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The way they tell it, Him that we call the Horned came down from heaven. Like a star he came down.

He came down to bring us Fire.

They say he looked down and saw that the People were cold and hungry, and in darkness, so he brought us the Fire of the gods. Like lightning he fell from heaven, or a star.

And that's where he landed: the Mountain that stands in the Mississippi.

Hay-nee-ah-chah, the Indians called it (that would be the Ho-Chunk): “soaking mountain,” and Pah-hah-dah, “moved mountain” (that's the Dakota). Trempealeau, the Frenchies named it, le montagne qui trempe à l'eau: the mountain that wades in the water.

Stands-in-the-Water, they call it, or the Black Mountain, because it's dark with oaks and maples.

(There's rattlesnakes out there, they say, to guard it.)

They call it the Sabbat Mount.

Nobody goes out there much, except for kids. Well, Indians too. There's mounds out there, if you know where to look for them, old mounds, some of them shaped like birds, or deer.

Well, and witches, of course.

Ever since he came down, that's been Witch Country down there, the Driftless. Witches all over. That's where they go for their jamborees, the witches, out to the Mountain that stands in the River.

You've seen the fires burning out there at night, and heard the drums. So have I.

The truly surprising thing about most "Witchsploitation" is that, buried under all the sewage of misinformation, you'll often find one gleaming nugget of pure gold.

In Howard Richardson and William Berney's popular 1944 stageplay Dark of the Moon, Witch-boy meets Cowan-girl. For Cowan-girl, Witch-boy gives up the Craft, or tries to.

In the end, of course, things don't work out. If your partner wanted you to give up the Craft for him or her, would you do it? Could you do it?

Witches, you see, aren't like “humans.” We don't have souls. We live for 300 years, but then we turn into “nothin' but mountain fog,” and hover around the hills forever.

On a recent trip down into the “hills and hollows” of the Midwest's Driftless Area, I had occasion to watch the little hill-fogs among the changing leaves.