She had no settled home, but wandered where
The campfires of her tribe were lit,
The lakes, the forests and the marshes,
Even the pale grasses of the prairies
Know her lovely form—

The dark witch of the Iroquois,
Matshi Sku-ee-oo.
She never saw the dreary light of day,
But in the dark, like a dim fountain’s spray,
She lured men to their doom.

Her violet lips were amorous,
He sea-green eyes were full of light,
Her copper skin was burnished bright,
And her black hair was crowned with river flags.
She would descend upon a moonbeam’s ray,

Or on the waters of the bright cascades,
On silent sands,
Among the vapours of the valley,
Along the shifting tide-lanes of the sea,
Her white arms raised a dust of bluish sparks

To dance about her like a mist of stars,
Her voice was low and sweet.

One night from out Quebec,
Madame Houel with her young son
Had left to join her husband down the stream,

Who had been warring with the Iroquois.
And suddenly the child heard lovely sounds:
Exquisite music rose upon the night;
He saw a tall slim woman all in white
Who walked upon the waves. [page 65]

‘It is the moonlight,’ said his mother then,
‘It is the moonlight only, oh my son!’
But the canoeist feared the witch had come
To lure them with her song.
He used his every art to outwit hers,

But just where Rivière Ouelle juts out
Past the great rock,
She drew her victims in
To where dark beings waited in the woods
With poisoned arrows and with tomahawks;

She drew them in, with music, to their doom.

And still you sometimes hear the old men say:
‘Come children, children, linger not at play.
Go not at evening to the river bank,
Where, at the rising of the moon,

Far down behind the green fringe of the reeds,
She may be waiting—
Matshi Sku-ee-oh—
Her white arms raising dust of bluish sparks,
Her violet lips—

Her sea-green eyes—
Children—she may be—waiting!’ [page 66]

LA CORRIVEAU

(A NOTORIOUS POISONER OF EARLY QUEBEC)

There is a rustic cage in old Quebec,
A way of execution long ago,
For poisoners and murderers,
Locked firmly, head and toe,
So came her death to Madame Corriveau—

Madame Maria Josephe Corriveau.

They left her without mercy in the cage,
Near to the south-shore road, past Point Levis,
Until her skeleton should crack with age,
And no one said an Ave for her soul.

Until Jose Dubé, a habitant,
A pious man who lived at Point Levis,
Was driving down to Beaumont, past the place,
And seeing the poor lady hanging there,
Her bones all chill against the evening air,

For her lost, tortured soul, his pity gave,
And paused, and crossed himself, and said a prayer.

Then he lay down to sleep. But soon a light
Against the darkness of the winter night
Aroused him suddenly. He looked, and there

The Island of Orleans all bathed in glare
Of myriad tiny lights that danced like flame.
Well did the pious Dubé know the name
Of that ill-fated carnival of shame;
There was a Witches’ Sabbath on that night—

It was the wicked goblins of Orleans,
Will-o-the-Wisps, and their mad fairy friends
Who danced upon the Island in the light,
Like bands of colored movement through the night. [page 67]

‘But, no my dears,’ said José,

‘I shall not join your dance,
I have no will to leave God’s earth
And go to live with you!’
And so he fell asleep.
And then—tic-tac, tic-tac,

He heard a sound behind him
Like little iron footsteps,
Tiny iron footsteps,
Prancing near the old fur-sack
He’d spread upon the ground.

Tic-tac—tic-tac—tic-tac—
The touch of icy bones upon his back.
 Tic-tac—tic-tac—tic-tac—
He knew it was La Corriveau,
The wicked Madame Corriveau,

Corriveau the poisoner, climbing on his back!

She too had seen the witches,
The wicked little fairies
And the goblins that were damned;
They were all her dearest friends

Who were dancing on the Island,
The Island of old sorcery,
And she needed Jose Dubé for her own appointed ends.
She knew that the St. Lawrence
Is a consecrated stream,

But she could not cross its waters
Without a Christian’s aid,
And here was a kind habitant,
Who for her tortured soul
Only an hour or two ago

Had humbly knelt and prayed.
He was her goal—and down the snowy road
Her little iron footsteps firmly strayed. [page 68]

Tic-tac—tic-tac—tic-tac—
Her arms upon his back.

But he said: ‘No, no my dear
I shall not join your dance!
For I’ve no will to leave God’s earth
And go and live with you.’
Tic-tac—tic-tac—tic-tac—

She is crawling up his back,
And you might have heard her shrieks
As far as Saguenay,
And the answer of the demons
From near and far away.

And ‘Why, oh why,’ thought poor José,
‘For her soul did I pray?’

Tic-tac—tic-tac—tic-tac—
‘And so,’ quoth Madame Corriveau,
Still dangerous in death,

‘So,’ quoth the wicked Corriveau,
As she clutched his failing breath,
‘If your body will not go
I shall strangle you, even so,
And I’ll straddle your soul,

Your pious little soul,
And I’ll ride to my friends on the Island!’

Tic-tac—tic-tac—tic-tac—
She has mounted on his back,—
She has mounted on his back,—

And across the icy air
She is riding—on his prayer—
To the dance of Lost Souls
On the Island! [page 69]

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