Blue Ridge Country

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Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






                           AMERICAN FOLKWAYS

                       EDITED BY ERSKINE CALDWELL

                           BLUE RIDGE COUNTRY

                                   by

                              JEAN THOMAS

                    DUELL, SLOAN & PEARCE . NEW YORK

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                          COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY
                              JEAN THOMAS

                   All rights reserved, including
                   the right to reproduce this book
                   or portions thereof in any form.


                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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                             To My Brother

                         DOCTOR GEORGE G. BELL

                    A once itinerant "Tooth Dentist"
              who became the first Republican county judge
                  in more than a quarter of a century
                       at the mouth of Big Sandy
            and whose unique sentences have become legendary
                       throughout the Blue Ridge


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                          APPALACHIAN RITUAL

                 Emerald nobility
                 Reaching to the sky,
                 Makes the eye a ruler
                 Fit to measure by.

                 In the spring an ecstasy
                 Lies upon the hills--
                 Purpling with new red-buds,
                 Ruffling colored frills.

                 Make an early ritual
                 For the mountain side;
                 Pine and beech are spectators,
                 White dogwood a bride.

                 Give a pair of ivory birch
                 For a wedding gift,
                 All the mountain side a church
                 Where wild flowers sift

                 Velvet carpet-petals down
                 To the edge of hill and town,
                 Showing wild-grape fringes through
                 Opal cloud-thrones dropped from blue.

                 Now the summer like a queen
                 Does her mountain home in green;
                 With a season for a bier
                 Some old majesty lies here.

                 Autumn gold is swift and fleet
                 With a wing upon the feet,
                 Rushing toward a winter breath
                 Pausing for immaculate death.

                 In such economic bliss
                 And a swift parenthesis--
                 In immortal mountain trails,
                 There are resurrection tales.

                 All the while the mountains know
                 Sudden death is never so.

                                  --Rachel Mack Wilson

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                               CONTENTS

           1. THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE                     3
               THE LAND                                      3
               THE PEOPLE                                   10
               BLAZING THE TRAIL                            16
               THE MOUNTAINEER                              40
           2. LAND OF FEUDS AND STILLS                      46
               HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS                         46
               PEACEMAKER                                   55
               TAKING SIDES                                 72
               MARTIN-TOLLIVER TROUBLES                     91
               FAMILY HONOR                                105
           3. PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL                         112
               TIMBER                                      112
               WOMAN'S WORK                                117
           4. TRADITION                                    122
               PHILOMEL WHIFFET'S SINGING SCHOOL           122
               RIDDLES AND FORTUNES                        135
               THE INFARE WEDDING                          151
           5. RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS                            155
               FUNERALIZING                                155
               OLD CHRISTMAS                               158
               FOOT-WASHING                                161
               NEW LIGHT                                   164
           6. SUPERSTITION                                 168
               BIG SANDY RIVER                             168
               WATER WITCH                                 169
               MARRYING ON HORSEBACK                       172
               DEATH CROWN                                 177
               A WHITE FEATHER                             178
           7.