The First Magician

 

I want to take you back to ancient times to a place where history, magic, and folklore

made one incredible story. I want to tell you about the first magician in recorded history,

Dedi. The time, around 2600 BC and the place, the palace of the Paroah Khufu,

although he is most known for having the Greek name Cheops.

   It was Prince Djedefhor who told his father, the great King Khufu, of the famous

magician. He told his father that magician was ancient, over 110 years old who fed

every day on 500 creed loaves, beef shoulders, and 100 beer jars. Already, the story

indicates that this is a superhuman being. The tale goes on to tell how Prince Djedefhor

sought out the magician and traveled to his village, known as Djed-Sneferu. Dedi was

honored that the prince would come and that Khufu asked for an audience with the

magician.

   When the magician arrived at the palace of the King, Khufu himself greeted him and

asked if there was truth to his magical powers. The greatest of all the feats that Dedi

was known for was that of decapitating an animal and then putting the head back on,

and the magician was prepared to do such a miracle for his king. Khufu demanded a

prisoner be sent from the nearby dungeon to the palace so he could see this miraculous

version of torn and restore. When Dedi heard that a prisoner was being taken to the

palace, he refused to do the miracle but instead asked the king to have mercy on the

prisoner and requested he be brought three animals. According to the story, it was a

goose, a bull, and some kind of waterbird.

   Dedi grabbed the goose and pulled the head off the animal and then put it right back

on and the animal was unharmed. It is said he did the same with the other beasts as

well. The king was in awe and threw a feast for the magician and for a time Dedi lived at

the palace of one of the greatest pharaohs of all time. And from that time on, Dedi

became known as the first magician ever recorded.

   This story comes to us from an ancient papyrus manuscript, the Westcar Papyrus,

which resides in Berlin. The ancient papyrus was discovered by an amateur

Egyptologist Henry Westcar and was a mystery until German Egyptologist Adolf Erman

translated it in 1885–1890. There is uncertainty about Westcar taking possession of the

scroll, and it made its way through several owners until it ended up in Berlin. How do I

feel about the veracity of the papyrus? I read a lot about the scroll, and I concur with the

experts, that this work was meant to be folklore from the beginning. Like a very good

magic trick itself, it has a lot of truth, and one or two stretchings of that truth, to bring us

a magnificent story.

   A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of seeing my friend, David Parr, tell the story

of Dedi by way of a magical effect using a sheet of paper, it was spellbinding. I asked

David if I could post his YouTube video of his performance, and he wonderfully agreed.

At the Crossroads

 

At the Crossroads

There is a stirring in my soul when I make my way down south. The land of my

ancestors. To me, it is a place of legend and lore, a place where Pentecostal snake

handlers and faith healers, will tread the same ground as voodoo and hoodoo

practitioners, what we would call “Old Time Religion”, and a place where Will O’ the

Wisps and demons roamed free and you can even meet the devil…at the crossroads. I

want to tell you a folktale, or perhaps it’s more?

Robert Johnson was an unknown in the eyes of musicians that played the juke joints

of the Delta. According to acclaimed blues man Son House, he heard Johnson play in

1930 in Robbinsville, MS. He related how Robert played and blew the harmonica and he was pretty

good with that, but he wanted to play guitar.” He then related that when Robert tried to

play the guitar, he was absolutely awful, “…such a racket you never heard!…get that

guitar away from that boy” Of course, Robert was downtrodden. And in some legends,

he disappeared, and that’s where the story gets interesting.

Robert Johnson found himself wandering aimlessly. One night, he found himself

walking in the light of the moon and he came across a crossroad. A man came to the

crossroad from a different direction than Robert and the only description of that man

was “strange.” According to the folklore, the stranger took Robert’s guitar and started

playing it and after a couple of songs he returned it to the owner. The musical covenant

was over. In 1932, Robert Johnson took to the stage, and he was a different man

altogether. He played the guitar like he was born to it and had a bluesy voice that was

almost supernatural. It was then that some people started to tell how Robert Johnson

must have sold his soul to the devil to sound so good. Like his own life, his death

became a mystery. According to one account, he was playing a juke joint at the Three

Forks Store near Greenwood, MS where he was poisoned by one of his many lady

friends, or perhaps he was murdered by the store’s owner, thinking that Johnson was

too friendly with his wife. Even the place of burial for Johnson is up to debate, for there

are three different tombstones in three different cemeteries.

Who was the strange man that he met at the crossroads? Some say it was Ol’ Scratch

or Satan himself that made the deal with Johnson. Honestly, that’s lazy storytelling. If

there is a deal to be had, it’s with the devil. But perhaps we should dig deeper into the

story and the place where it supposedly happened and when it occurred. Could it be

Satan? Or perhaps it was Papa Legba or Yoruba Eshu. Legba, is an orisha, a divine

spirit of the Yoruba region of West Africa. He is a trickster god, and he is usually seen at

the crossroads to show his duality. He is also the gatekeeper that allows humanity to

communicate with the divine and the dead.

I would like to think that it was Papa Legba that Robert Johnson met at the crossroads

and it was he that he made the deal with. Divine inspiration verses cosmic karma.

Johnson made his mark in the world as one of the best blues players in existence but

there was a price to be paid. Robert Johnson became the founding member of the

infamous 27 club upon his death. For those who don’t know, the 27 Club is club of

musicians that have died prematurely, either by suicide or other nefarious deeds. The

27 Club went into the limelight with the tragic death of Kurt Cobain and Amy

Winehouse. But most don’t realize that Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison are

also on this unfortunate list. Perhaps they made their own deal.

There is another kink in the story of the famous meeting at the crossroads, that of

Tommy Johnson. The story of Tommy Johnson runs parallel with Robert. Tommy meets

a stranger at the crossroads and then becomes a blues legend, but the similarity stops

there. Tommy died at the age of 60, having a heart attack while playing at a party. The

story about the crossroads wasn’t attributed to Tommy until 1971 when his brother,

LaDell Johnson, told the story to an author by the name of David Evans that was doing

a biography of the famous bluesman. This confusion is only cemented by the movie O

Brother, Where Art Thou by the Coen brothers in 2000. In the movie, the protagonists

meet a guitar player at the crossroads, and he gives his name as Tommy Johnson.

Whether you believe the story about Robert Johnson meeting the stranger at the

crossroads or chalk it up as American folklore, there is something to be said about the

crossroads as an archetype and a place of mythological significance. I have made a

study of the symbology of the crossroads, and I came across a definition that suits it

perfectly:

The Crossroads is the silent, humming pause before the story turns. It is the moment

when all futures are simultaneously possible and impossible, held in the fragile

suspense of a single decision. This archetype represents not just the choice itself, but

the sacred space of potential that precedes it.

 

   

   It is 4^th Century, and we are in the southern part of large island called Brittania. A British Roman citizen by the name of Silvianus has lost something. Whether he was out all-night drinking spruce beer or wine, or just visiting friends, Silvianus has lost his prized gold ring. And Silvianus thinks he knows who took it, a guy by the name of Senicianus. You would think that it is time for the constable, or whatever law enforcement they had in the Roman Fort which would become Gloucestershire. Instead, Silvianus went to a higher power, the gods. He brought a curse down on the thief, and the curse and the ring itself would become part of the history of the region and perhaps the inspiration for one of the most famous rings in literature.

   Nobody knows when the ring was found, most believe that it was found around 1785, by a farmer that was plowing a field near Silchester, which is in Hampshire. Since archaeology was in its infancy during the 18th century, much is not known about its discovery or whether it was the only item found there. Archeologists know that area was settled by the Romans about 45 AD and nearby was a large archeological discovery of an Iron Age roman fort known as Calleva Atrebatum. The ring, made of solid gold, and inscribed with the words, “SENICIANE VIVAS IIN DE”, but it is believed by many that this is a misspelled Latin phrase and should have been "VIVAS IN DEO”, which means “Seniciane Live in God”, although there have been other translations about what the inscription means.

   When the ring was stolen from Silvianus, he went to the roman temple for the Celtic god Nondens and had a curse tablet made. This small tablet was made of lead and was inscribed:

To the god Nodens. Silvianus has lost a ring; he hereby gives half of it (i.e. half of its value) to Nodens. Among those who are called Senicianius, do not allow health until he brings it to the temple of Nodens

    Again, since the archeology at the time was sketchy at best, no one knows how or when the curse tablet and the ring made its way to its current residence, The Vyne, which is a 16^th Century country estate which is in Hampshire. In 1888, the owner of The Vyne, Chaloner W. Chute published a history of the estate including a small portion on the ring and the curse tablet.

    In 1929, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, an English archeologist, was working on the site where the temple of Nodens was located, and he made a connection with the ring and the curse to the site. Wheeler was unfamiliar with the etymology of the name Nodens, so he called in for help from a professor from Oxford University. This professor, whose main specialty was Anglo-Saxon and middle English language, was J.R.R. Tolkein. It is believed that during Wheeler’s discussion about the temple the ring was also discussed. 

   It was in 1937 when Tolkien released The Hobbit, and a major fulcrum in the story is the One Ring, which is made by the Dark Lord Sauron. The Ring will then resurface in 1954 when Tolkien released The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers.  Is the Ring of Silvianus the main inspiration for the One Ring in Tolkien’s mythical literature? Perhaps. Even though we have no written evidence of this, there are many scholars who believe that these conversations with Wheeler may have been the final inspiration that Tolkien needed to complete his literary world known as Middle-Earth. I have been a huge fan of Tolkien since I was a boy, and I read The Hobbit in elementary school. The mythical land that he created was inspired from earlier fantasy work, as well as Christianity, and his own experiences in World War One. And, perhaps, at its pinnacle is an old Roman ring…and a curse.

  

Haint Blue

 

   

   It is very interesting to know what motivates me to write. It is around 6:30 in the morning and I am working out at the gym before I go to school, and a text comes up from a friend, Rhoda Rae, “Have you heard of Haint Blue?” I confess that I didn’t know, because the claiming of ignorance is the first step to a new discovery, and next thing you know, you are down a rabbit hole on the color of blue, mysticism and folklore and culture of people known as the Gullah.

   Haint Blue is very southern. It comes from the slave trade when the Gullah people used blue, usually derived from indigo, to ward off evil spirits. They would make amulets or other talismans with the dye to protect the wearer from ghost and witches, also known as a boo hags. You might be thinking that this sounds like a hoodoo thing, and you are completely right. By the 1730s, slaves working on indigo plantations mixed the blue dye, some dirt and lime into milk paint to produce a blue green that is known now as Haint Blue. This milk paint would be used on the porch ceilings to protect the home from haints (ghosts). The paint is sometimes used on window shutters as well for more protection. The mixture of the milk paint and the lime subdued the harshness of the indigo blue and transformed it into soft blue with a little green into it. It is actually quite nice.  

   There is more to the traditional way to make the color. One of the materials that is used in the milk paint is lye. Lye is used in food preservation as well as in cleaning products including soapmaking.  One of the best things about lye is that it is a great insect repellant, which would be a Godsend for a house that was on the southern east coast.

   The subject of Haint Blue would not be complete until I talked about the people who created it. The Gullahs are Black Southerners that lived in the Lowcountry area of the United States, this includes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. They are a very proud group of people who maintain a good portion of their African culture and their main language is an English-based creole, which had been influenced by the African languages sentence structure and grammar. It is also from the traditions of the Gullah people that some people put blue glass bottles into the trees surrounding their homes to protect them from evil spirits.

    According to a 2022 issue of Smithsonian magazine, indigo farming is once again live in well in the southern United States. Many artists as well as cloth makers prefer the natural color of true indigo as opposed to colors that are artificially created by chemicals.

   Haint Blue is a magnificent color with an incredible past. The process of milk paint with indigo, lime, lye, and a touch of southern history make it a staple of older homes in the region. It is now May and I am gearing up for my summer break from teaching. Guess what I’m doing. Yep, painting the house. And I have a porch. Hmmmmmmmm…..

  

Powwowing in Pennsylvania Dutch Country

 

   The Pennsylvania Dutch has been part of the history of the Americans since the 1600s. They largely originated from the Palatinate region of Germany and that is when people say “ummmmm….Pennsylvania Dutch?” Exactly. If you want to be correct on the subject, they would be called Pennsylvania German. The Pennsylvania Dutch are either monolingual English or bilingual English and the Pennsylvania Dutch language which is a mixture of various German dialects. If you want to find the old Pennsylvania Dutch people you must go to Ohio Amish Country or the Southernmost regions of Pennsylvania.

   Now that I have set you up for the story by talking about the language and the people that speak it, it is now time to talk about the witchcraft that surrounds their culture. The people known to work their magic in the area are known as Braucherei but sometimes they are also called hex workers (German Hexe, Dutch heks) hex is German for “witch or sorcerer”. In English they are called Powwowing. This occult system is mainly Christian folk magic and is known for treating aliments of both humans as well as livestock. Of course, the word powwow is borrowed from the Native Americans from the regions that spoke Narragansett and Massachusetts languages, the word itself means healer or shaman. It is believed to come from an ancient dialect of Proto-Algonquian word pawe-wa, meaning ‘he who dreams’. It is believed that the Pennsylvania Dutch borrowed the word because of the similarities between the Baraucheri and the Native American shamans. The term powwow became synonymous with the Baraucheri in the 1700s and was first published in 1820 in the famous grimoire Der Lange Verborgene Freund, or The Long Lost Friend by Johann Georg Hohman. Hohman immigrated from Germany in 1802 and was an indentured servant around Reading, Pennsylvania. He was a farmer, but he was also known as a Baraucheri and also for his work in Fraktur, which is Pennsylvania German folk art. Fraktur is fascinating, relying on hand drawing geometric designs in ink and paint to create the most amazing artworks including Taufschein, or baptismal certificate, or Vorschriften (writing samples), and also sigils that were drawn on buildings that was later known as Hex- signs.

   The powwow worker like most of the magical practices uses gestures, body movements or incantations “spells” along with material objects or substances, such as the famous Hex bottle or Witch Bottle. Sometimes these old bottles wind up in somebody’s attic for over a hundred years before they are discovered. Most of the Braucherei’s witchcraft is what is known as sympathetic magic, something similar to hoodoo, so it wouldn’t be uncommon for a copy of The Long Lost Friend to make its way into the magic of the Appalachia and the Ozarks. The Long Lost Friend was well received when it was published and it had a heck of a marketing scheme. If you owned it and you carried it on your person, you were safe from harm and if you put the book inside the walls of your house, the house was charmed as well. The book became the main authority on powwowing.

   The powwow practitioner was common up until the 1920s. In 1929 there was the York 'Witch Trial'. In which they tried to eradicate the powwowing by introducing scientific education into the region. When reporters from New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore went to York, Pennsylvania, they found the citizens steeped in “superstition”. Local officials demanded the Braucheri take a backseat to modern progress and after that, the powwow workers began to go underground. The irony is that about the time of the York ‘Witch Trial, several murders took place because people felt that they were hexed or cursed by another and took matters into their own hands.

   You can see powwowing at work in the modern day. All you have to do is go into the small towns in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. You will see signs that have some sort of geometric pattern on them. It might be a 12-pointed compass rose, or something with hearts or perhaps the Tree of Life emblazoned upon it. You will see them on barns, homes and even businesses. They are known as Hex Signs. For most, they are merely decorations, reminding them of the culture, and some are Fraktur. But for others, it is the most common embodiment of powwowing, and they are said to be “painted prayers”.

   I own a copy of The Long Lost Friend, it is an annotated by an expert on Grimoires by the name of Daniel Harms.  It is an interesting book, and I love it for its history, culture and insight on the people of the region.

  

  

  

The Edmund Fitzgerald

 

   It is November 9^th as I am writing this, and I will be up until midnight just so I can be awake and pour some whiskey for a toast to the 29 souls that lost their lives on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. I am, of course, speaking of the 50^th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Just by naming the ship, you started to hum the melody of the song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot. But let’s not talk about the song now, and let’s just settle on the history of this vessel and its sinking.

   The Edmund Fitzgerald was launched on June 7, 1958, and was named for the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which invested a goodly sum of their money in the production of iron ore. The christening was done by his wife Elizabeth Fiztgerald, and it was a bad omen from the start when it took three times for the champagne bottle to shatter and during the launch, one of the observers, a man by the name of Jennings B. Frazier, had a heart attack at the ceremony and died. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a record-breaking workhorse. The round trip from the docks where the ship was laden with taconite in the form of pellets, to the docks in Detroit, Michigan took 5 days, and the Edmund Fitzgerald could do the trip 47 times in a season.

   At the time of her sinking, the ship was captained by Ernest M. McSorley, and true to the famous ballad, “With a crew and good captain well-seasoned.” They departed Superior, Wisconsin at 2:15 pm on November 9. At 5 pm that day, she was joined by another freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, heading to Gary, Indiana. The National Weather Service (NWS) altered their forecast for the Lake Superior region at 7:00 pm, including gale warnings. At 1a.m. on the 10^th of November, the Edmund Fitzgerald reported high winds and waves around 10 feet. By 2a.m., the NWS altered it from a gale to a storm. At 3:30 pm the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald reported that they were taking on some water and that the ship had lost its radar. The Arthur M. Anderson, tried to direct the Edmound Fitzgerald to Whitefish Bay. The storm continued with winds up to 58 knots, or 67 mph. At 7:10 pm, the Arthur M. Anderson radioed the Fitzgerald and asked them how they were fairing. The captain cooly replied, “We are holding our own.” She was never heard from again.

   There are many theories of what made the ship sink. Everything from Shoaling, a rogue wave, to structural failures due to the storm. She settled in deep water and split into two pieces. For over 20 years there were multiple submarine dives to survey the wreckage. In 1995, the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians backed the expedition by co-signing a loan in the amount of $250,000, they contacted Phil Nuytten who was a deep-sea explorer and had designed an atmospheric diving suit. The contract was to retrieve the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald wreckage and replace it with a replica bell. This replica bell would have the names of the crew that lost their lives that day. There was one other task that Nuytten had to do. He had to leave a beer in the pilothouse for the dead.

         Every year on the 10^th of November, Mariners' Church in Detroit rings its bell for the 29 sailors who perished and now their solemn ceremony is a tribute to all the lives lost to the Great Lakes. Gordon Lightfoot, who wrote and recorded “the Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald” died on May 1, 2023. Later that year, on November 10^th, the bell rang 30 times. One extra for Gordon Lightfoot. The Edmund Fitzgerald is gone to history or does its ghost remain? Yes, there are some stories out there that the Fitzgerald is still trying to find its way home. A report of some freighter or fishing boats seeing a large freighter moving silently toward Whitefish Bay. One day perhaps, they will finally make it.

  

 

The Sordid History of Edgar Allen Poe’s Grave

 

   After my last issue visiting the 1980s with the death of John Belushi, I wanted to step back to my roots, the Victorian era, and talk about one of the most famous graveyards in Baltimore at Westminster Hall. This 18^th Century church and graveyard used to be the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore and is the burial site of one of the best authors in American literature, Edgar Allen Poe. He has two burial sites and four headstones, but we’ll get to that.

   Edgar Allen Poe died October 7, 1849. He was found next to a tavern in clothes that was not his own and talking deliriously, as though in an alcoholic stupor. He was then hospitalized and after several days, he perished. By being a lesser-known author at the time of his death, he died as many artists do, poor.  He was then laid to rest behind the church in an unmarked grave. Eventually a man by the name of George W Spence placed a small gravestone carved of sandstone, inscribed with the number 80. After Maria Clemm, Edgar’s mother-in-law, started talking about the lack of upkeep of Edgar’s grave in newspapers, Nielson Poe, Edgar’s cousin, took matters in his own hand.  Nielson contacted a tombstone maker by the name of Hugh Sisson in 1860. A worthy tombstone was made and was getting ready to be transported to the cemetery the following week, until disaster struck. According to a magazine that was published a few years later, Sisson told his story:

    “That tablet was finished and standing in my yard. It was to be erected in the cemetery the following week and would have been but [for] a most extraordinary accident on the Friday or Saturday preceding. My yard adjoins the tracks of the Northern Central Railroad. A freight-train ran off the track, broke down the fence, and did more or less damage to other work; but the only irreparable damage was done to Poe’s tablet. That was smashed to pieces, beyond all power of restoration”

    Only a sketch of the tombstone remains. The inscription place upon it was this: “Hic Tandem Felicis Conduntur Reliquae (translated as “Here, at last, he is happy”). Edgar Allan Poe, Obiit Oct. VII 1849. The reverse side of the stone read “Jam parce sepulto” (translated as “Spare these remains”).

    It would not be until 1875 that another monument would be started. Collections were started under the leadership of Miss Sara Sigourney Rice for this new monument but a goodly chunk of the money with come from a single Poe admirer, a Philadelphia resident by the name of George Childs. George Frederick, the famous architect who designed Baltimore City Hall, started work on the monument shortly after. After it was finished, it was found too big for the original gravesite so it would be placed in the corner of the churchyard. After the exhumation of Edgar Allen Poe as well as his wife, Virginia Clemm Poe, and his mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, they were reburied, and the monument was put in its place. The dedication of the monument took place on November 17, 1875 and was attended by Nelson Poe and Walt Whitman. Letters from H. W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, William C. Bryant and Alfred Tennyson were read, telling of Poe’s genius as a poet and author

    In 1913, a final tombstone would be installed at the original gravesite for the famous author. The benefactor of this was Orrin C. Painter. First the tombstone was placed well outside the Poe family plot, and then it was moved to a more reasonable location. But in the words of the Edgar Allen Poe Society in Baltimore, “Perhaps in part due to this confusion, but mostly because people simply love a good mystery, a strange rumor has persisted that the memorial committee failed to exhume Poe’s remains, instead moving those of some other poor soul. The improbability of this notion is obvious when one realizes that the exhumation in 1875 was supervised by George W. Spence, the man who buried Poe in 1849, and Poe’s cousin Neilson Poe, who attended the original funeral”. In the end, people are drawn to the original gravesite of Poe, with its realistic raven chiseled at the top of the stone. That’s where pennies and flowers are placed, and as for one, the Poe Toaster, will leave on Poe’s birthday, three red roses and a bottle of cognac.

    If you are visiting Baltimore, there are many things to see there. But if you can have only one day, visit the Edgar Allen Poe House Museum as well as the churchyard where the famous author is interred, which is in walking distance.