The White Lady of Fonte Creek

This belief originates with Teutonic mythology and centers around the goddess Hulda (or Berchta) who accepts the departed souls of children and young maidens. Hulda is depicted as being perpetually dressed in white with a circle of keys hanging from her belt.

The first record of a white lady apparition occurred in the 15th-Century, with one Bertha von Rosenberg. She last appeared, it is said, in 1879. German legend says that when the castle of Neuhaus, Bohemia, was being built, a white lady appeared and promised the workmen a sweet soup and a carp on the completion of the castle. In remembrance of this, these dainties are sometimes given to the poor on Maundy Thursday.

White Ladies of Normandy live in ravines, fords and on and under bridges, somewhat like Trolls. They often request of passersby to dance for them. If refused, they toss the unsuspecting person into a hole.

The White Lady of Avenel, in Scott's The Monastery, is based upon La Dame d'Aprigny and La Dame Abonde, considered to be the world's two most famous White Ladies. I love Wilkie Collin's novel, The White Lady. It is a good example of how white ladies are unique to literature, and especially to folklore.

Having lived on the island of Guam in the Marianas for three years, I collected a large amount of the folklore and legends of the Chamorro who have inhabited that small group of tropical Pacific islands since before early Spanish rule in the 1600's. I hope you will enjoy the White Lady of Fonte Creek whose presence today is as alive as it was in the 1600's.

During the Spanish colonial rule on the island of Guam in the 1600's, there lived in the small village of Maina, a Spanish military officer and his Chamorro wife. Over the years his love, respect and devotion for her had changed from a loving and considerate husband to one who was harsh, demanding and cruel.

Now every evening for his meal, he sent his wife into the hills to bring him drinking water from springs near a freshwater creek. At first the girl enjoyed her walks in the jungle and after a time it became a ritual which she actually looked forward to.

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