Dunderberg, “Thunder Mountain,” at the southern gate of the Hudson Highlands, is
a wooded eminence, chiefly populated by a crew of imps of stout circumference,
whose leader, the Heer, is a bulbous goblin clad in the dress worn by Dutch
colonists two centuries ago, and carrying a speaking-trumpet, through which he
bawls his orders for the blowing of winds and the touching off of lightnings.
These orders are given in Low Dutch, and are put into execution by the imps
aforesaid, who troop into the air and tumble about in the mist, sometimes
smiting the flag or topsail of a ship to ribbons, or laying the vessel over
before the wind until she is in peril of going on beam ends. At one time a sloop
passing the Dunderberg had nearly foundered, when the crew discovered the
sugar-loaf hat of the Heer at the mast-head. None dared to climb for it, and it
was not until she had driven past Pollopel’s Island—the limit of the Heer’s
jurisdiction—that she righted. As she did so the little hat spun into the air
like a top, creating a vortex that drew up the storm-clouds, and the sloop kept
her way prosperously for the rest of the voyage. The captain had nailed a
horse-shoe to the mast. The “Hat Rogue” of the Devil’s Bridge in Switzerland
must be a relative of this gamesome sprite, for his mischief is usually of a
harmless sort; but, to be on the safe side, the Dutchmen who plied along the
river lowered their peaks in homage to the keeper of the mountain, and for years
this was a common practice. Mariners who paid this courtesy to the Heer of the
Donder Berg were never molested by his imps, though skipper Ouselsticker, of
Fishkill,--for all he had a parson on board,--was once beset by a heavy squall,
and the goblin came out of the mist and sat astraddle of his bowsprit, seeming
to guide his schooner straight toward the rocks. The dominie chanted the song of
Saint Nicolaus, and the goblin, unable to endure either its spiritual potency or
the worthy parson’s singing, shot upward like a ball and rode off on the gale,
carrying with him the nightcap of the parson’s wife, which he hung on the
weathercock of Esopus steeple, forty miles away.
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