This book made me think about the land, and how local it really is. Often we might say that we’re from “New Jersey”—or “America”—but these are more terms of politics than geography. I vaguely remember going to the Pine Barrens in high school on a class trip; there were stunted dwarf trees and not a whole lot else. Often this has been perceived as “bad” land—broken land just like there are broken families, thus explaining the (somewhat new/remade, in this book) legend of the demon child with the neglectful parents. Some land you just can’t trust; a land is like a person, right. But I really don’t live anywhere near the Pine Barrens; /just/ far enough away from the Jersey Shore (or colonial homes, or whatever else) to be more nondescript than ritzy, but I guess it is a land that I trust somewhat, if in a somewhat sleepy way. Maybe I’m just a stranger to the land like I’m a stranger to my neighbors. There’s no hostility, though. I’ll try to be glad.

.... They do have good water, but it sounds like a dangerous place. Not exactly a malevolent land spirit, but not a pampered one, either. Of course, we like to pave over all the pampered land, right.

.... Of course the word “devil” is so misused as to have essentially two different meanings. One is The Devil, The One Who Wills The Bad, a fallen archangel who is the source of automatic negative thoughts and generalized negativity disorders, the one who got the slave traders to rape the slaves, the one that the Archangel Michael fights with, the lord of the demons, the devil.

But of course, a “devil” can in popular parlance also mean a land spirit, any land spirit whose name happens to not be that of Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, especially if they live on poor land or have bleak moods. The one who’s a little different, the one that my daddy the preacher my daddy the construction worker my mommy the cranky lady call names, the ostracized one, “the devil”.

Of course part of the reason that people like Irish fairy tales and Greek mythology is that we have an often unfortunate ethnic feeling and forget about the immediacy of our own land. But I wonder if part of the problem isn’t that Europeans give their land spirits an old, respectable name, and Jersey folk call their land spirit the Jersey Devil, like kids on the schoolyard. Yer deddys the devil my deddy could beat him up. Sometimes Christian language can be so unworkable, I guess just because people are crappy right.... Don’t even get me started about the oppressive Romans, or even the deluded Irish-American whose family has been in the police force since 1869, who thinks the Irish are fighting for their liberation. Yeah, from Jews and Gypsies, maybe....

Anyway, the book does actually skirt the edge of my rant with “that story’s not true”; it wasn’t really Mrs Leeds’ 13th child, right. And that makes sense. The Jersey Devil, like America, was created by 18th century aristocrats, and those aren’t really very mythic roots, when you come right down to it. It’s the next thing to having Voltaire write a book of fables right; the man wants to write books /debunking/ fables, /denouncing/ fables, and calling everyone who believes in fables, that’s right, The Jersey Devil.

.... I’m usually a little conflicted. I don’t think that all non-monastics are pure evil dark evil, consciously willing evil just for the sake of it, and I perceive danger in lashing out like that, but I’m uneasy with the dangerous potential of your classic Freudian post-saccharine sex aggression.... as much better as a myth of a mermaid maker is than a myth of a dark evil, evil evil devil.