12 Jan Axe Murder Hollow

There was once a farmer who lived outside the city of Erie, Pennsylvania.  On a small hill overlooking his fields he built himself a little wooden house with thirteen steps leading up to it and a barn for his horse and tools.  He was a good farmer who always had a strong crop despite the terrible winters that blow off the lake in that part of the world, freezing everything right down to the bone.  He grew lots of things but mostly grapes and cherries as is common in those parts.

During the season when his fruits were ripe, the farmer would hitch his wagon and ride into town.  There he would sell his wares and everyone always said they were the sweetest and best grapes and cherries they had ever tasted.  Eventually snow would fall deep and thick as a blanket and the farmer would hunker down for the winter.  He would sit there by the fire in the house he had built for himself and wait for spring, counting the money in the little bag he kept hidden beneath the house, keeping warm drinking the wine he had made from his crops, and thinking about all the work he had ahead of him for the next season.

Finally the snow would thaw and the farmer would inspect his fields.  Inevitably there were always a few trees and vines that had succumbed to the bitter cold of winter.  The farmer would go to the barn and retrieve his axe from where it hung on the wall, taking it to the grindstone and honing it until the blade was so keen a man could use it to shave the hair of his face.  Then the farmer would chop chop chop! away the dead plants.  It never took more than a few swings, because the farmer was very strong and his axe very sharp.  Once the vegetation was cleared, the farmer would begin the cycle of planting and harvesting yet again.

After several years of this same routine, the farmer grew very lonely with only his horse for company and he determined that he should find a wife.  On one of his trips into town the farmer’s gaze fell upon a beautiful young girl in the crowd and he was instantly smitten.  As this was a long time ago, the farmer approached the girl’s father with gifts of his finest wine and asked that he be allowed to take the girl’s hand in marriage.  The girl’s father agreed to the betrothal and the two were soon wed.

The farmer was very happy with his beautiful young bride as she provided him the company he had so sorely lacked.  His newfound happiness fueled his work, and the farm flourished as never before; the grapes grew fat and heavy on the vine, the cherries lush and juicy on their branches.  Soon his yield became so great that the farmer determined he would need someone to help him bring in the harvest.

There was, a little ways down the road from where the farmer lived, a building that everyone in those parts called the Gypsy House.  Whether or not the folk who lived there were actually gypsies is up for debate, but that is what everyone called them.  Being their neighbor, the farmer had occasionally dealt with the gypsies for one thing or another, and as such approached the family to see if he might be able to hire their son to help him with the crops.  Soon the young man was helping the farmer with the many things that needed doing on the farm.

The farm continued to perform well, even better than before now that it had an extra pair of hands helping it along, and the farmer’s joy grew even greater when his wife gave birth to first one, then two beautiful baby boys.  Thinking back on the cold, lonely nights he had once spent by the fire waiting for spring to come, the farmer thought that surely his was the perfect life.

He was wrong.

Though the farmer was immensely happy with his life, and his farm, and his beautiful young wife, the girl was not.  While the farmer was certainly honest and hardworking and exceedingly kind, so too was he ugly.  The girl had not wanted to marry, but had been forced by her father who gave her the choice to either wed or be put on the street.

The girl’s resentment for her husband grew ever deeper.  When the farmer hired the gypsy boy, she was instantly attracted to the young man, as was he to her.  Unknown to the farmer, the two of them soon began an affair.  Whenever the farmer would go to town, the young man and the girl would find themselves together in the farmer’s very own bed.  Eventually the fruits of their dealings were the two sons the farmer thought of as his own.

Things went on much in this way for some time, the farmer carrying on about his ways in blissful ignorance while his wife carried on with her secret lover.  That is, until the farmer came home early from town one day.

The crowds were especially light and so, missing his wife, the farmer decided to leave the market sooner than he was accustomed.  Despite his early departure, the hour he arrived home was late, the sky dark and moonless, and the farmer stabled his horse in the barn as quietly as he could so as not to wake his sons who would already be sleeping.

Softly climbing the thirteen steps leading to his front door, the farmer was surprised to see a candle flickering in his bedroom and to hear voices talking and laughing within.  Tiptoeing to the window and peering inside, the farmer was shocked to find his wife and farmhand lying together in his bed, wrapped in each other’s arms.

He listened to the pair for what was likely only a few minutes but must have seemed like forever to the farmer.  They discussed how the oblivious farmer never suspected their duplicity, how the children he thought his sons were not his own.  They talked of how they planned to one day take the boys and the now large bag of money the farmer had hidden beneath the little house and disappear, starting a new life together.  All this time the farmer listened quietly, an anger that started as a tiny seed in his heart rapidly growing into a burning inferno.  Gone was the honest and exceedingly kind man, replaced by a creature of pure, bloodthirsty rage.

On silent feet, the farmer slipped to the barn, retrieving his axe from where it hung on the wall.  He took it to the grindstone where he honed the blade until it was so keen that a man could use it to shave the hair of his face.  Then he returned to the house, climbed the thirteen steps leading to entrance and, raising his foot, kicked the little door off its hinges.

He first moved to the bedroom where the boys who were not his sons roused groggily from their sleep.  There with a bloodcurdling scream and a chop chop chop! he ended their little lives.  It didn’t take more than a few swings, because the farmer was very strong and his axe very sharp.

Alerted by the noise, the gypsy stumbled from the farmer’s bedroom, naked as a babe.  A look of madness on his face, the farmer struck the farmhand with the flat of his axe, stunning him, then dragged him by his hair out the door and down the thirteen stairs to a nearby tree.  Tying a rope to the gypsy’s ankles and throwing it over a low branch, the farmer hoisted his wife’s lover into the air by his feet and chop chop chop! removed his head from the rest of him.

Seeing all of this, terrified out of her wits, the farmer’s wife tried to run.  Screaming, stumbling blindly through the trees in the dark, she barely made it across the road that ran behind the hill before the farmer caught her.  With a final chop chop chop! he added her head to his collection and tossed it back across the road into the hollow.  His bloody work finished, the farmer returned to his little wooden house and, taking the candle still flickering in his bedroom, lit the building on fire.  Then, with nothing to live for, he sat down in the chair before the hearth where he used to spend his winters, only now waiting for death rather than spring.  And thus the farmer’s story ended.

Or it should have.

The gypsy boy’s parents who lived down the road smelled the smoke from the fire and could see the flames leaping high above the trees.  They ran to the house, only to find their boy’s headless body hanging from the tree.  Knowing about the affair, the gypsies all too easily pieced together what must have happened.  And, whether they were real gypsies or not, they did possess some kind of dark magic.

The gypsies put a curse on the farmer for what he had done to their boy, dooming his soul to never find true rest.  And so it has been ever since, and the legend has grown.

Don’t believe this story?  I can’t say I blame you.  But…

If you find yourself in Erie, Pennsylvania, should you feel brave enough, ask a local to direct you to Axe Murder Hollow.  It looks a bit different now, of course, for all this happened many years ago.  But the thirteen steps are still there, as are the foundations of the little wooden house that burned down, and the barn that is long gone too.  Down the road a piece, should you make it that far, you’ll find what remains of the Gypsy House, now long abandoned.  And if the night is moonless, as you walk down the road you may notice something odd, that crickets seem to only chirp on the side of the forest away from the hollow.  If it is dark enough, and the hour just right, perhaps you will see the ghost of a young woman run, terrified and screaming, across the road before you.  Perhaps, glancing up the hill, you will spy the headless body of the gypsy swinging gently from the tree, and hear the maniacal laughter of the farmer, as he pursues his wife with his axe.  If you’ve managed to last this long, you may even spy her lifeless head as it is tossed across the road.  And if you don’t…well.

Perhaps the farmer and his bloody axe are simply creeping up behind you on silent feet, looking to add another head to his collection.

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

Written by Michael Landry (a.k.a. ShadowSwimmer77)
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

🔔 More stories from author: Michael Landry (a.k.a. ShadowSwimmer77)

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