.

  And, of course, there may be good natural reasons for the grassless area in the center of the woodland clearing, rather than being a result of the sulphurous fumes of some concealed subterranean world. There are a number of other such areas on the tops of hills scattered all through the area and known as “Balds” (for example, “Grier’s Bald,” named after the mysterious murdered Appalachian hermit—and religious fanatic—David Grier, or “Big Bald”), and some years ago the North Carolina State Museum, under its director Harry Davis, conducted a soil investigation of the area together with Dr. J.J. Stuckey, the state geologist. They concluded that the area of the Tramping Ground was sufficiently loaded with sodium chloride—salt—to prevent ordinary vegetation from thriving there. Nevertheless, stories of some sort of infernal entrance there persists in the rural folklore of the region.

  North Carolina seems to be one of the most consistent spots for entry into some underworld. At the Nantahala National Forest Reserve, part of which lies on the slopes of Whiteside Mountain, just off Highway 64 between Cashiers and Highlands, the creature concerned is known as Spearfinger, a vicious witch who is based on Cherokee folktale, and who dwells in a cave system that extends deep into Whiteside Mountain.

  The sides of the Mountain are littered with rocks, each said to be hiding various entrances to subterranean realms. The most prominent is a jutting formation on the eastern slopes of Whiteside known as The Devil’s Courthouse. A large outcropping is said to be the throne on which Satan will sit when he judges the world and claims the evil people who dwell therein. The throne itself is said to be an entrance to subterranean worlds, and it is here that Spearfinger was said to emerge. In her true form, she is a monstrous old woman with yellow-grey skin, turned slightly pale from living in the darkness, who has outlived generation after generation of Man. She is described as a giant with skin that is harder than rock itself, and so dense that it was impenetrable by either spear of axe. She took her name from a long, pointed forefinger on her right hand, which was shaped like (and as sharp as) an awl. This she used to stab individuals who had the misfortune of venturing too close to her. When on the surface, Spearfinger could be identified by a heavy, unpleasant, and sickening musk (said by the Cherokees to be the stench of the Underworld), which she could nevertheless sometimes mask in order to disguise herself. This caused her to be crawling with flies and other creeping things that were drawn by the stench. Her teeth were also said to be rock-hard and more like stalactites and stalagmites than anything else. These she used to rend her prey like an animal, tearing at the flesh with rock-hard fingernails. Legend says that she was one of an elder race who lived in the area long before the Cherokees came, but was forced underground by the coming of Man. She is the last of her kind left alive and she is seized of a terrible hatred toward humans. At times, she takes on the appearance of an old human woman and in that guise she goes about the countryside stealing children which she then eats in the underground darkness of her lair. Ancient Indian wisdom frequently states that it is advised to avoid the rocks and stone scattered across the mountainside in the Nantahala for each one may hide an entry to Spearfinger’s world, and those who investigate too closely are never seen again.

  Judaculla

  But Spearfinger is not the only legendary figure that emerges from the Underworld to haunt the region around the Nantahla. On the Chaney Fork Road, a little more than 3 miles off Highway 107, south of East Laport, lies a large stone, known locally as the Judaculla Rock, which has up until the present day presented a curious enigma for both scientists and passersby.

  The Rock, which is roughly the size of a small boulder, lies in a field on the farm of James Parker in Jackson County near the Tuckasegee River. What makes this rock so interesting is that it is inscribed with the oldest petroglyphs (markings or drawings on stone) anywhere in America and probably elsewhere—possibly more than 10,000 years old. No one is sure whether the spidery inscriptions (obviously done by some intelligence) are drawings or writings or indeed a combination of both, but nothing similar to them has been found anywhere else.

  The markings clearly invite all sorts of interpretations. Some people see fish, others see owls, some see men, and others still see a rudimentary map of the Heavens. And there also seems to be the imprint of a giant hand with seven fingers. Some old Cherokee legends state that the rock was carved by a gigantic race of creatures who had emerged from an underground kingdom, and who briefly dwelt on the surface long before the Cherokees came to that country. The name “Judaculla” is thought to be an Anglicized version of the name of a mythical Cherokee giant Tsul-Kalu, which means “His eyes are slanted,” suggesting that he had almond-shaped eyes. Judaculla’s race allegedly left the stone behind as a marker when they returned to their subterranean domain as the Cherokee began to proliferate across the land.

  Once again, various interpretations have been offered to explain the curious designs on the Rock. It is said, for example, that the drawings represent a battle between the Cherokee and the Georgian Creeks in 1775. However, others strongly disagree saying that the carvings were made long before the Revolution. Recently, a Cave Art project conducted by the University of North Carolina Office of Archaeology suggested that the designs/writing might be somewhere in the range of 4,500–5,000 years old, although this is once again disputed by others who claim that they are even older. Some commentators say that the Rock is some sort of boundary marker used by ancient men to warn others away from their hunting lands while others still declare that they are in pictograph language perhaps similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics and long forgotten by Man, carved by some subterranean civilization.

  To emphasize this latter point, there is also a deep cavern known as Judaculla’s Cave on the southwestern side of Richard Balsam Mountain (also known simply as Balsam Mountain), the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is from here that the slant-eyed giant and/or the subterranean race were said to have emerged into the surface world, and into which they returned. Indeed, there is said to be a cave system that extends under the Mountain (and all through the area), which leads to an underground world far below. Such a theory has been used to explain a number of mysterious disappearances in the countryside throughout the years. The Judaculla Rock,
then, presents both an intriguing and controversial mystery that may never be satisfactorily solved.

  Throughout the years, the Judaculla story has become entwined with other Cherokee Indian legends, and even the person of the mythical slant-eyed giant has metamorphosized into something else. In some version of the tale, he is not a humanoid figure at all, but a monstrous insect, living somewhere deep underground and only emerging at certain times of the year. In addition, the location of his lair shifts slightly, from Jackson County to the thickly forested Nantahala Gorge in Macon and Swain Counties, just off Highway 19, between Nantahala and Wesson. This is probably the most primal and spectacular scenery in all of western North Carolina, but it is also the most mysterious. The bottom of the Gorge in cloaked in dense woodland, and it is said that down there in the darkness are entrances to several subterranean worlds where terrible monsters are said to dwell. One of these, according to some traditions, is another version of Judaculla that maintains several “nests” somewhere in the forest gloom.

  It may be that the Judaculla legend has become mixed up with another Cherokee tale—that of Ulagu, the giant Yellow Jacket. Yellow Jackets are a type of Vespid (family grouping Vespidae) or stinging insect—in fact they are the smallest of such types found in North America that can actually fly. Nevertheless, some can grow quite large and can easily resemble bees or wasps. They construct large nests out of a paper-like substance known as carton, and these nests are invariably underground. Some of them can be quite extensive. Many of these Vespids have a taste for human perspiration, which they find sweet (probably due to exuded sugar content), and can therefore deliver an extremely nasty sting when feeding or when alighting on an individual.

  According to Cherokee tradition, such insects were at one time enormous, and terrorized early men with their attacks. Ulagu (the name is derived from the Cherokee word for “boss,” “chief,” or “leader”) and his “wives” are the last of these ancient insects and have—like Spearfinger and Judaculla—outlived many generations of Men. Its underground nest system is said to stretch throughout the Nantahala Gorge with many entrances down among the thick tree clusters there.

  In times past, according to Cherokee fable, the great Yellow Jacket developed a taste for small children, and would frequently swoop down to carry away infants who were sleeping in cribs or playing in front of tents or houses. The appearance of the mighty insect, with a body almost as large as a house, often shocked observers into immobility, and so Ulagu/Judaculla was able to make off with its prey unhindered. The creature flew so fast that no man could track it or see where it went; and though a number of searches were carried out, no trace of the entrances to its nest could be found. Then a Cherokee chieftain came up with an idea.

  Meat was left out in the open with a long white rope tied around it as a bait for the aerial predator. The Cherokee hunters believed that they would follow the dangling rope and so trace the beast more easily. The initial attempts, however, were fruitless, and the Yellow Jacket swiftly carried off the meat before the hunters could track it. So they increased the size of the bait—a whole deer was offered—and also put extremely long ropes around it. The giant insect returned and seized the bait, which was now so heavy that it slowed down Ulagu’s flight and made it easier to follow. The ropes dangling from the meat remained in the sight of the hunters. They pursued the creature until it disappeared into a small cave high up in the cliff face above the deepest part of the gorge. They memorized the location where the white rope had disappeared into the cliff face and returned to it later with a massive hunting party. There they found a large cave opening from which a strong breeze seemed to be blowing. This, they discovered later, was the air from the moving wings of Ulagu and his wives as they moved about their interior world. Timorously, they made their way into the cave, which seemed to stretch down for a long way, almost in several deep shafts. Suddenly they emerged in a series of incredibly high, interconnected chambers deep underground, all of which seemed to be lined with some form of thin, papery material, set in six chambered rows. The walls seemed to be teeming with massive wasp-like creatures, which paid them little attention. These were Ulagu’s “wives,” going about some unknown business. The caverns also seemed to be filled with smaller wasps—some form of offspring perhaps—which crawled on the hunters’ skin. The world around them seemed endless and filled with insects. Of Ulagu, there was no sign, and it was presumed that he had retreated deeper into the cave system. Terrified that they might be stung to death, the hunters made their way back up the tunnel to the cave above and out into the open air once more. They decided that they must rid the world of such a place, and destroy the danger by filling the caverns below with smoke.

  On the side of the gorge, they constructed a great fire—possibly the largest fire that had ever been lit in the Cherokee Nation—and sent the smoke down into the cave. From far below came an angry and confounded buzzing sound as the fire smoke overcame the insects in their cavern. Finally, says the legend, the vapors killed Ulagu, his “wives,” and many of the larger insects. However, some of the smaller insects escaped from the cave and out into the world, where they multiplied and spread. And that, according to Cherokee legend, is how wasps and yellow jackets came into our world from a terrible land far below. And the tale continues, the wasps still remember that day and, in revenge, will try to sting the humans who, they believed, murdered their great lord. For many Cherokee, the appearance of a wasp is indeed an evil omen, and all flying insects are to be avoided. Of course, in some versions of the tale, Ulagu did not die, but still lives in his subterranean world, somewhere beneath the Nantahala Gorge. Those who visit the woods around the location often comment on the numbers of stinging insects to be found there, and this has, in some eyes, given credibility to the tale.

  Throughout the years, the legend of Ulagu, the gigantic Yellow Jacket, has become intertwined in Cherokee mythology with the tale of Judaculla, the great slant-eyed giant in the Cherokee mind. Some will state that Judaculla is a massive insect, the size of a small aircraft, lying in wait in a massive cavern somewhere below the Devil’s Courthouse on the slopes of Whiteside Mountain. Others will state that he was the leader of a subterranean tribe who had lived on the surface for a time before the arrival of the Cherokee drove them underground once more. The tales are greatly confused and are sometimes contradictory, but they all share a central theme: There is something huge and monstrous lurking in some lightless world far beneath us; something which may, on occasion, visit our surface world and cause us harm.

  19

  The Green Children

  If relatively advanced civilizations lie somewhere beneath our feet, have they ever made any form of contact with us? There are some who claim that they have and, from time to time, stories of encounters with often small, otherworldly people or beings have been reported. Similarly there have, in certain remote areas, been alleged meetings with God-like individuals who claim that they originate from within our planet. However, such encounters are usually few and far between, and most are not well recorded. There is no sustained and cohesive story regarding those who have come to the surface from some subterranean land—or is there?

  In order to find such a tale, it is necessary to go far back into English history, probably to the 12th century because the story of the Green Children was recorded during the reign of King Stephen (1135–1154).

  The story, which must have been quite widespread, is recorded by two important medieval writers—Ralph of Coggeshall (Ralph was the sixth abbot of the Cistercian abbey at Coggeshall in Essex between the years 1207 and 1218) and William of Newburgh (1136–1198). It was also repeated by Roger of Wendover (d. 1236) who served for a time at Coggeshall Abbey. In its time, then, the legend of the Green Children must have been extremely common and, perhaps, there might have been an element of truth to it.

  The reign of Stephen was one of almost perpetual civil war as the king struggled for power with Matilda, daughter of Henry I, also known as the Empre
ss Maud. Nineteen turbulent years were described as a time “when Christ and his saints slept” and, as with many other such periods, it was a period of great uncertainty. While the story of the strange visitors from “St. Martin’s Land” was only one of a number of “marvels” said to have occurred during that time, it seems to have persisted throughout the ages.

  The story is a reasonably straightforward one. A number of hunters, setting traps along the edge of a forest near the hamlet of St. Mary-by-the-Wolfpits (later rendered as “Woolpit”) in Suffolk, suddenly came upon two children—a boy and a girl in their early teens—sheltering under a tree. There was nothing unusual about this, for as the conflicts raged back and forth between Stephen and Matilda, houses were burned and families were dislocated. Children wandered here and there throughout the battle zones, often looking for their parents. However, there was something unusual about these children: Their skin was bright green in color! The huntsmen were, of course, terrified and, on capturing the children, took them to a local knight whose name is given as either Richard de Colne or de Calne. Sir Richard owned the lands around and was the main benefactor of the “little church” of St. Mary’s in the hamlet beside some old pits where wolves fought for local sport.

  Supposedly a supporter of King Stephen, Sir Richard initially feared that this was some sort of trick, engineered by the followers of the Empress Maud, but the huntsmen told him a rather strange story. On the previous night there had been a storm, which had uprooted several large trees in the area; this is where the children had been found. Beneath a great oak that had been pulled from the earth was a deep hole that seemed to lead into some sort of underground cave, and it was assumed that from this, both the children had emerged. The huntsmen had attempted to question them, but they spoke an unknown tongue, and could not understand or make themselves understood. They had been offered food—a piece of cooked hare—but neither of them would touch it. The boy had attempted to eat some apples, but it made him sick. They seemed unused to the food, which the others ate, and viewed anything that they were given with great suspicion.