A-Berrying in Newfoundland
Rent from DeepDyve- A-Berrying in Newfoundland
You were just thirteen then, Lamb,six years ago, August.Oh my, no. I haven't thought of thatold story. You want that one?
Yes, I remember your face that night.Window to window to window, youalone, darting, the lamp-glow behind youflashing like Flower's Cove lighthouseshowing the path home. You shouted,In the name of God, who are you?
Yes, I'm sure I frightened you.Bent over double coming in the door.I always wore my hair up in a lovely ball,not a wisp astray.But that night, it was all over my face,cut by cane break.How could you have known me?
Something happened to me, I told youI don't know what happened to me, I told youI stayed in bed two weeks.
Yes, with Brigit Nolan, across the meadow.Never alone, no. Never alone.
She said I strayed from her.She went to empty her box in our bucketand couldn't find me.Walked the whole woods over. Didn't pick a single berry. [End Page 211]
Her husband moved them away, Lamb, do you know?Three years since.
Yes, I'll try, but I don't remembereverything. Such a bright morning.We went into the berry woods, in by Wells Cove.
No, I've never taken you there.But oh, such berries,just calling for cream.So sweet on my fingers, my tongue.
Then the fog came down.
Hours and hours later I woke.Near dark it was.One of my boots, gone.The berries, gone.And my sweater, my clothes, or some of them.And my face,blood there, everywhere.They had come upon me sure. Took me.Astray.
You remember that word, do you?I remember your silence.Your eyes searching my torn pocket.Your hand on my forehead, the cool cloth.
Yes, I'm sure that's what I would have said.Astray. You know, in the fairies.Astray all day.
Yes, of course it was them.They laid me down by a brook.Well, they won't cross water, will they?You remember your grandmother telling you that? And her mother? Yes, you do, of course. [End Page 212]
What's this then?OhAnd who would be listening to this old story?OhWell, if it's for school, butbe sure you tell them it was the fairies, for certain.
Oh, no. It's not good to talk much about them,how tall they were, their hair, their clothesor even speak their name.Good People, I should say.The Good People. So anyway—
They set me down in Broom Cove, by the Perlican.Seven miles I walked, all the way home.A scarf on my foot. It's a blessingyour father didn't find me.No one knew.
Well, except Captain Perry.
Yes, that's the one. From Carbonear.Buys your father's fish right here in the cove.I waved to him, Stop the car!Raised my ripped hand high.He saw me standing but only paused.Who are you? he said.Why Captain, says I straight away,John Woodruff's wife.Many's the time I cooked supper for you.Don't you know me?
Margaret R. Yocom, Associate Professor of English, co-directs the Folklore Studies Program at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
Margaret Yocom has taught folklore since 1977 in the Department of English at George Mason University where she founded the Folklore Studies Program and the Northern Virginia Folklife Archive. She specializes in oral narrative, material culture, family folklore, gender studies, and folklore and creative writing. Active in public folklore, she serves as curator of the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum, Rangeley, Maine. She has published books and articles from her fieldwork among her Pennsylvania German family, the Inuit of northwest Alaska, and the people in her primary fieldsite: the western mountains of Maine. Her poetry and literary non-fiction have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Beltway Poetry Journal, Friends Journal, Voices, and the anthology The Folklore Muse: Poetry, Fiction, and Other Reflections by Folklorists.
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