The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

[55] Saco, lately deceased, tell of a strange affair that did happen to himself, in a voyage to the eastward. Being in a small shallop, and overtaken by the night, he lay at anchor a little way off the shore, fearing to land on account of the Indians. Now, it did chance that they were waked about midnight by a loud voice from the land, crying out, Foxwell, come ashore! three times over; whereupon, looks ing to see from whence the voice did come, they beheld a great circle of fire on the beach, and men and women dancing about it in a ring. Presently they vanished, and the fire was quenched also. In the morning he landed, but found no Indians nor English, only brands' ends cast up by the waves; and he did believe, unto the day of his death, that it was a piece of Indian sorcery. ‘There be strange stories told of Passaconaway, the chief of the River Indians,’ he continued. ‘I have heard one say who saw it, that once, at the Patucket Falls, this chief, boasting of his skill in magic, picked up a dry skin of a snake, which had been cast off, as is the wont of the reptile, and making some violent motions of his body, and calling upon his Familiar, or Demon, he did presently cast it down upon the rocks, and it became a great black serpent, which mine informant saw crawl off into some bushes, very nimble. This Passaconaway was accounted by his tribe to be a very cunning conjurer, and they do believe that he could brew storms, make water burn, and cause green leaves to grow on trees in the winter; and, in brief, it may be said of him, that he was not a whit behind the magicians of Egypt in the time of Moses.’