Folklore: Stories of Appalachian Horror
Witches in the woods, screams in the middle of the night, the most haunted piece of land in all of Appalachia. Bring a backpack, because we're going deep into the Appalachian wilderness to hear the most terrifying folklore around.
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SOURCES
https://archive.org/details/witchesghostssig0000unse/page/148/mode/2up?view=theater
https://www.northcarolinaghosts.com/folk-magic/appalachian-witches/
https://www.northcarolinaghosts.com/folk-magic/appalachian-witches/
https://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2014/02/the-wizard-clip-mystic-voice-newspaper.html
https://www.northcarolinaghosts.com/folk-magic/appalachian-witches/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wizard-clip-west-virginia-priest-field
https://www.miraclesofthechurch.com/2011/11/wizard-clip-adam-livingstons-miraculous.html
https://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2014/02/the-wizard-clip-mystic-voice-newspaper.html
Gainer, P., & Byers, J. P. (1975). Witches, Ghosts, and Signs: folklore of the Southern Appalachians.
Muncy, M., & Schultz, K. (2022). Eerie Appalachia: Smiling Man Indrid Cold, the Jersey Devil, the Legend of Mothman and More. History Press.
TRANSCRIPT
Don’t look at the trees
If you hear your name called in the woods, no you didn’t
If you hear whistling at night, no you didn’t
You may have heard these rules floating around the internet for some time now. They’ve been labeled as the mysterious rules the people of Appalachia live by, following them meticulously without asking questions. Or else. These seem to be traditions set in place to protect the residents of this eastern american mountain range from the dangers that lurk in the thick woods the area is populated with.
But it depends who you talk to. Some residents claim the area is inhabited with shadowy cryptids and ghosts, claiming they’ve seen these nightmares with their own eyes, in their own backyards. Others say appalachia is a beautiful, mountainous area of the country with it’s own culture, and nothing more.
talking to People who have had experiences, it feels like there is something supernatural happening in this region. I’ve heard horrifying stories of random screams in the woods, whistling coming from nowhere in the dead of night, and spiny creatures caught on trail cams with no explanation. And these sightings and stories are generations old. The tales of Appalachia have been turned into some of the oldest folklore America has.
Today, I want to take a look into the creepy lore of Appalachia. I’m going to share some stories I found that absolutely terrified me. Our first two stories are of witches that live in the woods, and our third is about the most haunted piece of land in all of Appalachia. A piece of land that you can still visit today. And as always, listener discretion is advised
Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore
This is a community for the darkly curious. If you’d like to dive deeper into the community, you can follow heart starts pounding on tik tok and instagram, or you can join our patreon, the rogue detecting society, where you’ll have access to some archived episodes and bonus content for just three dollars a month.
The lore of Appalachia has always fascinated me. Growing up, I heard tales from my grandfather, who was born in a tiny Appalachian town in Tennessee.
My grandfather hardly knew his father, so much of his life became folklore, gaps in his identity were filled in with grand stories. He also didn’t have more than an 8th grade education and all of the history he knew about the world came from the bible. The way he understood life was from stories passed on. And as he tells it, that was deep in the DNA of the region.
One thing he did know, growing up in a one stoplight town in one of the poorest counties in Tennessee, was you don't go into the woods. Just like the rules I mentioned earlier, there was an unquestioned faithfulness to the idea that there was something in there that you didn’t want to see.
He once told me that every time he and his cousin would go near the backwoods to hunt Opossums, he’d hear a loud scream pierce through the trees, and they’d run straight back home. Whatever was in there didn’t want him getting too close
Before we begin, let’s look at the geography. The area I’m referring to, Appalachia, is a mountain range that reaches from Alabama to Pennsylvania, as well as the surrounding area where people live. The mountains themselves are believed to be 480 million years old, that’s older than Saturn's rings, that’s older than trees! Like, the entire species of TREES. So if you pass through them, maybe on the famous Appalachian trail, you may feel the earth's ancientness. They’re older than we can reasonably wrap our heads around, and maybe that’s why there’s so much that happens there that people just can't explain. Those are the stories and warnings that have been passed on for generations.
One of these warnings was about strangers. Legend has it that there’s a northern Appalachian town that still wont allow babysitters to watch their children because of this old native american story. This is the legend of the Bone Lady.
On the northern end of the appalachian mountains, many, many years ago, lived a woman named Mother tabitha
Mother tabitha was known as being a baby-minder in the area. Though she had no children of her own, she would watch over the young children in her community while the parents worked all hands on deck to bring in as big of a summer harvest as they could.
Tabitha was universally beloved for her service. She had a seat at every dinner table in town, she was always welcome to dine with any family. Some felt sad that Tabitha had no family of her own, but most were just thankful she watched over their young ones.
But the closeness of this community came with a cost. They didn’t speak to many others outside of their own people, so they didn’t notice when things weren’t normal.
Maybe that’s why they didn’t realize that the mortality rate amongst the children there was much higher than anywhere else at the time. Sure, it wasn’t abnormal for a child to fall ill and die, it was devastating for everyone but they moved on. Lately, however, it had become a much more common occurrence in town. But no one thought anything of it.
One day, one of the older children was tasked with picking up his little brother from Tabitha. He runs from the fields back to Tabitha’s house, but when he gets to her porch, before he knocks on the door, he can see through a small crack that all of the children are sat in a circle making almost no noise. That seemed strange, so the boy goes to a window and peeks in, where he sees Tabitha, dancing with a caribou headed figure in her living room.
The children were completely entranced by the sight, and the boy, in a panic, ran to get some of the adults in town.
A group of the parents came to the door to see what was going on, but the monster was nowhere in sight. Later though, they learned that another one of the children died that day from a mysterious and sudden illness. That was enough to enrage the parents who chased after Tabitha, causing her to flee into the woods
As she ran, her dress flapped in the wind, and the parents could see that it was just her head that was human, under her dress was completely made of children's bones. Tabitha had been digging up the bodies of the deceased children and eating them. She had been making the children sick so she could replenish her food source. The bone lady, as she came to be known disappeared into the woods, and some believed it was to meet with her changeling boyfriend, who was the caribou headed figure she was dancing with. Never to be seen again.
So it’s no wonder that many in that community won't let their children be babysat.
The indigenous people called her the bone lady, but the Christians that moved into the Appalachia in the 18th and 19th century had another word for the cruel women who tormented their community.
When we think of witches in American history, the first thing that comes to mind are the Salem witch trials. But thousands of miles away and hundreds of years later, stories of witches lived on in appalachia.
This story comes from Patrick Gainer, a professor of Folklore at Glenville State College, who, in 1975 wrote a book about the tales he heard from his peers in Appalachia over the last 50 years. This story was told to him by an old woman who had a terrifying story from when she was a young bride in Clay County, West Virginia. This is the Witch of Booger Hole
Around the year 1900, the woman, who at the time was a young girl on the cusp of adulthood named Ira, had just been married to a man that lived in Booger hole on Otter Creek in West Virginia. The area was lush and green with a dense forest broken up by a babbling creek full of big, flat rocks good for standing on.
On the edge of a big clearing in the woods lived the man’s grandmother. Grandma Thorne was her name, and she lived in a log cabin that had once been a school house. At night, she’d hang blankets in the window, making the house so dark, if the moon weren’t in the sky you couldn’t see it at all.
Ira had been nervous about meeting her new husbands grandmother. Not because she was afraid of being accepted by the family, but because Grandma Thorne had a reputation in town. When she told people that she was marrying into the Thorne family, she’d see their eyes go wide, their smiles unfurl into a tight lipped look of concern.
Everyone in town knew that Grandma Thorne was a witch. In Appalachia at the time, there was a ritual you could do to summon the devil. It was believed that one day, decades ago, Grandma thorn climbed to the top of one of the rolling hills in Appalachia, cursed God three times, and fired a gun through a handkerchief at the sun. Legend has it that the hole in the handkerchief started oozing blood after being shot, signifying that the devil accepted her offer.
A man in town told Ira the following story to prove it.
One day, a man named Andrew stopped by Grandma thornes. He wanted to know if he could borrow Grandma’s prized mare named Ol’ Fannie. He had some plowing he needed to get done and would return her right back.
Grandma Thorne agreed, but on one condition. Ol’ Fannie was getting older and he couldn’t work her too hard. She wanted the horse back in the same condition she lent her in
He agreed and took the horse.
Hours later, after the sun went down, Andrew came back with Ol’ Fannie. Only, it was clear he had worked her too hard. She was dragging her feet and was caked in dirt. That’s when Grandma Thorne burst out of the front door,
“Andrew, You’ve ruined my mare!” She screamed
“I promise you wont know any peace at night until you’re as tired as Ol Fannie”
As she said it, a chill could be felt in the air. It was said like a promise but it felt like a curse.
The next morning, Andrew awoke to all of his muscles sore, and burrs in his hair. He had red markings on the side of his mouth from something digging in. His neighbor said it looked like someone saddled him up and rode him all night like a horse. For weeks he’d wake up restless, feeling as if he had run a marathon. They knew this was the doing of a witch, and andrew never asked her for anything ever again
Ira didn’t know if she believed that story. Sure, Grandma Thorne was odd, a little reclusive, but that didn’t mean she was a witch.
But then one night, in the pitch black, someone walked onto Grandma thornes porch, lifted up one of the blankets covering her open window, and shot her dead in her chair.
Everyone assumed it was andrew, but the only evidence they had against him was that grandma had put a spell on him, and that wasn’t enough, so they let him go.
And while Ira in her old age is telling this story to Patrick, she gets real close and lowers her voice.
You know, she says, there’s a part to this story not many people know about but I’ll tell you now.
Back in the day, there was a stonemason in town named Henry. He had built chimneys for everyone in town, including Grandma thorne. And one day, he went missing. Disappeared without a trace. Now it was well known that he kept a lot of money on him. People back then didn’t really trust the banks so this wasn’t all that strange. But when grandma thorne heard he went missing, she knew that he had been murdered.
She had a feeling she knew who was responsible, a man named Otis, so she put a curse on the man’s horse. This was a horse that was as tame as could be, but now, everytime Otis went to ride him, he got bucked off. He couldn’t go anywhere. otis knew the curse had come from Grandma Thorne because she was known for bewitching animals in town. The only way to get rid of the curse was to cut off the ears of the animal and burn them, which he didn’t want to do, so he ran to grandma and begged her to undo the curse
She said she’d unbewitch the animal only if he told her where Henry was buried. And he did. And the next day when he went to get on his horse, he wasn’t bucked off
The following week, Ira was standing in Grandma Thorne's home holding her new baby. She had been married into the family for a year at that point and was having a few of her friends over to see the child. As the women are standing around cooing, all of a sudden Grandma gets this really dark, faraway look on her face.
“You know” she said, “I could light a pipe, and by the time it goes out I could take you to where Henry is buried”
Ira didn’t know why she said that but it felt like a warning. All of the women went silent and looked around the room. It was like grandma fired a warning shot, letting the women know she knew where Henry was, and she knew their husbands were responsible.
And within a week, she was dead. Shot through her window in the middle of the night.
The word around town remained that Andrew killed her for being a witch. But Ira always felt as though she was killed for knowing too much.
In the east most corner of west virginia, not too far from the Virginia border, just situated next to Opequon creek, you’ll find a monument that looks like a chimney in the woods. On the brick monument there’s an image of a man with a cross, and a plaque attached to it reads “Adam Livingston”. That’s the man who donated the 38 acres of land that the monument sits on. today its home to a couple wooden cabins known as the Priestfield retreat center.
Standing on the land, you can hear the gentle water in the creek, a few cars driving by on the nearby pike, and the sound of wind blowing through the leaves. You’d never guess that this is the most haunted piece of land in Appalachia.
This is the Mystery of the Wizard Clip
In 1794, this land was a farm, run by Adam Livingston.
One evening, just after dinner, Adam heard a knock on his door, and when he opened it, all he saw was the empty darkness of the night. Thinking it was the wind, he went to close the door, when all of a sudden a solo traveler stepped up onto his porch.
He asked Adam if he could stay the night. There were no inns in the area, but he saw Adams large farm and thought maybe he’d have a room. The stranger had a small amount of money on him he offered to pay for the stay, but Adam was a devout Lutheran. He believed in the kindness of strangers, in loving thy neighbor, and he told the traveler it’d be no trouble.
But that night, up in the room that traveler was staying in, Adam could hear horrible groans, as if someone were dying. Throughout the night he could also hear boots loudly clamoring on the wooden floor.
Adam and his wife couldn’t take it any longer, and they went upstairs, opened the creaky wooden door of the guest room
to see that the stranger was lying in bed in agony. His lips were blue and he was covered in sweat. He told them he was dying. This seemed strange because just hours ago he was fine.
The stranger had just one request. Could a catholic priest be called to read him his last rites. But Adam, living in the middle of the woods, knew there were no priests that could get there soon enough. He offered to run out and try to wake the nearest priest who was a few counties over, but his wife didn’t think that would be a good idea. She asked him to stay and watch over the traveler with her. Within a few hours, he was dead.
Adam realized he didn’t even know the man's name, and he buried the man in an unmarked grave in the back of the farm. He wasn’t able to give him a proper burial at all, he just threw the stranger into a shallow grave, covered the hole, and got back to work.
But that would prove to be a horrible mistake.
The following night, Adam lay in bed when he hears creaking coming from above him.
It’s undoubtedly the pressure of a foot being placed on a floorboard. It’s silent for a moment. And then, stomping.
Almost as if a horse were inside running down the hallway. When he goes upstairs to see what could possibly be making that noise, there’s nothing there.
The next morning Adam felt shaken by the event, and tired from being woken in the middle of the night. But he didn’t think much of it otherwise. He went on with his usual routine: feeding the horses, taking care of the stalls, and tending to the chickens. Only, When he went to go check on his chickens, he noticed some of them had been beheaded in the night. Four or five chickens lay lifeless as the others pecked around them. Their heads chopped clean off as if with a giant scythe.
Now, Adam was sure someone was messing with him. Maybe one of the other farmers in the area had kids that came to sabotage his livestock.
In the evening, Adam sat tending to a fire inside, thinking about who could possibly be doing this. He fed another log into the fireplace, when all of a sudden, as if by some invisible force, the log jumped out back at him. He stomped around the room trying to put out the embers before they grew into full flames.
And that’s when a chill ran down Adam’s spine. This wasn’t the neighboring children. The stomping, the chickens, and now this. Whatever was in his home was demonic. Some sort of poltergeist, he thought.
He called his lutheran priest to come over to pray and provide a vigil, but the priest quickly realized whatever was happening in Adam’s home was outside the scope of his abilities. As he prayed over Adam, snipping could be heard echoing throughout the house. Snip Snip, snip snip.
All around the house, crescent moons had been cut out of cloth. The table cloth, the curtains, adams shirts. everything. The priest left and told the church about what was happening, and as it does in a small town, word quickly spread.
This made Adam’s property somewhat famous against his will. People would travel miles to see the property and hear the snipping sound of scissors. One woman claimed that she hid her handkerchief inside her dress, only to see a crescent moon shape had been cut out of it when she left the house. The poltergeist was given the name The Clipping Spook.
Adam was getting desperate, the snipping was insufferable and the haunting was getting worse. Plates and cups were smashing in the night, the footsteps above were getting louder, and his cattle were starting to die off. He asked anyone who was willing to help, a methodist minister traveled to the farm, only to have rocks thrown at him by an invisible force during his prayer. A German faith healer traveled to be of assistance, but ran out screaming after the chimney spat out a rock at him.
One night Adam’s wife lay in bed with a raging fever from an unknown illness. Adam lay awake with her, fearful that she had whatever illness the traveler died from. Eventually, he falls asleep and he dreams of a mountain, covered in roots and brush. In this dream, he climbs the mountain, pulling himself up by gripping the roots until he gets to the top. There, standing at the mountain peak, is a man dressed in church robes. Suddenly a voice booms all around him “this is the man that can help you”
Adam knew he had to find this man. So the next morning, he ran to the nearby episcopal church, but the priests there didn’t look like the man in his dreams. He could still see him when he closed his eyes. The black robes, his tall frame. There was only one place in town left that Adam could look, only one other holy man who he hadn’t already enlisted the help of. He went to the catholic church in town where Father Dennis Cahill was working. Right when he walked in he knew that this was the man from the dream
Father Cahill returned to the farm with Adam, and asked immediately to be taken to the unmarked grave of the stranger. There, he sprinkled holy water and gave him the proper catholic prayers he had been denied.
After that, the haunting stopped, and Adam’s wife returned to full health. As a thank you, they donated all of the land to the catholic church when they moved to Pennsylvania years later.
The land today is supposedly no longer cursed, though there is a tale about two women who lived on the property in the late 1800’s, 100 years after Father Cahill blessed the land. They said that every now and then they’d hear snipping, only to find that their garments had crescent moons cut into them.
If you visit Priestly Field today, you’ll see the monument to Adam, but you’ll also see another monument. A large wooden cross protruding from the ground over a grave. It reads In Memory of the unknown stranger. And hopefully as you’re paying your respects, the back of your shirt doesn’t get snipped.
Just like the witch of booger hole, sometimes folklore is a cautionary tale disguised as monster. Was Grandma Thorne really a witch? Or was she a woman who knew too much? What do children really need to fear? Witches in the woods, or putting their nose in other peoples business?
Years after my grandfather left Appalachia and moved to Connecticut, he had some revelations about the rules he was told to follow as a kid. It turned out, there were threats to children in the dark woods behind his house. But it wasn’t a witch, a bone lady or a poltergeist. It was moonshiners. Locals who had set up secret operations to distill grain alcohol in the woods. Parents didn’t want their kids wandering around the forest and seeing something that was none of their business. You never knew what a moonshiner would do to a loudmouth kid that saw their operation.
And the scream at the edge of the woods wasn’t a scream at all. His neighbor had tied a string to a bucket, and with a bow he could play it like a violin. Only the sound that came from the string sounded like a woman’s shriek. He’d do it to keep the kids away from the moonshiners.
So maybe that’s where these rules come from. If you hear whistling at night, no you didn’t. Don't look in the trees. Because at the end of the day, it’s none of your business.
But the plaque at Priestly field says otherwise. There’s a reason the monument was erected. To say something did happen here. The folklore you heard about this place is true. And when you hear the rules to be safe in the woods, you better follow them.
This has been heart starts pounding, written and produced by me, Kaelyn Moore
If you’d like to hear more stories of Appalachia, I encourage you to check out Kathi Littlejohn. She’s dedicated her life to continuing on the traditions and stories of the Cherokee nation as an official Cherokee storyteller, and she has amazing tales of Slug cryptids and spiny fingered changeling women.
Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Thanks to travis dunlap, grayson jernigan, the team at WME and ben jaffe.
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Until next time, stay curious. Oooooo!