An Odd Little Fellow
Indian Hill on the Tuscarora Reservation is a sprawling, wooded area famous for Little People sightings and psychic events of other kinds. Joe Anderson hunted there as a boy and remembers places that were outright spooky. “There were times when my dogs wouldn’t go in a certain direction, and I figured it was time to get out of there.”
An artist friend of his was painting one morning on Indian Hill when he looked up from the easel and saw one of the Little People through the undergrowth from about thirty feet away. He held his breath. The little man was like a tiny Native American, but there was something as primal about him as an animal or the tree beside him. The artist couldn’t see him closely enough to notice clothing or other particulars.
The optical conditions were queer. The exact spot in which the Jungie appeared was just a foot or so from the base of a big maple, in the slanting fall of a sunbeam. The artist moved his head as stealthily as he could, hoping for a better look, but the Jungie was invisible from other positions, even ones not blinded by foliage. Only when the man looked at him just so where the sunlight became visible in the shimmering dust motes could he see anything of him at all.
The merry little fellow stood and basked in the light, preening in its warmth, like a groundhog on its hind legs, as if he could taste every second of existence. Hewas visible for fifteen minutes before he started to fade. He may not have moved, but the beam changed its fall around him, and he was soon gone.
No wonder so few of us see them.
THE FAIRY FISHERS
Eleazar Williams was one of the great Tuscarora medicine men. It was widely said that he had good friends among the Djogao. This magical friendship has parallels in other traditions.
In Celtic legend, an acquaintance with the fairies can bestow great powers upon a lucky human. Scotsman Thomas the Rhymer or True Thomas (1220–1297) was thought gifted with prophecy and poetry due his seven-year dalliance with the fairy queen. Blind Irish harpist Anthony Raftery (1780–1835) was suspected of having midnight tutorials with the Fair Folk. Legendary King Daniel O’Donohue even joined them at the end of his life.
In Celtic tradition, the fairies disliked being seen, even by those to whom they wished well. They often communicated and even played pranks by tossing tiny flint shards nicknamed elf shot or fairy shot. One historic witness reported a gentle rain of pebbles on the roof and windows of an old house that troubled people’s sleep all night. In the morning, piles of tiny Neolithic arrowheads and chippings were found beneath the windows, suggesting that some mysterious pranksters had gathered these obscure objects and used them as projectiles. Where did the Little People—if such they were—find piles of these impossibly ancient artifacts? Maybe the fairies do know the dead. Something of the sort in both senses may be going on in Iroquois tradition.
The Sound of Pebbles Tossing
One dim night, Eleazar Williams and his young son Ted were spearfishing along the Niagara River not far from Lewiston. An eddy formed a pool a few feet from a feeder stream, creating a fine place to look for lake sturgeon. These fish could be big, and if one were taken that had a bit of roe in it, it could fetch a good price. Ithad to come in pretty close to the spearfisher, and he would have to know just when to launch.
“How are you going to see a fish?” said young Ted. It would have been hard enough to see anything under this water in full daylight.
“Just wait and you’ll learn something,” said Eleazar. “I’ve got some helpers.”
“If you catch a sturgeon on this kind of night, I’ll carry it home myself.”
“Watch what you wish for,” said the father, standing poised with raised spear. He stood that way a long time.
Ted started to notice some faint noises in the brush around them at the edge of the creek mouth. Soon, little ticks came to his hearing as though drops of rain were falling, but there was no rain, and the sound came from objects softly striking the metal point of the spear. The tone of these impacts was more like the friendly tap of little flecks of stone. It sounded exactly as though someone with an uncanny aim was tossing pebbles at the tip of the spear. The healer held his pose. Almost like the code of a ticking Geiger counter, the rhythm of the percussion changed. Eleazar made a sudden rush and a lunge into the water. The pitchfork spear came back out with a squirming, flapping critter that gleamed in the dim moonlight. It was a sturgeon! It weighed over a hundred pounds.
Ted’s father helped him carry the monster, but this event remained a curiosity in Ted’s memory to the end of his days. What or who had been throwing those tiny stones?
The 1927 dam on Caneadea Creek created Rushford Lake, a summer boating and resort community off Route 243 in Allegany County. It also flooded two tiny villages, East Rushford and Kelloggville.
Every winter, they drain the lake, aiming for an ideal depth. Once in a while they go too far, and if you’re there at just the right time, what’s left of the buildings comes into view. It has to look pretty eerie, and clearly someone agrees. Ghost Lake was filmed here in 2004. This is also hilly country. It feels strange, as you drive through it, to look for a lake.
The Boys and Girls Got Me Out . . .
(1976)
A friend of ours and her family
