The Cabinet Enters Walhalla

In Norse mythology, Vikings who die in combat cross the Rainbow Bridge into Valhalla, where they join their god Odin and help him prepare for Ragnarok, a final battle that will determine the fate of the world.  Valhalla is often depicted as a white marble palace surround by lush greenery, and it appears in dozens of paintings, songs, video games and various other media.  I know it best from the song “Across the Rainbow Bridge,” in which the Swedish death metal band Amon Amarth imagine a Viking preparing for death as he rides into battle for the last time.

 

This song was playing in my head earlier this week as I entered Walhalla, South Carolina, a town in the upstate founded in 1850 by German immigrants who were clearly inspired by the Norse myths.  Local histories translate “Walhalla” as “Paradise of the Gods” and claim that the founders used the name to signify that they had found a happy home.  But it wasn’t Vikings that brought me to Walhalla, and I didn’t even realize the Norse connection until I saw a sign welcoming me to the town.  I was looking for waterfalls, but what I found was that although no one in Walhalla was preparing for the Final Battle, the town does have a few of its own myths and stories that give modern day visitors some insight into the experiences of the town’s earlier inhabitants.

Cash, my German shepherd, accompanied me on the quest, and the temperature was well over 90°, so we limited ourselves to Issaqueena Falls, the one waterfall that didn’t require a long hike.   The falls are formed by a stream that splits into several falls as it cascades down a tree-lined cliff.  Stories about the falls agree that they were named after a young woman named Issaqueena, but they differ in the details.  The marker posted at the top of the falls claims that Issaqueena was a “Creek maiden” who was kidnapped by the Cherokee.  She later fell in love with Allan Francis, a white trader, and after overhearing the Cherokee’s plans to attack a white settlement, she fled to warn Francis.  She stayed with him and became his wife, but the Cherokee came looking for her, and to escape, she pretended to leap to her death from the falls and hid under a ledge until it was safe to return to Francis.

South Carolina’s tourism website tells basically the same story, but in its version, Issaqueena was “an Indian  maiden” who warned a local fort about an impending attack and then hid near the falls when the Indians came looking for her.  There’s no love story in this version of the myth; Issaqueena is simply a noble woman doing a good deed.  Wikipedia’s version, which doesn’t cite a source, also claims that Issaqueena was a Cherokee, but instead of warning white settlers about an attack, she fell in love with an Oconee brave, whose tribe was at war with the Cherokee.  To protect him from the rest of her tribe, Issaqueena hid her lover under the falls.

Taken together, the three versions are a reminder that despite its name, the early days of Walhalla were not edenic, especially for its original inhabitants.  They seem also to reflect attempts at presenting local history in the best possible light, particularly the first two, which portray Issaqueena as a noble Cherokee doing a good deed by betraying her people in order to help save the virtuous settlers from a violent attack.  Like many myths, the version that appears on the historical marker is just plain weird.  What the hell is a “Creek maiden,” who were the “Creek people,” and how did they fit into the conflict between the Cherokee and the white settlers?  It raises more questions than it answers.  But, unlike the second version, at least it gives Issaqueena a love interest and thus a clear motive in warning the settlers of the impending attack.  The third, however, is by far the most interesting and has the most epic potential because it features two characters with conflicted loyalties.  If I were in a death metal band that hailed from Walhalla, we would have a song that followed this version.  It would be presented from the Oconee brave’s perspective as he’s waiting for his lover to return, fearing that she might be killed for hiding him, reflecting on his decision to become her lover, anticipating meeting her brothers in battle and wondering about his future with Issaqueena. 

More epic material lies in the local stories about Stumphouse Tunnel, a failed attempt to connect Charleston, SC with Knoxville via railroad and a sign that even the town’s earliest inhabitants must have shared my sense that I was in the middle of fucking nowhere when I entered Walhalla.  The problem was that Stumphouse Mountain stood in the way, so the state of South Carolina hired Irish immigrants to carve a tunnel through it.  They completed 4,300 of the tunnel's 5,800 feet before the project ran out of money and was abandoned completely as a result of the Civil War.  The partially finished tunnel is open to tourists and stands as a monument both to the obstacles early Americans faced in building their country and of the pioneering spirit with which they attacked them.

The tunnel called to mind Western films about the completion of the transcontinental railroad, particularly John Ford’s silent The Iron Horse and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, both of which highlight what some would gain and what others would lose from the coming of the railroad and the ruthlessness with which the railroad barons pursued their goals.  It’s also a reminder that although these films focus on the American West, similar struggles played out in the Southeast.  

While my trip to Walhalla involved crossing Blue Ridge Boulevard rather than the Rainbow Bridge and there was no sign of Odin, Thor, or Viking warriors, it did remind me that my home state has its own myths and history that deserve a closer look than I’ve given them in the past.