The Curse Of The Moloch (6)
When heavens rain, remember me; When the cock crows, remember me!" Incantations woven were healing words copied from the verses of the Good Book, "I will put none of these diseases upon thee for I am the Lord who healeth thee." A specific disease could be mentioned in a saying, "The spirit of the bones that walks with the tendon and bones of..... Heal him from the curse that inflames. Guard him in the name of the holy one!" The good folk desparately spelled out hopefully the secret incantations to expel from their sickly bodies when ill with great fever or the lasting fever, "In the name of the angel of heat of all kinds that He may uproot fever and sickness from the body. 'Eshata Raba' eradicate from the body all hectic fever and illness and sickness." "May the illness go away, depart, go away, leave and go out from the heart, stomach, bowels, entrails, ribs, chest, on who the amulet is hung from today and for ever and ever," the words of the incantation cried out upon the sickness of a beloved kinfolk. The believers wrote the incantations in blessed words on tiny slips of paper and placed them in tiny, primitively carved amulets of oak and pine. Then these amulets were placed religiously around the necks of their innocent ones; at times worn together with stringed garlic pods to ward off the demons and the evil spirits of darkness. Tiny pieces of known magical plants and roots from secret woods were added for additional power and energy. The good folk took heart in these amulets with their incantations and believed in their healing power. "Save me from evil tormentors, for evil eye, from spirits, from demons, from shadow-spirits." They inscribed the name of the loved ones on the tissue with the suitable spell, "Cure fever and shivers from ---- daughter of ----." When a soul was was carried away, the ardent folk believed, that the secret words they uttered would protect the spirit of the departed from all evil and the curse of the evil eye in its passage to the heavens above. They continued to spell out the mystic words of the incantations at the right moment of the day and the right moment of need. In their eyes these secret words written in the incantations helped to soothe and remedy the constant miseries of the affliction of illness of the soul and body that entered their lives. � Chapter Thirteen There was neither the sweetness of the rare hoarded bits of joy nor the hope of deliverance for Jeremiah Micaiah in the dreariness of his life around his home. Miz' Jezebel, his embittered mother, constantly berated him for any wrongdoings with a severe tongue-lashing. The severity of the words was always coupled with the threat of the sacrificial hell-fire of the lord of the lower world, the Moloch. The threat was for his misbehaving considered sinful in her eyes. Miz' Jezebel saw the cursed sin everywhere; she was constantly on the alert for the sign of its presence, and the dreadful act of its devilry. She saw the attraction to sinful acts constantly in the very actions of her son Jeremiah, a thin growing boy entering the adolescent years. Her simple thoughts on his so-called pranks and naughtiness were seen by her ever watchful eyes as a moral offense and not of the natural acts of a tousled haired boy. Miz' Jezebel, his stern and unrepenting mother, swore to her kinfolk and nearby neighbors that she could look into his grey eyes and see the telltale signs on his thin worrisome face to know of his wicked deeds. Punishment was neccessary she told them as it was a means to rid him of the curse of sinful acts, "Ye kin see hit' in hiz very eyes an' ye cud see th' devil hisself in hiz doings, ahh kin tell..." The good folk assented but they knew that Miz' Jezebel was stirring in the damnation of her own sin through the violent rape by her late husband that conceived her son; an act that she consented to, albeit in fear. According to the good folk Miz' Jezebel was trying to teach her son Jeremiah, born in shame, to walk in the path of righteous; an act of redemption that will save him from being the sacrificial lamb for her transgression. But to Miz'Jezebel's simple logic, it was her right duty to correct and punish him for any wrongdoing. But the good woman didn't under-stand that her righteous actions which she called her sacred duty turned her son, Jeremiah, into a frightened and miserable boy; a youth that was gifted by her actions by the burden of the dreadful fear of sin and its consequences. Otherwise Jeremiah Micaiah's life, outside his home, carried on in its humdrum existence. His surroundings around the settlement in the hollow were filled with ever-present foul stain of poverty, and every-where was its bitter evidence. It was there from the junk strewn yards and gardens around delapidated shacks; and it was signed with the grey tattered laundry hanging on the lines stretched on rickety wooden poles. It was there in the foul air polluted by the exhaust of engines from second hand jalopies to the diesel fuel machines that belched their foulness from the smokestacks of the colliery. The tarnished signs were felt everywhere as evidenced from the choking dust on the unpaved roads in the heat of the summer, to the stickeness of the foul mud along the paths during the rains. Even the scraggly growth of bushes and trees fought for its breath through the polluted air; signs of the brown of decay were evident on their once full green foliage. Children of his neighbors and kin-folk, stunted from a wearisome diet of turnip greens and 'taters', were constantly searching through the growing amount of trash near the pits for a discarded piece of treasured junk; or sorting usuable coal from the slag heaps for the cooking fires at home. Dressed in ill fitting hand-me-downs and shoed in scuffed worn brogues, they were constantly in battle when a so-called prize was unearthed in their search. But only Jeremiah's life was a bit different as Miz' Jezebel, his righteous mother, didn't want him to look like that 'white trash' as she termed the many offsprings of her neighbors. She dressed him proper-like with mended and clean hand-me-down shirts and britches and shoed with good fitten' ankle-length boots. His mother saw to it that her son hands and face were well scrubbed and his hair properly combed every morning. She made sure that he had a weekly bath in the tin tub whether he sat in cold or hot water. His immediate surroundings were also a bit different as his house was a two story paint peeling dwelling, a gift of his grandfather upon his demise to his daughter, Miz' Jezebel to the nearby neighbors. The dwelling was strongly built; its foundations firmly set on the boulders on an inclining hill. Those who envied considered it a grand house. Miz' Jezebel was mighty proud of her inheritance from her pappy and in a pathetic fit of beautification planted a few geranimus and pansies in the hard packed ground fronting the splintery porch of the dwelling. 'Uppity' was what the neighbors called her efforts as seen through their 'green eyes'. During his long span of life, Jeremiah's grandfather assumed the role of the unofficial mayor of the community and part of the honour was to live in a grand house. "Built it myself - from the very stones of the good earth to the lumber of the ever-growing forest," as he wanted to quote from an imaginative passage from the 'Good Book'. In fact the house was an architectural monstrosity with three small rooms and an equally small kitchen served by a long hall on the bottom floor; and the climbing stairs led to three tiny second floor bedrooms. There was no plumbing and chamber pots and an outhouse served the needs. Lighting was through the flickering light of a candle or a smoking kerosene lamp. For Miz' Jezebel the house with its endless maze of small rooms was a nightmare of endless cleaning. But for Jeremiah Micaiah it was a godsend as it had a strong celler which provided him with a protected haven from the torments of his mother and her endless threats of the hell-fire of the demon god. The pathetic creature, in his early years, locked himself in a small but empty room built in a corner that, at one time, served as a larder for his grandpa's store of stone jars of sprits. Jeremiah imagined, in his innocence, the basement afforded him the safety of its stone outer walls; and that the fire god Moloch and his horde of fierce demon attendants could not penetrate this thick bastion. Jeremiah Micaiah's life at his home continued in the daily drugery that seemed endless. It was coupled with the constant mindless threats of the hell-fires of the Moloch repeated by his mother to him by not going in the path of righteousness. Daily, it was drummed into him by her who was a witness to the words of the pagan god's existence. On the Sabbath at chapel services, the Bible thumping sermons of the just and God fearing preacher drilled it deeper into his mind. Within time the sight of the demon god crept into his mind marking his appearance through realistic and frightening apparitions of his imagination. � Jeremiah's miseries extendended to the torture of his lessons given to him and his classmates by a Miz' Lizzy, his school ma'am, at the nearby one-room schoolhouse. The teacher was a scrawny little old maid who, in her late forties, had not sampled the love and attention of a good man. She unleashed the bile of her bitter life upon her unfortunate pupils and they had to take her scorn daily at their studies. From her chicken-neck throat Miz' Lizzy screeched out the lessons; whose sharp pitch increased when she sharply berated a pupil for a supposed inattention. Her charges considered her a holy-terror especially when she included some ear pulling to stress her remarks. Unfortunately Jeremiah Micaiah was the teacher's favourite butt; outside of basic knowledge of the three 'r's', all he remembers of his schooling days was Miz' Lizzy's beaked nose running up and down as she lashed at him for some reason or other; her screeching voice heard calling out 'Jereeemiahhh Micaiaaah!!' And, of course there were the bullies of the school, who made him the scapegoat of their jokes and abuses for their after school amusement. The meek fearful young-un was a good target for them as he was easily driven to tears, a hilarious sight in their eyes. "Nyaah, nyaah, sissy crybaby!" they heckled him, "Crybaby, run t' yer mammy, nyaahh!" Their so-called pranks and dirty tricks were abusive words at most times, but there were moments when their heckling turned to physical and punishing torment; at those times Jeremiah was left with a bruised body or with torn clothing.. And it followed with the coming wrath of Miz' Jezebel, his mis-understanding kin, who took the sight of the bruising marks and torn clothing as a sign of his Jeremiah's continuing sinning ways. A walloping stick on the bare bottom in the shed completed the misery of the boy's day. Only the creatures of his mind sympathized with him in their way, and they were there ready to hear his plaintive complaints of the torments of life. � � Chapter Fourteen Devils, spirits, demons and all the other creatures of the nether world followed him throughout the pathways of his dreary life. Some were friendly and were his welcomed companions; he could talk to them and they listened quietly. But the evil ones, when they came, were only there to torment his living soul for sinning acts - they were seen in the imagination of his mind in all forms from evil grinning devils to spirits of the night flying on tattered wings. Jeremiah listened spellbound to the warnings of the old-timers and the old crones who spelled out fearful and terrifying tales of the 'critters' of the underworld with their eternal devilry upon the children of man. He heard from the lips of these tellers of tales of the tricks and the hiding places of these wicked figures of the damned. The young-un learned, from an early age, of how to protect himself from demons, evil spirits and shadow spirits of the night through mystic incantations and secretive amulets. .... and on the holy Sabbath at the little church in the hollow he shivered in terror as he heard the words of the good preacher telling of the terrible power of the wicked emissaries of Satan of the bottomless pit. The hefty thump on his careworn Bible by the cleric emphasized his damning words on the devil and on all his kind and branded the fear of the Prince of Darkness. The good man warned that the coming of the creatures of hell will be heard in the frightful blast of a horn and the beat of a drum. The preacher cautioned his parishoners to be aware of the rhythm of evil ways. He commanded them walk the path of righteouness so that the sound will never be heard. The believers of the Good Book carried the message and continued to speak of this fear. Jeremiah listened as they talked of the damnation of the nether world and of its evil attendants; he listened in awe as they told of tortures of the devil, and it drove the dread of Satan deeper into his soul. The young-un listened in fearsome awe to these stories of the unseen creatures and took note of the warnings of the ways of the devil. Jeremiah listened in dread as they spelled out their frightful mysteries that caused devilish harm and pain to both man and beast. Within a short time Jeremiah saw visions of the horrible minions of the nether world in all forms in his mind. Everywhere he went he imagined their evil presence, and only through the correct wording of protective incantations did he fantisize protection from these unseen creatures of his imagination. The fear of lurking shadow spirits and demons were joined together with the fear of the approach of the fire god, the Moloch, drummed into his mind by Miz' Jezebel, his thoughtless mother. At every transgression he supposedly commited he heard the coming of the pagan god through the raucous blare of the primitive horn and the steady beat of the taut skin-headed drum. At every assumed sin he thought he committed, Jeremiah saw in the imagination of his mind the fiery phantom along with other demons, monsters and shadow spirits beckoning him to the tortuous hell-fire of the damned. His fear of the world of spirits and demons added to the spiteful pranks of the hooligans of the settlement and they tricked him at every chance. Their spiteful words caused him to have the endless misery of fright of the supposed sight of demon spirits. "Nyaahhh!" they shouted mercilessly at him, "Thars a mean lookin' critter crawlin' up yer back. Hits' got sharp claws an' hits' got a smokin' mouth." Jeremiah would freeze in terror on the report and his skin prickled in terror. Then the bullies laughed without mercy at the sight of the trembling fear as it spread on his thin worrisome features till the pupils of his gray eyes narrowed in dread. They never let up on their frightening tricks until the good 'Lordy' spared Jeremiah in the later years by endowing him with a strong body, and slowly the pranks faded in the passing of time. But the fiery god and the fearsome creatures of the nether world remained his constant threat for retribution for any act of sinning. This dreaded fear of devilish creatures crept in the deep recesses of Jeremiah's simple and superstitious mind and expanded in their terror through the coming years. - faithful in their evil to the very end. � � SPIRIT OF THE WATER "Beware of Shabriri!" garbled the three withered old crones. "Beware!" cried the black souled sisters of the haunting darkness who lived amoung the mysteries of the secret sanctum of the unseen forest spirits and demons. "Beware of the still waters of the night, the haunt of the demoness Shabriri, Beware!" When the moon was on the wane and the air was still, the three old women, bent with age and dressed in the black of darkness spun their tale of Shabriri the shadow spirit, the demoness over the water. They wove their tale to a small group of believers who gathered along the walls of their stone wattled hut. There, under the shade of the oak and pine of the age-old forest on the climbing worn hills, the legend of the demoness was relived. From their slurred tongues the wizened ones told their frightful tale to their attentive assembly who listened and took notice of their words. They mumbled that the shadow spirit is a female demoness with tattered wings and long coarse hair; her fearful voice could be heard as it flowed through the air over the stillness of the waters warning of her presence. "Take care as you walk, during the dark night, along the quiet ways near the waters of the forest to avoid stirring the anger of the spirit of Shabriri." "Beware, take warning!" chortled the old gnarled hags. "Beware of Shabriri," they warned the innocent as the chanted through gummed mouths an age-old incantation to protect them from harm from the evil one: thee! In the name of I-am-who-I-am, Selah Selah" They continued to warn those that listened and took heart to the threat of demons. Over and over they spoke in the language of their garbled tongues of the mystic powers of the demoniac shadow spirit, "Beware of the demoness Shabriri!! that roams throughout the night with a horde of fallen angels. Shabriri wrecks harm from those who drink from pools or streams in the dark of the night." Their cackling lips told of the tale of an unfortunate group of three innocent children who at night drank of the still waters; "The angry demoness and her wicked attendants caught them and inflicted devasta-ting punishment. They had caused their hair to fall out, and turned their skins to black as night." The terror of the tale continued, bringing the cold fingers of fear running up the spines of the listeners. The three ancient hags cackled out the question, "What should the good believers do if one happens to meet this evil spirit?" They chortled in the slur of their tongues that one should utter the 'Abracadabra' formula which they swore on the soul of the devil himself that it will lure the evil demoness in a snare, "Briri, Riri, Iri, Ri!" The ancient crones explained to the assembly that this secret spell wouldl trap the evil demoness, Shabriri; in order to be set free, the shadow spirit will promise not to harm the accursed henceforth.
Go to part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Copyright © 2002 Norman A Rubin |