Increase Mather, president of Harvard College
    Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcraft and Evil Personating Men (1693)

...(second sight) is common amongst the Laplanders, who are horribly addicted to Magical Incantations: They bequeath their Daemons to their Children as a Legacy, by whom they are often assisted (like Bewitched Persons as they are) to see and do things beyond the Power of Nature.  An Historian who deserves Credit, relates, that a certain Laplander gave him a true and particular Account of what had happened to him in his Journey to Lapland; and further complained to him with Tears, that things at great distance were represented to him, and how much he desired to be delivered from that Diabolical Sight, but could not; this doubtless was caused by some Inchantment.


From #23, Summer 2001

The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Yonder divine man!  That saint on earth, as the people uphold him to be, and as - I must needs say - he really looks!   Who, now, that saw him pass in the procession, would think  how little while it is since he went forth out of his study - chewing a Hebrew text of Scripture in his mouth, I warrant - to taken an airing in the forest!  Aha!  We know what that means, Hester Prynne!  But, truly, forsooth, I find it hard to believe him the same man.  Many a church member saw, I walking behind in the music, that has danced in the same measure with me, When Somebody was fiddler, and, it might be, an Indian powwow or a Lapland wizard changing hands with us!  That is but a trifle, when a woman knows the world.  But this minister!  Couldst thou surely tell, Hester, whether he was the same man that encountered thee on the forest path?"

Houghton Mifflin, p.278
From #17, Winter 1999/00



My Ántonia (1918)
Willa Cather

'I wish I could teach school, like Selma Kronn.  Just think!   She'll be the first  Scandinavian girl to get a position in the high school.  We ought to be proud of her. '

Selma was a  studious girl who had not much tolerance for giddy things like Tiny and Lena; but they always spoke of her with admiration. 
Tiny moved about restlessly, fanning herself with her straw hat.  'If I was smart like her, I'd be at my books day and night.  But she was born smart- and look how her father's trained her!  He was something high up in the old country'

'So was my mother's father,' murmured Lena, 'but that's all the good it does us!  My father's father was smart too, but he was wild.  He married  a Lapp.  I guess that's what's the matter with me; They say Lapp blood will out.'

'A real Lapp, Lena?' I exclaimed.  'The kind that wear skins?'

'I don't know if she wore skins, but she was a Lapp all right, and his folks felt dreadful about it.  He was sent up North on some government job he had, and fell in with her.  He would marry her.'

'But I thought Lapland women were fat and ugly, and had squint eyes, like Chinese?'  I objected.

'I don't know, maybe.  There must be something mighty taking about the Lapp girls, though; mother says the Norwegians up North are always afraid their boys will run after them.'

Houghton Mifflin
From #17, Winter 1999/00