The Annotated African American Folktales

by Henry Louis Gates

  SOURCE: Elsie Clews Parsons, Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina, 63.

  Told by Maria Middleton, a sixty-five-year-old resident of St. Helena, an island off the coast of South Carolina.

  MACIE AND THE BOO HAG

  I can’t get sleep to come to bed with me no more. If and when I do drop off, it don’t feel very natural.

  I dream that every morning Crow comes into my pea patch and takes every single pea away in his beak. I can see my eats leaving the house with nobody’s hands touching them. I see my poor mother; she, so restless in her grave. I see so many things like that. There won’t be any snoring good with boo hag1 all the time riding me!

  I was a youngun the first time boo hag rode me. I suspect some jealous girl put the hag up to it. Some young woman didn’t like the young men come to court me because I was so pretty. And she wasn’t nothing much, too. One boy she liked cared for me best, and so this girl put the hag on me.

  One evening, boo hag come to see me. I was ready for bed early, for I was younger then. Halfway up the stairs, this green light comes, swoosh! And burst all in my eyes. Then it turns into a red light. I can see this awful, raggedy-looking thing coming up the stairs behind me. The she-thing has a head big as a barrel with bloody-red light shining out of her eyes. My mouth is open to scream, but I can’t yell a thing. I moan some, is all I can do. And my dear mother heard me.

  She came over to the landing, said to me, “Macie, what’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

  I tried to answer, but something had locked my jaw. Couldn’t even turn around to look at her. She knew there was something the matter with me.

  “Must’ve played with bad girls again,” she said.

  Couldn’t say nothing back to her, my mouth was just so closed. That’s what boo hag did to me, made me speakless.

  And the hag rode me, and I liked to died. I got real thin, she rode me so many late nights. Just like I was some broomstick she rode. Or some skinny night-mare. A whole month of nights, and I couldn’t sleep a wink. That’s how boo hag did me, and scared me so. And in the night-riding, I see all kinds of bad things. See the devil. See boo daddy, too. And come the dayclean,2 I’m so sore on my back, like somebody been beating me with a stick.

  My mother said to me, “Macie, I have a mind the hag is riding you, even though you can’t say. I got a way to fix the hag, break her spell so she stays fixed, too. You go to sleep now, Macie. And when you wake up, you will feel real better, for true.”

  Well, I did as my mother said. She gave me a potion, and I slept sound. But it seemed I could hear and see my mother beside me, where she stayed all night. And before the cock crowed, Mother saw me stir and saw me heave as the hag got ready to ride me.

  My mother took up this little bottle with a cork in it, set there beside her foot. She took the cork out of the bottle. She held the cork while she put the bottle mouth down on my stomach.

  Then, Mother found her some needles. She counted thirty-three, not one more nor less. She lifted the bottle so quick, can’t hardly see her hand. She threw one needle in the bottle, fast as lightning. And she corked that bottle, and put thirty-two needles in the cork. This, before boo hag knew what terrible trouble she was in.

  And the hag was clean gone. And stayed gone as long as I didn’t give that bottle away.

  And when I woke up the next dayclean? There was my nerve all back in me. The spell boo hag had over me was melted off me. Oh, did I eat some breakfast? Had me half a loaf of bread and a whole pot of gravy!

  For a long time, I was careful as could be. One time, an old woman wanted to borrow some salt, but I talked through the door. Said, “No, ma’am, we all out of salt.” I knew it was boo hag come after me again. Scared me to the bones. But you saw how my mother caught that hag spirit in the bottle the way she knew how. You see, she pinned it down in the bottle with that needle. And in case the hag could tear loose, she put those needles through the cork. For it’s known that boo hag can’t get past some sharp needles all lined up against her.

  And if I should give anything to that hag voice on the other side of the door, then she might try hard to get her spirit back out of the bottle, don’t you know. And once she had hold of her spirit, boo hag could slip off her skin and fly all over the place, too. Ride you in just the shape of her while her skin hang there behind the door. ’Tis true!

  But that’s how my dear mother caught the boo hag. Yes, it was. Now, Mother is long in her grave. And now, boo hag comes back in my old age. I don’t sleep so good these days. Nowadays, this people generation don’t know the tricks, and lack knowing the way my mother knew.

  Well, I know how to deal with some ghost. With some ghost, you just throw a hard remark at them, and they vanish. But I tell you, you never have some rest; you always worry about getting weak after the hag has ridden you. And I am down so far these times. I am feeling fearful and tired, all of my days. I wish for my dear mother. I do.

  SOURCE: Told to Chalmers S. Murray by a seventy-nine-year-old African American woman for the South Carolina Writers’ Project.

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  1 boo hag: Boo hags are part of Gullah lore, though they migrated out into other Southern regions. Like vampires, they draw sustenance from their victims, though using their breath instead of their blood for restorative purposes. They often steal the skin of their victims and wear it while they are riding them.

  2 come the dayclean: at the break of day, or sunrise

  HANTS AND SPOOKS

  THE HEADLESS HANT

  A man and his wife was going along the big road. It was cold and the road was muddy and sticky red, and their feet was mighty nigh froze off, and they was hungry, and it got pitch dark before they got where they was going.

  ’Twan’t long before they came to a big fine house with smoke coming outen the chimney and a fire shining through the winder. It was the kind of a house rich folks lives in, so they went round to the back door and knocked on the back porch. Somebody say, “Come in!” They went in, but they didn’t see nobody.

  They looked up and down and all round, but still they didn’t see nobody. They saw the fire on the hearth with the skillets setting in it all ready for supper to be cooked in ’em. They saw there was meat and flour and lard and salsody and a pot of beans smoking and a rabbit a-biling in a covered pot.

  Still they didn’t see nobody, but they saw everything was ready for somebody. The woman took off her wet shoes and stockings to warm her feet at the fire, and the man took the bucket and lit out for the springhouse to get fresh water for the coffee. They ’lowed they was going to have them brown beans and that molly cottontail and that cornbread and hot coffee in three shakes.

  The woman was toasting her feet when right through the shut door in walks a man and he don’t have no head. He had on his britches and his shoes and his gallushes and his vest and his coat and his shirt and his collar, but he don’t have no head. Jes raw neck and bloody stump.

  And he started to tell the woman, without no mouth to tell her with, how come he happened to come in there that a-way. She mighty nigh jumped outen her skin, but she said, “What in the name of the Lord do you want?” So he said he’s in awful misery, being dead and buried in two pieces. He said somebody kilt him for his money and took him to the cellar and buried him in two pieces, his head in one place and his corpse in ’nother. He said them robbers dug all round trying to find his money, and when they didn’t find it they went off and left him in two pieces, so now he hankers to be put back together so’s to get rid of his misery.

  Then the hant said some other folks had been there and asked him what he wanted but they didn’t say in the name of the Lord, and ’cause she did is how come he could tell her ’bout his misery.

  ’Bout that time the woman’s husband came back from the springhouse with the bucket of water to make the coffee with and set the bucket on the shelf before he saw the hant. Then he saw the hant with the bloody joint of his neck sticking up
and he come nigh jumping outen his skin.

  Then the wife told the hant who her husband is, and the hant begun at the start and told it all over agin ’bout how come he is the way he is. He told ’em if they’d come down into the cellar and find his head and bury him all in one grave he’d make ’em rich.

  They said they would and that they’d get a torch.

  The hant said, “Don’t need no torch.” And he went up to the fire and stuck his front finger in it and it blazed up like a lightwood knot and he led the way down to the cellar by the light.

  They went a long way down steps before they came to the cellar. Then the hant say, “Here’s where my head’s buried and over here’s where the rest of me’s buried. Now yo’ all dig right over yonder where I throw this pot of light and dig till you touch my barrels of gold and silver money.”

  So they dug and dug and sure ’nough they found the barrels of money he’d covered up with the thick cellar floor. Then they dug up the hant’s head and histed the thing on the spade. The hant jes reached over and picked the head offen the spade and put it on his neck. Then he took off his burning finger and stuck it in a candlestick on a box, and still holding on his head, he crawled back into the hole that he had come out of.

  And from under the ground they heard him a-saying, “Yo’ all can have my land, can have my home, can have all my money and be as rich as I was, ’cause you buried me in one piece together, head and corpse.”

  Then they took the candlestick blazing with the hant’s finger and went back upstairs and washed themselves with lye soap. Then the woman made up the cornbread with the spring water and greased the skillet with hogmeat and put in the hoecake and lifted the lid on with the tongs and put coals of fire on top of the lid and round the edges of the skillet, and cooked the hoecake done. Her man put the coffee and water in the pot and set it on the trivet to boil. Then they et that supper of them beans and that rabbit and that hoecake and hot coffee. And they lived there all their lives and had barrels of money to buy vittels and clothes with. And they never heard no more ’bout the man that came upstairs without no head where his head ought to be.

  SOURCE: Bundle of Troubles, and Other Tarheel Tales, by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of North Carolina, ed. W. C. Hendricks, 98–99. The tale was recorded by Nancy Watkins, and it was told by an African American boy named Dez Foy to the Watkins children at the family’s kitchen hearth in Madison, North Carolina.

  “The Headless Hant,” from W. C. Hendricks, ed., Bundle of Trouble and Other Tarheel Tales, 1943. Copyright 1943 by Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder. www.dukeupress.edu.

  IN THE NAME OF THE LORD

  This little girl (this actually happened), she was living with these people. They was makin’ a Cinderella out of her, see, and at night when they get through supper, they use to make her go out on the back porch and wash dishes. And say, every time that she would go out there, something would scare her, and she’d run back in the house. And they’d make her run right back out there. Then she run back—keep on till she get through. So they told the Preacher about it, you know, and he said, “It could be possible the child see something. I’ll come over sometime and sit.”

  And say after they got through with supper, they sent her out on the porch in the dark to wash the dishes, and all at once she screamed and run back in the house, say she saw somethin’. He say, “Now look, daughter, don’t get scared now, but whatever it is, when this thing come to you again, say you ask it, ‘In the name of the Lord, what do you want?’ Say, ‘Either speak or leave me alone.’ ”

  So she went back and the thing appeared again. She say, “What in the name of the Lord do you want with me?”

  He say, “Take—take a pick and shovel and follow me.”

  So she got a shovel and pick and followed him. Say he went on-n-n down—led her down in this little valley like, and say, he say, “Now you dig right here by this tree, and you gonna find a big earthen jar—full of money.” He say, “Lil’ o’ that that runs out, I’m gonna tell you who I want you to give it to, but what stays in there will be yours.” And she dug and found it. And they poured it out till it stop runnin’ and they left enough in there for her and everybody else. And never did pay her no more visits.

  See somebody had buried it and died and they wanted somebody to have it.

  SOURCE: Daryl Cumber Dance, Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans, 29–30.

  “In the Name of the Lord,” from Daryl Cumber Dance, ed., Shuckin’ and Jivin’, 1978. Reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press.

  THE GIRL AND THE PLAT-EYE

  One night in a coast area of the South a young girl went out clamming, but the tide was late going out, and she was very late setting off for home. As she came to a small log bridge, she saw in front of her a huge black cat.

  Its eyes were like balls of fire, and its back was arched. Its tail twitched back and forth, and its hair stood on end. It walked across the log in front of her.

  The girl said out loud, “I’m not afraid. That ain’t no ghost. Ain’t no plat-eye.1 Ain’t no nuthin’!”

  Then the huge black cat turned around and started toward her.

  The girl raised her short clam rake and brought it down, as hard as she could, across the animal’s back. If it had been a real cat, she would have pinned it to the log. But the rake went right through it. The cat rose up on its hind legs and pawed the air.

  The girl took off in the other direction.

  After running awhile, she had to stop for breath. “Thank you, Lord, for delivering me from that cat,” she began, and then she saw the cat. It was as big as a cow, and its eyes burned into her.

  She took off again. Just before she reached a clearing, the cat jumped in front of her. This time it was as big as an ox. Suddenly it vanished behind a tree.

  The girl’s uncle Murphy was a witch doctor. When she told him about the plat-eye in the woods, he gave her some advice: “When you travel in the deep woods where the moss wave low, where Mr. Cooter live and Mr. Moccasin crawl, and the firefly flicker, you carry sulfur and gunpowder mixed in your pocket. Plat-eye can’t stand them smells mixed.”

  From then on, the girl never traveled in the woods at night without loading her pockets with that special mixture, and she never saw a plat-eye again.

  SOURCE: James Haskins, ed., The Headless Haunt, 70–72.

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  1 plat-eye: Spirits who have not been properly buried are called plat-eyes, because they have a single eye dangling from the middle of the forehead. The plat-eye often guards buried treasure.

  THE JACK-O’-MY-LANTERN 1

  Jack sold himself to the devil at the crossroads one night at twelve o’clock. For seven years all power was given to him to do as he pleased, but at the end of that period his soul belonged to the devil. Old Satan called for him, but Jack was ready. He had tacked a piece of old shoe sole up above the door, and asked the devil to get it for him. The devil stood in a chair and reached for it, Jack then took a hammer and nailed the devil’s hand fast, slipping the chair out from under him. Upon a promise of his freedom, Jack then released old Satan. Finally Jack died. He went up to heaven, but those in charge would not let him in. He went down to hell, but the devil threw a chunk of fire at him and told him he was too smart for hell. Jack, deprived of a dwelling, was forced to pick up the chunk of fire and to spend all his time wandering about the earth luring people into swamps and mud holes at night.

  SOURCE: Newbell Niles Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, 135–36.

  “The Jack-o’-My-Lantern,” from Newbell Niles Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro. Copyright © 1926 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.

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  1 Jack-o’-My-Lantern: The Jack-o’-my-L
antern is a variant of the ignis fatuus, also known as a will’-o’wisp, Peg-a-lantern, Kitty-candlestick, Jacket-a-wad, as well as by other names. These wandering flames all belong to the recently dead. Their power to lure mortals to their death can be broken by wearing a coat inside out or pockets turned wrongside out. Or they can be dodged by turning your back to them and running for your life.

  PART III

  SPEECH AND SILENCE: TALKING SKULLS AND SINGING TORTOISES

  Stories about talking skulls can be traced to an Ifa divination tale in which Earth seeks to bear a child. Told that her child, a son, shall wear a crown but that she must sacrifice in order to witness his triumph, Earth fails to sacrifice and dies while the child is still a boy. A farmer cultivating yams hears Earth cry out “Ha! Did you chop my head with your hoe?” Hearing this voice, the farmer rushes to tell the king about this strange talking skull. Staking his own life on the truth of the tale, he initiates a cycle of violence in which he fails to win credibility and is decapitated, along with his executioners. The king intervenes directly to make reparations with sacrifices that usher in a new era of proper graveside and burial rituals: “Ifa says that there is a dead person who has not been buried. Ifa says we should hurry and bury this person in fine style, so that it will not draw many people to their death after it.” This Ifa tale of respect for the dead and sacrificial rites to ensure human survival is reconfigured in African and diasporic cultures to add a second layer of meaning about reckless boasting and braggadocio. “The Talking Skull” becomes a cautionary tale about telling tales, even as it self-reflexively creates a meaningful narrative that undermines its own message.