When I read Katy’s post about LT’s Dark New England theme, I thought of centuries-old stories set in a wilderness that no longer exists, Hawthorne’s characters tempted by the devil in the woods.
Then, last weekend, on the drive to his late godfather’s place in Maine, my boyfriend me told a story that hit a little closer to home. His mother had recently stumbled across an old family Bible in the attic. Inscribed in it was the name of a distant great aunt who was accused of committing withcraft in Marlborough, Massachusetts in the early 1700s.
More interesting, though, was a letter folded in the Bible, recounting the experience of another Marlborough aunt. She started in an idyllic domestic setting, singing in the kitchen as a pie baked in the oven and her sister’s children made God’s Eyes on the floor.
Then the tomahawks came out, the arrows flew through the air, and, in a few minutes time, everyone but the singing aunt was slain where they stood. Enraptured by the beauty of her song, the invading tribe decided to take her as a captive instead. They brought her back to Marlborough four years later.
I haven’t heard many more details — I do know that she married her fiance when she came back to town — but until I get them, I like to hope that the letter is a concise, Quaker variation on Mary Rowlandson’s The Soverignty and Goodness of God, with sheet music of the melodies she dreamt up on the frontier.
I scoured the internet, just in case, but I couldn’t find any such music, or even an operatic captivity narrative. (His mother’s a writer and his grandmother was an opera singer; I thought they might appreciate the connection.) No such luck, but I did find a blogger/musician who wrote a song inspired by Rowlandson’s experiences. Listen at your own risk.
