Mrs. Wakeman vs. the Antichrist Read Online Free PDF Page B

place:
    Tak Nine Steel Rods about ten or twelve Inches in Length Sharp or Piked to Perce in to the Erth, and let them be Besmeared with fresh blood from a hen mixed with hogdung. Then mak two Surkels Round the hid Treasure one of Sd Surkels a Little Larger in Surcumference than the hid Treasure lays in the Erth the other Surkel Sum Larger still, and as the hid treasure is wont to move to North or South East or west Place your Rods as is Discribed on the other sid of this leaf. [The other side of the page shows the rods laid out in a wheel-shaped pattern.] 47
    Many treasure hunters used a ritual sword or dagger to scratch a magic circle into the ground around the area to be excavated, then cast a spell. It might include hymns, Bible readings, or animal sacrifices, but “[s]hould someone carelessly mutter or curse,” the enchantment would be broken, and “the treasure guardians could penetrate the circle or carry the treasure through the earth.” 48 Digging was done in perfect silence and as the men worked, spirits attempted to confuse and frighten them with phantom storms, fires, ghosts, demons, and monsters.
    It must have been unnerving work, scooping dirt out of a dark hole in the middle of the night while a shrieking corpse or giant black pig stalked the outer perimeter of the magic circle, and someone invariably spoke or, more likely, swore whereupon the unprotected diggers ran for their lives, arriving home empty-handed and, in some cases, with their hair turned white from terror. What frightened them?
    Most treasure guardians were spirits of the dead. The ghost of the treasure’s former owner might stand guard, or, in the case of piratical booty, a member of the burying party or other unfortunate was killed for the purpose (these ghosts seem to have been especially angry). There were phantom animals as well, including fiery-eyed dogs and cats, wild horses, and diabolical livestock. A talking toad threatened to murder treasure hunters at Niagara County, New York, while reptiles, particularly snakes, recall the ancient role of dragons as guardians of the Golden Fleece and other treasures. Snakesalso represent Satan, and riches acquired through sin and bloodshed, then hidden within the earth, tended to attract infernal attention.
    Five hundred little devils watched over a hoard of silver buried in Safe Harbor, Pennsylvania, and a treasure hunter digging near Dighton Rock, a boulder covered with mysterious carvings at Berkley, Massachusetts, saw “the devil, equipped with all his paraphernalia of tail and horns and cloven hoof, mocking and laughing at him.” 49
    There were also beings intimately connected to the Earth, including dwarfish elemental gnomes and gigantic children of the goddess Gaia, which, “[b]ecause of their size and strength . . . made formidable guardians.” 50 Joseph Smith Jr. reportedly saw a group of money-diggers routed by a giant standing eight or nine feet tall, and Mr. Wait had an even more alarming encounter. While excavating a hole, he looked up and “beheld a huge millstone suspended above him by a thread, and a giant negro standing by with scissors ready to cut the thread and cause the stone to fall upon him.” 51
    Wait survived the millstone (as well as a phantom flood and spectral wild horses), and when he died around 1900, an attempt was made to overturn his will based “largely on the fact that the testator . . . had . . . been imbued with the belief that he possessed the power to locate hidden treasure.” 52 The court did not consider magical treasure hunting a sufficient reason to overturn the will, but the case of
Wait v. Westfall
demonstrates how the rational, more or less scientific, worldviewthat came to dominate public life during the nineteenth century had turned a once-popular pastime into evidence of incompetence or insanity.
    While powwow doctors might have been curing hexed cattle in Pennsylvania, root