Dunderberg

: THE HUDSON AND ITS HILLS
: Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land

Dunderberg, Thunder Mountain, at the southern gate of the Hudson

Highlands, is a wooded eminence, chiefly populated by a crew of imps of

stout circumference, whose leader, the Heer, is a bulbous goblin clad in

the dress worn by Dutch colonists two centuries ago, and carrying a

speaking-trumpet, through which he bawls his orders for the blowing of

winds and the touching off of lightnings. These orders are given in Low

D
tch, and are put into execution by the imps aforesaid, who troop into

the air and tumble about in the mist, sometimes smiting the flag or

topsail of a ship to ribbons, or laying the vessel over before the wind

until she is in peril of going on beam ends. At one time a sloop passing

the Dunderberg had nearly foundered, when the crew discovered the

sugar-loaf hat of the Heer at the mast-head. None dared to climb for it,

and it was not until she had driven past Pollopel's Island--the limit of

the Heer's jurisdiction--that she righted. As she did so the little hat

spun into the air like a top, creating a vortex that drew up the

storm-clouds, and the sloop kept her way prosperously for the rest of the

voyage. The captain had nailed a horse-shoe to the mast. The Hat Rogue

of the Devil's Bridge in Switzerland must be a relative of this gamesome

sprite, for his mischief is usually of a harmless sort; but, to be on the

safe side, the Dutchmen who plied along the river lowered their peaks in

homage to the keeper of the mountain, and for years this was a common

practice. Mariners who paid this courtesy to the Heer of the Donder Berg

were never molested by his imps, though skipper Ouselsticker, of

Fishkill,--for all he had a parson on board,--was once beset by a heavy

squall, and the goblin came out of the mist and sat astraddle of his

bowsprit, seeming to guide his schooner straight toward the rocks. The

dominie chanted the song of Saint Nicolaus, and the goblin, unable to

endure either its spiritual potency or the worthy parson's singing, shot

upward like a ball and rode off on the gale, carrying with him the

nightcap of the parson's wife, which he hung on the weathercock of Esopus

steeple, forty miles away.



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