Free Bluenose Ghosts by Helen Creighton Page B

by and by the man told him to ‘come ashore and take me off this island.’ He got frightened and took to rowing hard but the ghost came abreast of him and said, ‘Come ashore and take me off this.’ The third time the man said, ‘You’re not going to take me off this island? Do you mean to say I’ve got to stay here for another hundred years?’
    â€œAnother time three other fellows went to this same island and they started digging and one fellow was in the hole and he saw something and he was struck paralysed. The two others had to drag him to the shore and put him in the boat. He didn’t know what he saw. It seemed to have struck him.”
    They said at Glen Haven, “If you talked while you were digging for treasure the money would sink down, or the devil would come with his head bare, or the man buried with the treasure would come with his sword in his hand to kill you.” These are all fearful things to contemplate, so it is little wonder that at the snapping of a twig or the rustle of a leaf the stoutest-hearted men might scamper.
    Because blood was shed in the burial of a treasure, there are those who believe that it must also be shed to get the treasure out. Also it would seem that the guardian ghost is not always a man. There are instances where a woman has been reported in that role.
    â€œOn Red Island at Chezzetcook Mr. Roast went out for his cows and a woman chased him around the island three or four times. He stopped for breath and she sung the pitifullest song he ever heard. She said, ‘I’m in trouble. There’s money here and I want you to get it. You’ve got to draw blood from two twins.’ He could have drawed it from two lambs but he never bothered.” (The guardian ghost’s existence seems to be a strange contradiction. It may plead with the human to remove the treasure and even explain how it can be done but, when the attempt is made, it will carry out its orders in all sorts of terrifying ways.) In similar cases of “not bothering,” and there are many, I have wondered if the thought of the treasure did not in itself bring joy to the person. It would be a profound disappointment to dig and find nothing. Why not enjoy the illusion and drift along, knowing that if the need for money became too great, the experiment could then be made and the risks encountered. Why chance the spoiling of a pleasant dream?
    There are a few people however who know how to dispel the power of the guardian ghost so that digging may be done in safety. This curious belief has turned up four times in Nova Scotia but the only other parts of the world where it has been reported to my knowledge are Finland and Estonia. Each of ours is a separate story, and they come from Dartmouth, South East Passage, West Jeddore, and Port Wade. The most complete one comes from South East Passage through a family of German descent.
    â€œA poor man from Rose Bay in Lunenburg County was out getting firewood when he saw a treasure chest being buried. After they’d killed their man and buried him with the chest and covered up the hole the pirate threw down his shovel and hoe and said, ‘Now devil, you take the keys until such time as a rooster will plough and a hen will harrow. Then, deliver up the keys.’
    â€œSo the man went home and he told his wife what he was going to do and he made a little plough for his rooster and a harrow for a hen. He took them then to the place and made motions for the rooster to plough and the hen to harrow and what should appear at his feet but a shovel and a hoe. He knew then the ghost wouldn’t trouble him, so he dug and he found a chest full of money and jewels and he never wanted again all the rest of his life.”
    The Port Wade version adds that he was to spill the blood of the rooster as a final act to dissipate the evil of blood having been spilled when the treasure was buried. Another story where blood must be