Evil Spirits, "Imps" Scaring People of Nova Scotia

1922

FARMER FLEES FROM "IMPS"

Tale of Tricks of Evil Spirits Excites People of Nova Scotian Community.

Halifax, N. S. — While no broomstick riding hags of the traditional witch features have been seen hurtling across the face of the moon, there are any number of people in Nova Scotia who will take an oath that imps of no good intent are peopling the fair hills of Antigonish county.

Alexander MacDonald, a farmer, has boarded up his valley home and fled with his family and chattels in the dead of winter. His neighbors say they have seen with their own eyes, and without the assistance of potable spirits, the manifestations of the Evil One.

So much credence is being given to the tales of witches and imps that a Halifax newspaper has assigned a member of its staff to break his way through the inland snows until he reaches the MacDonald house and live there for two weeks.

MacDonald and his family awoke one morning three weeks ago to find that their horses had been driven into a lather and returned to their stalls before dawn. The cattle had been turned out of the barns in a driving snowstorm. The tails of the heifers had been braided.

This was repeated the next morning and the next. The third night, MacDonald says, the fire imps appeared. In unexpected places jets of flame would break out for no apparent reason. The following nights he called neighbors to see for themselves. They swore that they saw fires leap from bare floors and subside, or flare up from a fireless stove and disappear.

In each case a bit of absorbent cotton or highly inflammable calico was found near the source of the fire, but that only deepened the mystery. Where had the cotton and calico come from? After a week McDonald and his family fled, taking up their home in Caledonia Mills.

—Oneonta Daily Star, Oneonta, New York, April 1, 1922, page 8.