The World of Lore

by Aaron Mahnke

  Again, though, his mind drifted back to the dream that had started it all. The dream from which he awoke with a start, a feeling of panic in his belly and a sense of dread so overwhelming it might as well have been a sack of field stones tied to his shoulders.

  His dream was one of devastation, of loss and tragedy. Half his orchard had withered and died. Half his livelihood. Half his purpose. Half his worth. Sitting there on his straw cot, covered in sweat and heavy with foreboding, he had tried to tell himself that it was all just a dream.

  But it hadn’t been, in the end. Had it?

  He and Caleb worked their way through the trees, and this time his mind wandered to Sarah. She had been the first to go, more than eighteen months before. One afternoon she had wandered over to the old graveyard, as she had done so many times before. She would read books there, and daydream there. She would recline on the old stone slabs and become lost in her thoughts and books of poetry.

  The fever had moved through her like a wildfire, and before Stuckley knew it, she had gone back to the graveyard. But she would stay there this time. No books of poetry. No daydreams. No reclining in the cool spring air. Sarah was gone and would never return.

  The trees around Stuckley and Caleb began to thin. So had his family, actually. One by one, each of the children had taken ill. Never two at once; no, that would have been too easy. One night of anguish and grief for half a dozen sons and daughters would have been hard, but bearable for most.

  But for him, the loss had been spread out. First a daughter, then a son. Then another. And another. One by one, his orchard was withering away. Fever and a heavy chest. Pale skin that looked more like bone than flesh. Each had been consumed in turn. And each death had consumed another piece of him.

  There were no more trees now. Those were behind them. Before them now lay the clearing, and then the low stone wall. But as they walked slowly across the grass, Stuckley couldn’t help but think of his wife, who lay dying back at their home. She was all he had now, and she too was slipping away.

  But he knew what to do. He knew how to help her. He learned it by listening to the trees. Each one whispered as they passed. Each child spoke the same words from behind a veil of fever and wasting. It was always the same…always the same.

  “I see her,” each of them told him. “I see her there, waiting for me. She sits on the edge of the bed and watches me. She’s come back for me.”

  And Stuckley asked them all, “Who? Who’s come for you?”

  Caleb stepped over the low stone wall first, then took the shovel from Stuckley’s hand and helped the older man climb over to join him. Of course, he had known the answer before he’d even asked.

  Sarah. She’d come back for the others. Each one admitted it. Each one believed it to be true. Each one of his children had wept with fear as the fever consumed their body, as they lay helpless in a bed, each watched over by their dead sister.

  And now she was back for his wife.

  Stuckley walked to the corner of the graveyard he knew far too well and plunged the blade of the shovel into the soil. She had always come back from here, after all. She had always ended her daydreaming and poetry reading by returning home. Why should now be any different?

  But now was different. Now this was her home. This was where she needed to be. Not in his home. Not at the bedside of his wife. Not laying waste to his orchard one sibling at a time. No, Sarah was in the graveyard, and that was where she needed to stay.

  Caleb helped him pry off the lid of the coffin, and then he walked away. Stuckley needed to do the rest on his own. She didn’t look dead. She didn’t look like a corpse more than eighteen months in the ground. She looked well rested. She looked peaceful. She looked beautiful.

  But the hunting knife in his hand was already doing its work. Her heart bled as he pulled it free from her chest. It bled as if it had just stopped beating. It bled dark, and red, and slick.

  And then he set it on fire. That’s what you do, isn’t it? When you need to cut down a tree, you burn the stump. You burn the roots. You take away its foothold in the orchard so it won’t come back again.

  He wanted nothing more than for Sarah to come back again. For all his children to come back again. But he knew it wasn’t possible. All he knew was that his wife could be saved, and so he watched the flames blacken the heart of his oldest daughter there on the stone slab where she once had reclined in the springtime sun.

  And he wept.

  NO ONE LIKES to be alone. Even introverts need to come up for air every now and then and experience human contact. Being around others has a way of calming our souls and imparting a bit of safety, if only in theory. But sometimes, even crowds of people and scores of friends can’t fight the crippling feeling that we are, in the end, isolated and alone.

  Humans have become very good at chasing away that feeling, though. When darkness threatened to cut us off from the world around us, we discovered fire, and then invented electric lights. We use technology today to help us stay connected to friends and relatives who live thousands of miles away, and yet the feeling of loneliness grows deeper every year.

  We’ve learned to harness tools to fight it, though. In ancient cultures—in the days before Facebook and even the printing press, if you can fathom that—society fought the feeling of being alone with story. Each culture developed a set of tales, a mythology and surrounding lore that filled in the cracks. These stories explained the unexplainable, filled the dark night with figures and shapes, and gave people—lonely or not—something else to talk about. Something “other.”

  Some tales were there to teach. Some preached morals through analogy. Others offered a word of warning or a lesson that would keep children safe. In the end, though, all of them did something that we couldn’t do on our own: they put us in our place. They offered perspective. It might seem like we’re at the top of the food chain, but…what if we’re not?

  From the ancient hills of Iceland and Brazil to the blacktopped streets of urban America, our fascination with “the others” has been a constant, unrelenting obsession. But while most stories only make us smile at the pure fantasy of it all, there are some that defy dismissal. They leave us with more questions than answers. And they force us to come to grips with a frightening truth: if we’re not alone in this world, then we’re also not safe.

  A LITTLE HISTORY

  In Greek mythology, we have stories of creatures that were called pygmaioi, a tribe of diminutive humans, smaller than the Greeks, who were often encountered in battle. Similar stories of pygmies have been around for thousands of years. We even have images of pygmy battles on pottery found in tombs dating back to the fifth century BCE.

  First-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder recorded that the pygmies were said to go on annual journeys from their homeland in the mountains. They would arm themselves for battle, climb onto their rams and goats, and ride down to the sea, where they would hunt the cranes that nested at the shore.

  In South America, there are tales of creatures called aluxes. A figure of Mayan mythology, an alux was said to be between three and six feet tall, hairless, and dressed in traditional Mayan clothing. Like the pukwidgies of Native American tribes, aluxes are said to be troublemakers, disrupting crops and wreaking havoc.

  According to tradition, an alux will move into the area every time a new farm is established. Mayan farmers were said to build a small two-story house in the middle of their corn fields, where the creature would live. For the first seven years, the alux would help grow the corn and patrol the fields at night. Once those seven years were up, however, it would turn on the farmers, who would seal the windows and doors on the little house to trap the creatures inside.

  The ancient Picts of the Orkney Islands, off the northeastern tip of Scotland, spoke of a creature they called the trow (or sometimes drow). Trows were small humanoid beings, described as being ugly and shy, who lived in the mounds and rock outcroppings in the surrounding woods. As in many of the other legends of sma
ll people around the world, the trows were said to be mischievous. In particular, they were said to love music. So much, in fact, that it was thought that they kidnapped musicians and took them back to their homes so that they could enjoy the music there. It was common for the people of Shetland to bless their children on Yule day each year as a way of protecting them from the trow.

  Nearby in Ireland there are tales of a similar creature, small and hairless, called the pooka. The pooka is said to stand roughly three feet tall, and like the trow, it too lives in large stone outcroppings. According to legend, these creatures can cause chaos and trouble within a community, so much so that the local people have developed traditions meant to keep them happy. In County Down, for instance, farmers still leave behind a “pooka’s share” when they harvest their crops. It’s an offering to the creatures, to keep them happy and to ward off their mischief.

  But the pooka isn’t unique to Ireland. In Cornish mythology, there’s a small, human-like creature known as the bucca, a kind of hobgoblin. Wales is home to a similar creature with a reputation as a trickster goblin. It was said to knock on doors and then disappear before the people inside opened them. And in Normandy, France, just across the English Channel, whose inhabitants share a common background with the people of Cornwall and Wales, the creature is called a pouque, and a common term for stone outcroppings and megalithic structures is pouquelée.

  Oh, and if you are a fan of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you might remember the character Puck, the clever and mischievous elf. The name Puck, it turns out, is an Anglicization of the word “pooka” or pouque.

  I’ll stop, but I think you get the point: there doesn’t seem to be a culture in the world that hasn’t invented a story about smaller people, the “others” who live on the periphery of our world. It’s not surprising, either. Many of these cultures have a deep history of invading nations, and that kind of past can cause anyone to spend a lot of time looking over their shoulder.

  These stories are deep and often allegorical. They mean something, sure, but they aren’t rooted in reality. No one has ever captured a pooka, or taken photographs of an alux stepping out of its tiny stone building. But that doesn’t mean there’s no evidence.

  In fact, there are some legends that come a lot closer to the surface than you might have thought possible. And that might not be a good thing.

  THINGS GET REAL

  The Shoshone tribe of Native Americans historically lived in what is now Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah. Their land spanned much of the countryside around the Rockies, but they also built seasonal homes high up in the mountains, sometimes ten thousand feet above sea level.

  One of the Shoshone legends is that of a tribe of tiny people known as the nimerigar. One story tells of a man who rode up a small trail into the Wind River Mountains to check on his cattle. While he was traveling the narrow path, one of these creatures stepped out and stopped him. This was his trail, the little man said, and the rancher couldn’t use it anymore. The man ignored the tiny person and continued on toward his cattle, and this angered the nimerigar. The tiny creature took aim with his bow and fired a poisonous arrow at the man’s arm. From that day on, the story goes, the rancher was never able to use his arm again.

  The nimerigar are just myth. Or, at least, that’s what most people think. But in 1932, that perception changed when two prospectors, Cecil Main and Frank Carr, found a mummy in a cave in the Pedro Mountains of Wyoming. They said it had been sitting upright on a ledge in the cave, as if it had been waiting for them.

  This mummy was small. Honestly, it was only about six inches tall in its seated position, but it appeared to have all the proportions of an adult. It had been mummified by the dry Wyoming climate. After its discovery, the mummy changed hands a number of times. Photographs were taken, as well as an X-ray, but it vanished after 1950, never to be seen again.

  In 1994, after an episode of Unsolved Mysteries asked viewers to help locate the missing mummy, a second mummy came to light. This one was a female with blond hair, but it was roughly the same size, and also from a mountain cave. This time, medical experts were able to study it, and what they discovered was shocking. It wasn’t an adult after all. It was an infant that had been born with a condition known as anencephaly, which explained the adult-like proportions of the body and head. Like the first mummy, this second one disappeared shortly after the examination, and the family who owned it vanished with it.

  Halfway around the world in Indonesia, there are stories of a small, human-like creature called the ebu gogo. Even though the name sounds a lot like a Belinda Carlisle cover band, these creatures were said to strike fear in the hearts of the neighboring tribes. According to the story, the ebu gogo had flat noses and wide mouths, and they spoke in short grunts and squawks. They were known to steal food from the local villagers, and sometimes even children. And apparently, one of these incidents in the 1800s led to an extermination.

  The Nage people of Flores, Indonesia, claim that generations ago, a group of ebu gogo stole some of their food, and the Nage chased them to a cave, where they burned them all alive—all but one pair, male and female, who managed to escape into the forest.

  The stories are full of imagination and fantasy, but in the end, they might hint at something real. In 2003, archaeologists discovered human remains in a Flores cave. The remains—dubbed Homo floresiensis—weren’t ordinary, though; they were small adults. Very small, actually, at just over three feet tall. They were nicknamed “hobbits,” if that helps you picture them.

  Small people, found in a cave, near the Nage people of Flores…it seemed like the stories were proving true. The trouble was the age of the remains. The oldest skeletons clocked in at about thirty-eight thousand years old and the youngest at about thirteen thousand. In other words, if the Nage actually had attacked a tribe of tiny people, it had happened a lot more than a handful of generations ago.

  Unless you believe them, that is. In that case, the stories hint at something darker: that the ebu gogo are real, that they might still inhabit the forests of Flores, and that, ultimately, the stories were true.

  It sounds enticing. In fact, I think anyone would be fascinated by such a notion. Unless, that is, those stories were about something in your own backyard.

  DOVER

  On the night of April 21, 1977, a man named Billy Bartlett was driving through the town of Dover, Massachusetts, with two of his friends. On Farm Street, they began to drive past a low, rough stone wall that was well known to the locals. As they did, Billy noticed movement at the edge of his vision, and turned to see something unlike anything he had ever seen before.

  It was a creature with a body the size of a child’s; long, thin limbs; elongated fingers; and an oversized, melon-shaped head. Billy claimed it was hairless and that the skin was textured. He even reported that it had large orange-colored eyes.

  Billy later sketched a picture of the thing he had seen, and then added a note to the bottom of the page: “I, Bill Bartlett, swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature.”

  A whole stack of Bibles, you say? Well, all right, then.

  Something like this probably happens every year somewhere in the world. Someone sees something weird, their mind twists their memories, and all of a sudden they think they encountered Abraham Lincoln in a hot tub. But Billy’s story had some added credibility.

  You see, just two hours after he saw whatever it was that he saw, fifteen-year-old John Baxter was walking home from his girlfriend’s house, about a mile from Farm Street. He claimed that he saw something walking down the street toward him. According to him, it was roughly the size and shape of a small child. When the figure noticed him, though, it bolted for the woods.

  John, being a highly intelligent teenager with powerful decision-making skills, decided that midnight was the perfect time to chase something strange into the woods, and so he followed it. What happened next was a literal “over the river and through the woods” chase. When B
axter finally stopped to catch his breath, though, he looked up to see that the creature was standing beside a tree just a few yards away from him—watching him.

  That’s the moment when common sense took over, and John ran for his life. Later that night he drew a sketch of what he had seen. He also told the police about it. He described a creature that had the body of a child, a large oval-shaped head, thin arms and legs, and long fingers.

  On their own, each of these sightings easily could have been dismissed by the authorities, but together they presented a powerful case. Still, any chance of their similarity being labeled a coincidence vanished less than twenty-four hours later.

  Fifteen-year-old Abby Brabham and eighteen-year-old Will Taintor were out for a drive on Springdale Avenue when they saw something at the side of the road near a bridge. It was on all fours, but both of them claimed they got a very good look at it. Each of them described the creature as hairless and child-sized, with an overly large head and long, thin limbs.

  Three separate events spanning two nights. Three unique sightings. One seemingly impossible description, each captured in eerily similar sketches. There were small discrepancies regarding the color of the creature’s eyes, but outside of that, the consistency was astounding. Each of these eyewitnesses had seen something they couldn’t explain. And each of them seemed to have observed the same thing.

  What I find most fascinating, though, is that nearly thirty years later, in 2006, The Boston Globe interviewed Billy Bartlett, and he’s never wavered from his story. He’s experienced embarrassment and ill treatment because of it over the years, of course. But though he’s now a responsible, middle-aged adult, that maturity hasn’t chased his testimony away, no matter how fantastical it might sound.