It is bad luck to open an umbrella inside the house, to come in a door you didn't go out from, and to spill salt or oil.The stories and superstitions that run through these hills are one place you can find witchcraft and conjure, whether it's in the methods of precaution prescribed against bad luck or tidbits of how to heal a disease. There are stories of odd creatures in the wild, women keening for their lost loves, and the Devil himself laughing over the river. We'll begin with the latter.
Located outside of Erwin, Tennessee, overlooking the Nolichucky River, the Devil's Looking Glass is a haunted cliff of rock standing hundreds of feet tall and covered with the fingerprints of death. There are countless tales of this mountain cliff and the waters that churn below, but I'll recount only a couple here. The first is of a Cherokee woman who threw herself off the cliff. The story goes that she and her lover were very close, and he was taken into battle to fight for his people. He didn't return. The woman's grief overtook her, and she climbed to the top of the cliff and jumped, calling for her lost love as she fell. Many people have seen her wading in the waters below, keening for her mate. Others say that early in the morning, you can hear her singing for her lover to return to her, a song that turns to crying and wailing as the day grows old.
Other stories of the cliff tell of banshee cries in the area. It's said that a man and his pregnant wife lived in a cabin along the river, two miles away from the nearest neighbor. One night the man heard a sound coming from down the river and mistook it to be the cries of a bobcat. The old man, expecting to get a new pelt, wandered down the riverbank, following the sound. As he wandered, he noticed that the sound didn't seem to be getting any closer. And at one point, the sound seemed to be coming from the other direction. After hours of searching, he gave up and started back to his cabin. When he arrived, he found his wife in labor. Hours later, both his wife and the baby died.
I have personal experience with this. My grandparents lived up on a hill near a wooded area that led to a graveyard. One day, while playing in the forest, I heard a cry. It was odd because it sounded like a cat but also a woman's scream. It didn't happen in the usual pattern ascribed to an animal in heat; instead, it sounded like an alarm. Within the week, my grandfather died of his seventh heart attack.
Now, the banshee didn't kill my grandfather, and it didn't kill the woman and her baby in the other story, either. On the contrary, banshees are considered a type of “little folk” that came over with European immigrants, and they are one of the few spirits of who care for humans. They just come to warn of death and mourn the person's passing, and it's thought they are drawn to anyone with strong Irish blood. Irish stories describe the banshee as a woman who stays near water to wash her grave-stained robes. They say she has bloodshot eyes from crying for the dead. Banshees were also said to have a comb stuck in their hair, so it's always been a bad omen to find a discarded comb on the ground.
Another old tale of the Devil's Looking Glass says that a witch named Ol' Miz Wilson lived in a cabin near the rocky bottom of the cliffs, and would call up the restless dead from the river and entertain them with charms and spells. Her parties ended at sunrise, at which time the spirits returned to the rocks and beds. After her death, it was said that every Halloween at midnight, the rocks in the cliff grow eyes: the eyes of the spirits are looking for something to entertain them again.
The creepiest tale I was told growing up was, if you stood on the banks before the Devil's Looking Glass on a real foggy morning, you could chance to see the Devil himself shaving in the mirror and laughing at you. This isn't the only association the Devil has with the Nolichucky River. There are tales of a “lone rider” who rides up and down the banks on moonless nights. It's said you'll hear the hoofbeats get closer and closer until they're right up on you, at which point you'll hear them go off in the other direction and die down without ever seeing a living soul. No one could ever get a clear view of who the rider was that was scaring folk—only an occasional blurred shadow on the bank that passed by fast as ever.
A couple decades ago, a few men took it upon themselves to get to the bottom of who this rider was. They camped on the bank overnight, waiting for the rider to show. One person stayed up to keep watch. Around 3:00 a.m., the watchman began to hear hoofbeats down the river. He woke the others up and they scrambled around, tying a rope to a tree at the water's edge and holding the other end some ten yards back. Their plan was to pull on the rope to trip the horse and throw the rider off right when they passed.
The hoofbeats got closer and closer; the men readied themselves. A shadowy blur passed by and with a force it pulled on the rope, yanking the men forward on their faces. The hoofbeats continued in the other direction, their pattern and beat unhindered by the rope or the men's efforts. The men were confused. One suggested it couldn't be a ghost because it pulled on the rope. Then they saw hoofprints in the mud, and validated it wasn't a ghost because ghosts don't leave footprints in the mud.
However, upon further investigation they found the hoofprints weren't U-shaped like a horse's. They were cloven, like a goat. it was at that point the men ran back home yelling, “it was the Devil himself!” No one dared look for the identity of the rider again. For this story, the river was named Devil's Run. Stories have warned since not to be caught out on the banks at night alone or else the Devil may challenge you to a race for your soul. What do you reckon your chances are of winning?
There are countless accounts of unexplained deaths and missing victims at the Nolichucky River. The water unexpectedly rises and the current's strength intensifies without warning. It happens so often, there've been plenty of times we've found dead animals on the shores, taken down and drowned in an instant. Whether it's lovers camping on the banks or deer stopping for a nighttime drink, the river has consumed many lives. Because of its dangerous nature, the Cherokee called the river Black Waters.
There have been accounts of transparent fishermen standing on the shore holding fishing rods, while others tell of children playing in the waters only to disappear behind their own splashing. Common sense tells folks to avoid this area altogether at night or without company. While it's still a great spot for fishing and kayaking, many still get an eerie feeling while gazing at the rapid currents cutting their way between the mountains.
We also have our share of ghosts. Ghost stories have been a major portion of storytelling in these hills, and we hear them from a young age. While mostly reserved for camping trips and time spent waiting for Halloween night, most of these stories are passed down in the family and are told whenever the children ask. My family went every year to the Cherokee festival at Sycamore Shoals, so I also grew up on the old Cherokee tales of bears and blue-corn beads, stories of the witch Selu and her sons, Kanati the Lucky Hunter, as well as tales of the saints and haints in the hills. Before my generation, everyone listened to the stories of the elders, and these stories were stored in their bones and teeth, so they could be recounted and told again in other times and places. Thankfully, I was one of those who listened.
Of course, not all haints and creatures are benign, and the old folks knew that. For this reason, there are superstitions, sayings, and charms to teach and protect people from hauntings and evil spirits. For instance, tying a red piece of yarn to your right upper arm or setting knives up in the windows will do just that. And sewing a piece of red ribbon into the inner lining of your shoe heel will protect you from ghosts making you sick.
Going through these stories, one can see the close relationship we often build with these spirits, loving them like family unless they cause harm. For those spirits that were troublesome, preachers were often asked to come and clear the home. My grandfather did so frequently, among his other gifts of blood stopping and wart charming. One saying my family always uses to get rid of a haint or troublesome spirit is to ask it, “What in the name of the Lord do you want?” and it should stop.
By now you're probably wondering how these stories have any connection to folk magic. The tales show the mind-set that mountain folk have had for centuries in these hills, mirroring that of their ancestors in the Old World. This same mind-set was held by the native peoples.
Back in the day, people would come home from church on Sunday and be just fine with talking to the dead that roamed their land. These stories are woven on battlefields, embroidered by the pulpit and choir, and hung on the clothesline in the holler, in the yard of the lonesome sinner. Each tale adds to the culture and community beliefs of the people of Appalachia. These tales are both the mother and child of superstition at its greatest. They teach us to be kind and careful, but stern and strong. They teach us to mind our own most of the time, and what will happen should we act otherwise. When was the last time an old tale talked about someone who wasn't snooping around places? Following are some of the superstitions and beliefs I was raised on in East Tennessee.
Stories and superstitions often intersect, like a complex dream catcher. There's very little distinction between the two, based on their particular origin. Here I will share some of the good ol' superstitions and tricks of these hills.
Here is the perfect place to fill you in about what mountain folks think of witches and how they differ from the doctors and healers. Witches were thought to have made pacts with the Devil, read the Bible backward, and consulted with demons to gain their conjuring knowledge. This belief stems from Europe, primarily, where these same beliefs are rampant throughout records of the Inquisition.
Witches were said to go through initiations into black magic, whether it was shooting a silver bullet at the Bible while cursing Jehovah or waiting in the family cemetery for the Devil to arrive and have intercourse with him. While most accounts of true witchcraft follow no such belief, it is apparent that the reputation of a conjure person was primarily based on the attitude of the community. The yarb doctor was seen as a circumstance-born healer, gifted by God; and although they could be found mixing up some revenge for a client's enemy, they were still labeled “good,” as the community believed their powers to be a gift of the Most High.
The witch, on the other hand, was susceptible to a much harsher judgment from society. It was believed that the outcast, crazy woman up the holler was mixing up poisons, dancing with the Devil, and tossing curses from her perch. There are stories of witches charming cats and collecting them in bags, cursing cattle, and blasting crops. Those that were documented in these tales were the yarb doctors. But of course that was fine, because the community thought well of them; the rest were often unverified tales. The lines between the witch and yarb doctor are blurred at best and nonexistent at times, save for the reputation given them by the community.
There are many stories that have made their way over from the Green Isle, telling of folks getting lost and taken in by the wee ones, and also acquiring knowledge and gifts from the little folk. Others are simply “marked by God.” This term is used to denote those who are born in certain circumstances such as having a caul over the eyes; being a seventh son or daughter; being born a surviving or “left” twin; being born feetfirst; or being born through C-section or blue. I am a member of the latter, having been born with fluid in my lungs because I took my first breath in the womb. Nana once said that's why I've always been good with animals and know when something's wrong with folks, cause I “know what's inside 'em,” or how things are. This is referred to as the gift or sight and is spoken of, softly, by the families who still recognize its presence. Having these “marks” is said to happen to those that will walk the banks between this world and the next. This “gift” isn't a psychic ability, however. We aren't born with it naturally or genetically. It is something given exclusively by God and the spirits. Most of these folks have experiences of seeing spirits from a young age. I have not had the experience of seeing fully materialized spirits, per se, but I do hear and feel them, with the occasional waist-to-head view of them, but I can't figure any hard details.
Until recently, these situations at birth were considered medically dangerous and filled mothers with worry when the doctor informed her of her child's “condition.” Nowadays, these things aren't paid much attention and the information is not usually given to the mother. As a result, many would-be healers never know of their gift or why they see or hear things.
There are tales of power doctors getting their knowledge from an encounter with the little folk or simply being blessed from birth. Regardless of the tales, it has been the reputation of the worker in the community that speaks of their power's origin and their moral compass. My mother says my knack for remembering so much of this is due to me walking around under a black bull when I was little. Said it nearly gave her a heart attack, but I was a curious child. Especially when I wasn't being watched.
The old-timers have always been superstitious when it comes to ghosts, lightning, death, witches, and curses. Basically anything that could threaten their livelihood. While some of the following formulas leave no explanation for their reasoning, they are still practiced today because, as I was always told, “It's just what the old folks did.” These remedies and charms are tradition, and you aren't supposed to question it. No one does. With no rhyme or reason, these tricks and charms have continued in these hills, containing the fragments of their parent cultures and the fixing-thoughts of the mountaineers. And they work—so why question them?
The most important people in the household who warranted protection from haints and the evil eye were children. Children are most susceptible to these threats in their earliest months, and it is customary to christen and baptize babies as soon as possible. Yarrow is hung at the head of the crib and an iron nail can be driven into the post of the crib to protect the child from being taunted or taken by the little folk. If the child got sick, some folks would bring the child to the preacher or some other type of healer. My mother, a seventh daughter blessed with the power to heal, had to only rub our bellies a certain way and by the next sunrise we were fine. The previous symptoms were commonly thought of among the Old Irish as signs that a changeling, a double, sat in the crib while the real babe was lost somewhere in faery land.
Belief in changelings didn't fully make their way to Appalachia, but there are some rituals that were done to see if the babe had indeed been stolen away: one was to carry the child around a balefire while saying the Lord's Prayer. The only sign that it is human will be if the child sneezes.
Chamomile-infused milk was also fed to the infant nightly for the first six months of their life to protect them from evil and to preserve their life until dawn. When a child died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), it was believed that it was the work of the Devil or a mischievous spirit, so people naturally took up arms with measures to prevent it from happening again. However, although children are considered the most vulnerable, the elders saw power in their innocence and their purity from true sin. Because of this, they prized things made by children as powerful trinkets of protection, an American legacy that can be seen in the common child-gifts for protection in movies and literature. One such superstition calls for a seven-year-old girl to spin thread on Good Friday, Sunday, or Christmas Day (it varies based on location and family tradition). This thread was then sewn into the hem of britches and shirts to guard one from disease, evil spirits, and curses.
After the children and elders, your own self is next in line. There are a number of things one can do for protection: carry an iron nail in the left pocket to protect yourself from the activities of the little folk or wrap a horseshoe in aluminum foil and hang it over the door. A horseshoe wrapped in red cloth and hung upside down for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will help get rid of haints. I'll discuss these rites in more detail in chapter 6.
As we know, the weather of Appalachia can be unpredictable in both season and severity, and lightning can be particularly threatening. Folks would walk around the home tapping two stones together to create a barrier that lightning couldn't penetrate. This was done with one black stone and one white stone. The Cherokee believed that wood from a tree that has been struck by lightning will protect from the same and give the person who wears it power. Geranium petals are also said to protect from lightning (as well as dog bites).
When restless or troublesome spirits come to haunt the household, the potato charm is utilized. One acquires a whole, unwashed potato and a small object that belonged to the deceased. The potato is cut in half and each side is hollowed out, made large enough for the item to fit snugly inside. The halves are then reunited, bound with red yarn, and pinned shut with nails. The charm is then taken to the grave of the spirit, where it is left. The spirit will then be bound to the cemetery until they fully cross over.
Other practices include hanging bunches of basil over the windows and doors to keep unwanted spirits out, hanging lavender to protect from misfortune, and placing a dried corncob beneath the doorway to attract good fortune and keep disease away. In order for this to work, though, the corncob must always remain dry, or it will mold and rot away the luck.
To protect yourself from being “witched” or “hoodooed,” tie up a lock of your hair, a toenail clipping, and a stick from the “sunny” or eastern side of an oak with red string, while invoking the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's said you can't be cursed or worked on as long as you have this charm on your person. However, should you ever lose the charm, the person who finds it can use it to curse you.
The lock of hair and the nail paring shows the importance of the head and feet, which are the most powerful ways a witch can lay roots on someone, by either dusting one's head while asleep or rooting on your footprints. (We'll go over the importance of the head and feet more in chapter 6.) The hair and nails also act as a decoy, luring any tricks to it first, because curses take the shortest route to the target (in this case, the charm). The oak has a long history of protection and strength. As these are bound with the red string, symbolic of blood, one is bound outside of the grasp of curses and enchantments.
To remove curses or tricks, one carries a piece of coal in the right pocket or shoe. Once the coal has diminished to dust and crumbs, the curse has been removed. The crumbs are then disposed of at a crossroads or beneath a willow tree that stands next to a stream. Return a different way than you came, and cross the stream as well. The reason being the crossroads will contain the curse in a kind of “prison”; before real grave markers, the willow tree stood as a marker of graves in Appalachia for a long period. Today, they are places to “put things to rest,” and you should cross the stream to deter anything from lingering or following you.
Life in Appalachia was hard enough without the extra misfortune that fate dealt. Closely following the concept of protection, there are tricks and wits to bring good luck and keep misfortune away. My grandmothers always hung horseshoes pointing upward to keep the luck from running out.
Another tradition was always keeping a jar of money by the door to keep the money coming in. The jar was filled with money that one found on the sidewalk or elsewhere, and it was collected in anything, from an empty peanut butter jar to an old crock pot. Cornmeal was always sprinkled at the bottom to make a soft “dirt” for the money and to keep it off the hard bottom so likewise the family would be kept off hard times. And let me tell you, no matter how hard life was, we were always given or found some money and not a day went by that we didn't have some type of food to eat as long as that jar sat by the door. When you find money, you should pick up the coin or dollar and place it in your left pocket until it can be added to the jar. Money from the jar can be spent, but it should never be totally emptied and should always hold seven or more of one type of currency (for example, seven dimes, seven pennies, or seven one-dollar bills).
You of course know that four-leaf clovers and ladybugs are lucky, and it's the same here in Appalachia. However, a four-leaf clover has to be found when you aren't looking for it, and no one else can ever see the clover or it will lose its power. To keep a found four-leaf clover secret, folks would tuck it away in their Bible along with their own picture under the clover, or else they'd put it in their Bible cover. Some folks would even sew clovers in the rim of hats or in the inner lining of their shoes.
Good luck also comes if you find a four-holed button or a heads-up penny and put it in your right shoe. A spider found nesting in the kitchen is another sign of luck and abundance and would never be disturbed. The family would never go hungry as long as it made camp. Seeing the new moon for the first time each month over your left shoulder is also considered good luck, but not if you see it through the trees.
Old folks also weren't afraid of using animal parts and leftovers for remedies and charms. Whether they cooked worms by the fire to make an oil for arthritis or rubbed rabbit brains on the gums for toothache, they weren't the least bit squeamish. Therefore, many animal parts and bones are used for good luck and gambling. The most famous is the bone of a black cat.
Black cats are notoriously thought to be bad luck. Old formulas called for using the bones of a black cat. The skeleton was taken to a creek where the water flows to the south and the bones were dropped into the water. One bone would float and go upstream; it's that one bone that will be lucky. Other variations call for it to be done in the woods or simply in the home; or the “creek” is replaced with a pot of milk, into which the hot bones are dropped and either the first one to come to the surface or whine like a cat was the lucky bone.
These bone-washing formulas, as I call them, derive from Europe, and over time they have been adapted to be more humane. More recent tales specify using the bones of a naturally deceased black cat.
The formulas and charms I use were recommended by the old-timers in these mountains. For example, a bone from the right paw of an opossum is carried for luck and success, which works just as well. Other good luck charms are deer horn points worn around the neck, which also protect from the evil eye, or a muskrat or rabbit's foot carried on the person.
Bad luck was something mountain folk just couldn't afford. If the crops began to rot or someone had an accident and couldn't get care, it could decimate their daily lives. So, they listened close to Granny's “tall tales,” lest fate be tempted. Here are a few things to be wary of:
It is bad luck to open an umbrella inside the house, to come in a door you didn't go out from, and to spill salt or oil.
Don't burn sassafras or pinewood in the home.
Burning cedar or dogwood inside is also said to bring bad luck.
Likewise, dogwood blooms shouldn't ever be brought into the house, because it's said that's the wood Jesus hung from at Calvary.
When a new candle is brought into the house, the wick must be lit and immediately snuffed to keep bad luck out.
Women weren't allowed at the coal mines, as most people believed they would bring bad luck to the mine.
When a fish is caught, the fish should be thanked or bad luck will befall the home and the cabinets will be bare within the season.
To point at a graveyard, especially one with a new grave in it, will invite sickness and death.
It is in these superstitions that the old folks sometimes went to the extremes. Bad stuff was terrifying for them and could literally end their lives as they knew it. They went to the extreme even in medicine, ingesting turpentine or kerosene, for example. I can say that a hundred more times, but you won't know the truth of it unless you're from here. Extreme measures included wearing powdered gizzards or manure in the shoes to keep off conjuring, carrying a rag with dried blood from a bull's ankle for health and vigor, or drinking sheep nanny tea for measles, which was made from sheep manure.
Modern medical services weren't widely available in Appalachia for quite some time, so folks relied on old charms and remedies for their ailments, just as their immigrant ancestors had done. Warts were fairly common and irritating due to poor hygiene of the time. My grandfather could wipe a wart off with a rag and a prayer or buy it from you.
Sadly, Papaw passed on before I could learn about this particular method for removing warts, but my mother taught me one that's a bit more involved but works just as well. Quartzite, known here as mountain quartz, is abundant in the fields and streams. The charm uses these white stones picked from a creek that flows south or west. You take up the same number of stones as warts that need to be removed. The stones are picked from the creek, but one must go with the river's flow to get them. So, you take your hand and follow the current in the same direction as you lower your hand down in the water to snatch up the stone, taking care to not disturb the flow of water as you drop your hand down to the creek bed or as you come back up with the stone. It's believed that if the current is disturbed, it annoys the spirits. Each stone is then touched to a wart three times and placed in a small pouch and then hung on a cow's horns or a fence post in a field, or left at the crossroads to wait for the next person who will open the bag of warts and get them.
My grandfather had a gift for stopping the flow of blood. Not many people can do this successfully or even as great as he could, in my opinion. Sometimes, he would indirectly stop a woman's flow. There are a couple methods I've heard of. One requires a rag that is dampened with holy water and left out overnight on Christmas Eve. This rag is used throughout the year to stop wounds from bleeding, much like an Irish brat being left out to be blessed by the Goddess Brigit on February 1.
The other method for stopping bleeding entails passing the left hand clockwise over the wound while reciting the following words, quiet enough so the patient cannot hear:
Jesus was born in Bethlehem,
Baptized in the Jordon River.
When the water was wild in the woods,
God spoke and the water stood,
And so shall thy blood.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Papaw told my mom he couldn't cross running water for twenty-four hours after performing this rite. To cross it would undo the charm and the blood would flow again. Another practice he did was he'd give the person a red string to tie around their neck or on their left wrist to stop the blood. It was believed the blood would be stopped by the knot in the yarn.
Water is another form of powerful medicine. Water collected at daybreak on Easter Morning, Good Friday, or Ash Wednesday is said to be a cure for multiple illnesses. Rainwater from the gutters is applied to rashes and the “water” (urine) collected from a cow is tossed onto someone's feet to change their luck around. The least known but most powerful of waters would be stump water. The old folks often called it spunk water because it sometimes has an odd smell; this is probably dependent on the tree it is collected from.
Water found in the grooves of boulders was given the same respect, as it had also never touched the soil. Likewise, in Ireland we find the noted healing belief in well water whose surface had never been touched or “broken” by man. (This will be covered more in chapter 10.)
Ocean water is known to help heal anything from deep wounds to rheumatoid arthritis. My grandmother had knee surgery and for months afterward was plagued by painful knees. Some cousins were vacationing at the beach, and she called them up and told them to fill a big jar with some ocean water. They brought back a five-gallon pickle jar of seawater, big enough that my grandmother put both her legs in and soaked them to relieve the pain. She did that for a week, and her knees have never bothered her as bad since.
Besides charms and magical waters, the people of Appalachia have relied on home remedies and herbal medicines for healing. For croup, we drink the juices of a baked onion. For rashes, we mash plantain into a paste and apply it generously. We had the common sense that herbs may not always work, so our remedies often included man's medicine or chemicals. Whether turpentine, cod liver oil, or lard, we tried different things and kept the ones that worked. When I was little. I personally despised the hot toddy my grandmother would make and give to us had she heard a pitch when we coughed. I now cherish it as one of my best cures!
For a common cold, Mama always said to get two cloves of garlic and cut them in half. Take a half from each and tie them to the person's feet, right on their soles. Within about an hour, their breath would smell like garlic, at which point Mama would take the tied cloves and chuck them out the back door. The other two halves were then replaced and the same process was repeated. After the second round of cloves had been thrown out, they'd soak their feet in warm saltwater to “pull the cold out.”
I grew up hearing about children being marked by their mothers in the womb by things the mother did. I'm one example. When my mother was three months pregnant with me, she was thrown out of a moving truck going 75 miles per hour. Thankfully, we were both okay, but I was born with a birthmark on my back in the shape of a pickup truck. The belief is that if the mother is frightened by something, her baby could be marked with a birthmark the shape of what frightened her, or have a physical resemblance to the something or someone. On the other hand, the babe could be marked by someone the mother loved dearly. My godson, whose mother is my best friend, has a dimple on his upper cheek just like mine that shows when he smiles.
This also applies anytime the mother goes against a taboo, such as walking over a grave or going to a funeral. A baby born to a woman who does this will be born pale and ghostly, or with a deformity. Or if a pregnant woman has a major craving for something that can't be fully satisfied, her baby will be born with some kind of physical evidence of it. One of my cousins craved strawberries all the time while she was pregnant, and her son was born with a birthmark on his ankle shaped like a strawberry. There's no logic behind these sayings, but I've seen them be fulfilled enough times to believe it.
The behavior of the mother could also mark the baby. If she is whiny while pregnant, she will have a whiny kid. If she made fun of a disabled person, her child will be born with the same disability. The old folks didn't always render to these foreign powers. They developed their own formulas for having the child be a certain way. The marking or mirroring charms they developed mostly surround the care for a child after it is born, but not always.
The first cup of water a mother should carry after birth should be a thimble full of water. She's to carry it from the driveway up to the house and to the child without spilling a drop. This keeps the child from drooling a lot through infancy. She also shouldn't cross over running water until the child is one month old. Otherwise it's said to bring illness on both of them. The latter isn't very reasonable in today's age with concrete roads. We never know when we're traveling over a natural creek anymore.
Besides those about the condition of the mother affecting her baby, there are a plethora of superstitions around divining if one is pregnant, and the birthing process. One my mother has always followed is placing an egg in a glass to determine if a woman is pregnant. First, the egg is rubbed over the woman's belly in a cross formation. The woman then blows on the egg and drops it into a clear glass of water. If the egg sinks, the woman is with child. If it floats, she is not.
This practice was often paired with a way to predict the sex of the child. A gold wedding ring was suspended from three hairs taken from the crown of the expectant mother's head. She is to lie down “as Christ was laid,” Nana says, meaning her head should be pointing west. The ring is dangled over her navel and Psalm 23 is recited:
A Psalm of David.
The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
for ever.
If the ring rotates in circles over her belly, it is a girl. If it swings back and forth, it is a boy.
If a woman wishes to be free from her pregnancy symptoms, especially morning sickness, all she's got to do is crawl over her lover to get out of bed in the morning. This will pass the symptoms on to him. I've seen this work multiple times. Not for the men, necessarily, but it still worked.
About 80 percent of the charms surrounding women have to do with the birthing process. This was old Appalachia, where a woman's role was to bear children. That role was very dangerous in that time. As with all things, the mountaineer took up faith and charm and used them together for aid.
To ease birthing pains, a Bible opened to the book of Matthew is placed on the woman's chest or stomach. The location depends on the necessity. If the child is in danger, the stomach; if the mother, the chest. A knife, arrowhead, or axe is also placed beneath the bed to cut the pains in pieces and render them harmless. In today's hospitals, these aren't acceptable, so make a “tea” with these boiled in water for the mother to drink.
In the case of possible hemorrhage during labor, chicken feathers were burned under the bed. A bundle of six feathers should be gathered by the father or another man of the house. If not the father, I've heard, it should be done by a graying man. It was best if the feathers were plucked straight from the chicken, but this wasn't a requirement at the time.
Birth came with sadness sometimes. Stillbirths were common in the hills. In the case of a stillborn child, the mother needed a way to dry her milk without that physical pain being added to her grief. A charm was devised for just that: camphor on a cotton wad was placed in the child's grave to dry up the mother's milk. If a woman continued to have stillborn children, Nana always said she should name the next boy Adam. He'll live and she won't have another stillborn. Typically, a child wasn't called by their birth name for much of their childhood, to keep them safe from the evil eye and haints. For most of my childhood, my family called me Bubba.
Childcare was a whole other story. Many times, charms were devised to aid the child's health, but also to ease the labor of the parents. A stuttering child was believed to be cured by drinking water from a church bell or baptism pool.
The teething phase can be hard for mother and child, but especially for a woman of old Appalachia with likely more than three children to care for and a house to clean, among other things. The child is given a dime with a hole put through it with a nail to wear around their neck. For a boy, the dime must come from an aunt, and for a girl it has to come from an uncle in order for it to have its “charm.” To ease the discomfort, Mama would also rub our gums with a silver thimble placed on her ring finger, said to be the best for applying medicine and prayer. A deer-tooth necklace also helps with teething, as does a necklace made of strung elderberries, dried and dipped in the creek on Easter morning.
These stories and tricks are passed down in families and communities, routinely offered as wives'-tale cures, or simple reminiscing of things that helped folks get along in their daily life. We have a good helping of these stories to tell should you ever make your way down to these mountains. The tea is always made and, Lord willing, it'll be a good day to sit on the porch in one of the wicker rocking chairs.
So now that you know how we think, how open we are to the presence of the unknown, and the bits of wisdom we continue to follow to this day, let's get to work on putting our hands (and feet) to use in doing and working with the forces that run up one side of these mountains and down the other. Go ahead and kick those shoes off: it's time to greet the land you're on. One cannot work the roots of the land, harvest herbs, or converse with the spirits if one is not first acquainted with the soil that's home to it all. The soil beneath your feet is the firmament of this work, and you need to know it.