Lousiana Legends 3

Behind Every Legend lies the Truth

Here is the final scene from chapter one from The Legend of Ghost Dog Island. As promised. I will continue to post excerpts from this book until November, when book two, The Curse at Pirate's Cove will be released from Musa Publishing.

I hurried to the kitchen window. I didn’t see no moon. Why, it wasn’t even dark yet. All I saw was willow branches blowing in the breeze. If that was a dog, it was the weirdest sounding one I’d ever heard. “But, Mama…”

She gave me a hard stare like she didn’t want to talk any more about it in front of Jesse. I traipsed to my tiny bedroom, with Snooper at my heels, to wait for Papa to get home. I couldn’t wait to tell him about the sound. I plopped down on my small bed, which fit snugly against the wall. “Ouch.” I reached behind me and pulled the bottle from my back pocket. I turned it over in my hands, then shook it. There was something inside. Probably mud. I tried twisting the cap, but it was rusted shut. “I’ll get the top off and clean it out later,” I assured Snoop.

I lay back holding the bottle in my hand, pondering on where it might have come from. My dog jumped onto the bed and put his head on my chest.

Propping my dirty bare feet against the wall, I began tracing the faded flower design on the dingy wallpaper with my big toe. I closed my eyes and imagined someone from long, long ago putting a letter in a blue bottle and tossing it into the water. I’d read someplace that people used to do that in ancient times. Maybe there was a note inside…

RAP RAP RAP. I jumped at the sound against my door. I must have drifted off to sleep.

“Tadpole! You need to get in here and eat supper.” Papa was home.

Papa usually called me Tadpole, unless he was being serious. He said when I was born I didn’t amount to nothing more than a tadpole. I sometimes wondered if I ever would.

I sat at the table to Mama’s hot biscuits and cane syrup.

“We’re eating light tonight.” Mama wiped sticky syrup from my brother’s face and hands. “I’ll need to get some groceries so I can cook a proper meal.”

I reached across the table toward the pan of biscuits.

“Nikki, go clean up before you eat.” Mama waved her hand at me. “You’ve got mud all over you.” She looked me up and down. “And how am I ever going to wash those pants if you have them on all the time?”

I rubbed my hand across the front of my overalls. “They don’t look that dirty.” I scraped my chair back and went to the small wash tub Mama kept near the door so we wouldn’t bring all that bayou mud in the house, like it ever did much good anyway.

After scrubbing the mud off my hands and arms, I went back to the table and tucked in my chair. I poured some syrup onto my plate and swirled my warm, crunchy biscuit through it. “You gonna put your lines out in that big lake past them islands?” I glanced up at Papa as he sat quietly sipping his coffee.

His scarred hands looked real big and strong around the tiny chipped cup. His pale blue eyes seemed out of place against his black hair and dark skin. I always wished I’d gotten blue eyes instead of brown like Mama’s.

“Yup. That there’s Flat Lake,” he said. “This side of the islands is called Bayou Platte.”

“We heard a really weird sound out near that big island earlier.” I stuffed a piece of biscuit in my mouth.

Jesse stopped eating and watched Papa’s face.

Papa set his cup down. “Weird sound, huh?”

“Yeah, like a dog howling, but scarier.” I opened my eyes wide. “Right, Mama?”

“Howing,” Jesse said with a mouthful of food.

Mama smoothed my brother’s curly hair. “It could have been a wild dog. But I’ve got to agree, it did have an eerie yowl about him.”

“I thought I saw something out there on that big island,” I said. “It was mor’n likely just a critter, but I had a creepy feeling about it, like it was watching me.”

Papa rubbed his chin and got a twinkle in his eye, like he did when he was fixing to tell one of his swamp stories.

Mama stood up and lifted my brother from his chair. “Let’s get you ready for bed.” She gave Papa one of her warning looks and disappeared into the back of the houseboat toward their bedroom.

The entire houseboat only had three rooms. Jesse had been sleeping in a cot in my parents’ room since he was born. I kept hoping they wouldn’t decide to move him in with me. I liked having my own space.

Mama closed the door behind her. She knew once Papa got going on one of his tales, there was no stopping him.

The last traces of daylight seemed to disappear in a hurry, as if Papa had ordered it away. The glass globe of the kerosene lamp clinked. He touched a match to the wick and adjusted the flame until it filled the room with pale light and gray shadows. He motioned me to sit next to him on the worn sofa.

I hurried to his side, not knowing what spooky legend he was going to tell this time. But as scared as I’d get, I always enjoyed hearing ’em.

“Mais, there’s a legend told around these parts.” That was how they always started out. He leaned down so the light from the lamp made eerie shadows across his face.

I rolled my eyes, determined not to get spooked this time.

“Folks say there’s something living out yonder,” he went on. “Legend has it the monster lures dogs to the island using evil spells. Then at the peak of the full moon, they’re turned into hollow spirits with glowing eyes.” Papa put on his eeriest sneer. “That there’s Ghost Dog Island.”

“Ghost dogs?” I pulled my knees up against my chest and wrapped my arms around ’em tight. My mind conjured up images of a huge monster with drippy fangs and dogs with bright yellow eyes. I thought about the feeling I had of something watching us. Was there really a creature out there? Did it have its eye on my best buddy? I shuddered.

IEEEOWWWOOOO-oooooooo! The howling sound echoed again across the bayou.

Did it capture someone’s pet? Or was it signaling its claim on a new victim? My Snoop.

Is Snooper in Danger? What will Nikki do to find out if the legend is true? Stop back next Monday for excerpts from chapter two, A Swamper's Life. Read from the beginning in my previous posts.

Louisiana Legends 2

Leading up to my second anniversary of the Legend of Ghost Dog Island, and the release date of The Curse at Pirate's Cove, in November....as promised...the second scene from The Legend of Ghost Dog Island.  Read my previous post, for scene one.

 

As the propeller stirred up smells of rotted seaweed and dead fish, I stared out into the swamp. A cypress tree all draped in silver moss stared back at me like a crooked old woman dipping her hair into the muddy bayou. Its twisted limbs reached out to me. I shuddered.

Papa loved telling legends about those swamps…and what might be living out there. I was pretty sure most were just old Cajun stories with no truth to ’em at all. But they sure could give you the willies.

“What do you suppose lives up in that swamp, Snoop?”

He opened one eye. It took a lot to rile that beagle. He was the laziest hunting dog there ever was.

But, everything looked pretty ordinary to me. A white egret stood in the tall grass holding a small fish. Its dinner squirmed to get free. The high-pitched song of cicadas rang through the trees. A gray snake with brown blotches slithered off the bank and zig-zagged toward the boat.

I jerked my feet up under me.

A huge alligator blinked his bulging eyes sideways at us from a half-sunk log, the gray mud on his back all dried and cracked from the hot sun.

“Look at the size of that thing, Snooper. It could gobble you up before you could let out a yelp.”

Snooper shook his head, flopping his ears, as if he understood.

The swamp to the north began to break up into islands. I pointed to a large lake in the distance. “Look at all that water. You can hardly see the other side.”

Then a strange feeling crept over me, like something was watching me. I darted my gaze toward the big island up ahead of us. The branch of a palmetto bush sprang up, kinda like somebody had been holding it down.

“Did you see that, boy?”

My dog sat up straight and mustered a low growl.

“Maybe it’s the Rugarou,” I whispered and rubbed the creep bumps off my arm.

That legend had been used to get Cajun children to mind their parents since before my great grandpa was a kid. But I was getting too old to believe in that werewolf tale anymore.

“Probably just a squirrel.” I stroked the hair on Snooper’s back. “We’ll be past that island shortly, anyway.”

But as we got closer, the houseboat took a sudden turn south, into a narrow inlet on the mainland, and pulled up to a ragged pier.

I glanced around. “I guess this is home.” A small shack sat back a-ways into the trees to the right. Didn’t look like anybody’d lived there for a while. On the left, a small house with a big, screened-in back porch sat real close to the bayou, with a fishing boat tied up to a small dock. Straight ahead, a dirt levee followed the edge of the bayou. It stood like a snaky wall between the bayou folks and the city folks, so the water would stay on our side, where it belonged.

 

“Bonsoir, Jacques!” A man with baggy dungarees and a stained T-shirt waved to Papa from the muddy bank. His mop of black hair looked as if it’d never been combed, and his scraggly beard hung down to his chest.

I leaned over the deck rail to watch Papa and him slosh in and out of the water. They spoke in Cajun French while they worked at getting the houseboat tied up. I couldn’t understand Papa’s other language, but people always used a lot of hand motions when they went to talking it. The man pointed at the bayou and held his arms out as if to say something was big. Were they talking about crabs or gators…or something else?

As I strained my ears for a single word of English, something shiny caught my eye. It bounced in the tiny waves near the water’s edge, stuck in the roots of a cypress tree. I balanced my way down a narrow board on what was left of the broken dock and jumped onto the muddy bank. As I got a closer look, I saw it was a bottle. I grabbed hold of a vine that hung from the tree and, with a long stick, dragged the bottle to where I could reach it. I rubbed some of the mud off on my pants leg. It was a dark shade of blue, kinda like Lydia’s eyes. It sure would look nice in the window of her tree house. I poked it in my back pocket.

When I looked up, I saw my papa and the man pull away in a rusted old van, the back hatch and bumper completely gone. One of the rear tires wobbled as it headed up and over the levee.

Where’d Papa go? How could he just leave without telling me where he was going? Who was that strange man anyway? The lump in my throat swelled even bigger. I ran with my bare feet across the rough wooden deck and threw open the screen door.

Mama stood in the kitchen part of the front room, unwrapping and putting away her fragile cups. My little brother Jesse lay sound asleep in Papa’s old brown chair.

“Mama, where’d Papa run off to with that man?”

“That’s Tee Joe.” She pulled a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “They went back to Pierre Part to get your father’s truck.”

Papa had told me lots of stories about his old friend Tee Joe and some of the crazy stuff they did as kids. Like taking a boy from town out into the Atchafalaya swamp, telling him they’d seen the Rugarou, then leaving him there until after dark. He always laughed when he told it, but I didn’t think it was funny at all.

“But, Mama, he’ll be gone all night.” I felt like I was going to explode from holding back all them tears. “I hate it here already!” I snatched the straw hat from my head and slammed it on the floor.

“Nicole Landry, you pick that up and stop all this nonsense.” Mama put her hands on her hips like she did when she got real serious.

Jesse sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Papa’s gonna be gone aw night?”

“All, Jesse, all.” I emphasized the L sound by poking out my tongue.

“He’ll be home shortly. It’s not that far by road.” Mama turned back to getting her kitchen in order so she could start supper.

“This place is awfuw,” Jesse chimed.

My brother was only four and peskier than a fly at a crawfish boil. He had a habit of repeating everything I said, only he couldn’t say his Ls, no matter how many times I corrected him.

IEEEOWWWOOOO-oooooooo! The eerie sound started off loud and sharp, then trailed off almost to nothing.

I jumped to my feet. “What was that?” Bumps big as balls from a chinaberry tree popped up all over my skin. Snooper raised his head and made a low growl in his throat, like he wanted to bark but was afraid to. Jesse grabbed hold of Mama’s legs and buried his face in her apron.

Mama stopped for a second, looked toward the window, then back at me. Her face went kinda pale. Then she turned her attention to Jesse. “It’s more than likely some wild dog howling at the moon.”

 

Rugarus, gators, and snakes...oh my! What was that howling sound? Will Nikki be able to hold back all those tears from leaving her best friend and being stuck in a strange bayou? Tune in next Monday.....

Louisiana Legends

Since I am nearing the anniversary of the publication of my first middle grade novel, The Legend of Ghost Dog Island, and will be celebrating the release of book two in the Swamp Legend series, The Curse at Pirate's Cove, between now and November 17, on Mondays, I will post excerpts from book one, beginning with chapter one, page one. Enjoy.

 

 

 

The Legend of Ghost Dog Island

Chapter One

Louisiana Legends

“I’m going to hate Morgan City,” I complained to my dog Snooper, “no matter what Papa says.”

My beagle laid his head on my lap and gazed up at me with his watery eyes. He pretty much agreed with me on everything.

I sat on the deck of our old flat-bottomed houseboat as it glided through the winding bayous. Papa’s fishing boat, filled with baskets of line and crab crates, trailed behind on its rope. We were leaving Pierre Part, and Lydia, far behind. I rolled the legs of my overalls up and dangled my feet over the edge.

“Nicole Landry, keep your feet out of that filthy water,” Mama hollered from the doorway of the small living area of our floating home. She wiped her hands on her stained apron, then fixed the comb that held her long dark hair in a pile on top of her head. Mama was born and raised in New Orleans, but left the big city for a life in the bayous with Papa. She never looked back. At least that’s what she always told folks.

“They ain’t in the water, Mama.” I held my legs up so she could see they were dry.

She opened the patched screened door and shooed a fly out, before closing it and going back inside.

I twirled the end of my long black braid. Moving to a new place always gave me a lump in my throat as big as a bullfrog. But I wasn’t going to cry this time. I was ten years old after all.

I’d lived in that same house since the day I was born—as Mama always tells it, “the coldest morn’ of 1946.” But I couldn’t rightly recall how many times it got tied up to a new dock. Mama liked to say Papa never let the grass grow under his feet. But I could hardly think of a time when his rubber boots ever touched grass.

Papa grew up in Morgan City, and he said folks there were mighty friendly. But it seemed to me, most city dwellers weren’t too welcoming to my kind, being from the wrong side of the levee and all. And the city was where I’d have to go to school.

“And, as for making friends with any kids there, no way.” I shook my finger in Snoop’s face. “Just to up and leave ’em behind anyway.”

He managed a tiny whimper, as if I was fussing at him.

I thought about Lydia standing on the Belle River Bridge waving goodbye. My eyes burned, and I squeezed ’em shut. I felt in my pocket for her note. I’d read it at least a hundred times since she’d handed it to me, right before I went stomping down the ladder from her tree house. She’d scribbled down her post office box address and “write me,” then signed her name with the little heart over the i like she always did.

“Hmph!” I told Snooper. “She’s crazy if she thinks I’m going to write her after what she did.”

Lydia Hebert was my best friend in the whole world…until yesterday. It was a lot easier to leave while I was still mad at her. But now it felt like an empty hole inside me.

 

 

 

Come back next Monday for page two.

 

Of course, if you can't wait, you can purchase the book at one of the links in the side bar, or anywhere you normally buy your e-books.

Pirates in the Bayous, by Rita Monette

Pirates on the Bayou
by Rita Monette


Pirates! 

Good or bad, everyone seems to love pirates. Arrgggg!

My hands-down favorite pirate is Jean Lafitte. I suppose it’s because he is both good guy and bad guy, and because his base of operation was my home state of Louisiana. There is much legend and lore about this famous pirate-turned-patriot. 

In my upcoming middle grade novel, The Curse at Pirate’s Cove, our Cajun kiddos get more than they bargain for when they go after some of Lafitte’s buried treasure on a nearby swamp island. Look for it this November, from Musa Publishing.

Excerpt:

“How do you know it’s a pirate ship?” I asked.

“It has to be, Nikki. Listen.” He turned toward me. “I was out at Uncle Luke’s this past weekend, and he told me all about it.”

“I ain’t believing there’s no pirate ship out in those swamps.” I lifted my chin.

“Just hear me out, Tomboy.” He sounded impatient. “There’s a legend that goes along with it, see.” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “There might even be a curse.”

“A legend?” He had my attention. I prided myself in being a super legend buster ever since I solved the one about Ghost Dog Island last year. I even got my picture in the newspaper. “Well, tell me about it.”

“I’m trying to.” He waved his hands in the air.

We propped ourselves against a couple of large limbs and got out our lunch bags.

“Uncle Luke says he first heard about it back when he was a kid. He says a friend of his grandfather, by the name of Beco, was out trapping on Fog Island with his buddy Clamare. They came across this here hole in the ground with a half-buried wooden chest, see. It had a big old lock on it. There was a couple of coins in the dirt, so Clamare picked them up and slipped them in his pocket. Beco decided he’d go back for some tools and shovels to dig the rest of it out, and told Clamare to stay there and watch the chest. On his way out to the edge of the island, he saw this ragged old ship. Thinking it was kind of odd looking for being in the swamps and all, he got a little closer. It had a broken mast and raggedy sails.” He poked me with his elbow. “When was the last time you ever saw a fishing boat with sails?”

I shook my head. “Never.” I unwrapped a peanut butter and jam sandwich and took a bite. “What’d he do?”

“Well, he started to board it, see?” Spikes dug into his own lunch bag. “But then he heard some talking coming out of the boat. He stopped right then and there, ’cause he didn’t know who might be on that old wreck out in the middle of nowhere, and there weren’t no other boats around. This one had a big old hole in the hull, so it couldn’t have sailed there on its own. At least anytime in recent history.”

“Then what?” I licked some of the jam off my fingers.

“Then someone stuck his head up over the bow, see. He had on one of them three pointed hats that pirates always wore. Old Beco yelled a big hello, and the man took out a pistol and shot over his head. Well, Beco took off right then and there. That night, he went down to T-Noon’s bar and got drunk, and told some other fellows about it. The next day, they all went back out to the island with shovels and brought guns just in case that crazy guy in the boat was still there.”

“Was he?” I asked.

“Nope. The ship was gone, and so was Clamare.”

“What about the treasure?”

“They never could find it. Not even the hole it was in.”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the meantime, if you haven’t read The Legend of Ghost Dog Island, it’s a must read for anyone ages eight and up, interested in Cajun history and living in the bayous of Louisiana in the 1950s.

Ghosts of Christmases Past - Sharon Ledwith

Ghosts of Christmases Past…

“Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.”

Love that last line in the first paragraph of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. “Dead as a doornail” really sticks out in my mind. Boy, Dickens sure had a way with words! And believe it or not, Charles Dickens wrote the classic Christmas tale as a novella—something I never knew. In fact, I decided to read A Christmas Carol for the first time a few years ago. I knew the story like the back of my hand, and most movies based on the book were true to form. But there’s nothing like reading the actual script written by an author’s hand. Though the language was a little archaic, it still didn’t take away from the magic of the story.

Through Scrooge’s ghostly visitations, we got a glimpse of the man behind the mask. Who he was, and what circumstances and choices created his reality. We often don’t see what we’ve created until, like Scrooge, we’re faced with a crisis or fear. When I sat down to write Legend of the Timekeepers, the prequel to my middle grade/YA time travel series, I wanted to create a back story for the series that would help readers understand who my characters were, where they came from culturally, mentally, and spiritually, and how they decide to move forward with their lives. Tricky to say the least—especially when you’re dealing with a mythical land that may or may not have existed.

It took confronting my own fears to write the prequel. For one, I had never written a pure fantasy before, and had no ‘historical’ parameters to go by like I had when I wrote The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis. That scared the ‘Ebenezer’ out of me! The only research I used were the readings by Edgar Cayce and other authors claiming to be a psychic or channel. Mumbo jumbo for some, but for me it was a treasure trove, and a chance to take the hand of the Ghosts of Atlantis’s past and be led on a fantastical adventure. I find that time travel stories have a way of making us reassess our own lives, of reliving the joyful and the challenging times, so that we hopefully wake up and make better choices like Scrooge did.

This is what I’ve learned from my Ghosts of Christmases past. And this is why I write time travel books. God bless us, every one!

Sharon Ledwith is the author of the middle-grade/YA time travel series, THE LAST TIMEKEEPERS, available through Musa Publishing. When not writing, researching, or revising, she enjoys reading, yoga, kayaking, time with family and friends, and single malt scotch. Sharon lives in the wilds of Muskoka in Central Ontario, Canada, with her hubby, a water-logged yellow Labrador and moody calico cat.

Tagline & blurb for Legend of the Timekeepers:

There is no moving forward without first going back.

Lilith was a young girl with dreams and a family before the final destruction of Atlantis shattered those dreams and tore her family apart. Now refugees, Lilith and her father make their home in the Black Land. This strange, new country has no place in Lilith’s heart until a beloved high priestess introduces Lilith to her life purpose—to be a Timekeeper and keep time safe.

Summoned through the seventh arch of Atlantis by the Children of the Law of One, Lilith and her newfound friends are sent into Atlantis’s past, and given a task that will ultimately test their courage and try their faith in each other. Can the Timekeepers stop the dark magus Belial before he changes the seers’ prophecy? If they fail, then their future and the earth’s fate will be altered forever.

BONUS: My middle grade/young adult short fantasy story, The Terrible, Mighty Crystal, is free and available until the end of December only through Musa Publishing. This tale is a spin-off from Legend of the Timekeepers as it features the Atlantean cross-eyed seer Shu-Tu, and reveals a little background on how and why she became a seer.

Tagline & blurb and tagline for The Terrible, Mighty Crystal:

There is the known and the unknown. And then there is the unknowable.

A rumor around Atlantis whispers that the mighty crystal has the power of resurrection. Fourteen-year-old Shu-Tu believes this to be true and will do whatever it takes to bring her father back from the dead. Recruiting two trustworthy classmates, and with the help of her beloved teacher Thoth, Shu-Tu sets out to change her father’s fate, and right a wrong.

Instructed to meet Thoth at his grotto, Shu-Tu and her friends are forced to flee underground, and must follow the maze of passages to find another way out. There, they come across a baboon-headed human hybrid possessing a rare firestone—one of six harvested from the mighty crystal—which has the power to restore life. Shu-Tu agrees to play the hybrid’s bizarre game to win the firestone, knowing that if she loses, she loses her father forever.

The Terrible, Mighty Crystal Link (only until the end of December):

MUSA PUBLISHING

The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis Buy Links:

MUSA PUBLISHING ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀ SMASHWORDS ׀ KOBO ׀ APPLE

Legend of the Timekeepers Buy Links:

MUSA PUBLISHING ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀ SMASHWORDS ׀ KOBO ׀ APPLE

Learn more about Sharon Ledwith on her WEBSITE and BLOG. Stay connected on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and GOODREADS. Check out THE LAST TIMEKEEPERS TIME TRAVEL SERIES Facebook page.  

Writer's Block

Recently, I’ve been stuck in a writing rut. I Can’t seem to get past the middle of any of the novels I’m working on. So I did a Google search to see if there were some remedies out there. I stumbled upon this bit of advice, from  i09.com (see link below) and narrowed my problem down to number four of their list of ten possible problems.

4. You're stuck in the middle and have no idea what happens next.
Either you don't have an outline, or you ditched it a while back. Actually, here's what seems to
happen a lot - you were on a roll the day before, and you wrote a whole lot of promising developments and clever bits of business. And then you open your Word document today, and... you have no idea where this is going. You thought you left things in a great place to pick up the ball and keep running, and now you can't even see the next step.

If it's true that you were on a roll, and now you're stuck, then chances are you just need to pause and rethink, and maybe go back over what you already wrote. You may just need a couple days to recharge. Or you may need to rethink what you already wrote.

If you've been stuck in the middle for a while, though, then you probably need to do something to get the story moving again. Introduce a new complication, throw the dice, or twist the knife. Mark Twain spent months stuck in the middle of Huckleberry Finn before he came up with the notion of having Huck and Jim take the wrong turn on the river and get lost. If you're stuck for a while, it may be time to drop a safe on someone.

The other ideas are worth taking a look at, but I think I’ve found my problem. I need to take Mark Twain’s advice and go wreck someone’s day…in my story that is.

See the entire list at: http://io9.com/5844988/the-10-types-of-writers-block-and-how-to-overcome-them  


Have you ever had writer's block? How did you overcome it? Share your ideas!

 

Independence Day, July 4, 1776

Once Upon a Time, a very intelligent group of patriots decided they were tired of the tyranny of the English king, and fought a great war for the independence of a new nation where government would NOT control the people, but the people would control the government. For well over 200 years, the United States of America has functioned under those principles. Please don't ever forget what they fought for. Please don't ever stop fighting for the freedoms our founders set down for us. Read the Declaration of Independence. Read the Constitution. And if you're short on time, you must read our Bill of Rights!  Remember these great patriots worked long and hard on these documents and these principles so that we might enjoy freedom.

 

 

 

 

For lots more information on The Declaration of Independence: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/

Bottle Tree Legend

Louisiana Tidbit

Have you ever been driving through Louisiana, or some other southern state,  and noticed a tree with colored bottles either hanging from it or stuck onto their branches? More than likely they were blue bottles. No, they are not a poor man’s stained glass display.

It is said that this traditional practice was brought here by the Africans during the slave trade. In the Congo, Natives have hung hand-blown glass on huts and trees to ward off evil spirits since the ninth century, and perhaps earlier.

The Legend is told that the spirits are attracted to the sparkling color of the bottles, blue ones seemingly more enticing. The moaning sound made by the wind as it passes over the bottle openings are said to be proof that a spirit is trapped within.

Whether you believe the legend or not, the trees are a sight to behold, displayed in various shapes, sizes, and forms, as beautiful yard and garden decorations.










An excerpt from Eudora Welty’s short story Livvie, describes one such tree:

“…Then coming around up the path from the deep cut of the Natchez Trace below was a line of bare crape-myrtle trees with every branch of them ending in a colored bottle of green or blue.

There was no word that fell from Solomon’s lips to say what they were for, but Livvie knew that there could be a spell put in the trees, and she was familiar from the time she was born with the way bottle trees kept evil spirits from coming into the house – by luring them inside the colored bottles, where they cannot get out again.”

A bottle tree is featured in the movie, Ray, a Ray Charles biopic. And again in the Princess and the Frog, an animated movie set in New Orleans, where bottle trees hang in the bayou.

Blue Bottles in my Dogwood Tree

In my children’s Novel, The Legend of Ghost Dog Island, a bottle tree adorns the front entrance of a voodoo woman’s shack. Excerpt below:

“What y’all want?” The yellow glow from a kerosene lamp cast the shadowy outline of scraggly hair and humped shoulders.

I took my braid and twisted it between my fingers. “I’m looking for my dog, ma’am.”

“What kinda dog?” The face pushed closer to the small window and into view.

Red paint decorated the porch and railing—or was it blood? Some sort of animal skin hung from nails.

She was a witch all right. My hands felt sweaty. “A beagle, ma’am.” My voice cracked. “Do you have a beagle?” I remembered the three quarters, two dimes, and six pennies Patti and I got from her piggy bank in case we needed it to buy Snooper back. “I have money.”

The door creaked open. “Come on in.” A wrinkled eye peered through the crack.

Spikes took a step forward.

I followed close behind him. I didn’t want to go into that creepy shack, but I sure didn’t want to go back through the swamp alone. A slight breeze blew up, triggering a tinkling sound behind me. I turned to see colored bottles hanging from a nearby tree. The moonlight bounced off the deep-blue glass like fireflies dancing in the warm night air.

“Look at that.” I pointed to the display.

“Yeah, it’s a bottle tree. Some folks ’round here make those to trap evil spirits, to keep them away,” Spikes whispered.

“She wants to keep evil away?”

Book now available at Mirror World Publishing, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

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If you choose to read further, see Felder Rushing, of www.felderrushing.net, who has done extensive research on the topic of bottle trees . More information, along with more photos of bottle trees,can also be found at cafemom.com. 

Louisiana Bayous

Photo by George Monette

Today, I was going to write a post about Louisiana bayous, since it is the main theme for my blog and for my book, The Legend of Ghost Dog Island. I found instead this wonderful article in USA Today and decided to share it.

Facts about Louisiana Bayous

By Lee Morgan, Demand Media (from USA Today Travel Tips http://traveltips.usatoday.com/louisiana-bayous-59733.html)

Located primarily in the southern reaches of Louisiana, the bayou is a defining feature of this unique part of America. The bayou is home to many people living in the Pelican State as well as to an abundance of wildlife. Unlike the rest of Louisiana, bayou life has its own pace and culture. The swamps and the gators might not be for everyone, but the people of the bayou feel right at home. This often-misunderstood area remains a mystery to many Americans.

Photo by George Monette

The Bayou Name

The name "bayou" is even native to Louisiana. According to the Famous Wonders website, the term "bayou" is believed to have originated from "bayuk," a word meaning "small stream" in a local Native American tongue. The word was first used in Louisiana and has come to mean the braided streams that are fed by the Mississippi River in the low-lying areas of Southern Louisiana. These marshes or wetland areas move very slowly and make ideal homes for creatures like alligators, crawfish and catfish -- all of which are popular bayou foods.

Bayou Culture

The bayou culture is actually more diverse than many may think. There is no doubt that the most closely associated culture to the bayou is the Cajun culture. The Cajuns were French-speaking settlers relocated from Nova Scotia. They were actually known as "Acadians," but the local dialect eventually led to the word becoming "Cajun." In South Louisiana's bayous the culture is as diverse as the ingredients found in the local gumbo. In addition to the French Canadians that were the foundation of much of the bayou culture, there are also significant influences from Spanish, German, African and Irish settlers as well as Native Americans. In modern Cajun culture on the bayou, the people are a blend of all these cultures. In the Southern Louisiana bayous today, you can often find people who consider themselves "Cajuns" who primarily speak French, but have last names like Smith, McGee or Manuel as well as the French surnames common in the region.

Photo by George Monette

Disappearing Bayous

The bayous are disappearing. Since the 1930s, the coast of Louisiana has lost 1,900 square miles of marshes and coastal wetlands. This is an area the size of Delaware that has been swallowed up by the Gulf of Mexico. Despite recent efforts to reduce the erosion of the bayou, Louisiana still loses about an acre of land every 33 minutes. That results in a loss of 25 square miles per year. Levees have funneled marsh-building sediment into the ocean; engineers have cut 8,000 miles of canals through the bayous to help the petroleum industry, all of which contribute to the faster erosion of the bayous.

Bayou As Protector

Many people do not understand the importance of the bayou, not only as a natural habitat for many species of animals, but also as a protector of inland areas. Cities like New Orleans are under an increasing threat from hurricanes as a result of coastal erosion. When the bayous shrink, it means the storm surge from tropical storms and hurricanes can reach further inland. These storm surges can result in greater flooding. An example of this effect was apparent when the levees were overrun by Hurricane Katrina's storm surge in 2005.

About the Author

Lee Morgan is a fiction writer and journalist. His writing has appeared for more than 15 years in many news publications including the "Tennesseean," the "Tampa Tribune," "West Hawaii Today," the "Honolulu Star Bulletin" and the "Dickson Herald," where he was sports editor. He holds a Bachelor of Science in mass communications from Middle Tennessee State University.

 

The Nutria

What is a nutria anyway?

Also known as Coypu, the nutria (sometimes called nutria rat) is a rodent. They average ten pounds and look like a cross between a beaver and a rat. They have large rear webbed feet, which makes them good swimmers. They are native to Argentina, but found their way to the states in the 1930s.

They are cute, but I don't think they would make good pets because those large front teeth are three inches long and can penetrate your hand very quickly.

My dad, who was a trapper in the 1940s, said he was trapping for beaver when he caught one of these for the first time. They were rare in Louisiana back then, and their thick hides were worth a "pretty penny." By the 1960's they had become so plentiful in the state, the wetlands began to suffer under their ravenous appetite and wasteful eating habits, along with their high rate of breeding.

 

Nutria have large incisors that are yellow to orange-red on the outer surface.   (Photo from U.S. Geological Survey.)

How did they get so plentiful so fast?

Science Daily says: The biology of the nutria species allows it to reproduce at rapid speed, making it an unwieldy animal to control if released into the wild. A female nutria averages about five young per litter, but can birth as many as 13 at a time. A female can breed again within two days after giving birth, meaning one nutria can have up to three litters per year.

To get a sense of their productivity, 20 nutria brought to Louisiana in the 1930s bred an estimated 20 million animals within two decades, according to a wildlife group in Maryland that tracks nutria data, quoted in a recent report by Louisiana journalist Chris Kirkham.

Although nutria were brought to all parts of the country, said Kirkham's report , warm weather in Louisiana has boosted their numbers. Already under pressure from saltwater intrusion, the marshes also have to deal with the nutria and their voracious appetite for the vital marsh roots that keep wetlands intact.

Did Mr. McIlhenny of Tabasco fame bring them to Louisiana?

For many years, Tabasco sauce magnate E.A. McIlhenny received most of the blame for introducing the rodents from South America to Avery Island in the 1930s. McIlhenny wanted to expand the fur trade in Louisiana at that time, so he brought nutria from South America to his home on Avery Island, the story went. But a hurricane blew down the nutria pen, releasing them into the wild.
The myth held for decades, sometimes perpetuated by family members themselves. Five years ago, a historian hired by the family found records that McIlhenny actually bought the nutria from a St. Bernard Parish fur dealer in 1938. He did eventually set the nutria loose, but not because of hurricane damage, said McIlhenny historian and curator Shane Bernard, quoted in reporter Kirkham's recent newspaper interview.

"I'm confident that all the myth has been stripped away," he said. "Anybody who knows oral history or folklore knows how stories can change when they're passed down from one generation to the next."
(Science Daily)

Nutria rat in the water eating. (Credit: iStockphoto/Per Jørgensen)

What do they sound like?

It is said that after Hurricane Audrey, in 1957, during which many young children were swept away into the marshlands, the cries of the nutria were mistaken for lost babies, crying "mom."

In my book, The Legend of Ghost Dog Island, set in Louisiana in the 1950s, there is mention of the eerie sounds these animals make.

What are the Louisiana People doing to save the Marshes from this over-abundant critter?

Check out Nutria Documentary.