So,
just what is going on with these devil’s
infants? And why is it that they can
be found, literally, all over the
world?
The
Devil Baby of Hull House
The
most famous American Devil Baby has
to be the Chicago’s Devil Baby
of Hull House. At least, this is certainly
the most widespread legend.
Hull
House represented the life’s
work of Nobel Prize winning philanthropist
Jane Addams. It was a place envisioned
as a stepping-stone for underprivileged
and impoverished members of Chicago’s
poor immigrant society. Because of
Addams’ particular interest
in suffrage and women’s and
children’s rights, it was natural
that immigrant women and mothers would
be attracted to the beacon of Hull
House.
Despite
Addams’ fervent denials (she
dedicated more than 40 pages to the
legend and its impact on her life
in her autobiography) the story persisted
that Hull House was the home of a
creature not of this earth.
Originally,
the rumor was just a whisper among
the large immigrant population of
late 19th century Chicago. Mostly
superstitious and uneducated, it is
certain that they brought with them
from their homelands many ethnic and
cultural beliefs that shaped their
perception of their new foreign world.
However, the “facts” were
no fabrication: Most sources agree
that Jane Addams, out of charity,
took in the female who would bear
the burden that would plague the good
woman for generations to come.
The
mother of the Devil Baby, though nameless,
is said to have fled to Hull House
to escape a brutal marriage. This
is a central part of the story and
an important one: evidently the young
immigrant woman found herself pregnant
once again and the husband, already
having too many mouths to feed on
his meager income, is said to have
ruthlessly beat his wife, all the
while cursing the unborn child. When
the young woman fled to the shelter
of Hull House, she found an understanding
matron who was prepared to take her
in and to protect her through the
difficult pregnancy.
And
it was a difficult pregnancy, according
to the written accounts of Hull House
servants who rendered firsthand descriptions
of the notorious events. The mother-to-be
complained of unusual pains throughout
the pregnancy, of hearing voices and
of having vivid, frightening nightmares.
Jane Addams and the Hull House physicians
put this down to the tormented life
that the woman had led prior to escaping
to Hull House, exacerbated by the
continuous efforts of her husband
to gain access to her.
As
the time of her delivery came due,
the horrible nature of what she had
carried and nurtured for nine months
was finally revealed. A writhing monster
child full of scales and reptilian
coldness with gleaming, black eyes,
clawed hands and feet, and the protrusions
of tiny horns on its forehead.
Legend
has it that the mother died on the
spot, mercifully released from this
world. But in an unexpected turn of
events, it is said that Jane Addams
was overcome with such compassion
that it moved her to take the child
into her care.
Thus
the story grew up over the years,
whispered in every quarter, that behind
the walls of Hull House an evil was
growing.
This
infant grew to a child – a monstrous
lump of a human-like creature –
that prowled the darkness and had
full run of the dreaded third storey
of Hull House. It is said that the
child would peer from the windows,
envious of the other children with
whom it was not allowed to associate.
Children and other residents of Hull
House often awoke in the night to
strange scrabbling noises and furtive
breathing near their faces, only to
discover in the lamplight that they
were completely alone.
Eventually,
Jane Addams died, but the legend of
the Devil Baby of Hull House lives
on and even today passersby and visitors
to the location report seeing the
shadow of “something”
childlike peering at them from the
darkness.
The
Devil Baby of Bourbon Street
By
all indications, however, the Devil
Baby of Hull House has nothing on
the Devil Baby of Bourbon Street.
With the illustrious history of Creole
and, ah, Satanic descent, and claimed
as the ward of Voodoo Queen Marie
Laveau and as the godchild of none
other than Madame LaLaurie, this spawn
of Satan rates high on the list of
infamy.
Born
from the curses of spurned love and
a family’s pact with Satan himself,
the Devil Baby of Bourbon Street has
plagued the dreams and waking experiences
of New Orleanians for generations.
Mammies
used to frighten rebellious children
with threats of “that Devil
Baby gone git ya!” and maw-maws
and mothers have done the same to
generations of New Orleans children.
Of course, the ones who were really
frightened by the threat were the
ones who lived in or near the French
Quarter, but it was little comfort
to know that “the Devil Baby
gits around!”
Proof
of this comes from numerous sources
over the years. As quoted above, sometimes
the hardiest of locals can get scared
witless with just one encounter with
this awful progeny of Satan. The Devil
Baby doesn’t just keep to Bourbon
Street. It has been spotted lunging
across balconies throughout the Quarter,
peering in at windows of homes and
hotels and frightening witnesses at
every encounter.
One
tourist reported seeing the Devil
Baby near a restaurant dumpster, hanging
on the edge, apparently looking for
something to eat.
“When
it heard me, it’s head popped
up, like a snap and it looked right
at me!” said the frightened
man who asked that his name not be
used. “I’m glad I was
across the street from it, because
it was down on the ground in an instant.
I didn’t need to see it to know
it was after me, I could hear its
claws on the sidewalk! I ducked into
a bar and I don’t think it followed
me in there, but I can tell you, I
didn’t go out until I saw the
sun in the sky!”
Others
have encountered the baby sitting
along the curb, appearing lost, playing
in the muck and mire of the French
Quarter gutters. Anyone would be concerned
about a child playing in such filth,
but it seems this is how the Devil
Baby lures tourists and locals alike.
Concerned folks have stooped to help
the “innocent child” only
to be hissed at and, on at least one
occasion, scratched in the face by
vicious, devil claws. The Devil Baby
scurries away in a clattering fit
and will climb up to the Quarter rooftops
or disappear into one of the courtyards
or alleyways nearby.
No
one will dispute the horrible sound
of the howl of the Devil Baby, echoing
all over the French Quarter whenever
a rainstorm approaches. And it is
no surprise that the most frequent
sightings of this horrible Satanic
offspring occur near the house on
St. Ann Street that Marie Laveau once
called home. Just as often, the Devil
Baby’s red, gleaming eyes can
be seen peering from the second floor
of what was once its nursery in the
LaLaurie home on Royal Street.
Though
some might debate the origin and existence
of this awful child, those who have
encountered it in the dark French
Quarter streets need no more proof
than their own experience that the
Devil Baby of Bourbon Street is real
and alive today!
The Jersey Devil
Residents
of Colonial New England were familiar
with the reality of Satan’s
spawn on earth. They were also very
well versed in the habits of witches
and faerie folk who often left devil
changelings in cribs in exchange for
the human infants they abducted. In
the case of witches, of course, it
was well known to the Goodman settler
exactly what would be the fate of
the purloined child. In the case of
faerie abduction, however, the outcome
was not always so clear.
In
reality, the human infant would be
brought up among the fey folk and
who would mate with the human child
when it reached maturity. Oftentimes,
these faerie-human half-breeds would
infiltrate the natural world and walk
among humankind. These half-breeds
were considered by the wise Colonial
fathers as perfect targets for the
wiles of Satan or for attacks from
the faerie realm in an effort to perpetuate
their kind.
Thus
the story of the 18th century Mother
Leeds and the child she bore to be
the Jersey Devil is a perfectly acceptable,
if not fully understandable, extension
of this Yankee thriftiness with the
denizens of folklore.
Mother
Leeds, of course, is infamous for
having cursed herself when she found
herself with child for the 13th time:
it is said that she so decried her
state that she would rather “bear
a devil than yet another thankless
child.”
Obviously,
motherhood was wearing thin, but nonetheless,
her words went out and fell on the
not-so-deaf ears of the Universe and
within 9 months Mother Leeds was delivered
of her burden: a perfectly repulsive
Devil Baby.
Though
the legends vary, it is doubtless
that the Leeds sought to keep their
hell progeny a secret from their neighbors
and the child and the mother were
close confined in the house. But the
devil has wiles, as we all know, and
soon the child escaped. It has lived
on in infamy to plague the Garden
State and nearby coastal areas for
generations.
Reports
of sightings and encounters are numerous
and most agree that this Devil Baby
has grown into a bizarre, demonic
being: most describe the thing as
having the body of a man, covered
in heavy hair or fur; hoofed hind
legs; long, scaly arms with claw-like
fingertips; a long, pointed tail;
and a head shaped like a horse. It
is said to be between 7 and 8 feet
tall and to have wings like a huge
bat that carry it away with amazing
speed.
All
this sounds impossible, however, this
is in keeping with the “typical”
(if they can be called that) descriptions
of demons and demonic spirits recorded
by sorcerers and magicians since the
great Goetia of the Middle Ages. Demons
– and what else is the Devil
Baby but a demon? – are said
to have only a faint grasp on physicality,
existing as they do on a lower etheric
level. When demonic beings –
even Devil Babies – interact
with human beings the forms they take
are bizarre and confusing.
According
to experts in this field, one common
denominator is the sheer weirdness
of the forms demons take on when materializing
on the human level. Reading the old
Shadow Books one finds descriptions
of demons taking on the form of a
wolf with gryphon’s wings and
the tail of a serpent (not so far
from the Jersey Devil description,
huh?), or another who appears as savage
dogs with triangular shaped head;
or yet another who appears as gleaming,
skeletal women with bodies fused to
fish.
If
these are the forms that demons and
devils have manifested throughout
history, its not a leap of the imagination
to believe that there’s something
to the Jersey Devil stories after
all. A man-like winged beast with
the head of a horse and a long pointed
tail? Certainly.
Fairies
and Changelings
The
folklore of the British Isles and
Europe is full of references to the
progeny of Satan and, indeed, one
of the key schools of study for the
aspiring Inquisitor of the Middle
Ages was the belief that Satan could
father children on human females.
The
tradition of changelings, either by
faerie intervention or the malevolence
of a witch or sorcerer, is not only
acknowledged in many parts of rural
Europe but is still actively protected
against wherever the belief is firmly
held.
In
Eastern Europe especially, and among
the Romany (Gypsies) everywhere, the
tradition of swaddling infants in
complicated wrappings has a history
in the belief that Satan, dark faeries
and other evil minions, or “stragoi,”
cannot resist the temptation to count
the cloths used in the wrappings;
while thus occupied, the interloping
entity is usually discovered and run
off or destroyed. Powerful amulets
on knotted strings, and the simple
lacing of nightshirts or corsets were
considered deterrents to the intruding
demonic spirits; in other cultures
brooms were placed across the doors
in the belief that the evil spirit
would be compelled to stop and count
every shaft in the broom. The tradition
of throwing rice and beans around
the crib of infants has its beginnings
in this widespread belief that demons,
faeries and other ill-intentioned
entities are compulsive counters.
Cajun
Devil Baby
This
is firmly believed among the Cajuns
of Louisiana who fear the thing called
the feu follet, a Devil Baby (some
say a witch in child’s form),
that comes in the night to suckle
at the breast of infants. Many Cajuns
believe the witch will travel in the
form of a ghostly child and will come
in the night to plague the crib-bound.
“From
the small child’s breast there
is often a sticky exudation called
witches’ milk by the Cajuns.
Children who become cross and fretful
are believed victims of an evil witch,
who comes nightly to suckle at their
breasts. A broom placed across the
threshold of the door will prevent
this. No witch will step over a broom.”
(From Tales from the Levee: The Folklore
of St. John the Baptist Parish, by
Marcia G. Gaudet.)
In
fact, recent encounters with the Devil
Baby of Bourbon Street may support
this counting theory after all: Those
who have seen the Devil Baby occupied
in the gutter claim that it is busy
counting long strands of the prized
white Mardi Gras pearls that tourists
love so very much . . .
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