The Devil's Bride
A retelling of how Gainesville's Devil's Millhopper got its name
Hello.
If you haven’t ever heard of one of Gainesville’s local legends, the Devil’s Millhopper, you can learn more about it in the piece I wrote last week.
The thing that always bothered me about the story is that typically the indigenous maiden or princess is a damsel in distress. And while I think its fine for a woman to be in distress over being kidnapped, I always thought there was more to her we don’t get to see. As a daughter of a chief, she would have likely had a significant role in her community.
Now, at the hands of the Devil himself there might have been little to be done, but I still think her attitude and final moments in the story would have shown more than I’ve seen in other renditions of the tale. So, I made a version of my own. Enjoy.
The Devil’s Bride (or The Devil’s Millhopper Legend)
So long ago that no one remembers except those who tell the tale, there was a tribe princess of such incomparable beauty that even the deer, eagles and foxes would stop to look at her. She allowed the young children in the village to brush and braid her long hair, which was shiny and black as crows feathers. She sought the purest river to bathe in so her copper skin shone. Her voice was so enchanting that the trees would sway in rhythm and the songbirds would join in. When she came of age, she was engaged to one of the most handsome and fiercest warriors of her tribe — one who could match the strength of her will.
It wasn’t long before the Devil himself noticed her and wanted her for his own bride. On one of those days that he took the form of a mortal man and strolled on the earth above, he spied her. Hidden in the shade of trees, he watched her sitting by the river where she combed her hair while gazing at her reflection in the water.
Seeing that she was alone, the Devil knew this was his time to seduce her. He walked out of the shadows. At first he did nothing but stare, but she resisted any trance he may have attempted.
Still undeterred, he approached her. “Princess, are you so beautiful that no one will sit and talk with you?”
“I am careful of the company I keep,” she said.
“I am the best kind of company to keep,” the Devil said. “Walk with me, and you will see.”
But the princess did not get up and go to him.
“Aren’t you tired of being apart from others? Revered but not befriended? I am not intimidated by beauty, only inspired,” he said.
He held out his hand for her to take it. Any other mortal might have, so pleasing was his figure, scent and voice. Even though he had created his mortal form in a way he knew would appeal to her, she slapped his hand away. The shadow at the Devil’s feet stretched and snaked its way toward the woman, but she didn’t notice.
“You’re speaking of yourself,” she said. “And I know who you are.”
The Devil smiled with pointed teeth and a wicked gleam, and waited for the shadow to enter her body and compel her to follow him. But when the shadow got close to her, it hissed and evaporated.
The maiden smiled. So in love was she with her betrothed warrior that she had no weakness for the Devil to exploit, and was therefore immune to his influence. She left him by the river.
The Devil, furious at being spurned, made a plan to steal her.
That night while she slept, the Devil crept to her hut and dragged her out. She screamed until it woke the other villagers. The Devil was swift and ran deep into the forest because, in his mortal form, he was vulnerable. Once he knew her rescuers were gathered close behind him, he stomped on the ground and a great big hole opened up to swallow them.
The princess watched her beloved and all the villagers fall. As they fell, they clawed at the earthen walls to stop their descent. The Devil made the ground shake so they were losing grip. Rather than let the Devil have them and collect their bones at the bottom, the maiden wailed a harrowing war cry. The warriors’ and villagers’ voices joined hers from the depths in a fury so powerful the earth wrapped around them to protect them and hardened into stone, walling in the sides of the abyss. The princess sobbed for the loss of her love and tribe, and soon all the stones in the wall wept with her, until a waterfall of their tears formed and filled the darkness below with water.
When the Devil peered over the side to see what had happened, the princess charged at him and they both fell in.
The newly formed stone walls cried more tears making them so slick that the neither the Devil nor his bride could climb out. Unable to come back to the surface, they had to go below ground. To this day the walls still weep for the lost princess to make sure the Devil can never return to that land and visit her fate on another.
Well told story Brenna!