To cure a child of whooping cough, pass the child under the belly of a donkey, three times three.
To prevent a cold, smell your socks when you go to bed, the right one first.
A dirty sock or stocking worn around the throat will cure a sore throat.
Tying an onion to a bedpost will keep away colds.
Pass a child with rickets through a split in an ash tree for a sure cure.
Put an ax under the bed to cut the pain of childbirth.
To stop foot cramp, turn your shoe upside down before going to bed.
To cure a sty, rub the tail of a black cat over the eye.
If you carry a buckeye in your pocket or purse, you will not have head-aches; it will also keep you from being bothered by hemorrhoids.
When you cut your hair do not let a bird use any of it to build a nest; if it does, you will have headaches.
Club moss gathered on the third day of the new moon is good against all diseases of the eye.
Sap from a grapevine will grow hair on a bald head.
A white tablecloth left on the table overnight means the household will soon be in need of a shroud (that is, someone will soon die).
If you carry a shovel through the house, a grave will soon need to be dug.
If you sweep your house at night, it will bring bad luck; but if you sweep it in the morning, evil spirits will be swept out.
If a pregnant woman drinks from a cracked cup, her baby will be harelipped.
If a crow flies over your house and caws thrice, someone in the family will die.
If a rooster stands on the front porch, looks outward, and crows, it means someone will be carried out the door sick or dead. (My mama took a broom to any rooster that dared come up on our porch.)
Living by such superstitions as these came very natural to those of us who lived in the mountains. There, the shadowy world of dimly glimpsed magic appeared so true it was hard to distinguish it from the real world. Also, because the inscrutable world of nature was always close at hand, the capricious world of spirits, spells, witches, and charms was inevitably as close.
This acceptance of the abnormal in our everyday life probably helped me in my later years to accept new ideas about God and spirituality.
3
Oral History
At night our world closed down; the woods were
lonely and mysterious. It was inevitable that
some of the dark tales and superstitions brought
here by the early immigrants from Scotland and
Ireland should flourish in Appalachia.
A treasured “patchwork” folder reposes in my files. In this folder are transcripts of taped talks with my dad, grandpa, and others. It holds accounts of memories handed down from generations back; ghost tales, hunting trips, and strange occurrences during other treks through the woods. It is a record of the good and bad times in this century in the hills of southeastern Kentucky.
One morning early in the spring, after I was married and living in my own house, Grandpa and Dad came by on their way down to the mouth of Stoney Fork to the post office. I invited them in to have some coffee. I had just built a fire in the heater and put on some coffee to boil. They sat near the stove as they drank the hot coffee, and they talked about hunting dogs and exciting fox chases and coon hunts.
I had borrowed a reel-to-reel tape recorder some days earlier to tape some songs, and I asked Dad and his father, my grandpa, if I could record their talk about the old times. They agreed, and we spent the rest of the morning together. Much of this chapter is a literal transcript from that morning years ago.
Haints and Other Mysteries
Grandpa talked a lot about “haints” (ghosts) he had heard of around the old home place at the head of Stoney Fork.
“When I’s a year old, why my old man moved to the head of Stoney Fork. I’s born in Rockcastle County at Brodhead, Kentucky. But Pap was born and raised at the head of Stoney Fork, and he moved us back thar when I’s about a year old. Pap said his old man and my great-uncle Samp were the first ones ever to come into this territory. Somebody told them about how they was good farming land at the head of Stoney Fork and around in Peach Orchard. There was a natural spring, Pap said, in that little meadow thar betwixt Indian Rock and Peach Orchard. Pap or Uncle Samp—one, I forget which—hollered out a piece of a log, like a bee gum you know, and put it down over the spring. It was named Gum Spring.”
I listened to Grandpa with fascination, glad that I had the tape recorder on.
“Well sir, Pap allus said they’s a haint [he pronounced it “hant”] around that spring. He said it was jist like a blue light about two feet off the ground. Hit’s been seed thar and it’s follered people partway home. Jist a little blue light a-moving clost to the ground.
“Pap said they’s other things to be heard around in thar, too. Especially around the old home place. In those days they built double houses—two log houses jined under one roof. There’s a space, called a dogtrot, betwixt each log house. You could walk through from one side to the other. Well, Pap said ever night due as the night would come, it was just like two big bulldogs a-fighting betwixt them houses. He said his dogs would run out, run all around the house, but never could find nary thing. They’d come back up on the porch with their tails betwixt their legs. Pap said it sounded jist plimeblank like two big bulldogs fighting.
“Pap said ever since he was a little boy they’d heard things around in thar. He said none of them never knowed what it was. Figgered it might have been an Indian or white hunter who died dissatisfied. But it was shore different noises.
“Well sir, Susie and me got married and built us a house right near the place where the old house stood. One time we’s a-milking the cows and it was gettin’ dark, you know. The children was all small-like then, and when we got back they’s a-scared to death. Said they seed something jist like a big calf, or a big dog, walk right in the door with its eyes all blared out. They’s skeered jist about to death.
“Then after that, why my boy Squire he climbed up in the loft—well, the fact of it was we had a bed up in the loft for some of the children to sleep up thar, you know. He climbed up thar and there laid what looked like a big shepherd dog quiled up on the floor.
“Then one night we’s a-laying there, and if you’d got up in the loft and dropped a big sackful of dry shuckbeans—it went jist plimeblank like you’d just dropped a big sackful of dry shuckbeans down in the loft.
“And the purtiest music I ever heard in my life I heard it in that loft one night. It went like a talking-machine a-playing. Why, that was the purtiest music I ever heard.
“Your Aunt Betty was in the house one day by herself. Thar’s a wornet tree stood right outside the house—you remember that wornet tree? Well, she said they’s something just like a sewing machine sewing up in that tree—you know how a sewing machine goes. But she couldn’t see nary thing. She said it kept on a right smart spell of time.
“I’ve been outside times on top of times and it would go like someone throwed a big soggy chunk of wood right behind me. Sometimes it’d go like a big flat rock—if you’d throw a flat rock in a pile of rocks. I’d turn around and look and not see nary thing. I never did see a haint, but I shore have heard some strange things in my lifetime.”
“Mama has also seen strange things from time to time around the old home place,” Dad said.
“Yeah,” Grandpa agreed. “One day me and the boys was a-working in the field late and Susie had to go after the cows.” Grandpa turned toward Dad. “She was a-driving them back up the road fernist Indian Cliff. She looked ahead and thar stood a little girl right in the middle of the road. She said she studied on it a few minutes, puzzled about what was a little girl doing thar by herself. She kept walking toward her, a-watching her. She said the girl had on a pretty checked dress and her hair hung down her back in long curls. She said she guessed she turned her eyes away for a split second and when she looked back the girl was gone.
“Another time it was getting late at night. Susie’d been canning peaches most of the day. She stepped outside for just a minute before going to bed. She was standing there, cooling off in the fresh air, when she seed a light down by the creek. Then it sort of gathered like a big ball of fire and started rolling up the hill. It was smooth and easy, she said, just a-rolling up the hill. It went over the mountain and out of sight. We studied on it a whole lot but never could figure out what it meant.”
Grandpa cut a chew of tobacco to put in his mouth. Then he got up and stretched and walked out into the yard to chew his tobacco. I refilled Dad’s coffee mug.
“Pap talks about the strange things they’ve seed and heard up at the old home place at the head of Stoney Fork,” Dad said. “I’ve heard things up there, too. But I think the most haints I’ve ever heard or heard about was up around the water gap—near what is now the Bitter Lumber Camp. The water gap was a barrier across the creek to keep stock from going into the fields and eating up the corn. They put two logs across, one of them up high and the othern down here low. Then they nailed planks up and down and the water jist went on through, you know.
“Brother Otis was working on the WPA [Works Progress Administration] and was a-coming home one night. He walked awhile with a bunch of men who worked with him. But he had to cross the Stoney Fork Bridge and go up through the bottom to get home. The other men went on up the Pine Mountain side. Otis had to cross the bridge there above Water Gap to get home.
“You couldn’t cross the creek ferniest his house. They were an old traveling path at that time right up through the edge of the field. Otis had some home brew with him but knowed it wouldn’t go far in the whole crowd. After he crossed the bridge he walked along, taking a nip ever now and then. Right below the old graveyard there was corn planted in the bottom. I believe Morgan Helton was farming it that year.
“Suddenly he heard something big come right up near him and start eating them big years of corn, just scrushing them all to pieces. He said he could hear it, just scrushing the corn all to pieces. He was shure it was a horse got in the field. The next morning on his way to work he looked and couldn’t see nary thing bothered in that field. No horse had walked in thar, and no corn had been eat that he could see.
“I remember how Edgar Elliott, who used to live out thar with Aunt Mandy Hoskins, and he would go down through that bottom before day-light to his work at Sonnie LeFever’s sawmill. He said he heard the same thing Otis did. Something big scrushing years of corn—even in winter-time when they’s no corn in the field. Other times he’d hear a sound right behind him, he said jist like a windstorm. Like it was going to blow everything in the world away. It would be as clear a time as ever was and as still a time as ever was. But through that field it sounded like ever bit of the corn was blowing away in a big storm, he said.
“One time me and Sonnie Nunn was up in that bottom walking along the path through the edge of the field. It was getting long towards dark-well, you could say it’s good dusky-dark. Up ahead we suddenly seed a big white horse looking at us. Then it started running right straight at us. I jist knowed it’s going to run smack-dab over us afore we got out of the way. Well sir, it got right up near us and jumped in the air and went right over our heads, jist like a horse a-jumping a fence. And it never did come back down to the ground. We don’t know to this day what it was.
“Brother Squire and me and a bunch of men used to hang out at the schoolhouse and drink. One time a bunch of us was thar. And Bass Hoskins was thar. His wife would foller him sometimes if he was gone too long. We looked up and seed a woman a-crossing the swinging bridge. Bass made shore it was his wife and got up and went to meet her, just like a man would, you know. He got out thar and never could get ahold of her. He’d reach for her and she’d just disappear. Then she’d be standing thar again. After the second time he reached for her and she wasn’t thar, he got skeered. You never heard such a kerbangen in your life as him trying to run back acrost that swinging bridge.
“The woman was dressed in white. We all seed it with our own eyes. It had to be a haint. No real woman could disappear that a-way.”
Dad’s Early Days
At this point Grandpa came back inside. I offered him more coffee and he settled down in his chair. Dad remained seated, and I asked him to describe life when he was a young boy.
“When I was a boy, I’d say maybe once a month we’d go to the store. We’d buy coffee, salt, sody, sugar. Ever once in a while we’d buy a sack of flour for Sunday biscuits—rest of the time we ate cornbread. We didn’t have fancy foods like nowadays, like light bread. We’s a lot healthier too. We used a lot of fresh milk, fresh butter, beans, and vegetables from the garden, all fresh. Wouldn’t no cold storage in them days. In the wintertime we had dried beans, potatoes, milk and butter, eggs, chickens, pork. Lived better then than we do now.
“Back them days we let our hogs run wild in the mountains; they ate chestnuts. Besides chestnuts they also ate hickory nuts and a few acorns. ‘Boys, we will kill us a hog when they come in after eating chestnuts,’ Pap would say. Before too long they would come in just a-wobbling like a big fat goose.
“Lots of the hogs went wild that way. To identify our own hogs we marked them. Pap and us boys used the same mark: smooth crap the left ear and split the right and top bit the right, was our mark.
“When we wanted to kill a hog we went to the woods and hunted one down—unless we wanted to kill one in the summer, then we caught a hog and pen-fed it on corn to harden the meat. Mast fed hogs had soft fat, and it would drip out of the meat in summertime.”
I realized with a thrill of pride that Dad was as good a storyteller as Grandpa. I was so glad I had the reel-to-reel recorder. Dad continued to tell his stories while Grandpa finished his coffee and went back outside.
“When I was a young man I went hunting a wild male that had tushes exactly six inches long. I shot him in the head with a savage twenty-two rifle six times (and you could have covered the bullet holes with a quarter; I was an expert shot in them days) before I got him down. He snapped off bushes big as your arm. The dogs hemmed him near the roots of a fallen tree. I climbed up through the branches of the top part of the tree where I could shoot him. He knocked one dog way up in the air, and she hit the ground a-running. Next time I saw her was at the house. The skin of that hog was so tough a knife wouldn’t cut it. He’s pretty old, but would have killed you in a minute.
“One time Granny Brock and one of her stepsons was a-fishin’ just a little below the gap, and long after dark, why they’s two men come a-walking down through the field, walked right down beside them, walked right into the water—they could hear them go right into the water still a-talking. Granny said she and Roy stood right still, not a-knowing what was a-going on. They waited for them men to come back out of the water, but they never did. She said they walked right into that hole of water—it was maybe three times over a man’s head there in that hole of water. No doubt it worried Granny. She said they left—they’d caught enough fish by that time anyway.
“One time along after that me and Squire and Ed Brock and Otis had been out on a trip and we’s hungry. We took a notion to lay out in the schoolhouse. Ed and Squire went to Carter Helton’s store to buy us food. Otis and me went on and broke into the schoolhouse and built us a fire in the heating stove. We didn’t have no light. Well, they was gone ages of time. We laid down on the floor around the stove waiting for them to bring the grub. We’s laying there listening for them to come ever minute—they’s riding a horse.
“Finally we heard a horse a-coming and made shore it was them. The horse hit the ford of the creek and come right on and it come right up the steps right through the door and walked up between him and me. And us a-laying there with no light. When it come in the door that’s when I knowed it wasn’t a natural horse. By that time I didn’t try to figger out what it was—my hair was a-crawling on my head! Otis never said nary a word to me and I didn’t say nary a word to him. The horse
was there between us one minute and the next it was gone. We couldn’t see it for we didn’t have no light. But we knowed when he’s gone.
“A little while later we heard another horse a-coming, and it was Ed and Squire. They laughed when we told them about the horse a-coming in the schoolhouse. That schoolhouse was about a quarter of a mile below the water gap.
“One time I left the house about the edge of dark to go to Squire’s house up on Ben’s Branch. He’d run off some moonshine and I wanted some to sell at the mill next day. When I got there he’d already taken it to Pap’s on the head of Stoney Fork. I turned around and headed for Pap’s.
“By the time I’s on my way back home it was getting towards daylight. As I come through the ford there above the water gap, I had a little rise to go over. I went up over the rise about half-asleep. There come a noise like a big pole broke, you know, like you’d stepped on it. There was several other different kinds of noises as I rode along. Next, over in the bottom of corn—I believe Levi Saylor was tending it that summer—come a noise like somebody hoeing corn of a wet time with a gooseneck hoe. They’d hit the hoe over a rock to knock the mud off. This was about three in the morning—the birds was a-whistling for daylight. I kinda roused up.
“Reckon Uncle Levi’s hoeing corn at this time of morning,” I thought. Then something come into the creek just as I passed the water gap and turned up the hill. It sounded like the water went thirty feet high. It skee-red my mule and he run a piece with me, until I got him stopped and wheeled back into the road. I throwed my light into the road and no doubt I jerked out my gun. I watched for something to come up out of the water but I never did see nothing. My mule just stood there and trembled with me.
“One time I’d been to Dewey Brock’s store, which used to set up the hill half a mile from the gap. I’d been out a-fooling around, you know. Anyway, it come up a quick storm late in the evening and it got dark real quick. It was so dark I couldn’t see a stymie.
My Appalachia Page 3