What is it like to move for three months? That’s what we did. My husband took a coaching job at Southern Virginia University, so we are in Virginia for three months. I really enjoy exploring my surroundings wherever I go, and the first morning I laced up my running shoes and took off to explore the surrounding streets—charming 1960s remodeled houses, primarily wooden with some brick houses wedged in between.
The rolling Blue Ridge mountains surround the little town and one can run to a trail not far from the main street which is called Magnolia Avenue. The Maury River flows on the other side of Magnolia Avenue.
A new friend reached out and we went on a hike through the Washington and Jefferson National Forests right out my front door and a few streets over called the Reservoir Hollow Trail. I don’t know why, but the forests reminded me of the setting from the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving (1783-1859). The forest is so dense that the sun barely peeks through the tops of the trees, and the atmosphere can be eerie and claustrophobic if you are not used to it. We were mostly in the dark shade the entire time. It’s funny what little memories pop into your head, and that’s what popped into my head was that story.
Named for the country’s first president, Washington Irving began as a reluctant lawyer but abandoned the idea as he had a passion for writing. “I was always fond of visiting new scenes and observing strange characters and manners,” he once wrote.
The story of Tom Walker is based on the legend of Faust, a 16th-century magician and astrologer who was said to have sold his soul to the devil for wisdom, money, and power. Washington Irving reinvented the tale, setting it in the 1720s in an area of New England where Quakers and Puritans primarily lived. In Irving’s comic retelling of the legend, the writer satirizes people who present a pious public image as they “sell their soul” for money. The legend of Faust shows up in media more often than not, such as the movie The Devil Wears Prada.
So, that is what I am writing about because Irving has some wonderful imagery, with mainly the scenery setting the mood for the spooky story. If you have time, listen to this version, as this narrator has a more chilling voice than the others, and this is the one I used for many years.
Here are some of my favorite scenery quotes:
“A few miles from Boston in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet, winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp or morass.”
“The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood.”
“Tom had long been picking his way cautiously through this treacherous forest; stepping from tuft to tuft of rushes and roots, which afforded precarious footholds among deep sloughs; or pacing carefully, like a cat, along the prostrate trunks of trees; startled now and then by the sudden screaming of the bittern, or the quaking of wild duck rising on the wind from some solitary pool.”
Love this ending:
“Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth. Let all griping money brokers lay this story to hear. The truth of it is not to be doubted. The very hole under the oak trees whence he dug Kidd’s money is to be seen to this day; and the neighboring swamp and old Indian fort are often haunted in stormy nights by a figure on horseback, in morning gown and white cap, which is doubtless the troubled spirit of the usurer. In fact the story has resolved itself into a proverb so prevalent throughout New England, of “The Devil and Tom Walker.”
My hike was not gloomy at all, but the darkness did remind of this story.
Has your surroundings ever sparked a memory of your own? Or maybe a smell? Or hearing something?
Keep writing!