The Great Dismal Swamp crosses the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina and has been the source of haunting beauty for hundreds of years. Right now, as we enter spooky season, I am stressing the “haunting” part of that description. I have spent time there and traveled to beautiful Lake Drummond. Hidden within the depths of the swamp, it is one of only two natural fresh water lakes in the state of Virginia.
Way back in the early 1800s, an Irish poet by the name of Thomas Moore visited the storied swamp and before he sailed back to Ireland, he spent some time in the city of Norfolk, VA and penned a poetic version of a legend already circulating among those with knowledge of the spooky swamp. Inspired by this poem and the legend behind it, I wrote my first middle-grade supernatural mystery, Zephyr Stone and the Moon Mist Ghost, in which I created a new, fictitious version of the legend. Instead of a heartbroken man seeking a way to join his ghostly lady love as she paddles her canoe through the swamp, mine is a ghostly mother in search of her lost child. Having paddled around the swamp for 300 years, she is hopeful that Zephyr will be able to find her little boy.
Moore’s poem is nearly cinematic in its telling of the legendary tale. Read it aloud some night with a candle to light the darkness, and I guarantee a shiver or two. Enjoy!
A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp
by Thomas Moore
Written at Norfolk, in Virginia
They made her a grave, too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.
And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of death is near.
Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds—
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before.
And when on the earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!
And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake,
And the copper-snake breath’d in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
“Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear?”
He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface play’d—
“Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!”
And the dim shore echoed for many a night
The name of the death-cold maid.
Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from shore;
Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat return’d no more.
But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp,
This lover and maid so true
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!
That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by. Y’all come back, now!
(And enjoy both the Spooky and the Thankful seasons)
See you in December!
Kate