Southmountain magic Author:Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. SOUTH-MOUNTAIN TRADITIONS. — THE INDIAN. A ND now adieu to the fanciful romance that -- invests South-Mountain-House with the charm of the uns... more »een. We may almost say a sad farewell to the exaltation of the imagination with which we love to welcome the beautiful nature surrounding us, for our theme must now be of the savage, of spooks, and of sorcery. If, as we have seen, South-Mountain-House has its traditions, these are of gentle nature compared with all around it; for South Mountain itself is steeped in an atmosphere of superstition from base to summit. These practices and idle fancies are so manifold, curious, hideous, and absurd, that we are puzzled how to unravel the labyrinthine threads of such a maze. We find, the more we inquire, however, vestiges of the various superstitions of other countries;although the shape they have taken here seems to be of growth indigenous to the Mountain. It is, indeed, well known to all who have investigated the history of the world's belief in similar subjects, that under innumerous forms the manifestations of the curious and the mysterious have appeared in all countries and been handed down throughout the ages. The most astounding exhibitions probably occur in the vast and dreamy Orient, where for thousands of years man has theorized unassisted by revelation. There he revels in the wonders of magic. The West then introduced in the pagan systems of the Greeks and Romans so many forms of divination, that these became a religious creed by which to guide conduct. After the oracular voices were stilled by the coming of the Redeemer, faint echoes still lingered among the nations, and the Scandinavian, the Saxon, the Teuton, the Gaul handed down the gross admixture to the Northman, the German, the Scotch, the Irish, ...« less