Page 20 - Stories from Visits Down North

ISSUE : Issue 25

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1980/6/1

ing, they had to come with the hayrake be? hind the last load and gather up all the hay. If a handful was left, that was awful. Well, the kids up in the school here, they were playing ball. Sometimes they'd jump over the fence or get through it or smash the poles chasing the ball, get the ball before the fellow"d make a home run. And they'd tramp the hay and spoil it and you couldn't mow it. So I just thought it might possibly be a story someone fixed up, whether they read it in the Bible, to scare the kids from going in the hay. It was the cockatrice. It was supposed to be an egg that was hatched out by a frog. Frog would come along and find this egg. Some claim it was a rooster's egg. And this frog would set on it until it hatched out. And boy, if you saw it, you were all right. But if you were going a- long and saw him looking at you first, you d die within a year. And the fellow that lived there, according to the story, this thing saw him and he died. And he was buried right on his property. So it worked out like that, helped keep those children out of the hay. The story was that there was a cockatrice there--but I never heard the story told for that reason (to keep children from the hay), but I thought it, it's just the thought that struck me, that that's why it was told. I don't really know the reason it was told. And it's in the Bible: Jeremiah, chapter 8, verse 17. I never saw anything like it. (Do you ever expect to see anything like it?) Well, I'm watching all right. I've seen the light in rotten wood. It's a scary thing. It's just old green wood. And it looks like phosphorus in the ocean when it gets damp. The dew, light dew would fall on it and it would shine right bright. And today I can't find any of it. Can find the green wood, but there's no light to it any more. But there used to be. I don't know. If you're rowing a boat in the har? bour, you'd see sparks, sparks from the oars. And they say, if you get a fresh codfish head, it'll kind of shine. I didn't see that but I've heard it said, something from the ocean. I thought it might be the droppings of the seabirds on these old stumps • that's what I thought it was. But there was lots of it years ago. And the time of the fire in '47 up at the church • we were fighting the fire, we had tanks on our backs, putting out the coals around the church. There was one piece, poured water on it, wouldn't go out. Put my hand on it • no heat. So I picked it up and put it in my pocket. Going around with it. And there were four or five said, "Your flashlight, your battery's going to be dead • your flashlight is lit in your pocket." It was just a piece of this old green wood shining in my pocket. And that's the last piece I've seen. (What happened to it finally?) I don't know what happened to it. No fire into it at all. Only phosphorus shining. Well, there's a lot of ghost stories, scared a lot of peo? ple • they wouldn't go near it. A lot of people see that, they'd take off for home. 480 King's Road at Castle Drive Sydney, Nova Scotia 1 'S' 539-6750 In One Building Three Separate Businesses Contribute to the Progress and Shopping Enjo5nnent of Baddeck and Surrounding Areas Stone's Daig Store Baddeck Home & Auto 3L y/'J 3Lr FAMILY CLOTHING Your Mini-Department Store inBaddeck N. D. Beaton, Prop.

Cape Breton's Magazine