Winter Tales 2023 – The Ghost in the Mill

December is here, and so is the start of Winter Tales season! This year’s theme is Americana: ghost stories from the United States and Canada*. I’ll be sharing mostly winter-themed spooky stories on the blog from the beginning of December through Epiphany – so curl up under a blanket with a warm drink, and enjoy this yearly Christmas tradition.

Tell us a story

I’ll open the season with a story by Harriet Beecher Stowe, most famous today for her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “The Ghost in the Mill” seemed like a particularly apt opening tale, because it expresses the motivation behind this cold-weather custom so well:

In those days we had no magazines and daily papers, each reeling off a serial story. …all the multiform devices–pictorial, narrative, and poetical–which keep the mind of the present generation ablaze with excitement, had not then even an existence. There was no theatre, no opera; …no parties or balls, … and when winter came, and the sun went down at half-past four o’clock, and left the long, dark hours of evening to be provided for, the necessity of amusement became urgent. Hence, in those days, chimney-corner story-telling became an art and an accomplishment.

In this case, it’s a farmhand named Sam Lawson who expertly regales the young narrator and his brother with the tale “Come down, come down!”: the story of Captain Eb Sawin and what he experienced at old Cack Sparrock’s mill….

You can read “The Ghost in the Mill” here.

The story is told in dialect, which I usually try to avoid when sharing stories. But this is such a fun tale, and I hope it isn’t too difficult to read, even for non-native English readers.

“The Ghost in the Mill” was first published in The Atlantic, June 1870, and was later collected in Sam Lawson’s Oldtime Fireside Stories, (1872).

Enjoy!

[*]: I would have loved to include stories from Mexico too, but I didn’t find any suitable ones – my shortcoming, not Mexico’s! ↩

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Featured Image: The Old Water Mill, Meindert Hobbema (c. 1662-65). Source: New York Public Library

Do, Do tell us a story, Illustration for Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside Stories by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1886). Drawings credited to F.O.C Darley, Augustus Hoppin, and John. J. Harley. Source: Internet Archive

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A Drink from the Cup – A Pre-Winter Tale Treat

Winter Tales season is coming next week, and I’ve been spending November picking out stories to share with you. I have a theme again this year: Americana — tales from the United States and Canada.

While going over my cache of candidates, I came across one that I rather like, but doesn’t quite fit. It’s (possibly) mildly supernatural, and it takes place in winter. It’s more like a crime story, really, but doesn’t quite fit my Classic Crime series, either. But what the heck — I like it, and so I’ll share it with you now, as a sort of Black Friday treat.

Still Life Two Glasses, Albrecht Anker

  • A Drink From the Cup: A fortuneteller predicts that the protagonist will come into a great fortune — but not live long to enjoy it. The first half of the prophesy comes true; now what about the second?

“A Drink from the Cup” was published in February 1916, in the first issue of New Era Magazine, an African-American periodical. New Era was the second publishing effort by Pauline Hopkins, the former editor of Colored American Magazine, which was the first monthly periodical aimed at an African-American readership. Hopkins was also an author and journalist in her own right. Her partner on New Era was the founder of Colored American Magazine, Walter Wallace. Unfortunately, New Era only lasted two issues.

I can’t find any information about J.I. Morehead, the author of our tale; I assume they were African-American. The ethnicity of the protagonist of the story isn’t explicit.

At any rate, “A Drink from the Cup” is a light and diverting piece, and hopefully serves as an amuse-bouche for this season’s Winter Tales. Please, do enjoy!

Featured Image: A Cup, A Bowl, A Chianti Bottle, Edwin Dickinson (1911). Source: WikiArt

Still Life: Two Glasses of Red Wine, a Bottle of Wine, a Corkscrew and a Plate of Biscuits on a Tray, Albrecht Anker, date unknown. Source: WikiArt

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1950’s Darna – Valentina Amazes the Townspeople

Episode 11 of the 1950’s saga of Filipina superhero Darna versus Valentina!

Last episode, we read about the impact that Valentina made on the people of the town where she’s arrived. The impressionable townspeople believe that she might be the Virgin Mary, come down to Earth! In the rush to get a look at her, a young boy boy gets bitten by one of Valentina’s snakes. Now the townsfolk desperately try to cure him….

Darna: Story by Mars Ravelo, Art by Nestor Redondo. Original scan by Simon Santos

Click on the image to go to the translated comic as a PDF.

While translating this one, I learned about tawak, folk healers who specialize in snake bites. Even more interesting, I also learned about snake twins: that is, snakes that were allegedly born to human mothers, along with a human twin sibling! I wrote about this last post – you should go check it out, if you haven’t. It gives a little context to some of the events in this episode.

Note that this issue again credits Nestor Redondo for the art, as well as Mars Ravelo for the story.

If you want to see the (almost) complete run of the Darna vs Valentina story in Filipino, head over to the Video 48 blog.

Translation links, if you need to catch up:

I know it’s been quite a gap between Episode 10 and this episode—my apologies. There will likely be another gap until the next episode, because Winter Tales season is coming soon, and it’s time for me to start getting ready for that. But I promise, I’ll continue with this project in the new year! In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the Christmas ghost stories I have picked out for this season. I think there are some good ones!

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Stories of Snake Twins

I’ve been working on episode 11 of my Darna translation project, and I’ve come across something that’s interesting enough to post about on its own: a Filipino folk belief about snakes that seems to have greatly influenced Mars Ravelo’s creation of the villainess Valentina–The Goddess of Snakes.

Episode 11 opens with the discovery of a young boy who is dying of a poisonous snake bite. The adults immediately fetch a woman in the neighborhood named Nena, who is a tawak: a type of Filipino folk healer who treats snake bites (and other animal bites) by suction or by application of their saliva to the bite. As Nena sits down to treat the boy, this conversation happens amongst a few of the bystanders (my translation):

NenangTawak MarsRavelo
From Darna: Story by Mars Ravelo, Art by Nestor Redondo. Image source: Video 48

Woman: Nenang Tawak will cure him for sure! Everyone she’s treated for snakebite has gotten better!

Younger Man: Isn’t that the Nena who was born with a snake twin?

Old Man: Yes, she is! That’s why she’s called “Nenang Tawak!”

Whoa, whoa, whoa: a snake twin?? What is that, some kind of metaphor? I had to stop and find out, for the sake of a proper translation.

Turns out, it’s not a metaphor. Here’s a 2016 video (in Filipino) from the ABS-CBN broadcast news, about an old woman who claims that her mother gave birth to both her and a snake at the same time. She’s also a tawak (they don’t use that term, though); and at about 0:20 into the video, you can see her applying the traditional treatment to a patient (it’s marked as a dramatization).

I’ve also posted a translated transcript to the video, but here’s the summary: when Conchita Encabo (referred to as Lola Conching in the video) was born in 1915 —so she would have been about 100 or 101 at the time of this 2016 feature—her mother allegedly also gave birth to a white snake. Conchita’s father wouldn’t let her mother kill the snake, saying caring for it would bring good luck. They named the snake Wanda, and according to Lola Conching, “She had a face like a person. No hair, and her head was really smooth.” Apparently, the snake also had beautiful gray eyes. Unfortunately, Wanda was killed in a typhoon.

The news feature interviews a man who claims to have witnessed Lola Conching successfully treat a person dying from a snake bite. Conching is said to be friendly with snakes; her husband claims that even now, their house is constantly visited by snakes (good for keeping burglars away!). Conching won’t let her husband kill the visitors, claiming that they are descendants of her twin, and therefore, her “grandchildren.”

Cover of Pilipino Komiks, July 8, 1950. Features Vibora, Valentina, and Kobra on the cover.

If you’ve been reading my Darna translations, you’ll remember that Valentina, who was born with snakes on her head, is also close to snakes, can communicate with them, and was constantly surrounded by them growing up. As we’ll see, except for the snake hair, these are all characteristics associated with people who have snake twins. I wonder if Ravelo at least partially imagined Valentina as an evil counterpart to the benign tawak or kambal-ahas (“twin of a snake”) of folk belief.

Continue reading →

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1950’s Darna – Valentina as the Virgin?

Episode 10 of the 1950’s saga of Filipina superhero Darna versus Valentina!

Last episode, Valentina finally arrived at the town where Kobra sent her to “find out her truth.” The episode ended with the question:

Will people worship her beauty, like Edwardo says? Or will they flee in panic when they see the snakes on her head, as Kobra claims?

In this episode, we find out the answer to one of these questions. This is a good time to remind our readers that the Philippines of the 1950s was a very Catholic country … I probably should have expected this turn of events—but, I didn’t.

Click on the image to go to the translated comic as a PDF.

This issue again credits Mars Ravelo for the story, but does not credit Nestor Redondo for the art.

If you want to see the (almost) complete run of the Darna vs Valentina story in Filipino, head over to the Video 48 blog.

Translation links, if you need to catch up:

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1950’s Darna – Valentina Arrives in Town

Episode 9 of the 1950’s saga of Filipina superhero Darna versus Valentina!

Last episode, Valentina discovered Edwardo’s secret, and he declared his love for her. But Kobra wasn’t too happy about it, and she sends Valentina to find out whether she really fits in with the human race.

Darna: Story by Mars Ravelo. Original scan by Simon Santos.

Click on the image to go to the translated comic as a PDF.

This issue credits Mars Ravelo for the story, but does not credit Nestor Redondo for the art. This makes it likely that the illustrations here are by a replacement artist; probably the same one who did the previous issue.

If you want to see the (almost) complete run of the Darna vs Valentina story in Filipino, head over to the Video 48 blog.

Translation links, if you need to catch up:

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Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories

The Byland Abbey ghost stories are a collection of twelve supernatural tales, set in Yorkshire and written in Latin. The stories were scribbled onto the endpages of a twelfth century manuscript by an anonymous monk, probably sometime around 1400. M.R James transcribed the stories and published them as “Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories,” English Historical Review 37 (1922).

In 1924, A.J. Grant translated the stories, with the help of Dr. Alexander Hamilton Thompson from the University of Leeds, and published them in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 27 (1924). This, I assume, is the earliest published English translation of the collection.

While I had found a few other translations of the Byland Abbey stories when researching them back in 2019, this one escaped my notice, because it was not yet public domain in the U.S. Quite by chance, while researching something else, I stumbled on a transcription of Grant’s translation, along with James’s original publication of the Latin, at—of all places—GitHub!

Unfortunately, formatting and footnoting styles that work for print text do not work so well for online presentation, and fixing it requires more time than the original transcriber, David Mimno, cared to take (and who can blame them?). But I’m eccentric that way, so I forked the repository and restructured the English translations to make them more hopefully more readable online.

So, here you go: My online version of A.J. Grant’s translation of the Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories. You can also read Mimno’s original notes to the project, here.

And here are some other related goodies:

Enjoy!

Featured image: Byland Abbey. Photo by Antony McCallum. Source: Wikipedia.

Diagram from Grant, A.J., “Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories.” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol 27, 1924. Image source: David Mimno.

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1950’s Darna – The Plot Thickens

Episode 8 of the 1950’s saga of Filipina superhero Darna versus Valentina! Yes, two episodes this weekend, to make up for the long delay between episodes 6 and 7. Things are getting more complicated now!

Last episode, Valentina fell in love with the young man that she rescued, and maybe the feeling is mutual. But Kobra may not be too pleased by anything that distracts Valentina from world domination.

Darna: Story by Mars Ravelo, art (probably) by Nestor Redondo. Original scan by Simon Santos.

Click on the image to go to the translated comic as a PDF.

Note that this issue doesn’t credit Mars Ravelo and Nestor Redondo, as is usually done. This is probably a simple oversight (I forgot to include the link to the original source scan when I did the translation). I have to believe that Ravelo wrote the whole thing and wouldn’t just hand a random episode over for someone else to script.

But, on the other hand, that drawing of Edwardo on the bottom right panel of the page image above doesn’t look anything like the Edwardo we’ve seen before, or will see later. So, it’s possible that Redondo had some assistance with the art for this installment.

If you want to see the (almost) complete run of the Darna vs Valentina story in Filipino, head over to the Video 48 blog.

Translation links, if you need to catch up:

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1950’s Darna – Valentina Falls in Love

Episode 7 of the 1950’s saga of Filipina superhero Darna versus Valentina is here! In this episode, Valentina falls in love.

Last episode, Kobra coronated Valentina as the new Goddess of Snakes, and Valentina began to raise a great snake army to exterminate the human race. After planning her first attack, she discovers a man hiding in the bushes. A feverish, and handsome young man….

Darna: Story by Mars Ravelo, art by Nestor Redondo. Original scan by Simon Santos.

Click on the image to go to the translated comic as a PDF.

If you want to see the (almost) complete run of the Darna vs Valentina story in Filipino, head over to the Video 48 blog.

Translation links, if you need to catch up:

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1950’s Darna – Goddess of Snakes

Episode 6 of the 1950’s saga of Filipina superhero Darna versus Valentina is here ! In this episode, Valentina officially becomes the Goddess of Snakes !

Last episode, Valentina’s “real” mother Kobra told Valentina about the lost world of her ancestors, when snakes and great beasts (dinosaurs) ruled the earth. Kobra wants to bring that world back—and the only way to do that is to exterminate the human race !

DarnaBook06 page1
Darna: Story by Mars Ravelo, art by Nestor Redondo. Original scan by Simon Santos.

Click on the image to go to the translated comic as a PDF.

As you will see from the watermarks and the link on the bottom of the first page of the PDF, I’m using a different source for the comic scans. My original source, Comic Book Plus, did not have all the issues: episodes 6-23 were missing, out of 28 total. The remaining episodes were scanned by Simon Santos, owner (at least up to 2017, and as far as I know, still) of Video48, the last video rental shop in Manila. He most of the missing episodes to his blog several years ago. There are two missing pages in episode 13, and episode 15 is also missing.

But this is at least a smaller gap than before, and his scans of the missing episodes are higher resolution than the others – all the better to appreciate Nestor Redondo’s art.

So if you want to see the (almost) complete run of the Darna vs Valentina story in Filipino, head over to the Video 48 blog.

Translation links, if you need to catch up:

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