So earlier I made a post talking about my Papaw and storms which got me thinking about superstitions and folk beliefs I’ve picked up from my family’s Appalachian roots. Here’s a few that I thought of that I’m prettysure are Appalachian in origin, but then again who knows.
light a candle/lantern in the window in bad weather to act as a guide
(I don’t know if this is a widespread one or just my Papaw)
open the window when someone dies so their soul can leave the house
cover mirrors and pictures of the deceased so they don’t see themself and then stay in the house
stop the clocks or else the spirit will stay
ask a daddy long legs where something/someone is and it’ll point the way with one of its legs
windchimes raise the dead
bells ward off spirits and harm
when momma was little, Papaw would always have her wear bells if she wanted to go play in the woods to make sure the spirits wouldn’t steal her away
he did the same thing for me and my siblings
it also serves a practical purpose of scaring off animals and making kids easier to find
don’t talk in a graveyard after dark or you’ll get haunted
it’s fine to sit in the graveyard after dark, the lights you see are the spirits (unless they’re fireflies in which case they’re fireflies)
groups of these lights are the children dancing!
just make sure you don’t speak
go in the river to wash away sickness
or use dirty dishwater to get rid of sickness
(that one’s fun because in one method you get to curse at it a lot)
method one: rub a rag that’s been dipped in dirty dishwater and wrung out onto the sickness, then take it outside and beat it against a large rock to beat away the sickness. repeat a couple times.
method two: start the same as method one, but instead of hitting a rock with it, tie it to a tree. as the rag dries and loses the dirty water smell (usually around a week), the sickness will fade too.
mamaw always insisted ghost water lets you talk to the dead
ghost water is water gathered inside a graveyard
it’s bad luck to kill a cricket!
stump water gets rid of freckles and warts
stump water is rainwater that collected in a hollow stump, as you can probably deduce from the name
never take something from the river without leaving something in exchange
