Legends and Lore
Legends and lore abound at this time of year. The days are shorter, the weather colder, and Halloween is a week away. In our time, Halloween is a fun time of year where the normal becomes paranormal, ghosts lurk around every corner, and children get to dress up and go house to house hoping for a sack full of sticky treats at the end of the night. Abandoned and run-down houses become “haunted”. Urban legends like “The Hook” and “The White Lady” begin to make the rounds again.
Centuries ago, it was not so. All Hallows Eve, or Samhain, was a night when the veils between worlds were thinner than they would be for the entire year. The dead could return to visit their loved ones or seek revenge for their deaths. Demons walked the world to steal souls and wreak havoc. These beliefs were real to the people who lived in those times, and protections against visits from these creatures on this night were strictly observed.
Rowan branches above the door provided protection from witches, jack-o-lanterns scared away ghosts, and masks confused demons so that they would seek victims elsewhere. Bells were placed over graves so that should a vampire arise, there would be a warning.
Superstitions are a world-wide phenomenon. Some have their basis in mistaken medical diagnoses; vampires and zombies were people who were mistakenly buried alive as the result of unknown diseases, so lines attached to bells above ground could be rung by someone waking up in a coffin to alert loved ones holding vigil at the grave. Others have their basis in pagan belief systems that were demonized over time.
Whatever belief systems the myths originated in, traditions remain to celebrate or commemorate them today. Halloween as we know it is not the only tradition followed, it is simply the one we grew up participating in.
This year is a little more special than most. This year, Halloween will be graced with a rare Blue Harvest Moon. This has also been called a Hunter’s Moon or a Comanche Moon and has legends of its own. This full moon will be bright, lighting up the night like a celestial spotlight. In the past, farmers have used the light from this moon to continue to work into the night, getting in the harvest before frost could damage it. Hunters could use the night to continue to track vast herds of buffalo, or other game, giving them a distinct advantage over animals whose nocturnal vision was not as acute.
In the early days of Texas settlement, emigrants feared the full moon. These were the nights when the Comanche would conduct raids on rival tribes or outlying settlements. The purposes of these raids were for supplies, horses, and captives. There are numerous reports of the Comanche Trail, over which the raiders would travel in West Texas and Mexico. The moon provided enough light that the raider’s horses could be sure-footed enough to avoid accidents on mountain and canyon trails.
In the spirit of the season, I have been asked to share a spooky story from Kosse’s past. For the faint of heart, stop reading here. For the brave…continue at your own risk and don’t blame me for the nightmares!
McLancy’s Curse
There is a dead-end gravel road on the outskirts of Kosse, TX. It meanders through dark woods and fields, the domain of copperheads, wild hogs, and the occasional deer. No one lives there now…but once there was a man named McLancy, who had a cotton plantation. Nothing remains of the buildings, only a few stately oaks mark the spot where the house once stood.
Devlin McLancy came to the area in the years before the Civil War. An Irish immigrant, he arrived in New York penniless, working his way south, and took a position as an overseer on a plantation in Tennessee. He fell in love with a daughter of the house and married her. Soon after the wedding, his new bride discovered the pure evil of the man that she had married.
You see, Devlin McLancy was not a good man. He was, in truth, controlling and abusive, completely obsessed with money and status, and not above committing murder to get what he wanted.
When his new father in law refused to turn over the reins of the plantation in Tennessee, Devlin arranged for an “accident”. Somehow a snake had found its way into the old man’s bed. He died horribly, leaving all his worldly goods to his only living child, the new Mrs. McLancy. When rumors began to circulate about the swiftness of the old man’s death so soon after the wedding, McLancy sold off the plantation and most of the slaves, taking his wife and the money to Texas.
The McLancys arrived in the area that would become Kosse around 1850. They built the plantation in a broad meadow, bordered by Bull Creek. They began raising cotton and a family. Neighbors in the area avoided the McLancy place, as he was known to shoot first and ask questions later. They whispered among themselves when he would bring the family into town for church services or to visit the shops. Mrs. McLancy did her best, but she wasn’t always able to cover the bruises.
Over the years, Devlin McLancy accumulated money, land, and slaves. One of these slaves was a woman who became a close confidant and constant companion of Mrs. McLancy. By 1861, the McLancys had five daughters. Their only son had died in infancy from yellow fever. The Civil War had barely begun, and many of the men in the area had enlisted. The McLancy women hoped that Devlin would soon follow. This was not to happen. He bought himself an exemption from service and remained on the plantation where his cruelty only grew.
McLancy would beat and berate his wife for any perceived insult. He knew to temper his “punishments” in order to protect his dubious standing in the community. After all, his neighbors would only tolerate so much when it came to his wife. The slaves were not so lucky.
Slaves often disappeared, never to be seen again. He told his wife that they had run away. Others were subjected to torture and gruesome punishments, which his wife and children were forced to watch.
By 1865, when the war ended, McLancy’s fortunes had changed. The cotton market had hit rock bottom, and the Emancipation Proclamation had freed his workforce. He had been present when it had been read from the porch of Logan Stroud’s plantation house near Mexia.
He had no intention of freeing his slaves, but word had made its way to the McLancy plantation through neighbors in Kosse. By the time he returned home his slaves were all gone, apart from his wife’s companion, a woman named Mahala.
It was evening when he returned. The full moon shone over the empty fields and created shadows everywhere. When McLancy discovered the exodus, his rage knew no bounds. He began to beat his wife as he never had before. The girls and Mahala tried to stop him, but this only turned his rage on them. Mrs. McLancy screamed at the girls to run away and never look back.
Mahala reached the fire poker and struck him a blow to the head. She grabbed Mrs. McLancy and ran for the door, the girls scrambling behind her. Unfortunately, the head injury had not incapacitated the old man, only slowed him down. He grabbed his rifle and jumped on his still saddled horse. Then he ran them down…one by one.
The light from the full moon made them easy to see as they ran through the fields, trying to reach the dark woods. As he reached each one, he tied them to his horse, making them run after him as he went after the next. Once he had captured them all, he dragged them back to the huge oak at the front of the house.
They huddled in fear, not knowing what was about to happen. Devlin McLancy went to the barn and returned with a bundle of rope. The women began to scream and beg as he fashioned six nooses and tied them to the large limb of the oak tree. He told them that since they had betrayed him and could not be trusted to be loyal only to him, they would have to die a traitor’s death.
He began with the youngest daughter. Within a short time, his family was dead…at his hands. Mahala looked at her former master with horror, finally understanding what he was. As he leveled the rifle at her chest, she began to speak.
“Devlin McLancy. You are the devil’s own son. You will never know peace in this world or any other. For the things you have done, your soul will be tied to this land forever, doomed to return every full moon.”
McLancy laughed and pulled the trigger. Then he turned the gun on himself.
On the night of a full moon, if you are brave enough to travel down that road, beware. If you reach the site of the McLancy place while the full moon rides high in the sky, you will see the antebellum mansion that stands in the meadow. If you dare to step foot into the fields surrounding it, Old Man McLancy will hunt you. If you do not escape before the moon sets, you will be trapped there for all time, never to return.
The preceding story may or may not be a work of pure fiction. I’ll leave it up to you to decide. In the meantime, Happy Halloween!!