Legends of Texas

by Unknown

[Material for this compilation, with the exception of Mr. Morris’ accounts published in the Freeport Facts and Mrs. West’s folk tales, was supplied through the Editor.]

The mysterious music in the San Bernard River at Music Bend in Brazoria County is not so haunting as the siren strains against which Ulysses waxed his ears or as the luring song of the Lorelei. But perhaps all that it lacks is its Homer or its Heine. This Texas music, if less enchanting, is less deceptive. It draws no one on to his destruction. The legend of the San Bernard is widely known and, like all truly popular legends, as yet unfixed by a master’s using, has many forms.

The account most expressive of the folk that has come to my notice is that supplied by Mrs. West of Velasco. This account is chiefly concerned with the character of the music and with the apparitions that appeared to Mrs. West’s mother and brother. According to Mrs. West, the music never plays for those who laugh at it or doubt it, but those who row out over Music Bend with an open mind may hear music sweeter than any played with hands. It sounds, she says, like the music of violins. Sometimes it is preceded by a very dreadful noise, resembling the sounds made by a steer which, having been knocked in the head, falls, kicking and beating the ground and bellowing in pain. After the noise has passed, the violins begin to play. Mrs. West [[138]]is the only one of my authorities who mentions the dreadful noise. Mr. Eugene Wilson, Jr., writes in “Mysterious Music on the San Bernard,” The Gulf Messenger, Volume VII, December, 1894: “It has been likened to a number of musical instruments, by a few to the soft, sweet notes of the Aeolian harp.” This last is the sound most frequently heard by Mr. J. W. Morris of Freeport, though he also mentions the violin, the flute, and the human voice.

There is equal variation, indeed contradiction, in accounts of the time when the music may be heard. Mrs. West, who grew up on the San Bernard, says that the music may be heard by day or by night, though not continuously or regularly even by those who “believe in it.” This testimony is corroborated by Mr. F. D. Letts, an abstract of whose article, published years ago in the Galveston Daily News, has been supplied by Mr. E. G. Littlejohn. Mr. Wilson, in the article referred to above, states that it is audible at night only, and can be heard most distinctly when the moon is full. Miss Lorene Cook, who lived for a time at the mouth of the river, limits the music strictly to the time of the full moon, between the hours of twelve and one. Mr. Morris, in three separate accounts, published in the Freeport Facts, 1922, records impressions of the music at night, but does not expressly state that it cannot be heard during the day.

One point of interest, to which several auditors testify, is the permeating quality of the music. Some of them, in attempting to describe this quality, fall back upon other senses than hearing. Mrs. West says that she could almost see the sound, which began softly, as if at an elevation, and slowly came down to the boat. Miss Cook reports that the sound was “so close at times that I felt as if I could touch it with my hands.” Mr. Wilson’s article contains this sentence: “On first coming within its limits, one can easily perceive that it proceeds from under the water, but in a short while it is impossible to locate it, as it gets under the seats, in the bow and in all parts of the boat, overhead and around; in fact, it seems to pervade the atmosphere.”

I have heard of no apparitions in connection with the music except those seen by Mrs. West’s mother and brother. However, as they illustrate very well the workings of folk imagination, I record them here. Mrs. West’s mother, Mrs. Mary Ducroz, was one of a considerable party rowing at midnight on the river. Just as the boat drew over Music Bend she saw a man, with a [[139]]bridle over his arm, come down to the water, turn, and go back into the woods. She could see only the upper part of his body. He seemed not to walk but to glide. He was not visible to any other member of the party, though Mrs. Ducroz tried very hard to make the others see him. She is quite certain about having seen him herself, as the moon was very bright. At another time Mrs. West’s brother, then a boy of fourteen years, was riding horseback at night when he saw before him a man and a woman sitting in the middle of the road. They did not seem to see at all a very large ant bed just in front of them. The boy had seen the ant bed many times in passing along the same road. Now he saw the most beautiful horse he had ever seen, dappled gray, tied with an extremely large and knotted rope to a tree at the side of the road. The horse evidently belonged to the man and woman who were sitting in the middle of the public way. The boy urged his horse forward, but the horse refused to go. Then the boy remembered that he was just above the ghostly Music Bend, and turned his horse about.

To Mrs. West I am also indebted for a relation of the effect of the music upon some of those who have heard it. When she was a child, an old gentleman boarded for a time at her father’s house. The old gentleman used to row out over the Bend day after day on the chance of hearing the music, and return at night to tell his hosts that surely they imagined the music. They knew that they did not imagine the music, but thought that perhaps the old gentleman could not hear it, as it is not given to all to hear such ghostly music. One evening, however, he came back in terror. Suddenly, as his boat was over the Bend, he had begun to tremble as if in a chill, and his hat seemed to rise from his head. At once he had begun to hear the sweetest and most terrible music that ever he had heard. He never wished to hear it again. In 1920—Mrs. West is again my informant—two girls were drowned in the San Bernard; and when the searchers told of finding the bodies, they told also of hearing the most beautiful funeral music that ever they had heard. But it was music that they hoped never to hear again.

The real legend of the music is the story of its origin. The several versions have only one point of identity: that a fiddler who played on the bank in life plays on in the waters in death; and in one version the fiddler played from a boat. One common story is that two men who froze to death beneath a tree at Music Bend [[140]]were fiddlers. As Miss Lorene Cook has heard the tale, an old hermit fiddler was murdered by pirates who sought refuge in the San Bernard River during a storm. Mr. Wilson’s account explains: “The negroes really believe it to be a ghost. They say that many years ago, on a dark and stormy night … a sloop with two sailors aboard … was forced to seek shelter in the San Bernard; that one of the sailors was a fiddler, and that as soon as the winds began to lay, he began to fiddle for joy; that his mate, desiring to sleep, was so enraged that he attempted to stop him by force, and that in the scuffle the fiddler fell overboard and was drowned; that the other sailor, while angry, threw the fiddle and bow into the river; and that on that very night the ghost of the dead sailor played so touchingly that the living mate could not sleep, and that every night since then it has played the same tune, again and again.”

In most of the stories the musician lived alone at the Bend. The most romantic of them is that retold by Mr. J. W. Morris in the Freeport Facts with certain variations. “In life the musician lost his fiancée a few hours before they were to have been married. She walked to the river to pluck a white water-lily to braid in her shining hair for the marriage, but as she reached for the flower, a snake head sprang forth and bit her on her white neck and she fell dead in the water.” The musician then threw himself, with his violin, into the river. According to another account of Mr. Morris’ the lover moved to a small island in the stream, and there lived. At his death his violin and bow were buried with him, and still he plays strange, sweet music.

Another version of the love legend has been contributed by Miss Sarah S. King of San Antonio, who heard the story from Miss Arline Rather. In it the maiden was accustomed to go to the stream each evening for water, and there to meet her lover. One day an arrow struck her down. Her lover, approaching, called and played his liveliest tunes, and then found her dead in the waist-high ferns. As in the preceding account, the musician then flung his violin and himself into the river.