The Rolling Calf
The burning-eyed bull that guards the dark
A great black bull dragging a rattling chain. Carrying a light is one of the surer ways to turn him back.
In Jamaican folklore
The Rolling Calf is one of Jamaica's most feared duppies: the spirit of someone who did serious wrong in life, most often a dishonest butcher, said to return as a huge black bull or goat with blazing red eyes, flames at its nostrils, and a rattling chain dragging behind it. It's said to haunt lonely country roads at night, blocking travellers and chasing anyone who runs. Traditional protections include reaching a crossroads before it catches up, sticking an open knife into the ground, or simply carrying a light — a flame or a torch is one of the surer ways to turn a Rolling Calf back. Our hotel's Rolling Calf borrows this fear of light directly from the old stories; everything about how he behaves in the game is built around it.
Sources
- Martha Warren Beckwith, Jamaica Anansi Stories (1924)
- Martha Warren Beckwith, Black Roadways: A Study of Jamaican Folk Life (1929)
- Frederic G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica (Macmillan Caribbean, 1961)
- Frederic G. Cassidy and R. B. Le Page, Dictionary of Jamaican English, 2nd ed. (University of the West Indies Press, 1980)
