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Folklore: Witch peg
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Folklore: Witch peg |
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Subject: Folklore: Witch peg From: GUEST,Adam Date: 12 Sep 06 - 09:44 PM Hi Mudcatters -- been a long time since I got a chance to visit. Someone wrote me asking if I knew where he could find an image of a "witch peg." Vance Randolph mentions it in his "Ozark Magic and Superstition," as a cedar stick, fashioned with three prongs and placed in the pathway to one's door to ward off witches -- thought to be bad luck to step on or otherwise disturb such a thing. I told this person I'd ask around. So I'm asking! I googled up a British example, http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/libraries/history/2005/luck-house.html but it's a different sort of thing, stuck into the rafters inside the house. If you have anything -- know of one in a museum, or have a scannable image -- would you be so kind as to post here or replay to adavis@truman.edu Many thanks! Adam |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: GUEST,oops Date: 12 Sep 06 - 09:45 PM Sorry -- I thought the "Folklore" header would put it down below the music threads! Adam
-Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: Scoville Date: 12 Sep 06 - 09:48 PM Related to blue bottle trees? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: Sorcha Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:05 PM Never heard of it but I'm not from the Ozarks/Appalachia either. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: Sorcha Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:06 PM Google found this stuff. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: GUEST,Arkie Date: 13 Sep 06 - 09:47 AM We probably had the same inquiry at the Folk Center Archive in Mountain View. We have not located any information so far from publications or from questioning some of the remaining old timers. Most of the references I have seen, and there were not many, refer to the Ozarks. Since much of the traditional culture of the Ozarks is related to the Appalachians I thought the idea of a witch peg was probably brought to the Ozarks but possibly not. Because I have asked quite a few people about the witch peg and none of the ones I have asked have ever heard of such a thing, I am beginning to suspect that it may have had somewhat limited use or if it was used in certain families they prefer not to admit to it. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: Cats Date: 13 Sep 06 - 01:06 PM Try contacting Graham King at the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall [try going via their website]. If he doesn't know, I don't know of anyone who will! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: Leadfingers Date: 13 Sep 06 - 01:37 PM Cats - That's what I was going to suggest !! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch peg From: Kaleea Date: 13 Sep 06 - 02:18 PM My mother's parents (& other family members) migrated from Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma over a hundred years ago. On occasion, I heard Granny & Grandad & my aunts or uncles refer to a few "witchin'" items, and one was a "witchin' peg." Evidently, there were a couple of old ladies they knew of who had such things in their houses very early on, around their little town of Dustin, Oklahoma. I was very curious, but never got to see them, as it was "of the devil." I'll ask my mother to ask her oldest living sister if she rembered seeing one & could describe it. Of course, it was quite common for Grandad & most oldtimers to use a witchin' wand to find the right spot for a new well when the old one dried up, but that was the only "witchin'" item I can recall that they used. Since it was a Baptist preacher who worked that circuit in the early decades of the 1900's, one would NEVER use any such thing "of the devil" as a "witchin' peg!" That is also how the Irish & Scottish Music & dance--which led to the dance hall & drinking & the devil--was tossed aside back then. |
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