Superstition in Southern Appalachia

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Sarah E. Kucharski photo

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Built in 1833, St. John in the Wilderness, an Episcopal church, is located near the town of Flat Rock, N.C. English settlers who once crossed the oceans to live in Charlestown subsequently flocked to the area in the 1820s, and thus it became known as “Little Charleston of the Mountains.” Many others simply called it “The Wilderness.” As the community grew, so did the church. In 1852 it doubled in size—and simply extended over those already buried in the graveyard. The church's circular, one-lane driveway passes close to many graves, thus signs have been erected to direct drivers not to impede traffic’s flow.

When she would see a black cat crossing the road in front of her car as a youngster, Kimberly Burnette-Dean would react without hesitation, hurriedly tracing the shape of the letter X with her index finger in front of the windshield.

She still makes the same hand motion these days, decades later, with the same urgency as when she learned it during her upbringing in southwestern Virginia. It is believed to ward off any bad luck that some say follows the four-legged creature, long seen as an ominous sign in the Southern Appalachians. And it won’t work unless made three times, before the cat reaches the other side of the road.

“You’ve got to do it quick,” said Burnette-Dean, who works as a librarian in Roanoke, Va., about 60 miles north of where she grew up, in Meadows of Dan. “It cancels out bad luck.”

The practice is among others passed down from her grandparents that she upholds to this day, even in the company of others. Among them: leaving a building through the same door she entered and making sure to not touch, let alone nudge, an empty rocking chair. “It would make me uncomfortable,” she said. 

Burnette-Dean acknowledged that the extent to which adheres to these superstitions has somewhat faded over the years—her grandparents’ generation appeared more steadfast in their beliefs. A neighbor during her childhood, an older woman, who some might have considered overly cautious, would turn around and head for her home if she crossed paths with a black cat outside it, staying inside the entire day for fear of encountering trouble.

Nonetheless, she errs on the side of caution. 

“There’s this little bit of doubt,” Burnette-Dean said. “I don’t want to tempt fate.”

Across the region, such beliefs linger, fed by oral history and embellished by storytellers.

Some who pass a cemetery might hold their breath, for example, to avoid inhaling the soul of someone whose body recently was interred. Others gather acorns amid a thunderstorm, placing them on the windowsills to protect their home from lightning strikes. And those with apple trees may remember to leave a single apple hanging from at the end of the harvest, lest they attract the Devil.

Perhaps just as widespread are signs of bad luck.

Some are relatively insignificant, like the belief that unhappiness will hang over the day of those who encounter a hare or rabbit before sunrise. But many have long engendered fear. An owl seen during the day or peering into a window is known as a foreboding omen portending early death; the ringing of an unattended church bell forewarns that someone in the parish will die; and the presence of a bat in a home means its occupants will have no choice but to leave soon, let alone one of them die.

These and other beliefs are deeply rooted in Appalachian folklore, said Nancy Richmond, an author and a historian who lives in southern West Virginia and whose many books over the years examine the customary practices of the region through generations.

“I’ve heard them from the time I was a little girl,” said Richmond, who also is a genealogist. While some beliefs were rooted in religion, particularly among Irish and Scottish settlers, others were particular to a clan or community, sometimes spreading to others, Richmond said. 

In one of her books, “Appalachian Folklore Omens, Signs and Superstitions,” Richmond defines superstition as a seemingly “irrational belief, arising from ignorance or fear, that is held by a number of people but is without foundation.” Superstitions are thought to influence coming events, despite any demonstrable correlation. 

Given the cultural changes, certain long-held practices may raise eyebrows these days. Midwives from Scotland were said to give a newborn a pinch of ash while breastfeeding for the first time to give infants lifelong protection against witchcraft, and Irish immigrants were known to spit on their babies to bring good luck. 

On the surface, superstitions might seem absurd—one notion was that leaving washed diapers on a clothesline over night could attract “evil forces,” Richmond wrote. But at the time, they were conventional.

“Whatever worked,” she said. “You couldn’t convince them otherwise.”

In the Southern Appalachians, such beliefs were, and in some ways still are, more entrenched than in other parts of the country. The mountainous terrain fostered isolation from outside influences, including access to education. As a result, traditions were bedrocks of life in those days.

As part of an English class at Rabun Gap-Nacooche School in north Georgia, students captured many of region’s superstitions through interviews with locals born in the 1800s and produced a magazine. The magazine led to a series of books known as Foxfire. The series offered a glimpse into the region’s cultural norms at a time when it was starting to draw more attention as a second-home destination and garnered international acclaim, said Barry Stiles, curator of the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center, in Mountain City, Ga. Students at the Rabun County High School continue producing the magazine, which is distributed across the world on a biennial basis.

Lifestyles have changed markedly over the years, subject to the same homogenization that has swept across other parts of the country.

“The traditions aren’t being passed down,” said Burnette-Dean, who spent years working at a living history museum on the Blue Ridge Parkway there. 

That is perhaps the result of shifting perceptions. Supernatural forces once regarded as serious threats now generally are considered harmless—no more a tall-tale.

“We think we know so much more now,” said Scott Nicholson, a novelist who lives in Boone, N.C. and whose horror stories and supernatural thrillers are embedded with the folklore of the region. But our knowledge has left less to the imagination. “You don’t need to keep witches out of your house,” he said. “It kind of takes the fun out of it.”

Dave Tabler, who lives in Delaware and has spent the past eight years maintaining a blog that focuses on Appalachian folklore, agrees that most superstitions have gone by the wayside. 

“We’ve kind of defanged them,” Tabler said. For example the act of throwing a pinch of salt over the left shoulder, which is considered good luck these days, was a way to keep away the Devil in the 1800s. 

Tabler traces his paternal ancestry back generations. His father’s memoir about growing up in West Virginia during the Depression influences his blog, Appalachian History, which covers the foothills of northern Alabama to the Allegheny Mountains in southwestern Pennsylvania and offers a window into the region’s beliefs and customs.

“Even when we’re preserving our traditions, we now are aware of what’s going on in our country,” Tabler said. 

But anyone who ever has deemed a pair of socks worn when a football game was won lucky or a certain lipstick the charm for a good date knows that superstition remains a compelling force. 

“We live in a world where it doesn’t hurt to be careful,” said John Wood, an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In a sense, what is considered sensible is relative.

“People believe and know different things,” said Wood, who is currently writing a book on the years he has spent observing the customs of camel herders in northeastern Africa. What some might consider superstitious beliefs, he added, are the basis on which others are “trying to make sense of their world.”

Some pass down ancestors’ beliefs, even though they are contrary to their own.

Tipper Pressley’s blog, the Blind Pig and the Acorn, focuses local history and culture. She too traces her lineage back through Southern Appalachian culture and sees value in preserving some of the old traditions. She recalls telling her daughters, now teenagers, that should anyone sweep with a broom underneath their feet, they would never get married. “I don’t believe it, but I’ve heard that,” she said. 

She also hangs horseshoes on her porch—a custom believed to bring good luck.

“It’s something in the back of your mind,” said Pressley. “You’ve heard it all your life, so you at least think about it.”

Whether jumping over a crack so as not to break one’s mother’s back, holding one’s breath while driving over the train tracks or pouring out a drink for spirits past, personal superstitions make for tiny rituals. A sense of mystery, a suspension of disbelief—or perhaps a belief itself—for what remains unproven gives license to our imaginations. 

“It opens up possibility,” Nicholson, the novelist, said. “It makes for a richer, more interesting world.”