The White Doe / The Fate of Virginia Dare

by Sallie Southall Cotten

The original Scuppernong has white skin, white pulp, white juice, and makes a white wine. Other varieties have dark purple skins and yield a reddish juice which makes a red wine. The dark varieties are said to be seedlings from the original white variety, and tradition explains the metamorphosis in this way.

Among the Scuppernongs.—A Modern Vineyard.

In the magic spring made famous in the legend of The White Doe, after the blood of Virginia Dare had melted from the silver arrow into the water of the spring, then the water disappeared. As the legend says:

"Dry became the magic fountain,
Leaving bare the silver arrow."

Then while O-kis-ko looked on in wonderment he saw

"a tiny shoot with leaflets
Pushing upward to the sunlight."

Tradition says that this "tiny shoot with leaflets" was a young seedling of the Scuppernong which had sprouted in the edge of the water, and it was not seen by O-kis-ko until all the water had disappeared. Then he saw it and immediately associated its appearance with the magic arrow, and so left it "reaching upward to the sunlight." After many days he returned to the spot-drawn by an irresistible longing, and covered the fatal arrow, which had brought him so much woe, with earth and leaves to hide it from his sight. The earth and leaves furnished the necessary nourishment to the tiny vine, which reached out with strength and vigor, and finding friendly bushes upon which to climb, it soon made a sheltering bower above the spot where had bubbled the magic spring. This tiny green bower became the favorite retreat of O-kis-ko, where he would linger to cherish thoughts of his lost love, Virginia Dare, and marvel on the wonders of her death. Then it came to pass that when fruit came upon this vine, lo! it was purple in hue instead of white like the other grapes, and yielded a red juice. Full of superstition, and still credulous of marvels, O-kis-ko imagined the change to be due to the magic arrow buried at its root. He gathered the grapes and pressed the juice from them, and lo! it was red—it was the semblance of blood, Virginia Dare's blood, absorbed from the water (in which it had melted from the arrow) by the vine, and yet potent for good. Surely it held some unseen power, for it combined in some mystic way through the mysterious earth at his feet all the power of the magic spring, the power of the silver arrow, and the power of human blood consecrated through human love. He reverently drank the juice of this new vine, believing that it would in some way link him with the spirit of her he had loved and lost. Year after year he drank this juice and fed his soul on thoughts of love, making unconsciously a sacrament, and finding happiness in the thought that the blood of the maiden would feed his spirit and lead him to her at last. To become good like her and to go to her became his highest hope. Aspiration had been born in his soul, and quickened by love it could not die, but led him blindly to strive to reach her, and such striving is never in vain.