Oct 25, 2021
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Have you ever knocked on wood asks this article from appalachianhistory.net? Or avoided walking under a ladder? I think we’re all at least a smidgeon superstitious. But Appalachia makes a veritable sport of it! In this spooky month of October, I’ve gathered a collection of superstitions common to the mountains I love.
Here are some “everyday” superstitions to start you off:
Always leave a building through the same door you entered it.
If you see a black cat crossing the road in front of you, draw an X in the air three times to void the bad luck. Do it fast, though! You’ve got to finish before the cat reaches the other side of the road.
When you harvest apples from a tree leave at least one to keep the devil away. (Guess he didn’t learn his lesson about apples!)
If you spill salt, throw a pinch over your left shoulder. Again, this keeps the devil away. Apparently, the right shoulder won’t do you any good.
If you’re drinking spirits, pour a little out on the ground to satisfy spirits past (the ghostly kind).
For good luck in the coming year, open your front and back doors at midnight on New Year’s Eve to let the old year blow out. Goodness knows we should ALL try this when 2021 approaches!
I will confess to being skeptical that any of this will improve my luck. But hey, in a year like 2020, it can’t hurt! Just remember to hang your horseshoe with the open end pointing UP so the luck doesn’t leak out.
It’s bad luck to walk across graves. We helped mow the church cemetery when I was growing up, so I’ve stepped on many a grave. I try not to worry about this one . . .
It’s bad luck to walk across graves. We helped mow the church cemetery when I was growing up, so I’ve stepped on many a grave. I try not to worry about this one . . .
Of course, there are also quite a few superstitions associated with death. Often, death would have happened at home back in the hills and hollers of Appalachia—from disease, mishap, or old age. I suppose it was only natural to develop robust beliefs and superstitions about something so difficult yet inevitable. Here are a few of the more interesting ones:
When someone died, you stopped the clocks to mark the time and prevent another death. I’m not sure how long you had to wait to start them again—instinct suggests 24 hours
.
Deaths were thought to come in threes. If two people died reasonably close together, someone would always predict a third. I grew up hearing this and always found it unnerving!
If you hear a screech owl at dusk, someone will die. I still feel a jolt when I’m hiking in the evening and hear an owl hoot.
It’s bad luck to walk across graves. We helped mow the church cemetery when I was growing up, so I’ve stepped on many a grave. I try not to worry about this one . . .
Pregnant women aren’t supposed to look at a corpse lest their child be “marked.” Marking could be in the form of a physical mark or deformity or it might be a mental deficiency or illness.
Setting an empty rocking chair in motion signifies death. This one feels like a lovely metaphor more than a superstition. Although I’ve been told by ladies of a certain age on more than one occasion to, “stop rocking that empty chair!”
And my favorite–bees carry the news of death. I’m not sure how they tell, but I like to imagine it’s with a whisper from their wings.
As an author of Appalachian historical fiction, I enjoy sprinkling sayings and superstitions through my stories. Some I grew up with, some are silly, and some have a strange, bittersweet beauty. Kind of like Appalachia itself.
Some Appalachian Superstitions
Easter’s around the corner. If you keep chickens, be sure to color those biddies’ eggs; otherwise they won’t hatch! Ever heard that before? Appalachia’s full of such superstitions. Here’re a few:
Weather:
Aching joints indicate rain.
When a bobwhite calls, it’s praying for rain.
Thick, tight shucks on corn indicate bad weather.
Killing a black snake and hanging it on a fence with its belly turned to the sun will bring rain before the next sunset.
If it rains on Monday, it will rain 3 days that week.
An owl hooting high on the mountain signals fair weather; the owl hooting in the lower lands signals foul weather.
There will be as many snows in a winter as there are fogs in October.
Marriage:
If a girl sleeps in a strange bed and names each bedpost a boy’s name, the post she looks to first upon waking will name the boy she’ll marry.
A girl won’t get married if anyone sweeps under her feet.
Dreams:
A dream about the dead means you’ll get a letter.
If you sleep in a strange bed, whatever you dream will come true.
Death:
If a cow moos after dark, someone will die.
If a bird flies against a window pane, there will be a death in the family.
If a dog howls before the moon rises, someone will die.
Always put your right sock and shoe on first.
See a bluebird.
Look at the new moon over your left shoulder.
Find a red ear of corn.
Find a pin and pick it up.
Find a penny lying “heads-up” and put it in your right shoe.
Death, witches and superstitions
Kentucky
Death comes in threes in a congregation.
A wild bird in the house means someone’s going to die.
A dog howling three nights in a row means death is near.
If you get shingles all around your body, you’ll die.
If you sneeze, cover your mouth and say the Lord’s Prayer, or you’ll lose your soul out of your mouth and die.
If two women help a third one get dressed, the youngest of the three will die.
b&w cutout of a witch
West Virginia
“From the beginning of recorded history down to 1933 we have records of the belief in disease and death caused by the malevolent action of some devilish god or conjuring human.” —Miller, Joseph L. “The Healing Gods or Medical Superstition.” The West Virginia Medical Journal. 29 (1933), 465-478.
If you point at a graveyard, your finger will rot off.
Shingles are quickly cured by rubbing the eruption with blood from a black cat’s tail, which must then be nailed to a door until the patient is well.
Practically every southern Italian woman who I [Miller] attend in confinement, whether she was born in Italy or is of the second generation in the U. S. and a graduate of our high schools, has pinned to her breast, by the side of the scapulary of St. Anne, the patron saint of parturient women, a little bunch of gold or coral ornaments to ward off the evil eye.” Many of these are heirlooms that have been handed down for generations. As soon as the baby is dressed they are transferred to it’s breast where they remain for several months, for the mothers all dread the evil “Jettatere di bambini,” or fascinator of infants, These charms include a horn like the horn of a steer which has always been considered a most potent charm against witchcraft.
North Carolina
Cover every horseshoe found in the road with “silver paper” (tin foil) and hang it over the door of the house to ward off witches.
A seventh daughter, born on Christmas Day, possesses witch-like powers.
If there are tangles in your hair early in the morning, the witches have been riding you.
If one dreams of a woman with disheveled hair it means that some member of his family will soon die.
If an owl appears on your place when someone there is ill, that person will die in two days.
Virginia
If a clock, long motionless, suddenly begins to tick or strike, it is a sign of approaching death.
A hunter’s wife will throw an axe at her husband to give him good luck. If he failed to kill game, his gun was spelled, and some old woman was shot in effigy.
Females bring bad luck to coal mines.
If you sweep under the bed of a sick person, that person will die.
If you let birds use your hair for nesting material, you will go crazy.
Witch on broom with black cat on shoulder
Tennessee
At the stroke of midnight on Halloween, a lighted candle will reveal the future in the mirror’s reflection. Look above your left shoulder.
To prevent bad luck do not burn sassafras wood.
Don’t eat honey on the day a relative is buried.
Keep witches at bay by nailing a horseshoe to the bottom of one’s butter churn.
Dreaming of a snake means the dreamer will soon be killed.
Ohio
Death is foretold by the ringing of a bell that cannot otherwise be accounted for.
If you align your gravesite (beforehand!) north-to-south you’re a witch.
If there is a meeting consisting of 13 members, the first to leave will die within a year.
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