Americana

Tall Tales of Short Beings: The Catskill Gnomes

/ Michael Curtis / 1 Comment

I want to tell you a story
‘Bout a little man, If I can
A gnome named Grimble Grumble
And little gnomes stay in their homes
Eating, sleeping
Drinking their wine
–“The Gnome” by Pink Floyd

When one thinks of gnomes, one is prone to think of them in the context of the Old World, not the New. Whether as earth elementals in the occult philosophy of Paracelsus, a dwarflike creature dwelling underground, or the pointy red-hat waring variety from the book by Wil Huygen, gnomes—outside of Dungeons & Dragons—are creatures of European origin and would seem out of place here in the Americas. Or at least that’s what one would think if they never ventured into the ancient mountains known as the Catskills.

As it turns out, the Catskill Mountains have a long history of being the partying place for a race of short humanlike creatures that are quite evidently not human. Stories of these beings go back to before European contact in the folklore of at least three different indigenous cultures. Henry Hudson, the first European to sail up the river named after him and pass under the shadows of the Catskills, was said to have had his own encounter with these beings. Do they still dwell in the mountains now better known for the Borscht Belt than mythical creatures? Let’s take a look and see what we can do with this bit of folklore.

There are two major folktales involving the Catskill gnomes concern one purportedly told by the Mohegan people who made their home in the region and the second involving Henry Hudson.

The first folktale is recorded in Myths and Legends of Our Own Land by Charles M. Skinner, published in 1896. According to Skinner, the Mohegan people spoke of a natural amphitheatre located behind the Grand Hotel, which once stood in Highmount, NY. This place was said to be the gathering site of small beings who “worked in metals, and had bushy beards and eyes like pigs.” These beings would assemble on the ledge above the amphitheatre and dance the night away under a full moon. They were said to brew a potent liquor, one that shortened the bodies and swelled the heads of anyone who drank it. Skinner reports that Hudson and his crew encountered these gnomes when visiting the mountains. The short beings held a party in his honor and invited Hudson and the crew to drink their mountain moonshine. As a result, the crew went away shrunken and distorted, and it was in this guise that Rip Van Winkle would encounter them a century later.

The second folktale comes from a story recorded by S.E. Schlosser in Spooky New York. Schlosser writes that Hudson and crew heard the sound of music echoing from the hills as the Half Moon lay at anchor in the shadow of the Catskills. Hudson and crew went ashore to seek out the source of the music, only to find “a group of pygmies with long, bushy beards and eyes like pigs” dancing and capering around a fire. Hudson recognized the beings as the metal-working gnomes some of the native tribes had spoken of.

The gnomes quickly spotted the party crashers and welcomed them with a cheer. Long into the night, the crew drank with the gnomes and played nine-pins. Hudson sipped only a single glass of the homebrewed hooch and “spoke with the chief of the gnomes about many deep and mysterious things.”

Realizing how late it had become, Hudson looked around to gather his men, only to discover he couldn’t see them. All he glimpsed was a large group of gnomes laughing around the fire. To his amazement and horror, Hudson recognized several of the gnomes as his crewmen, now transformed into short creatures with heads “swollen to twice their normal size, their eyes were small and pig-like, and their bodies had shortened until they were only a little taller than the gnomes themselves.”

Alarmed, Hudson pressed the chieftain for an explanation and he was assured that the change in his crewmen was the result of drinking the gnomes’ brew and that the transformation would wear off when the sailors sobered up. Hudson, fearing what else might be in store for his men, quickly gathered up his miniaturized mariners and hustled them—drunkenly—back to the Half Moon. When the crew awoke in the morning, it was with terrible hangovers, but thankfully back to their normal shapes and forms. In one version of this tale, one of the crewmen was overlooked in the rush to get everyone back to the ship and remained in the gnomes’ company, permanently transformed, ever after.

The tale has a further addendum. In reality, Hudson’s crew mutinied on a subsequent voyage to locate the Northwest Passage. In 1610, after being trapped in the ice for the winter, the crew set Hudson and eight other sailors adrift in Hudson Bay and they were never seen again. Legend says that every 20 years, a fire appears in the amphitheater and the sound of music echoes through the mountains. The gnomes would hold a party every two decades and the ghosts of Hudson and his men would join the festivities at midnight. Until dawn, the ghosts and gnomes would play nine-pins, the sound of the ball rolling like thunder and bolts of lightning streaking across the sky when the pins fell. For those of you keeping track, the next gathering is scheduled for September 3rd, 2029, somewhere near the former site of the Grand Hotel on Monka Hill.

The former Grand Hotel. Is the bald patch on the hill behind it the site of gnome revels?

Meet the Locals: The Catskill Mountains are overlapped by three indigenous language groups. You have (roughly) Delaware speakers to the south and southwest, Algonquin speakers to the southeast, east, and northeast, and Iroquois speakers to the west and northwest. Each one of these cultures has their own mythology that includes short humanlike beings.

Among Algonquin-speaking peoples, you find Pagdadjinini, the little people of the forest. Their name means “wild man” and they’re known to be mischievous, but generally good-natured. In Delaware-speaking cultures, you have Wemategunis, a little people about as tall as a man’s waist. Like the Pagdadjinin, the Wemategunisare are mischievous, but generally benign forest spirits, although they can become dangerous if disrespected. They have the ability to turn invisible and have immense strength. They may help people who are kind or who tolerate their mischievous pranks with good humor.

Lastly, you have the Jogah from the myths of the Iroquois Confederation. The Jogah are a small humanoid nature spirits, sometimes called “dwarves” by Europeans. Their size varies, with some cultures saying they’re only knee-high, while others stating the Jogah stand 4’ tall. However, the Jogah are often invisible revealing themselves mostly to children, elders, and medicine people. There are several different types of Johah, notably the Gahongas who are renowned for their great strength, capable of moving boulders many times their size. According to legends, Gahongas live on rocky riverbanks and in caves. There are also the Gandayah or Drum Dancers, who are always invisible and only the sound of their drums indicate their presence. The Gandayah are known to help the Iroquois peoples with their crops. Lastly, the Ohdows are a gnomes who live under the earth and are said to keep serpents and other subterranean monsters in check.

Any one of these “little people” could have been the gnomes Hudson and his men met that night, but both the Wemategunis and Jogah seem to make the best fit.

Fun Guys from Yuggoth: Strange creatures in the mountains should sound very familiar to anyone whose read The Whisperer in Darkness, H.P. Lovecraft’s story about the Mi-Go, an alien race from Pluto who dwell in the hills of Vermont where they mine minerals not found on their home world. The Mi-Go possess advanced scientific technology and are served by human (or at least human-seeming) agents to hide their presence from outsiders. The Catskills could very well hide a Mi-Go mining colony extracting the same minerals as their Vermont-dwelling kin. And while the Mi-Go themselves don’t resemble the creatures Hudson and crew encountered in the slightest, they demonstrate the ability to perform miraculous surgical procedures on humans. It wouldn’t take much effort for the Mi-Go to greatly modify native humans, altering them to resemble figures from legend. What better way to keep the unwanted away then by “haunting” the mountains with the forest and mountain spirits the indigenous people already believe to be there? Perhaps the physical alterations to Hudson’s crew wasn’t the result of gnome liquor but alien rays targeted at the sailors by hidden Mi-Go? The missing crewman one version of the tale mentions might have been captured by Fungi of Yuggoth and brought (or at least his head was) to Pluto for further examination and interrogation.

As Above, So Below: One last option could be that the gnomes were just as much strangers to the mountains as Hudson and his men. Their small stature would greatly benefit any race dwelling underground, making any number of legendary subterranean civilizations as the possible origin of the gnomes. Derro (the Shaver Mystery ones, not the D&D kind), former Hyperborean slaves a la Mike Mignola’s Hellboy depictions, faeries, troglodytic humans driven underground, or even lost Tibetan tunnel diggers who’ve gone native could all be the real gnomes in question.

Strange Vapors: The account mentions that the crew played nine-pins with the gnomes, which seems odd even in an already strange account. It appears the game was in progress when Hudson and his crew arrived on the scene, leading one to wonder where the gnomes got the all the elements to play the nine-pins, let alone hear about this European game. Maybe that’s because the gnomes were all in the minds of the European explorers? The fires spotted by the Half Moon may have been some sort of natural phenomenon akin to the “swamp gas” used to dismiss UFO sightings by Project Bluebook. A subterranean gas, one with hallucinogenic effects and flammable or phosphorescent properties, may have leaked from deep underground and affected the men when they investigated. The missing crew man could have wandered off, perhaps falling to his death off a cliff or down the crevasse that the gas emerged from, his body never found.

Henry Hudson, Wherefore Art Thou? I can’t end a post involving Henry Hudson in a starring role without briefly touching upon the circumstances of his disappearance from the mortal realm. As noted above, Hudson, along with his son and seven crewmen, where set adrift in a small shallop (a type of open boat) in James Bay in 1611 by mutinous crewmen after having been force to overwinter there while exploring Hudson Bay. The nine men briefly pursued Hudson’s former ship, the Discovery, before the vessel raised sails and left the shallop behind. That was the last known sighting of Hudson and the rest. Searches conducted in 1612 and 1668-1670 failed to find any sign of Hudson or his men. Author Dorothy Harley Eber collected testimonies in the 20th century from Inuit residents of the area that revealed the existence of old stories dating back centuries that might shed light on Hudson’s fate. The stories spoke of the arrival of an old white man with long white beard and a young boy who were taken in by the Inuit people, despite their never having seen a European before. The old man soon died, and the boy was tethered to one of the homes so he wouldn’t run away. The ultimate fate of the boy and the man’s corpse were unknown.

Article from the Toronto Star, Fri, Sep 21, 1962

In the late 1950s, a 150 lbs. stone was discovered near Deep Rive, Ontario, more than 350 miles away from James Bay. The stone was carved with the initials “H.H.”, the year 1612, and the word “captive.” While the date of carvings couldn’t be determined, the style of the letters was consistent with 17th century English maps. Hudson, like the crew of the H.M.S. Terror and Erebus two centuries later, was swallowed by the Great White North, leaving only legends behind.

Weird Americana Connections: The Catskills aren’t the only place in the American Northeast that’s said to be home to small creatures associated with oversized heads. Just across the New York/Connecticut border come tales of a much more ferocious type of short humanoids, ones who’ve been said to attack people. Join me next time when we put are noggins to work delving into the legend of the Connecticut Melon Heads.

Old & Cold: The Human Hibernators

/ Michael Curtis / Leave a comment

No release from my cryonic state
What is this? I’ve been stricken by fate
Wrapped up tight, cannot move, can’t break free
Hand of doom has a tight grip on me
–“Trapped Under Ice” by Metallica

This week’s bit of gamified folklore comes to us from an obscure Yankee tall tale out of Vermont. It first appeared in an 1887 edition of the Montpelier newspaper, Argus & Patriot, and discusses how the residents of a small Vermont village deal with their elderly and infirm when the cold winter months settle in. These events are said to take place in the town of Calais, about 20 miles from Montpelier.

According to the story, six people, five of whom are “past the age of usefulness” and the sixth “a cripple of about thirty-years-old” are drugged unconscious in January. Upon being declared “ready,” the six are stripped of their clothing except for a single garment and brought outdoors after nightfall. There, the insensible six are laid on logs and exposed to the cold winter air. Onlookers watch as their skin slowly turns blue, then return to the cabin as if a horrible mass murder by exposure hadn’t just been committed.

The next morning, the men folk go out and build a box some ten feet long and five feet high and wide. Lining the box with straw, the frozen bodies are placed inside, covered with a cloth, then packed with more straw. The box lid is firmly nailed into place to “protect the bodies from being injured by carnivorous animals that made their home on these mountains.” A team of oxen then drag the body-filled container to the foot of a steep ledge, whereupon spruce and hemlock boughs are piled atop it. The pile is then left to the elements, where it would be covered by snow that “would lay in drifts twenty feet deep over this rude tomb.”

Come May, once the weather turns warm again, the work party returns to the pile, removes the boughs, opens the box, and cleans out the cloth and straw, exposing the bodies once more. These inert forms are played into troughs made from hollowed out hemlock locks and filled with tepid water. Boiling water is then added from kettles in which hemlock had been steeped “in such quantities that they had given the water the color of wine.”

After a hour-long soak in the troughs, color returns to the bodies and all those gathered around begin rubbing life back into the six. After another hour, the muscles of the face and limbs begin to respond, followed by gasps of breath as the now revivified six return to consciousness. A few draughts of hard spirits finish the defrosting process and soon all six are wide awake and taking. A hearty meal finishes the thawing out of these elders who are “in no wise injured, but rather refreshed by their long sleep of four months.”

The story is of course a tall tale, one of the few ones whose origin was traced to its original source. You can read the full account of the story and the efforts to locate its source here and here. It would be reprinted in 1940s in publications such as The Boston Globe, Yankee Magazine, and The Old Farmer’s Alamac, leading to some researchers to wonder if their might be medical advancements waiting to be discovers in Vermont mountain folk medicine.

And while the story might be fake, there’s no reason we can’t have some fun with it at the gaming table.

Backwoods Medicine: Although the story doesn’t specifically say so, there must be something at work here other than the cold. Our narrator explains the so-to-be-hibernating folks have been drugged unconscious, and it’s not a far jump to assume whatever put them under was something stronger than Grandpa’s white lightning. The folks of Calais know something about herbalism or even alchemy and can whip up a powerful potion. The easy (and lazy) explanation would be that this is something they learned from the indigenous folk, but given this tale involves people of European extraction and not members of the native population, doing so takes us into potentially offensive waters. It’d be better if this concoction comes from the Old Country.

Vermont was the stomping grounds of the French, the Dutch-British, and the English, with the area around Montpelier settled by newly-minted Americans from Charlton, MA in 1781, any of whom could have brought secret knowledge to the region. The draught could have its origins in Dutch alchemy (maybe first decanted by a Van Helsing ancestor?), English witchcraft, or pulled from a French grimoire and brought to the New World with a secret cabal of magicians.

Any pharmacological corporation in existence would love to get a sample of this drink. And in the world of today’s questionable business practices, they might be willing to take illegal steps to both acquire it and ensure they remain the sole owner of the chemical formula. This could lead to an adventure featuring backwoods cunning folk vs. experimental drug-amplified corporate leg-breakers up in the Vermont mountains.

Wood Magic: The story goes to great pains to mention that both spruce and hemlock play a part in the hibernation process. In the case of hemlock, what is being referred to is Eastern Hemlock, a tree found in the Americas, not the poisonous plant that took out Socrates. Both spruce and hemlock are conifers, evergreens associated with longevity. Among the Seneca and Micmac peoples, there are stories emphasizing the hemlock tree’s role in providing warmth, aiding in magical transformation, and holding winter at bay (spruce also appears in that role). Spruce trees are associated with renewal, protection, resilience, strength, connection to the gods, longevity, good luck, immortality, fertility, and magical protection in various cultures. It’s no wonder both trees are mentioned in this tall tale. Perhaps the real magic isn’t in the concoction that the hibernators consume, but in the wood that surrounds them as they hibernate? And what happens should the spirits of spruce and hemlock near Calais turn against humanity? Seems like instead of six hibernating bodies you’d end up with six corpses. Perhaps ones then animated by vegetation spirits and used as an instrument of revenge?

Communication with the Otherworld: In northern shamanic traditions, trance states are used to contact the spirit world and what’s more trance-like than a five-month long nap under a pile of snow? Perhaps the chosen six—including one with a physical disability, a condition not unknown among and possibly even a necessary requirement of a shaman—act as an oracle committee who undergo a prolonged trance state to deal with magical forces. They emerge from their hibernation trance in May with hard-won knowledge about the coming year and prophecies about the future of the village. Perhaps a player character seeking new magical knowledge might have to undergo hibernation to acquire lore from the spiritual or the divine world?

Sometimes Asleep is Better: Taking a page from the lycanthrope, maybe our six sleepers are afflicted with a curse or other supernatural aliment that is dangerous when it manifests. When the first half of the year arrives, they undergo a mystical transformation (one hesitates to say “weremoose,” but I’ll be bold) that makes them dangerous to kith and kin. The only way to prevent the six from running amok is to knock them out until the dangerous period has passed.

Weird Americana Connections: Folks sleeping away there lives in the mountains isn’t limited to just Vermont. Another famous case of this occurring–with an even longer duration–was reported to have happened in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The tale was famously reported by Washington Irving and is known to most Americans today. But sleepy Dutchmen aren’t the only things to be found and feared in the Catskills. Join us next week as we look at Catskill Gnomes.

Folklore is for All Folks

/ Michael Curtis / Leave a comment

One of the reasons I decided to start blogging again is because my love for folklore has been renewed. In a time when forces are striving to tear us apart, I’m making a concentrated effort to focus on that which brings us together. I truly do believe that we all seek the same things in life: the freedom to love, to build a solid future for our families, to live in a world where serenity is more common than strife. Unfortunately, there are—and always will be—bad actors who encourage division for their own gain.

Folklore, the stories that make up our cultural identities, transcend politics. That’s not to say they can’t be used to advance agendas, but at their heart, folktales are symbols of our hopes and fears, not only a culture but as human beings. That’s what I love so dearly about folklore and why I keep coming back to it in my own work.

I’ve tapped the wellsprings of American folklore in the past, most famously in The Chained Coffin, an adventure I wrote for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG that transformed Appalachian culture and folktales into a sword & sorcery fantasy world. The success of the adventure led to the creation of the Shudder Mountains (which incidentally gives this blog half its name), further expanding on the folklore of its real world counterpart as a fantasy setting. The Chained Coffin and the Shudder Mountains as a whole were well-received, but the fact that many people who are natives to the Appalachian region loved it meant a lot to me. Not bad for a semi-citified boy from New York! I believe the major reason it was embraced by those folks was because it treated Appalachian culture, and more importantly the people of Appalachia, with respect. Amazing what a little a little common cutesy can accomplish, huh?

Back in 2016 another project of mine had me casting my folklore net far wider. That was Secret Antiquities, a ‘zine that took bits of Americana to create a backdrop in which the forces of the Anti-Sam contended against Uncle Sam for the heart and soul of America. This again was intended for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and while it was fun to write, I don’t think it worked as well for the rules system. It did give me the opportunity to turn Uncle Sam, the Old Man of the Mountain, Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow, and other American icons into magical patrons.

My general and American-related folklore bookcase.

People kept asking if I would ever release more Secret Antiquates, but while the desire was strong, the flesh was less than willing. I spend 40+ hours every week steeped in DCC RPG and the idea of spending more time on it during my days off wasn’t appealing. Still, the idea working with folklore again was never far from my mind. Then two things happened which made me consider returning to the gamification of folklore more seriously.

The first was the 2024 election, the long consequences of which we’re just beginning to experience. During the pandemic, I found a certain comfort in folktales and folk horror, and decided to break out this mental life jacket one more time for the reason I noted above: focus on what brings us together rather than tears us apart.

The second was that my gaming group has kicked off the new year with a Vaesen campaign. For those of you unfamiliar with Vaesen, it’s a tabletop RPG set in “Mythic Scandinavia” during the 1800s. Players take on the role of occult investigators trying to solve mysteries, mysteries caused by “the Vaesen,” a collective term for all manner of monsters in Swedish folklore—trolls, giants, sea serpents, ghosts, etc. It’s fairly rules light and, with its focus on investigation and problem solving over beating your foes to death with a club or sword, a far cry from the sword & sorcery world of DCC RPG that keeps my lights on and the heat coming out the baseboard.

When the Vaesen campaign began, I started rereading some of the books on my folklore bookcase and it wasn’t long before my eye wandered across all the other books that filled those shelves. There was plenty to be mined here, a lot of it from my own backyard (in some cases, almost literally). Maybe it was time to dip my toes back into that wellspring? Not as Secret Antiquities, but something in the same vein, but different.

I hemmed and hawed some more, asking myself if it was worth the effort, but not coming to any solid conclusions. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was taking my morning walk when—and this is 100% true—a bald eagle swooped down from the sky and soared right over me.

If that was a sign that it was time to delve back into American folklore and do something with it, I don’t know what is.

So it’s back to the books to start turning Americana into game material once again. I’ll likely begin with a system neutral format, presenting bits of folklore and offering suggestions how it can be turned into something on the game table but without specific game mechanics. That may change in the future as I familiarize myself more with the Vaesen mechanics or my anxiously awaited copy of Weird Heroes of Public Access arrives, so we’ll see. I plan to post once a week on folklore, starting tomorrow and continuing regularly on Tuesdays (I did consider doing a “Folklore Friday” but Fridays are a terrible day to get eyes looking at a blog).

While this isn’t ideal news for people asking for more Secret Antiquities, it’s something. And I do try to “never say never.” All I can do is keep reading, keep writing, and most of all, keep myself in a positive state of mind, and the future will sort itself out.