ull red light.”52 Many other people of the townsee it as well, but each interprets it to his own liking, never once suggesting that it may justsimply be a meteor.53With the Age of Reason on the horizon in the late 18th century-early nineteenth century,“the area of the unknown [is] steadily contracting,”54 but “it has always existed, and it willalways exist.”55 America’s first professional writer, Charles Brockden Brown, has a deepattraction to horror and gothic writing.56 His four major novels, Wieland or The Transformation,Arthur Mervyn, Ormond, and Edgar Huntly, are deeply influenced by early English Gothicwriters such as Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, and Mary Shelley.57 Wieland, or TheTransformation, for example, is about the Wieland family and all of the paranormal events thathappen to them. Next is “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving. This short story is “the firstto seize the American imagination.”58 This is a tale of a man who goes into mountains to hunt,and, while there, he encounters ghostly men who offer him a drink. This mysterious cider causeshim to become drowsy, and soon he falls asleep, but for twenty years.59 Irving also wrote twoother chilling folk tales about the supernatural. “The Devil and Tom Walker,” which is verysimilar to the Puritan writings, is about the “black woodsman,” or the Devil.60 Just as in Puritanlife, the forest is seen as evil where “savages [hold] incantations... and [make] sacrifices to theevil spirit.”61 Tom Walker makes a pact with the Devil to become extremely rich, in exchangefor his soul.62 It ends in a truly folktale-ish manner. Tom Walker is “come for” by the blackwoodsman, and no one seems to mind much.63 But the forest is “haunted in stormy nights by afigure on horseback, in morning gown and white cap,” which is said to be Tom Walker’s restlessspiri...
