Kentucky Folktales

by Mary Hamilton

  THE OPEN GRAVE

  A long time ago, when it was night it was dark. You may be thinking: so what? It’s dark at night now. But in the time I’m talking about the most frequent light anybody had to travel by was moonlight, and on the night I’m telling you about there was no moon. But there was a fellow traveling home through the darkness on that moonless night. He decided to take a shortcut through the town graveyard.

  There he was, walking along through the cemetery, and whoosh! He fell into a newly dug grave. Well, he did what most of us would do, he tried to jump out. He’d jump up, get a fingerhold, and then dirt would give way and he’d slip back down. Jump up, get a fingerhold, slip back down. Jump up. Slip down. Over and over again he tried to jump out, until he was exhausted.

  Then he began calming himself down, “I’m going to be all right. I’m just going to have to spend the night here, that’s all. People don’t dig graves for no reason. Tomorrow, there’s bound to be a funeral. After the funeral folks will come out here for the burying. They’ll find me. They’ll fetch a ladder and help me out.” He breathed slowly and deeply. “I’m going to be all right. Just spend the night here. That’s all.” In the darkness, he felt his way down to one end of the grave. Once there, he sank down into the corner and curled in on himself to keep warm. Finally, he did indeed feel warm, and he drifted off to sleep.

  Later that same night there was a second fellow headed home in the darkness. As fate or luck would have it, that second fellow made the same decision as the first fellow: “I believe I’ll take a shortcut through the town cemetery.”

  There he was traveling along when whoosh! He fell into the very same newly dug grave. Just like the first fellow, he tried to jump out. He’d jump up and get a fingerhold. The dirt would give way and he would slip. He too tried over and over again until he was exhausted.

  But then, he didn’t work on calming himself down like that first fellow had. No, that second fellow took to hollering, “Help! Help! I’ve fallen in a grave. Somebody come get me out of here! Help! Help, help, help!”

  He made such a racket that he woke up that first fellow who was sleeping down in the end of that grave. When that sleeping fellow woke up, he peered through the darkness in the direction all that racket was coming from and said, “No sense yelling and hollering like that. You can’t jump out.”

  He was wrong. (Ending 1)

  When the fellow who was hollering heard that voice in the darkness, he gave one jump, “Aaah!!!” and he was out of that grave and on his way home. (Ending 2)

  I understand he was moving real fast too. (Ending 3)

  COMMENTARY

  Related to ATU Tale Types 1313A* In the Open Grave

  and 1313B* The Cold Grave

  I first encountered this story as “The Men in the Open Grave,” in Ghosts Along the Cumberland by William Lynwood Montell.1 He reported four versions of this tale, one each from Mercer County, collected by John Short in 1965; Monroe County, collected by Lynwood Montell in 1958; Green County, collected by Jerry Powell in 1964; and Clark County, collected by Viola Burgess in 1964.

  In my retelling of the story, I did just as most folks will do. I kept the core of the story. I chose to avoid drinking as a reason for either person to fall in, as given in two of the reported versions. I also emphasize the darkness of the night in the time before security lights became common, as they are in many town and rural cemeteries today. My audiences are contemporary, often students or school-age children and their parents, so most of my listeners have grown up when very few cemeteries are poorly lit.

  You no doubt noticed I marked three endings for this story. I vary the endings depending on audience reaction. Ending 1 was inspired by John Benjamin, actor, director, and arts education program coordinator for the Kentucky Arts Council, who heard me tell the story using the second ending. In 2010 John told me his great uncle Will Agnew, who was originally from Virginia but lived in Atlanta for the last years of his life, told it to him. John recalled:

  The punch line was that the man who fell into the grave tried and tried to get out, but to no avail. Exhausted, he crumbled to the ground to catch his breath. From the other end of the grave came a voice, “It’s no use. You can’t get out.”

  But he did.2

  John had told me about hearing the story several years before our 2010 email exchange. I remember him saying that when he first heard the story he was so young he had to think about what that meant. Later, he could delight in the understatement as he heard the story again and again over the years. When I first began using the “He was wrong” ending, I thought I was using the exact ending John told me he had heard growing up. Based on our correspondence, I’m now inclined to believe the “He was wrong” ending was more inspired by (instead of taken from) John’s discussion of the tale. Most adult audiences react to this brief ending. It also works well in most mixed-age audiences.

  Ending 2 was the ending I used before John told me about his experience with the story. Now, I use the first ending, pause, and add information if there is little to no reaction or a mixed reaction from my audience. Usually, I also accompany the telling of the man leaving the grave with a gesture—picture starting with hands held horizontally, palm to palm, at around waist level. The lower hand stays in place to serve as the ground at the bottom of the grave. The upper hand rises quickly to illustrate the man jumping in fright. Once the hand rises, the arm can also be extended to suggest the man making a quick getaway. The timing goes something like this: During the “Aaah!” the hand goes up. The arm extends during the “and on his way home” (said at the same time as the arm extends). Sometimes I’ll even use these gestures after the first ending, but not say a single word during the gestures.

  Ending 3 is for audiences in need of a little more information before they begin laughing. I deliver it as a very understated afterthought. For audiences of elementary school children, this detail is sometimes just the bit of confirmation they need to help them accept the picture in their minds and laugh. My experience has been that listeners in homogeneous-aged audiences often react differently than the same aged listeners in a mixed-age audience.

  Yes, listeners do indeed make a difference in how a story is retold. Sometimes they give me information, as John Benjamin did, which results in better future tellings. Other times, my observations of their reactions as they listen prompt the change needed to make the telling suit the particular audience in front of me.

  TALL TALES

  AND

  OUTRIGHT LIES

  Tall tales “weigh the delicate balance between truth and untruth in favor of untruth”1 and rely on outrageous exaggeration and lying for comic effect.2

  In this section, you’ll find stories about real people—Daniel Boone, Otis Ayers, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, and my four brothers. You’ll find stories about real events—the Meade County Fair, Halloween, and presidential elections. You’ll find stories that take place in our real world—in the woods, on the farm.

  Most importantly, for tall tales, you’ll find stories with truth stretched to impossibility. And if after reading them you believe them, “go stand on your right eyebrow.”3

  DANIEL BOONE ON THE HUNT

  Back in Daniel Boone’s day, if you wanted meat to eat you had to go hunt it yourself. Fortunately Daniel Boone was a skilled hunter and an intelligent man.

  One day Daniel Boone was out hunting, and he met up with a bear. Now Daniel Boone was not hunting for bear, so he was not especially pleased to see a bear. From what I hear, the bear was not especially pleased to see Daniel Boone either. That bear charged Daniel Boone. Fortunately Daniel was about fifty yards away from the bear when it charged, so he figured he had a head start. He turned his back on that bear and he began to run.

  Now you may doubt my claim that Daniel Boone was intelligent when I tell you he ran from a bear. Rest assured, he knew people cannot outrun bears, and he was not trying to outrun the bear. He simply figured those fifty yards would give him enough time to find a
tree he could easily climb, and that’s what he did. Daniel Boone swung himself up into a tree and started climbing.

  “Now, wait just a minute,” you may be thinking, “bears can climb trees.” You are correct. Bears can climb trees, and Daniel Boone knew that—I told you he was an intelligent man. As Daniel climbed up the tree he knew it would not be long until the bear would be climbing up after him, so he prepared. Daniel Boone was not only a skilled hunter and an intelligent man; he was also a resourceful man.

  Daniel Boone didn’t do a thing but sit straddle on a limb with his back to the trunk of the tree. Then he wrapped his legs around the tree trunk and dropped forward beside the limb, so he was hanging from the tree—upside down, legs holding onto the trunk, arms dangling. Daniel watched, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before the bear reached the tree, took one look up at Daniel, and started climbing toward him.

  Daniel Boone was not only an intelligent man and a resourceful man; he was also a patient man. He held his hands up near his shoulders and he watched the bear climb closer and closer. Oh, he was a patient man!

  Finally the bear was within biting distance of Daniel, and when the bear opened its mouth to take a big bite out of Daniel Boone, folks say Daniel Boone didn’t do a thing but run his fist down the bear’s throat, all the way through the bear, and out the other end. Daniel Boone grabbed the bear’s tail, gave it a big yank, and turned that bear inside out. Then he let go, and the inside out bear ran right down the tree.

  I’ve heard those inside out bears don’t live long, so Daniel Boone never needed to worry about that bear again.

  COMMENTARY

  ATU Tale Type 1889B Hunter

  Turns Animal Inside Out

  I have been completely unsuccessful in locating the source of this tale or remembering how the tale came to be in my telling repertoire, and yet, I am quite confident I did not make it up, but read a tale of the inside out bear somewhere. I can verify the basic tale exists in Kentucky folklore because there are at least four versions in the Leonard Roberts Collection.1

  While I’m not sure how I first encountered the tale, I do know that the repetition built on stating an attribute (skilled hunter, intelligent, resourceful, and patient man), then following with an action that calls the attribute into question, developed over time in front of audiences. In the telling, when I call an attribute into question there are inevitably nods of agreement in the audience from folks who are having that same thought. This pattern developed based on a telling at a school when I heard audience members whispering, “But bears can climb trees!” and I responded to that whisper. Eventually, I began to incorporate the audience doubt into the telling deliberately. It makes for a fun, yet subtle, give and take between teller and listeners.

  FARMER BROWN’S CROP

  Folks say Farmer Brown was a pretty good farmer, and like most farmers he was also a practical man. One year, he decided to plant his corn and his pumpkins in the same field. The way he saw it, he and his hardworking plow horse would have a bit less ground to plow, and the leaves on the pumpkin vines would shade out the weeds so there would be no need to hoe out the corn either.

  That spring he plowed his cropland. Then he planted corn and pumpkins. Oh, good fortune was with him! The ground stayed warm. Soft spring rains came, and Farmer Brown knew corn and pumpkins were sprouting. One day, he saw tiny green shoots poking up out of the ground. He was delighted. Every few days he visited his field. Soon he noticed that all the shoots were just alike. They were all pumpkin plants, with no corn in sight. But he didn’t give up. He just figured the corn needed more time to sprout than the pumpkins. Day after day he watched. The pumpkin vines grew rapidly, but the corn never appeared. Farmer Brown considered replanting his corn. But he soon realized that if he worked through his field replanting his corn, he would trample the vines and destroy the pumpkins. So, he decided he would simply be satisfied with growing pumpkins instead of corn.

  Those pumpkins grew and grew. Farmer Brown was justifiably proud of his fine crop of pumpkins. Finally harvest time came. One morning Farmer Brown hitched his plow horse to the wagon and the two of them headed out to the field to harvest the pumpkins.

  By noon Farmer Brown had harvested a whole wagonload of pumpkins. When he headed to the house for dinner, he left the wagon by his corncrib. He figured after dinner he’d put his pumpkins in there. After all, he’d grown no corn and he needed a good place to store his pumpkins. But he selected one pumpkin to take up to the house so Mrs. Farmer Brown could make him a pumpkin pie for supper.

  After dinner, Farmer Brown headed out to his corncrib to unload pumpkins. Mrs. Farmer Brown took out her largest kitchen knife and some old newspapers. She spread the newspapers on her kitchen table and set the pumpkin on top. Then she cut off the top of the pumpkin. But instead of slimy strings of pumpkin innards and pumpkin seeds, she discovered the pumpkin was filled with corn. Not corn on the cob, mind you, but shelled corn.

  She ran for the porch, hollering, “Farmer Brown, Farmer Brown, come back up here. You are not going to believe what’s in your pumpkin!”

  Don’t you know every single pumpkin from that crop contained nearly two bushels of shelled corn! It ended up being one of the best corn crops Farmer Brown had ever grown.

  Mrs. Farmer Brown’s pumpkin pie won a blue ribbon at the county fair that summer. The judges declared it “pumpkin through and through with just a hint of corn.” When her friends asked her for her recipe, she told them about Farmer Brown’s corn crop, but they simply refused to believe it. They said, “If you don’t want to share your recipe, just say so. There’s no call for you to make up such a big lie.” Poor Mrs. Farmer Brown! Even now a couple of her former friends do not speak to her because they believe she lied rather than share the real secret of her prize-winning pumpkin pie.

  COMMENTARY

  “Farmer Brown’s Crop” is retold from “The Bushel of Corn,”1 collected by Leonard Roberts from J. B. Calton of Mary Helen, Harlan County, Kentucky. The story as collected runs three short paragraphs, as follows:

  The Bushel of Corn

  One day there was a farmer who planted his corn and pumpkins together. His pumpkins came up big and fat, but the corn never came up.

  He picked the pumpkins and put them in the storehouse but the corn never came up.

  One day he wanted pumpkin pie, and he cut one of the pumpkins open and there was a bushel of corn in each pumpkin.

  How I moved from those three paragraphs to the story I now tell, I do not know. I do know that my audiences for this story are mostly school children who are not living on farms, and so do seem to benefit from a more detailed description of the planting and growing process. I also recall that the first time I ever mentioned “Mrs. Farmer Brown” someone laughed, so she became a keeper. In addition, from growing up on a farm, I am well aware that shelled corn would be even more valuable than corn on the cob, and would make an even more amazing lie.

  The story also has two endings. Sometimes I will end it with the statement about every pumpkin containing shelled corn. Other times, when the audience seems especially interested in Mrs. Farmer Brown and time permits, I’ll add the segment about the pumpkin pie contest.

  HUNTING ALONE

  One morning, a man took his gun and his dog and he went hunting. He’d been out quite a while when he and his dog heard some rustling in the underbrush. They looked and spotted a possum heading home. Well, the dog dove right through a thicket following that possum. By the time the man had made his way through the thicket, the possum had sought refuge in a hollow log. There the man’s dog stood, at the big end of the log. He looked up at the man, then into the log, then up at the man again, and barked, as if to say, “Shall I go get it?”