In North Carolina, a state known for quirky local legends like the Brown Mountain Lights or the Beast of Bladenboro. In fact, in the western part of the state, and specifically in the Appalachians, superstition and old wife’s tales are so deeply ingrained into people that it is common place to believe in ghost and otherworldly beings. Every single town in North Carolina has at least one haunted place, or has had an inhabitant experience a ghostly encounter. These legends are a sense of pride and are most often told not around a campfire but through a dramatic play or most commonly, through song. Folk songs are widely popular in the smaller towns, and even with the rise in modern music every good ol’ country son or daughter has heard a song dealing with a local superstition. In Chatham …show more content…
It's said that there is where The Devil himself walks at night. It is a perfectly round circle somewhere around forty feet in diameter in the extensive pine woods. In the past few hundred years nothing has grown within this circle, not a single tree, nor a flower, not even a blade of grass will grow within the circle’s limits. The area around the circle is full of pine trees and plenty of underbrush, yet within the circle nothing grows. And, what's potentially stranger is that any object left in the circle overnight, come morning it will have either been moved outside of the circle or disappeared completely. Dogs will tuck their tails between their legs and whimper when brought near the circle, they will dig their heels into the sand, and outright refuse to go into the circle. Many people will try to spend the night in the circle, and while they set up camp in the circle they will either leave before the night is through, or will have been moved outside of the circle. It is said that every night just after dusk the circle opens up and forms a gate to hell, and from it the Devil himself
Hysteria took over the town and caused them to believe that their neighbors were practicing witchcraft. If there was a wind storm and a fence was knocked down, people believed that their neighbors used witchcraft to do it. Everyone from ordinary people to the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft. Even a pregnant woman and the most perfect puritan woman were accused. No one in the small town was safe.
Urban legends can be effective conveyors of entertainment and morals. We all have heard urban legends during our lives, whether it was in a dorm room, the dinner table, or around the campfire, but rarely do we take the time to fully appreciate the value of the stories. Urban legends have this rare ability to make us question reality. We have this feeling in our minds that says “Oh, this cannot possible be real,” but then our imagination questions that and reels us in and plants a lingering doubt. David Emery, a writer and follower of urban folklore, defines urban legends as “told [to be] true, and plausible enough to be believed.” Besides this lingering suspense, urban legends and similar folklore often have underlying morals that are hard to uncover, but when they are, the stories become clear. When collecting stories, the best and most unique one was a local story native to a town in New York State. I vividly remember how he told the story:
Can you imagine yourself locked up in a room with no doors? Similar to a room with no doors, there is no way out of hell if it was one's destiny. In the short story "The Devil & Tom Walker" by Washington Irving, the main character's fate is hell because of his wrong decisions in life, accepting a deal with the devil for earthly benefits. Irving reinforces his message about not making decisions that may damn your soul with the use of literary elements and figurative language. Wisely, Irving combines characterization, mood and point of view to perpetuate the theme of the story in the reader's mind.
Much of the literature written by Native Americans from the Southeastern U.S. draws from traditional tribal myths. Many of these myths have been transcribed and translated into English by various ethnographers and folklorists, and, in the case of the Cherokee, myths have been collected and published in acclaimed books. Anthropologist James Mooney, an employee of the federal government at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, collected a large number of mythological stories from informants during his years of fieldwork among the Eastern Band of the Cherokee in western North Carolina; Mooney incorporated that material into the important compilation Myths of the Cherokee (1900). A century later, folklorist Barbara R. Duncan, a researcher employed by the Museum of the Cherokee...
“Home. I want to go home,” the story begins of a Confederate prisoner of war. A friend’s grandmother, age 76 and a worker at the historic society, tells a story of Point Lookout. During the Civil War, the Union had a prison for captured Confederate soldiers near Point Lookout. With a warm and friendly voice that shows the sign of age, the storyteller joyfully recollects the story. She has the tale in book, but recalls it from memory. She knows the story so well that one could hardly tell it was not being read word for word. When speaking the voice of the ghost, she softens her voice, making the voice sound afraid and evoking sympathy for the unfortunate boy.
A comparison of Old World and New World storytelling styles is outlined by Lindahl as a gateway to understanding how Jack found homes in certain communities of North America. The typical märchen is woven around a conflict between home and the open road. The tales start in an ordinary place where Jack and his mother worry about the source of their next meal. Only after Jack takes to the open road to provide for his family does the story change to involve magic. Usually, the further Jack ventures from home, the more magic he encounters. In European portrayals, Jack’s return to home results in an ordinary life without magic, now enhanced by his found wealth. Linda Degh recognized that the great European storytellers were not homebodies,
In Washington Irving’s story, The Devil and Tom Walker, Irving uses his imagination to convey his thoughts about the truth of life through symbols and characterization. In one specific instance in the story, the main character, Tom Walker, is walking home and “he took what he considered a shortcut homeward, through the swamp. Like most shortcuts, it was an ill-chosen route.” The path being “thickly grown with great gloomy pines” symbolizes the path of wrongdoings, bad decisions, and darkness. By taking this path, one then strays off the path of
A major aspect within ‘Ghost Dances’ is the characters and how they reflect the meaning of the story and what they resemble. There are two different groups of characters within this work, the Ghost Dancers and the Peasant Villagers. Each group acts o...
An old man is sitting on an leather armchair, dressed in black and very expensive suit, smoking a cigarette and sipping his old whiskey from his goblet glass.He is short, squat, massive-skulled man. He was indeed a man to frighten the devil in hell himself. His presence sent out alarm bells of danger. His face was stamped into a mask of fury, the eyes were brown but with none of the warmth of that color. His mouth was not so much cruel as lifeless; thin and with the color of veal. He did not fear the police, he did not fear society, he did not fear the God or hell, he did not fear or love his fellow man. This old man was sitting all day on his armchair and offering his friendship to everyone who needed it because he is the only one who can help, he is the boss, he is the Godfather.1
Built in 1910 by Hezekiah Eastman Hatch, Hatch’s Camp (later named St Ann’s Retreat, but most commonly known as The Nunnery) has had plenty of time to surface mysterious tragedy information. Many of these stories are told by local teens/young adults to visitors, many of which attend Utah State and are intrigued by the information given. The variations of the story ranges anywhere from Nuns bearing devil children, to Ghost Dogs chasing you if you trespass or even the children born to the Nuns being killed or scarified in the pool or fireplace. Though they make great ghost stories while camping up in the canyon, the facts behind Hatch’s Camp will make this story seem less spooky.
Moonshining is an important part of the daily lives of Appalachian people because it was a way to bring the people together to tell stories and make Appalachian literature happen. Moonshining has been a solid tradition in the mountains of Southern Appalachia. In his article “It’s All Legal until You Get Caught: Moonshining in the Southern Appalachians,” Jason Sumich states that moonshining “was a prime source of income for generations of mountain people. Historically, it was one of the few ways to earn cash in the subsistence-dominated mountain economy. It is the basis for many local stories and an important part of the mountain myth of individualism and resistance to outside authority. It has thrived in spite of legal and religious condemnation.”
building to descending into Hell. He comments that his “hole is warm and full of light... I
As major historical events produced new eras, so did folk tales evolve with time. Jack Zipes in Breaking the Magic Spell believes that in order to fully understan...
Another aspect of hell that surprised me was that the devil was standing on a frozen lake. This isn't the picture of Larson's Far Side hell scenes, nor is the devil the cool, rebellious bad boy of Milton's Paradise Lost.
Bottigheimer Ruth B. Fairytales Folk Narrative Research and History “Social History” JSTOR 14, 3 (1989). 343-357, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.