Exploding Cows, Disappearing Dirt and the "Walking Dead"

One story often leads to another, and today was no exception.

We had a great day today, after a marathon day yesterday of putting up peaches and getting our half of a hog into the freezer. Today, we decided, we were going to play. And our idea of play is to go junking and find more inventory for our booths.

We went to a flea market in the nearby town of Ravenswood, moved on to several yard sales in town, and while we were there we added a few things to our booths t Th Riverbend Antique Mall. Then we went on downriver to Point Pleasant and stopped at a yard sale on the way.

This yard sale was in the coolest little cabin. I wish I'd thought to take photos. A lady and her grandson were running the sale, and a nicer, more polite boy you could not wish to meet. The cabin was built entirely by the grandmother, right down to the porch and the shelves inside, and it was filled with collectibles. The grandson and I got to talking, and he said how he wished things could go back to the way it was, before cars and electricity and "all of those things" came along. He was quite a worker, helping his grandfather get in firewood, and gardening and canning with his grandmother.

We stayed a while, just talking on the pleasant porch that looked out over fields leading to the river. The lady was talking about how gullible some people could be, and told us this story:

from The Graphics Fairy website

"We had a calf that died, and my husband had to bury it. His sister came over later that day, and saw the newly dug ground and asked about it, so he told her about the calf. He said it had died way back on top of the hill, and she said, 'Oh my! How did you ever get it down here to bury it?'

'Well,' he said, 'it wasn't too hard. I just stood it up, and it would flop over on the downhill side. Then I'd stand it up again, and it would flop over, and I just kept doing that all the way down the hill.'

She was amazed,and told him how smart he was to figure that out!"

Her story reminded me of something that happened not too far from my house, about thirty years ago:

A neighbor had a cow that died one winter. The ground was frozen and he didn't want to try digging such a big hole in frozen earth, so he came up with the idea of using dynamite to blow the cow up. No need to bury it if it was pulverized, right? He put the dynamite under the cow and ran his fuse wires as far as he could. Now, he'd used a lot of dynamite, but he didn't have much fuse so the line was pretty short. He lit the fuse, and the dynamite blew that cow to pieces. Literally, there were bones hanging in the trees for several years afterwards.

The fuse being so short created another problem though--this man and his wife couldn't run away fast enough and so both of them were plastered with the smelly, exploding cow. I won't even repeat what the wife said to her man at that moment.

And that story reminds me of another, that also happened within a few miles of my house. Again, it was winter, and a cow died on a neighbor's farm. Rather than dig the hole, he figured he'd just bury some dynamite and blow a hole in the ground big enough to bury the cow. He got some dynamite--a lot of it--dug a hole, and buried it. His brother was watching the whole business, and he said that when the dynamite went off, dirt flew w-a-a-a-a-y up in the air and scattered for several hundred feet around the blast site. It worked--there was a huge hole, far bigger than needed for burying the poor cow. But the blast had blown the dirt over such a wide area that there was nothing left to cover the cow. And because the hole was so big, the guy had even more digging to than if he'd just buried the cow the right way in the first place.

All true stories, my friends, all true.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Talking with my Husband

I think I am blessed to in a marriage where we truly enjoy talking to each other. When I retired I wondered if we'd ever get bored with each other's company, and I am happy to report that so far that has not been the case.

The best thing about my husband, besides his sense of humor and his willingness to make breakfast most mornings, is his stories. He has such a good memory, and his childhood was so different from mine that I am endlessly fascinated and amazed by the stories he tells me.

Take this morning. There we were on the porch, both of us very tired from a busy, busy weekend. He'd gone with me Saturday to the Inland Waterways Festival where I was telling stories, then helped me re-stock our booths at the Antique Mall of Marietta before we took the evening sternwheeler cruise. We were late getting home; it was almost midnight before we got to bed. We were up early again Sunday, me to return to the festival for one more performance, and Larry to go with our son to pick up a hog we'd bought. I bought groceries on the way home so I was a tired puppy when I got here; he'd worked outside, got the hog, and had it in a trailer behind the truck, ready to go to the slaughterhouse.

This morning he was up and out early to deliver the hog (hams, bacons and more on the way soon!). I did pick-up-tidy-up, as the house got pretty cluttered as we ran in and out. Then we sat down with our coffee to watch the rain and talk.

The conversation turned to the eastern timber rattlesnake that had been killed a few miles away. As far as I know it's the first one sighted in our area in about 40 years; the last one was killed about a half mile from our home by a neighbor, in the 1970's. (I am not a fan of killing snakes unless they're threatening me or someone else, and in both of these instances that was the case.)

Larry hates snakes; where he grew up there were many, many copperheads. The area was rocky, with steep hills and plenty of forest. There were abandoned mines and slag piles at mine sites. The slag piles hold heat, and the snakes love a warm rock.

"I remember once I was out in the woods," he said this morning, " and I passed an abandoned mine. It was all caved in inside,and I could hear them, moving around in there. Rattlers, moving and shaking their rattles."

His words painted an instant, vivid image in my mind. Big snakes, in the half-light that filtered in through the brush-covered opening, coiling around and between the fallen stones, eyes glowing...it gave me chill bumps.

from NY Dept of Environmental Conversation's

website.

This story reminded me of the tale of the man who would go up on the mountain every evening to practice his fiddle and drink because it annoyed people when he played. One day a rattlesnake slithered out from under a rock. It scared the man but he continued to play, and the snake started swaying to the music. The snake eventually left when the man stopped playing.

The man returned day after day, and more and more snakes came out to listen, swaying to the music. His playing improved; people down below began to comment on how good he sounded up there, the notes echoing off the cliffs.

One night maybe the man drank too much; maybe he stumbled and accidentally stepped on one of the snakes. Maybe that's what caused the snakes to turn on him, because when he didn't return the next morning and they went looking for him, they found him on the mountain, his fiddle still in his hand, covered in snake bites.

Talk about chill bumps! I have heard that this supposedly happened in West Virginia, but most people claim it happened at Fiddler's Rock, Tennessee. You can read that version on The Moonlit Road's site.

The other morning we were talking about Larry's elderly cousin, who can no longer drive and lives in a fairly remote place in the coalfields. Most of  the men in Larry's family were coal miners, so I assumed this cousin was as well.

"No," Larry said, "he never worked in the mines. He was a gravedigger."

"All his life??" I was amazed. I guess I knew someone had to do that job, but never gave it much thought.

"Yes, I guess he retired from it. He was digging graves back when they dug them by hand."

Now I need to talk to this cousin again. I can just imagine the stories he might have to tell.

And that reminded me of this photo, found in my grandmother's scrapbook. The scrapbook contained photos from around 1915 until 1925, as best I can tell. Who is this, where was she, what was this place? Although there is writing on the back, it's illegible so we'll never know. But oh, the stories one could spin around this image.

All of Larry's stories do not spark such dark thoughts! His tales of childhood escapades, like telling everyone he had been bear-hunting and almost caught a giant bear, or stories of hiding in the outhouse, about his pet crow and so many others are hilarious and make my tame townie childhood pale in comparison. I don't think this man will ever bore me.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Caw! Caw! Thinking about Crows

Crows are on my mind today. The tricky thieves have been feasting on our dogs' food bowl, so we moved it to a new place to discourage them. It didn't take long for these black bandits to discover it, though, and now when I head out to the workshop I am very likely to be greeted by a fluttering of black wings and raucous protest. So I thought I'd share some crow thought and lore with you today.

A small crow was sittin' in an oak
Watchin' a tailor cuttin' out a coat. 
Hey hey-oh! said the small little crow.
Fol-de-riddle-diddle-eye-dee-oh!

Thus begins one of my favorite folk songs; I call it "The Crow Song," but it is also known as "The Carrion Crow," (with variations in the wording) and as a British nursery rhyme. It is one of numerous examples of how the old songs changed during their journey to the Appalachian mountains. Crows have long been associated with death, among other superstitions; perhaps calling a group of crows a "murder" has its roots in that superstition?

Seeing a "black crow" is considered bad luck, but that leaves me wondering what other kind of crow could possibly be seen, since all the crows I am familiar with are black! Are they all bad luck? Hardly seems fair to the crow. My husband calls mourning doves "rain crows" and believes that hearing one means rain is on the way. He says that his family and neighbors in southern West Virginia always called them rain crows and I had to prove to him with photos and books that his rain crows were actually doves.

The crow is often confused with the raven and the the folklore associated with each is also intermingled. The crow, in some cultures, was seen as a messenger from the gods and believed to be the bringer of messages of prophecy and either good or bad omens.

Some other superstitions attached to crows:

• a dead crow in the road is a sign of good luck (but not, apparently, for the crow). This probably comes from the practice of hanging a dead crow in the garden to frighten off other crows. As one old-timer told me, "The only good crow is a dead crow."
• Seeing two crows flying together is considered good luck in some places, but bad luck in others. I guess it all depends on where you live.
• a crow on the roof means Death is on the way to the house.
• A Missoula cemetery website offers this advice: "One crow = Bad luck. Two crows = Good luck. Three crows = Health. Four crows =Sickness. Five crows = Death. Lots of other interesting graveyard folklore in this document.

My husband's father once had a crow as a pet. We know now, of course, that it isn't wise and is in fact illegal generally to keep wild creatures as pets, but back in the 1950's no one thought much about it. Chuck (Larry's dad) had a variety of wild animal pets from time to time: raccoons, groundhogs, squirrels, a fox--so when he found a baby crow he naturally brought it home. The family raised the crow on a doll bottle at first, then gradually moved on to other foods as the crow, now named Jimmy, grew. They had him for 7 years until an unfortunate argument between Jimmy and the hogs lead to Jimmy's demise. Larry has many tales about his crow, and some of them have become a story I sometimes tell.

Crows feature in the folklore and stories from countries around the world. Wikipedia says that "In Chinese mythology, the world originally had ten suns either spiritually embodied as ten crows and/or carried by ten crows: when all ten decided to rise at once the effect was devastating to crops, so the gods sent their greatest archer Houyi, who shot down nine crows and spared only one. This mythology comes from a text in Shanhaijing, among other sources.^[49]" 

^{Aesop certainly knew a thing or two about crows; the story of the crow and the pitcher is a good example:}

^{A Crow, half-dead with thirst, came upon a Pitcher which had once been full of water; but when the Crow put its beak into the mouth of the Pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it, and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it. He tried, and he tried, but at last had to give up in despair. Then a thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him, and after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.}

This reminds me of Mark Twain's story about the blue jay trying to fill a cabin by dropping acorns down the chimney. The result was a bit better for the crow trying to fill his pitcher, a more reasonable goal.

My Dad used to say this about planting corn: "one for the rain, one for the drought, one for the crow and one for me." This is close to a saying collected by the Missouri Folklore Society: "One for the rook, one for the crow, one to rot, and one to grow."

Other crow stories and songs:

The Fox and the Crow, from Aesop: Wikipedia gives information and links to many versions of this fable, including musical ones.

The Native American tale Rainbow Crow is retold by S.E. Schlosser here. You can find many legends of the Native American Crow peopleon this site.

Story-Lovers has a plethora of links, books and more, all about crows.

Crows continue to intrigue scientists too. Find out about some current research and findings at the Cornell website.

I'll wrap up this post with another favorite ballad called The Twa Corbies. It's also known as The Two Crows. Some years back a storyteller whose name I cannot recall taught it to me as Biddy McGee McGaw which is very close to this version, also from the Appalachian mountain region:

"The Three Black Crows." 

Obtained from Miss Mary Franklin, Cross­nore, Avery County, North Carolina, August n, 1930. (From the Traditional Music website) 

1. There were three crows sat on a tree,
   Old Billy McGaw McGee!

There were three crows sat on a tree,

Old Billy McGaw McGee!

There were three crows sat on a tree,

And they were black as crows could be,

And they all flapped their wings and cried,

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

And they all flapped their wings and cried,

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

2. "What shall we have for bread to eat?"
    Old Billy McGaw McGee!

"On yonders hill there lies a horse."

Old Billy McGaw McGee!

"We'll perch ourselves on his backbone,

And pick his eyes out one by one;"

And they all clapped their wings and cried,

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

And they all clapped their wings and cried,

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Tomatoes, Scrub Brushes, Saucers and Childhood Memories

My husband is a source of great stories and memories. Little commonplace things will spark a tale or perhaps just a fleeting memory of something from his childhood. Growing up in the small coal camp of Olcott, on Brier Creek in southern Kanawha county, WV had its share of hardships to be sure. But it also had many golden moments.

This morning was a good example. Breakfasts these days include sliced ripe tomatoes, a summer treat we both look forward to. As Larry put tomatoes on his plate, he said "This reminds me of when I was a kid."

"How so?" I asked.

"I was too little to help, but I'd go up to the garden with Max (his older brother). I'd take the salt shaker with me and while Max was hoeing I'd sit in the garden with my shaker and eat tomatoes."

I could just picture him: a little boy with hair bleached white by the sun, wearing his bib overalls and barefoot. I can hear his steady stream of happy chatter as his brother, almost 8 years older, sweated over his hoe.

Another memory surfaced when he was putting away the band-aids. "One time my sister Mary (his twin) was sassing Mom off really bad. I think it was this time of year because I remember it being really hot. Mom was scrubbing something with one of those old wood-handled scrub brushes and she just let it fly at Mary. It caught Mary on the head and the blood flew everywhere! I told Mary, 'Don't do that! She'll kill you!' I always liked to look at the excitin' side of things." His mother must have been at her wit's end at the time, although other tales about her reveal a woman with a some fire in her who didn't take much guff.

Larry's memory sparked one of my own.It was a hot, hot day and Mom was canning something in the steamy kitchen. I stood in the door and just sassed her something awful. Mom picked up a nearby saucer and flung it through the air. I ducked and it missed me, so I called out, "Ha ha! You missed me!" Mom, pregnant as she was, chased me right through the house. Believe me, she didn't miss when she caught up with me. It's the only time I can remember my usually peaceful mother spanking me. And I knew I deserved it.

Childhood memories--they come back to us at surprising moments, don't they?

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Prank Caller

It was 2:00 a.m. Late-night/early morning calls always frighten me, since the news is usually not good, unless the birth of a child was imminent. And this time there was no new grandchild on the horizon. I stumbled through the dark house to answer.

"Hello?"

A voice on the other end responded, "Hi."

"Who is this?" I asked.

"Who is this?" The voice sounded young, the voice of a young boy, I thought, or perhaps a girl, but it was hard to tell. It was not a voice I recognized.

I replied, "No, you were the one who called. Who are you trying to reach?"

"I don't know. Who am I talking to?"

"This is Granny."

"Hi Granny."

"Who are you, and who are you calling?"

"I'm calling you. How are ya, Granny?"

"I'm fine, but I'm sleepy and need to go back to bed. Goodbye."

"Wait! Did I wake you up? I'm sorry, Granny."

The apologetic tone paused my hand. "It's okay, but why are you up so late? Don't your parents make you go to bed earlier than this?"

"They don't care."

"I'm sure they do. It's a school night--you should be sleeping."

"I don't live with my parents."

"Really. Who do you live with, then?"

"Oh, some people.They don't care if I stay up late or if I go to school or not." I was stunned into silence for a moment.

"Well, I'm old, I need my sleep, so I am going back to bed. And you should go to school."

"You don't sound old, and I sure wish you would just talk to me." I hesitated again. He sounded plaintive, and young, and he didn't live with his parents. Who was this child?

"About what?"

"Well, what did you do today?"

"I told stories at a school."

"You told stories? That's cool.What kind of stories?"

And so we talked for a little while, and then I finally said good night and went back to bed. But the voice stayed in my mind. I wondered who this young person was, where they lived, and who allowed him to stay up on school nights. I imagined him in a mobile home out some dirt road in the country, lying on a bunk bed in a small crowded bedroom, looking out the window at the night. Or maybe in some rundown house in a small rural town, and the people he lived with were drinking beer and playing cards in the kitchen. Maybe I was all wrong and his family was well-to-do and he was just making things up. I drifted off to sleep finally, but his voice was in my dreams.

He called again a few weeks later, not as late this time, and not talking as quietly. I could hear people talking in the background, and a TV commercial.

"Hey Granny."

"Well hello! Did you dial me by accident again?"

"No, I just called you. What are you doing tonight?"

"I'm writing," I said. "And talking to you. What are you doing?"

"Nothing. That's pretty much all I do. Nowhere to go, nothing to do except watch TV. And talk to you. Tell me a story."

So I told him a story,a short, funny dog story. Then we said good bye, and I hung up the phone.

He called again twice after that, and each time I told him a story. I never knew his name or much of anything else about him, but I liked that child for whatever reason. The calls stopped coming finally. Maybe he got bored with the game, or maybe he moved to another living arrangement. I wish I knew.

It's been at least 5 years I last heard that husky voice. I wish I knew if he went to school, graduated and moved on with his life. He will be one of those little mysteries life hands us from time to time, a person who touches us briefly and moves on.

Wherever he is, I wish him well, and I hope he knows that this Granny still thinks of him from time to time, especially when the phone rings late at night.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Virtue and Vice

I have been listening to a book on CD of stories by Laurence Yep, who is of Chinese-American heritage. The book, The Rainbow People, is completely entertaining, with monsters, magic, common sense, humor and pathos--not to mention very good writing. Yep worked with a WPA collection of stories collected from immigrant Chinese to produce this collection, and brought new life to tales that might otherwise have been forgotten.

I remember when this book was published, and I even checked it out once but never read it. I didn't think I'd be interested in Chinese stories, to tell the truth. How wrong I was. A few years ago I found Fred Lobb's blog of Chinese stories that he is translating into English and I was completely hooked. The stories, unlike many fairy tales, do not necessarily have a happy ending; indeed by our western standards many might not seem to have an ending at all. But the tales are so rich in imagery and in their keen insight into a culture that they are fascinating and memorable.

Yep's commentary at the beginning of each section of his book helps understand the philosophy behind the stories, and because some also traveled to the US to be told by the Chinese immigrants, he also explores the relevance of these old tales to the Chinese men who told these stories after work at their American jobs, while their families were still back in China. It's heartbreaking to think of, really--these men, separated for years from their loved ones, growing old as they live like bachelors in a land that is not their home.

At the beginning of a chapter titled Virtue and Vice, Lep's first line caught my attention: The virtues and vices of a culture, he said are captured in the culture's folktales. In our American culture, how often do we even hear the word virtue? or vice, for that matter? In our country, what are the virtues that might inform our folktales? What are the vices that define us? Do we even have folktales that can be called American?
Brer Rabbit came from Africa. Paul Bunyan, Mike Fink and other tall tale legends might be uniquely American but are they all we have to call "our" stories?

If this is true, then what are our American virtues and vices as defined in the tall tales? Cleverness, hard work, positive outlook, generosity, and survival jump out at me as the most likely virtues. Vices--Bravado, one-upmanship, act-first-think-later?

In Appalachia there are many stories with supernatural elements; some are immigrants from other places, but most, I think, are unique to our region. The Appalachian ghost stories often have common themes of justice being served or spirits not resting, spirits seeking justice, or of warnings (don't go there or X will get you), or to explain some phenomena ("and that is why the mist always rises..."), or odd markings, formations, buildings, etc. From these, perhaps we can find the virtues of right always prevails or should prevail, children should listen to the elders, foolishness gets its reward, listen to good advice, or history marks its place for future generations? As for vices, well, so many ghost stories are based on acts of violence, that it is not too difficult to define violence as one of our vices.

I am interested in hearing what you think: what would you say are our American virtues, and our worst vices? What stories do you consider "American" stories--and what virtues and vices do you derive from them?

Messenger

This post is related to the story I posted on Halloween about the Headless Dog of Tug Fork, which is a legend in the county where I live. I found many similar stories in many parts of the US but Great Britain seems to be the real source for these tales.


he was there last night
black on black
against the darkling woods
his silver eyes shining
catching my gaze

in recognition and surprise
my mirror reflected nothing
but shadowed woods
along the gravel road
standing sentinel



doubt crowded my mind
it was late, after all
tired eyes see
what wakened
eyes do not perceive

straining to glimpse
in the side mirror
the massive head,
starblazed chest
silver gleaming eyes

I saw only darkness,
a frightened rabbit
scampering
quickly out of sight
no black dog at all—


About Black Dogs

In folklore, seeing a black dog is not a good omen. Often such a sighting portended death, as in this story from American folklore. In the Appalachian mountains, the traditional beliefs about black dogs were carried over by the early settlers and even today you will find people who still believe that black dogs are omens.

Black dogs were also thought to be connected to the devil or other forces of evil, and to bring bad luck. This last has resulted in something known as "Black Dog Syndrome" at animal shelters: "Black dog syndrome is used by people who work or volunteer in animal shelters. For some reason, all black dogs, even purebred black Labrador Retrievers are almost always passed over in favor of other colored dogs."

Here are a few more black dog stories:


The Black Dog of Bouley Bay

Black dogs in Mesoamerica

The Black Dog of West Peak

Many snippets of stories from the Mysterious Britain site

The Black Shuck Dog : did it inspire Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he wrote Hounds of the Baskervilles?

Another Black Shuck legend, this one about the Hell Hound of Norfolk.

There are many other superstitions and legends about black dogs. As the owner of two black dogs, I'm not too worried to the superstitions surrounding them. My black labs are friendly, goofy and playful. They are anything but evil! (Having said that, I will not forget the one my father said he saw about two weeks before his death--there was no dog at his house, and he knew nothing about the folklore surrounding black dogs. I did not tell him, and I did not mention it to my siblings, although I cried all the way home from that trip. It was the last time I saw him.)

Then there is the night I saw the dog in the poem above. I came home with an oddly unsettled feeling that I still remember, almost five years later. A bit creepy, that.

Possum Tales

This is just too good not to tell. Name omitted to protect the innocent.

He had to get up at 3:00 am Monday morning. Now that is not a friendly time of day to rise and shine, and he was afraid he might oversleep. As it turned out, he didn't need to worry.

At 2:44 am, he heard a commotion on his back porch, right outside his bedroom window. He knew right away what it was--a possum in the bag of dog food he left on the porch. He'd meant to move it after a possum had gotten in it a few nights before, but like I said, it had been a tough weekend. He'd taken a shot at that possum and winged it. Had it come back for more?

He grabbed his .22 and crept to the door. The possum must have heard the door creak because it scrambled out of the bag so fast he thought it was going to run inside the house, so he slammed the door fast. Through the window he saw the possum waddling off. He walked out onto the porch and took aim.

But...were there two possums? Apparently so. He could see the rotund behind of the one that had been in the dog food bag waddling off into the night. The other one, however, was just standing still and staring at him. He could see its eyes gleaming in the dark, that peculiar orange glow so familiar in headlights. He decided that the one looking at him was a) more likely to take the offensive and attack, and b) an easier target than the quickly vanishing hiney of the other possum.

So he took careful aim and hit it right between the eyes. When he walked over to inspect, he found that his aim had been perfect--he had perfectly shot the kids' kickball.

(Did you know that the reason animal's eyes shine in the dark is something called the Tapetum lucidum, more commonly called eyeshine? I just learned that myself as I researched to be sure I had the right color for the possum's eyes.)

Another thing about possums: you should always take one on a hiking trip with you. If he can catch one out and about at night, just shine a light on him and he'll play possum. You can pick him up and stuff him into a backpack and he'll travel comfortably all day.

Why would you want to take a possum hiking? Well, if you get lost, all you have to do is take the backpack off your back, open it, and wait. Sooner or later the possum will come ambling out and will make a beeline for the nearest road.

Ouch.

Then there is the story of the best coon and possum dog anyone ever heard of. It was a hound that just had to be shown a skinning board, and that dog bring in a possum or raccoon with a hide exactly the right size to fit the board. But one day the dog didn't come home. After three days its owner went looking for his favorite dog. He found him way back up on a ridge looking just worn out and pitiful. He had to carry the dog home, that's how bad he was. But when he got to the house, he found out the cause of the trouble. Seems his wife had been doing laundry and had left the ironing board leaning against the house. The dog was looking for a coon or possum big enough to fit the ironing board. Poor thing. We grow 'em big in West Virginia, but not that big.

picture by Bob Gress

Other possum stories you might like:

A Brer Possum tale about how he gets in trouble with a snake, told by one of America's finest storytellers, Jackie Torrence. She is gone but her stories and legend live on.

Brer Possum gets in trouble again, this time with Brer Rabbit, in Mr. Rabbit Nibbles Up the Butter.

Why the Possum's Tale is Bare was one of the first stories I learned as a storyteller, and it's still fun to tell.

De New Han' An old tale collected in the South in 1871 is told in dialect.

Ever wondered Why the Possum Has a Pouch? Find out in this story. Or Why Possum Has a Large Mouth? Click and learn!

You can find a flannelboard story about a coyote and a possum in Spanish at this site.

Lots of possum lore in this article that someone has kindly scanned into the computer and shared with all of us. Don't you love people like that?

Urban possums? Not an urban legend, apparently.

If you prefer your possum on the dinner table, you can find out how to cook it at Chow.com .

(I kid you not.) And you can read about one family's possum meal at Truth and Progress. A true story and they lived to tell the tale.

I think I'm about possumed out. Got any possum tales of your own to share?

More about Trees

On the ridge, Springtime two years ago

Yesterday's post about trees got me thinking about the many stories we tell with trees at their center.

The website Spirit of the Trees hosts a broad collection of tree stories, Started as a resource for the DC Memorial Tree Groves , the site grew to encompass scientific, folkloric, and educational resources in essays, stories and resource links. Storytellers contributed tales, and an extensive list of stories on the web is hosted on the site.

At Beartown Rocks, West Virginia

At the Woodnotes site, you can read Advice from a Tree. Sound advice, I think you'll find. Woodnotes is the site of the Tree People, a unique experiment in preservation in Los Angeles, CA. Go here to read the story of the Sleep Tree from South America.

The oak, of course, is often the topic of tree stories. With reason. The stately, long-lived oak exudes strength, provides deep shade and steady, long-lasting heat when cut, and hardens to a stone-like toughness for use as a building material. Its golden grain graces many pieces of furniture and flooring, and its acorns provided food for the ancient Celts and food and shelter for all kinds of other animal life. Photos of many great oaks can be found at Arcytech.

Marilyn suggested a haunting story called The Armchair of the Tustenuggee from the book Palmetto Stories by Celina Eliza Means. What a tale this is, with a curiously twisted, but satisfying ending.

At Sacred Woods and the Lore of Trees you can find folklore associated with trees of all kinds. What I like about this site (librarian that I am) is her listed bibliography of sources. While she does not tell you where each tree's information came from, she at least supplied the places she consulted for the information provided on her website.

Taken near Sandstone Falls, WV in a driving rain storm in 2007

At egreenway, Michael Garofalo has compiled an incredible bibliography (the librarian strikes again!) along with poetry, quotes, folklore and monthly collections of all the above, all about trees. His site is a little difficult to use, requiring much scrolling, but thee information provided is worth the sore finger.

Here's a poem for March from his site:

"The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven

-All's right with the world!"

- Robert Browning

Amen, Mr. Browning. We've all heard this poem but in early spring, we all need to hear it again.

Around the world from Robert Browning comes the tale of the Sugar Palm Tree, from Indonesian Folklore. "A husband and a wife lived happily in a village. They had two children a son and a daughter. The son’s name was Tare Iluh and the daughter’s name was Beru Sibou. Their happy life ended when their father died." To read the rest, you need to visit the site. I promise it is worth your time.

And from another exotic location comes stories of Papa Bois: "He is the old man of the forest and is known by many names, including "Maître Bois" (master of the woods) and "Daddy Bouchon" (hairy man)." Probably the source of the Cajun stories of Wiley and the Hairy Man? (You can find a reader's theatre adaptation of this suspenseful story of a boy's encounters with the Hairy Man here.)

I will leave you with this thought:

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.

- William Blake, 1799, The Letters

A man ahead of his time.

Go outside and enjoy your trees.

Yesterday's stories

1. A body was found in the Elk River, only a few feet from the library in Clendenin. It was feared that the mayor's grandson had been found. That fear proved to be true. What a sad day for that family.

2. Two boys with skateboards were outside the library. One had put his wallet on the ground. "Any money in that wallet" I asked. "No," replied his friend. "He used it to buy a fake mustache."

3. A ragged car pulled around the corner; a man with white hair and beard at the wheel. He stopped when he saw the boys, opened his door and propped his left leg, in a cast, in the open car window. "Broken in three places," he bragged. Apparently he'd been skateboarding.

4. In downtown Charleston, the ornamental crabapples are blooming. Their sweet, heavy scent is lost in the fumes of traffic, unless you pay attention.

5. On the street, a man says, "all the blood and gore of medieval times." A girl sprints to pick up two pennies on the sidewalk--my kind of people!

6. A woman with a walker struggles to cross the street, but gives me a brilliant smile.

7. Library staff complain because the AC isn't working, but outside the air is filled with the scent of the apple trees.