Magick Circles in Appalachia (Part II)

Some of the tales in Hubert J. Davis’ The Silver Bullet and Other American Witch Stories  seem to reveal so much individual life in just a few paragraphs; such a one is “Grandpappy Wuz A Witch” (p. 65): “Grandpappy Jim Tom Baker moved around a lot before finally settlin’ down at the head of the Cumberland River in a place called Baker’s Flats. He wuz a conjure man, and people were afeard of him and made his life not worth living, which wuz one reason he moved so much. He got married and sired a whole passel of young’uns, among them, my uncles Jerry and Jim, and of course, my mammey.” “By the time I remember them, Jerry and Jim were grown men with cabins of their own and families. Uncle Jerry wuz a kind of yarb doctor for both varmints and men. Even then, Grandpappy kept on conjurin’.”

The admission that “people were afeard” of Grandpappy Jim Tom Baker because he was a “conjure man,” and “made his life not worth living,” forcing him to move frequently, strikes me as an incredibly poignant statement (reinforced by other comments throughout the book, to such things as “clearing out” troublesome Witches, which indicates a dangerous, anti-Witch mob-mentality forming periodically). Undaunted, however, Grandpappy keeps on “conjuring,” with Uncle Jerry (sort of) following in his footsteps as a “yarb doctor.” The hostility that could be generated against Witches and Conjuring Folks is clear- but what impresses me is Grandpappy’s continued devotion to Conjuring: apparently a man who felt that Conjuring was a skill that could not be denied.

Anyhow- “One morning, Uncle Jerry heard a rifle-gun go off way back on Carmel Mountain nigh Baker’s Flats. Right off, he thought hit sounded like a witch’s gun. Now, everybody believed that a witch could shoot his gun and as fur as hit wuz heard in the woods, they’d be ‘rung.’ That is, a whole patch, fur as the gun sounded, ‘ud be hagged and nobody’s gun could kill a deer nor other varmints inside thet ring.” In other words- a Witch (or Conjure Man, as you can see that the two terms are apparently interchangeable to some extent) could fire his gun: and as far as the sound was carried, that space was “rung”; meaning, a “ring” of Enchantment was created around the vicinity of the firing of the Witch’s gun, a Magickal “ring” or Circle that “hagged” other hunters, preventing them from catching game. In a manner a bit like that of a mountaintop Prospero, Grandpappy Jim Tom Baker made a Magick Circle of Spell-Working- through the process of firing his weapon. (Long and short, resolving to break Grandpappy of his impulses towards Conjuring, Uncle Jerry draws a picture of Grandpappy on the skinned bark of a sapling, then fires a bullet at it, “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Speret,” to “break the spell of this witch.” After this, “they never had no more trubbel with their guns being witched by Jim Tom’s huntin’ ring.”) Another means of generating the Magickal Space of a Circle or a Magick Ring, accomplished through the generation of sound.

A tale that reflects English folklore is “The Jack-Ma-Lanterns” (p. 48). Referencing both “Jack o’Lanterns” and the situation of being “faerey-led,” or “pixy-led,” or even “Mab-led” (after “Mab,” the Celtic Mead-Goddess who became the Queen of the Faeries in Elizabethan legend), the story addresses the perplexing challenge of how to handle being lost in the dark. English lore assures that one can break the Charm of being “Puck-led” (wandering helplessly in the inky night, unable to get one’s bearings) by turning one’s cloak or clothing inside-out- just exactly as does the lost man in this Appalachian vignette. Led astray by “Jack-Ma-Lanterns” (lights carried by Witches to confuse nighttime travelers, leading them out of their way), ”Grandpappy turned all his pockets wrong side out. Then he drawed a ring in his path, made a cross on the ground, bowed his head and sed, ‘In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Speret, drive these witches away with their evil jack-ma-lanterns.’ When he looked up, he saw Hal Compton’s cabin right nigh, but in ‘tother direction then he’d been a heading.”

Again, a Christian veneer has been added to this mountain-custom; but the folklore remedies of turning your clothes outwards and “drawing a ring” in your path (making a Magick Circle, one sees) are held to be effective in locating oneself in the darkness.

A final story that reflects Appalachian traditions regarding the Magick Circle is “Lige Hall’s Bewitched Rifle-Gun” (p. 118) Fearing that his rifle has been “Witched,” Lige Hall hightails it over to see Eulis Salyer, “a witch doctor, to break the spell on his gun.” The solution is complicated: Lige must catch a black goat, cutting its throat; he must boil all the meat off the bones, procuring the right shoulder blade. Then he shells a red ear of corn, and finds a stump in the woods. He lays his rifle on the stump; the bone on top of the rifle; and crosses the shoulder bone and the rifle with the red grains of corn. Three days later, he goes back; “varmints” have eaten the corn. He takes the bone, burying it in a little grave near the stump; and then he “drawed a ring ’round the stump and the grave, then stood with one foot inside and one foot outside the ring and said, ‘In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Speret, break the spell on my rifle-gun’.”

Again, we find the notion that Magick must be performed under Christian auspices; that notwithstanding, we discover the interesting idea of breaking “Bewitchment” by straddling a Magick Circle (or Ring) with one foot inside the Ring, one foot out. (It reminds me of those Celtic stories which stipulate something being accomplished by fulfilling a series of seemingly contradictory requirements.) Being neither “inside the Ring, nor out” is apparently the condition necessary for relieving the Bad Rifle-Energies.

The above stories were collected by workers for the WPA during the Depression, with the idea of publishing a book on Appalachian folklore. That project never came to fruition, however, and the transcripts were stored at the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. Here Hubert J. Davis (a college professor, descended from a line of mountain pioneers) came across them, publishing them in The Silver Bullet.

“Grandpappy Wuz A Witch” (p. 65) was collected by James Taylor Adams from Boyd J. Bolling (who was told the story by his father, concerning his grandfather), at Big Laurel, VA, on Feb. 4, 1942; “The Jack-Ma-Lanterns” (p. 48) was collected by Virginia Hale from Catherine Jones (who heard it from her grandmother), in Rockbridge County, VA, on Oct. 13, 1939; “Lige Hall’s Bewitched Rifle-Gun” (p. 118) was collected by James Taylor Adams from Patrick Addington (who heard it from Clint Sexton), at Big Laurel, VA, on May 19, 1941.