[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< Do we get to hear the story your grandfather told? :) >>
Thank you for asking. I hope you like it:
Imagine the setting. I was very young when he began telling me this story.
We're in a dark room, the walls were mahogany wood paneling, and at one end,
underneath the old pistols and sword hanging high on the wall, was a
field-stone fireplace. Always a fire roaring there, and my Grandfather
Ogilvie sitting in his big chair, and he'd pick up his harmonica and say,
"Cyndie, come here, I'll tell you a story."
Then he'd play this haunting tune, low and sad, and then he'd drop his voice
and begin:
Long ago, in the mountains of our home, a great battle was fought. It was a
battle for the homes and ways of the men who lived there, defending
themselves against the others who were attacking. The battle was long and
hard, and night fell but the battle continued.
When the sun rose the next day, the wrong side had won.
But the men who had fought and died for their rights could not stop fighting.
Their souls could not go to rest, they had to continue to fight, and to moan
and cry for the wrong done them.
Even today, hundreds of years later, when you go to those mountains, as the
mist settles into the dells and vales, you can hear the men's swords and
voices in the mist. And if you listen very, very carefully you can hear the
sounds of their struggled breathing.
And if you ever find yourself there, you must sing this song.
He would pick up his harmonica, and play the tune again.
So now you know, my Grandfather raised me on ghost stories! At this point, my
Grandmother would finally hear the melody, because now he would be playing it
loud and proudly, and she'd say, "Stuart! What are you filling that child's
head with now? She'll have nightmares."
--Cynthia Cathcart
http://www.cynthiacathcart.net
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