There once lived a woman who was so difficult to get along with no one even knew her name. Everyone just called her Flannel Mouth. Ornery as Flannel Mouth was, people still sought her out because of her fine weaving. Back in Flannel Mouth’s day, if you wanted cloth you had to weave it yourself or find someone who would weave for you. Flannel Mouth traded her weaving skills for everything she needed to support herself and her small child.
One winter day, when the snow lay deep, Flannel Mouth was so busy weaving she didn’t notice when the fire in her hearth died out. But her little child noticed. Her little child grew cold and began to whimper.
“Hush,” said Flannel Mouth, and she kept on weaving.
But the child couldn’t hush. The child was cold. The whimpers grew to cries.
“I said hush,” Flannel Mouth warned.
But the child couldn’t hush. The child cried and cried from the cold. Flannel Mouth stopped weaving. She turned toward her child. “I told you to hush.”
When the child kept on crying, Flannel Mouth stood up. She walked over and picked up her child. She shook her child. She slapped her child. She killed her child. Flannel Mouth walked outside and pushed her child’s body into a snowdrift. Then she returned to her weaving.
That night, the moment Flannel Mouth’s head touched her pillow, she heard the sound of a child crying. Night after night, every time she tried to sleep, she heard a child crying. “This house is haunted,” she thought. “I’ve got to move away from here.”
One day Flannel Mouth went to see a woman she wove for often. This woman had a large house, so Flannel Mouth told her, “My house just does not suit me anymore. I was wondering if I could move in with you. I’d do all your family’s weaving in exchange for food and a place to sleep. For anything else I need, I’ll take in more weaving.”
The woman replied, “Well, Flannel Mouth, that would be fine, but what about your child? Where is your child?”
“My child? . . . well, there was a lady came through not long ago. Saddest lady I ever met. She stayed with me awhile. I learned she was sad because she didn’t have a child. So, I gave her my child. It made me feel good to make somebody so happy.”
“Well then, Flannel Mouth, you go on home and start packing. We’ll bring the wagon up in a couple of days and move you here.”
So Flannel Mouth moved, but when her head hit her pillow at night, she still heard the sound of a child crying. Night after night, Flannel Mouth barely slept. One day she was so tired she walked over to her bed and lay down in the daytime. That was when she discovered if she slept in the day she would not hear the sound of a child crying.
After that, Flannel Mouth lit torches and worked all night, then slept all day. Worked all night, and slept all day. All was going well for Flannel Mouth, but all was not going well for the rest of the household.
One day, the woman of the house told Flannel Mouth, “You need to work during the day when we work and sleep at night when we sleep. I cannot spend time keeping my children quiet all day so they won’t disturb your sleep. Besides, children are not supposed to be quiet. They are supposed to play.”
“That wasn’t our deal,” insisted Flannel Mouth. “We never agreed to anything about when I worked and when I slept. That wasn’t our deal.”
The woman of the house thought a bit, and then she said, “I have an idea. We have a small cabin up the hill behind the house a ways. It’s one room, just big enough for your loom, a small bed, and a chair. Not big, but it is weathertight. There’s a little porch on the front. The windows are small and high up, but since you’d be sleeping during the day . . .”
“Suits me fine,” agreed Flannel Mouth. She moved into the little cabin. She worked all night, slept all day, and disturbed no one.
One night Flannel Mouth sat at her loom weaving when the door of the cabin opened all by itself. Flannel Mouth looked over, thinking the wind had somehow opened the door, but into the doorway walked two big, hairy legs.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” she asked.
From the doorway, a deep voice answered, “I’m just two big, hairy legs.”
Then two little child legs walked across the porch, into the doorway, and stood beside the big, hairy legs. Again, Flannel Mouth asked, “Who are you, and what do you want?”
A little child’s voice whimpered, “It’s cold in the snow.”
Flannel Mouth sat at her loom and stared at the doorway. She saw a big, hairy body come in supported by huge hands attached to long, hairy arms. The hands climbed up those big, hairy legs and the big, hairy body settled itself on top. “Who are you, and what do you want?” she called.
“I’m just a big, hairy body, sitting atop two big, hairy legs,” the deep voice answered.
A little child’s body came in. Little child hands climbed up the child legs and set the body on top. “Who are you, and what do you want?” Flannel Mouth insisted.
“It’s cold in the snow,” the child’s voice cried, “I’ve been so cold in the snow.”
Flannel Mouth didn’t know what to do. She just sat and watched the doorway. She saw a big, hairy head roll in. The big, hairy body bent down, picked up the big, hairy head, and placed it on its shoulders. Flannel Mouth could see the head had fiery red eyes. She was so frightened, she couldn’t speak.
A little child’s head rolled in. The little child body bent down, picked up the head, and placed it on its shoulders. “Who are you,” shouted Flannel Mouth, “and what do you want?”
A little child’s voice answered, “It’s cold in the snow, Mama, I’ve been so cold in the snow.”
Then the hairy creature raised its arm, pointed one claw-tipped finger at Flannel Mouth, and roared, “Woman, I have come to deliver your punishment.”
Flannel Mouth thought: “I’m seeing things. That’s all this is. There’s nothing over in that doorway. My mind is playing tricks on me. All I need to do is run right through that open door. I’m just seeing things.”
She ran for the door. When she drew near, the big, hairy creature wrapped its huge, hairy arms around her, sank its claws into her back, and pulled her close. It picked her up, turned, and walked across the porch and off through the snow. Everywhere the creature stepped, the snow melted all the way to the ground and smoke rose from the footprints. A little child’s voice could be heard calling after them, “I’m not cold anymore, Mama, I’m not cold anymore.”
This is my retelling of a story Nora Morgan Lewis used to tell her children and nieces and nephews.1 I’ve been unable to determine whether it is a tale she invented or one that she heard growing up. It has the feel of a folktale. There are many stories of murdered people returning for revenge. But I’ve never run across any other versions of this particular tale.
In the summer of 2003, I met Jack Lewis, son of Nora Morgan Lewis, at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. I also met some of Nora’s other children and nieces and nephews. They were visiting Berea College because they were related to Jane Muncy, who Leonard Roberts had collected several stories from in 1949 and 1955 during Muncy’s childhood and teen years. I was one of a group who had gathered in Berea to study the Leonard Roberts Collection in a project directed by folklorist Carl Lindahl, of the University of Houston, Texas, in association with Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
At a reception I talked with Mrs. Lewis’s relatives, and when they mentioned their mother had told stories, I asked about her storytelling. The story they all seemed to most remember was “Flannel Mouth.” It was a tale that frightened them as children, but they had loved to hear it anyway. One of Nora Morgan Lewis’s relatives laughingly commented that Lewis may have told “Flannel Mouth” as a form of child control because she told it when all the cousins were together, the children all sleeping in the same room at family gatherings. The story was told at bedtime, and after hearing it the children huddled close to each other, and not a single one of them wanted to get up for any reason whatsoever!2
When she was getting on in years and in poor health, Nora Morgan Lewis wrote down the stories she had so enjoyed telling. Her family members told me no one in the family had carried on her storytelling at the time she wrote her tales, but she thought they might want the stories someday, and she wanted them to outlive her. In the summer of 2003, her family donated copies of her stories to the Southern Appalachian Archives, thus assuring her stories would indeed be available to a wider audience. Nora’s son, Jack, wrote of her stories, “I believe it was my mother’s most profound desire to have them made into book form.”3 I’m honored to participate in making her desire reality.
I did not memorize the words Lewis wrote, but retell the story in my own words. Given the change in time periods between her telling and mine, I felt the need to say a little more about why people would have been weavers, and specify the use of the wagon to move Flannel Mouth from place to place. I mostly stay with the same plot and images, but use somewhat different wording. Here’s how Nora M. Lewis wrote the story down:
Once there was a woman so mean she did not like anyone, not even her own baby. She said so many mean things and cuss words people called her Flannel Mouth, and by that name and no other was she known.
Old Flannel Mouth worked for the folks around her to support herself and her baby. At that time everyone wove their own cloth to make their clothes. Flannel Mouth was a wonderful hand to weave so she wove day in and day out never caring for her baby.
One day as the snow lay deep, real deep on the ground, she had been weaving and let her fire die out. The baby became cold and began to cry. This made her angry, so she killed her baby and hid it in a big snow bank.
Every night she could hear crying under her pillow, so she could not sleep at all. She left her home and went to hire to a woman. The woman asked her where her baby was. She said, “I gave it to a kind woman who wanted a baby very much.”
Her job with this family was weaving. She wove and wove of a day but as soon as she went to bed something began to cry. She got up and wove all night by candle light for she could not bear to hear that crying any longer. She cussed the crying and cussed everything, but cussing did not do any good, the family got tired of her working all night and sleeping all day.
One day the mistress of the house told her she could not keep her because she stayed up all night, but that they had a cabin up a branch and that she could stay there. Flannel Mouth was glad to get by herself again.
For a few nights everything was so quiet, she sat down by her fire and fell asleep. Something woke her and in the door stood one big hairy leg. She cried out, “What are you here for?”
But it answered and said, “I am just one big leg. I am just one big leg.”
In come a little white leg and stood by the large leg.
“Why did you come here? Oh! Why did you come here?”
The little leg said, “I was cold in the snow, Mother, I was cold in the snow.”
In came another big hairy leg, and stood by the other one. All she could say was, “Why have you come here? Oh! Why have you come here?”
The answer was the same, “I am just two big legs. I am just two big legs.”
In came another little leg and sat by the other leg.
“Oh! Why did you come here?”
“I was so cold in the snow, Mother, I was cold in the snow.”
By this time the door was full of legs and she could not pass them. In came a large hairy body and got up on those legs.
“Why did you come here?” she said.
The answer was the same, “I am one big body, I am one big body.”
In came a little body, and got on the little legs. By this time Flannel Mouth could not speak, but the body said, “I was cold in the snow, Mother, I was cold in the snow.”
In came a big head with red eyes and arms so long with claws so sharp, and two horns on its head. In came two small arms and the small head and got on its body. The mean woman tried to pass by, but the big hairy body with the horny head grabbed her and said, “To mile [mete] out your punishment. You owe me a debt that has to be paid.”
And the baby said, “I am not cold in the snow, Mother, I am not cold in the snow any longer.”
The baby smiled, but the hairy head only grinned and took her away so fast he left his tracks smoking.
I can attest the story has staying power for audiences today, just as it did for the children and nieces and nephews of Nora Morgan Lewis. Several years ago eighth graders at St. Romuald Interparochial School in Hardinsburg, Kentucky, used the story to humorously complain—and lucky me, one of their teachers told me about it! I had told stories there early in the school year. One day in winter, the heat went out. Teachers kept the classroom doors closed and space heaters were brought in to provide heat. That left no heat in the halls. While younger students spent most of their day in the same classroom, older students changed rooms each class period. The teacher reported eighth graders entering her classroom moaning, “It’s cold in the hall, teacher, so cold in the hall,” duplicating the tone and timing from the refrain in “Flannel Mouth.” More than once I’ve been speaking in a different context, only to have someone say, “Oh, I know you. You’re the ‘It’s cold in the snow, Mama’ [imitating the plaintive way I say this during the telling] person, aren’t you?” I love it when that happens, and it is a special treat when the person tells me how long it has been since they heard the story! Yep! It’s a tale with staying power.