The relationship of humanity with "evil spirits" has always been ambiguous and did not develop in favor of people.
Detroit, Michigan, June 1763. British Army Captain James Deliell and 58 of his soldiers pursue a small hunched figure on the riverbank. The man, dressed in crimson clothes and red boots, has keen eyes, a large mouth full of rotten teeth, and a hideous scarlet face. The soldiers shoot at the agile dwarf, but no one succeeds in hitting him.
Not long before, an old hunter had warned Deliell and his men that what they were after was a sinister supernatural creature called the Nain Rouge by the French settlers - the Red Dwarf.
The appearance of this horned gnome with croaking laughter promised misfortune and death. Soon after the chase for the dwarf, the captain and his soldiers were ambushed by the Indian leader Pontiac - and the blood of the unfortunates painted the river crimson for several days. And eyewitnesses claimed that an ominous dwarf was dancing on the banks of the river. Perhaps Indian shamans were involved in this.
One of the founders of Detroit, Antoine de La Mot-Cadillac, was also not lucky to see the red gnome. Shortly thereafter, the man lost his enormous fortune. The gnome also appeared in 1805, just before the fire that destroyed all the wooden buildings of the city.
Finally, in 1857, two hunters succeeded in the impossible: they killed the hellish creature, nailed the body to a tree with bayonets so that it would not escape, and then put it on public display in the middle of the square.
Fearing that the dwarf would come to life, the superstitious colonists wanted to burn him, but on the eve of the public execution, an unknown ransomed the body of the dwarf, offering him a large sum of money. This man collected freaks for his freak show. He ordered the body to be salted in a barrel until it decomposed completely.
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In 1858, a corn-laden wooden brig, the Black Hawk Down, built in Ohio by Stevens and Presley, sailed from Detroit to Liverpool. In the hold of the ship, hidden from prying eyes, was the same barrel with the salted corpse of a terrible creature. The unusual shipment was directed to Michael Connolly, who lived in Everton at 25 Clarence Street.
Unfortunately, at that time there were three streets with the same name in the city, and the barrel with the gnome was mistakenly taken to the home of the jeweler Abraham Harris. Seeing a grotesque little man pickled in brine in the parcel, the devout Jew grabbed his heart, but ordered to put the barrel in the basement just in case. In the evening, the jeweler went down there with a companion so that he could see everything with his own eyes. Alas, the barrel lid was lying lonely on the floor, and the barrel itself was empty … The jeweler accused the servant of stealing, driving him out into the street without a livelihood.
For 14 years no one has seen the red gnome. But in October 1872, a girl named Jane Daisy was cleaning up. Entering the dark room, she saw the same dwarf. The next day the unfortunate woman was paralyzed.
In 1884, the creature attacked one of the women. The victim survived, but for the rest of her life she remembered the ominous grin on the hunchback's face.
The chain of mystical and ominous events was not interrupted in the 20th century. In 1967, the red gnome appeared in Detroit exactly one day before the riots, as a result of which 43 people were killed, 1200 injured, and homes and shops destroyed and looted.
In March 1976, two workers saw a child climbing up a hill. They decided to help him. As they approached, people realized that it was some kind of disgusting red dwarf. The creature looked at them, giggled with its ominous laugh, and ran away. The next day, an ice storm hit the United States, bringing many troubles.
In 1996, in a parking lot near a nightclub, witnesses heard an incomprehensible croak. Near one of the cars, bending over a corpse, stood a hunchbacked old man in a torn red fur coat.
Since 2010, Detroit has begun holding an annual parade in honor of the red dwarf. On this day, people dress up in suits of the appropriate color and in this form walk around the city so that the dwarf takes them for his fellows. As a climax, the people burn a small effigy of the devil at the stake. The inhabitants of the city believe that in this way they break the curse, expelling the evil spirit until next year.
What is this creature? The fruit of a rich puritanical fantasy, a tenacious urban legend, or one of the cryptids-precursors, like the Chicago Mothman? Or maybe the cryptids were conceived as guardians, preventing people from destroying the planet?..
Elena Muravyova