I’m from NJ and I’ve never been anywhere near Appalachia, but from what I’ve heard the area is a bit famous (at least outside of it) for its unique folklore and superstitions, and I’ve even heard of there being a folk Magic tradition.
How much do people from there, in particular the younger generations (say 40 years old or less), believe in that kind of thing? Is it really prevalent among people in the area today?
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I don’t think superstitions are unique to that part of the country. I grew up in Michigan and we wouldn’t step on a crack. I had a lucky rabbit’s foot and a 4 leaf clover.
Is there something more specific you’re referring to that makes the area unique?
Can you define Appalachian? Do you mean Tennessee and the Carolinas or do you mean the mountains between Georgia and Maine?
As someone who spent a lot of time camping in the hills out in North Carolina and Tennessee…once the sun goes down, a whole hell of a lot of things start to feel pretty damn plausible. I’m not saying there’s definitely supernatural things afoot…but if there were, that’s where they’d happen.
I’ll also take this opportunity to plug [wendigoon’s](https://youtu.be/4T6mwZd1T9M) video on a number of Appalachian legends. It’s a great watch.
An author named Jake Richards wrote a book called Backwoods Witchcraft talking about his practice of folk magic, a lot of which he learned from older relatives. He’s from Eastern Kentucky I believe. I didn’t read the book but I listened to a few interviews on podcasts, very interesting.
There’s the moth man legend. I don’t know if people BELIEVE believe it, but it’s definitely passed around. Also the stories of little green men fall into that same genre.
I’ve always found the stories of water witches pretty interesting as well.
I guess I should mention I’ve lived in Kentucky for a couple of decades, though I grew up elsewhere.
In WV Mothman is big. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman
“Believe” I’m not sure. But it’s fun and gives people something to bond over. There is festival and a statue and it’s fun.
I’ve had a few family members go missing out in that mountain range over the decades. So there might be something to it
Have you ever camped in the Pine Barrens? Once the sun goes down, that Jersey Devil legend doesn’t seem quite so outrageous anymore.
If you want to get an idea of how much people believe in it, I recommend the podcast Old Gods of Appalachia and its Facebook group or discord. You will find plenty of young believers.
I don’t know how much people actually believe them, but I’m sure some do. I can say from personal experience that even if you don’t actually believe them, your imagination can really start to run wild in the woods at night. I think there’s more activity at night than during the day. You got all these critters running around and making noises off in the distance, you hear various calls you don’t really hear too often if ever, and you can hear stuff rustling around in the leaves pretty close by but can’t ever see what it is. Listen to the vixen scream of a fox in the woods in the dark while you don’t have any flashlights. Imagine a bear or deer standing close by, but just barely silhouetted in the moonlight that wasnt there a second ago. It’s easy to see where stories of bogeyman and monsters would come from.
Ive always viewed a lot of it as the same as cow tipping or snipe hunting.
As a native Kentuckian there are no superstitions or weird magic floating around that I’m aware of beyond the usual don’t step on a crack or walk under a ladder type stuff
Do you believe in the Jersey Devil?
How much weight do you put into the legend of the Jersey Devil?
I’d assume the ratio of true believers in any folklore is pretty similar regardless of location.
From Kentucky – it’s not *truly* a thing. There are superstitious Appalachian people in the same way there are white girls in California that love crystals. Otherwise, Appalachia isn’t a “Deliverance” type of place, really. It’s just poor and a little isolated (but not even really isolated; just ignored by most of the country). It also fully has internet, so a lot of the stereotypes are beginning to melt away a bit, but it will take a fair deal of time.
From a Western NC section of the Appalachian mountains perspective, our more prominent folk lore would be the Devil’s Stomping Grounds and Brown Mountain Lights. There are others, but I remember hearing about these as a kid.
As far as superstitions go, I had never heard of the ones that you referenced in another comment. Those probably come from further North along the mountains. I have heard that if your nose is itching, it means someone is coming to visit, and stuff like that. Nothing that would be unique to our area.
These are pretty common and many of these superstitions were brought to Appalachia by people from other cultures. Most of the settlers in the American Appalachian region were Irish or English and they brought their folk tales and superstitions with them. Others evolved out of different communities.
Few people today really practice or follow those. I live in the Missouri Ozarks and a lot of our early settlers arrived from the Appalachian region and brought their folk tales and magic with them. You can find, in a few rare places, people who use and know folk magic. They don’t practice it like a religion, they do it primarily to keep that rare culture alive.
Some that I am aware of: Never place a hat on a bed.
When someone moves to a new house bring them salt, bread and a new broom because you never sweep a new house with an old broom (it brings the bad luck from the old house with it).
If two women are wringing laundry together they will soon argue. I think this is true because if you have more than one woman of a certain age in any house, there will be conflict and I say this as a woman who lives with two other women relatives and works with other women. There’s always some drama, so that one is not really “superstition” so much as a statistic.
If you peel a ripe, red apple without breaking the peel (in one continuous piece), then throw the peel over your left shoulder, the peel will land in the shape of your true love’s initial. I actually did this with my cousins and taught it to my grandchildren. I’m not sure how useful it is for finding your true love but it does motivate girls to peel a lot of apples.
I was convinced there was a ghost haunting our local, decrepit manor. Turns out it was just a gardener who wore white all the time.