The Catskill Witch

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

When the Dutch gave the name of Katzbergs to the mountains west of the

Hudson, by reason of the wild-cats and panthers that ranged there, they

obliterated the beautiful Indian Ontiora, mountains of the sky. In one

tradition of the red men these hills were bones of a monster that fed on

human beings until the Great Spirit turned it into stone as it was

floundering toward the ocean to bathe. The two lakes near the summit were
<
r /> its eyes. These peaks were the home of an Indian witch, who adjusted the

weather for the Hudson Valley with the certainty of a signal service

bureau. It was she who let out the day and night in blessed alternation,

holding back the one when the other was at large, for fear of conflict.

Old moons she cut into stars as soon as she had hung new ones in the sky,

and she was often seen perched on Round Top and North Mountain, spinning

clouds and flinging them to the winds. Woe betide the valley residents if

they showed irreverence, for then the clouds were black and heavy, and

through them she poured floods of rain and launched the lightnings,

causing disastrous freshets in the streams and blasting the wigwams of

the mockers. In a frolic humor she would take the form of a bear or deer

and lead the Indian hunters anything but a merry dance, exposing them to

tire and peril, and vanishing or assuming some terrible shape when they

had overtaken her. Sometimes she would lead them to the cloves and would

leap into the air with a mocking Ho, ho! just as they stopped with a

shudder at the brink of an abyss. Garden Rock was a spot where she was

often found, and at its foot a lake once spread. This was held in such

awe that an Indian would never wittingly pursue his quarry there; but

once a hunter lost his way and emerged from the forest at the edge of the

pond. Seeing a number of gourds in crotches of the trees he took one, but

fearing the spirit he turned to leave so quickly that he stumbled and it

fell. As it broke, a spring welled from it in such volume that the

unhappy man was gulfed in its waters, swept to the edge of Kaaterskill

clove and dashed on the rocks two hundred and sixty feet below. Nor did

the water ever cease to run, and in these times the stream born of the

witch's revenge is known as Catskill Creek.



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