Moss-Woman The
The Moss or Wood Folk, dwelt in the forests of Southern Germany. Their stature was small and their form strange and uncouth, bearing a strong resemblance to certain trees with which they flourished and decayed. They were a simple, timid, and inoffensive race, and had little intercourse with mankind; approaching only at rare intervals the lonely cabin of the wood-man or forester, to borrow some article of domestic use, or to beg a little of the food which the good wife was preparing for the family meal. They would also for similar purposes appear to labourers in the fields which lay on the outskirts of the forests. A loan or gift to the Moss-people was always repaid manifold. But the most highly-prized and eagerly-coveted of all mortal gifts was a draught from the maternal breast to their own little ones; for this they held. to be a sovereign remedy for all the ills to which their natures were subject. Yet was it only in the extremity of danger that they could so overcome their natural diffidence and timidity as to ask this boon--for they knew that mortal mothers turned from such nurslings with disgust and fear. It would appear that the Moss or Wood folk also lived in some parts of Scandinavia. Thus we are told that in the churchyard of Store Hedding, in Zealand, there are the remains of an oak wood which were trees by day and warriors by night.
Mountain Cove Community, The : A spiritualistic community founded in Mountain Cove, Fayette Co., Virginia, in the autumn of 1851, under the leadership of the Rev. James Scott and the Rev. T. L. Harris. Both mediums had. settled in Auburn in the previous year, and had obtained a considerable following. While Harris was absent in New York the command to form a community at Mountain Cove was given through the mediumship of Scott, and. about a hundred persons accompanied him to Virginia. The members were obliged to deliver up all their possessions, again at the command of the spirits. Dissensions arose and pecuniary difficulties were experienced, and only the advent of T. L. Harris in the summer of 1852 saved the community from dissolution. However, the dissensions and difficultiesremained, and early in 1853 the community finally broke up.