Browse:Witch-Riding and Doctors (Volume 1, entries 536–544)
Witch-Riding and Doctors
Volume 1, entries 536–544. Source context: SPIRITS → THE HAG - WITCH IN HAG FORM. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 536
This happened down here in Charlotte [County, Virginia] about fifty-one years ago [1886]. They used to say it was something they called The Old Hag. (The Old Hag.) Used to ride folks. And this old man used to come to this other man's house and ride him like a horse. It's a fact, he used to ride this old man. And it was this old lady over there tell him what to do - this old witch tell him what to do, say, "Stanely [Stanley?], you go and get you a bottle tonight and put it right by your bed and when dat ole hag jump on you - course you can't get dat bottle [while he's riding you], but the time he jump off you, you grabs de bottle and makes your water in it 'fore he get out de house."
[Like No. 531, this is another good trick, if you can do it!]
And this ole man did that. And the next morning the old man that was doing de riding, he come back there - he come back and he'd been walking round and talking round, looked kind of draggy-fied, kind of ashamed, downcast, and all that thing. But this old man, he didn't said anything - [didn't] said why did he ever come again - walking round and talking round, and the fellow said nuthin', and the third time round he said, "Goodness sakes, you got me tie up - I want you to please turn me loose."
(What do you mean by tied up - he couldn't make water?)
Couldn't make water - and he say, "No sir, I ain't got you tie up - you tie yourself up. he says, "Yes," he says, "this is the last place I stays at - please turn me loose." So he pleaded wit him and he promised him dat he wouldn't ride him no more, so the ole man turn him loose. And that was a fact because dat happened since I was a child like that.
The informant reports the designation The Old Hag; the male rider and quoted adviser remain distinct in the account.
Entry 537
Ah said dat de witch got mad wit me one day 'bout mah husband. (Did you call her a witch - a colored witch?) [I am repeating what she had previously said.] Yes sir - she's daid though now, but she come dat night an' got at me 'cause ah didn't let 'er sew on mah machine an' she said, "Fo'kses be here sewin' on dat machine an' you'll be gone." An' she lit right on me - ah had a little baby an' she took de baby an' laid him off aside - then she jumped - said she didn't Wanta hurt de baby - said, "Ah'll kill you tonight." She jumped on me an' she caught me right in my throat here - an' yo' know yo' can't talk plain when dey ketch yo' an' ah jes' could mumble - mumble - an' mah husban' he wus asleep - sleepin' in another bed an' he heard me groaning. So he jumped an' run up in de room where ah wus an' asked me whut on earth de mattah, an' ah said it wus a woman, "Dat woman whut worked wit you, she jumped on me jes' now." An' when she went to go out, de house popped - an' she said, "Ah didn't git chah dis time."
(She went out of the house, how?)
De house popped when she went to go out. An' ah tole 'er, ah say, "You didn't git me dis time," ah say, "you won't nevah git me, '' 'cause she didn't know ah knowed dis trick about whut to do tuh witches. Ah jumps up an' made de watah an' put de bottle up de chimley - turn de bottle up - den in a day or two she come dere beggin' me to take 'er down, beggin' me to take 'er down. Ah tole 'er, 'Take yo' down for what, ' ah said, "ah didn't put chew nowhere." She say, "Yes, yo' got me up de chimley." An' she jes' - an begs me to take 'er down. An' dey said it ought nevah been done - ought nevah took de bottle down - oughta jes' let 'er die. Yes sir. (What did you do then with that bottle? When you released her, what did you do with that bottle?) It was a black bottle. [See also No. 40. Here is the deadly black bottle formerly much used in the New Orleans area.]
(It was a black bottle - you took the bottle out of the chimley?)
Yes sir.
(So she could be all right. What did you do with the bottle?)
Ah just took it an' chunked it away. Dey tole me to chunk it in runnin' watah an' ah chunked it, an' she jes' goin' it all de time - she nevah was satisfied nowhere.
(Did that happen to her? She didn't ride you any more?)
No sir. She nevah bothered me no more.
(Who told you that old prank - where did you hear it?)
Well, a ole lady. She was ole, too - she tole me to do dat.
(A colored woman or a white woman?)
Colored woman.
(Where did this happen - what county?)
Marengo [County], Alabama.
(How long ago was that?)
Dat's been now about thirty-five years ago. [This is my only example of a witch putting a bad mouth on a sleeping or half- sleeping person.]
Entry 538
Nine pins and nine needles.
(Yes?)
You see, you put haids down and tails up, and heads down and tails up [alternate them] - say, to keep the witch away from your house.
(To keep the witch away. Where Would he put these?)
You just stick 'em in a bottle.
(I see. Who told you that?)
His name was Simon Pugh.
(Pugh. Well, what was he - was he a root doctor?)
He called hisself to be a root doctor and also a preacher.
(I see - that was down in North Carolina.)
That's right - in Littleton, North Carolina.
Entry 539
(They do what?)
Three tacks, new tacks, in the doorsill and that broke 'em off of her. I've heard her tell that.
(These hags riding her - or whatever it was?)
Yes - everwhat it was, they use to ride her. I remember her making this awful noise - leastways I was a great big girl but we used to be afraid of her when she lie down and go to sleep, and run and leave the house and get somebody to come in and to shake her. I 'member one [once] we'd taken a broom and throwed on de bed on her - we were afraid to go to her - she was carryin' on so. And so the way she got broke of them, I heard her say that she went to some old root doctor and he told her to go to the store and buy a new box of tacks - drive three new tacks in the doorsill in her bedroom and said they couldn't cross those tacks. I'd heard that story - when you ask me, things come to me.
Entry 540
De same thing as ah said - yo' kin take a bread sifter and a fork, jest put de fork in de bread sifter and set dem down on de chair by de side of de bed, and he'll be right dere till morning trying to count de holes.
(What does he look like in the morning?)
Ah nevah caught one. But ah've had some few [patients] to come tuh me for dat, an' ah tole 'em to do dat and dey'd jump out of bed and run, leave 'em dere. Dey looked like a man was skint [skinned] - look like a person what was skint, had just been skint like yo'd skin a cow. It's his frame standing dere and he slip out of his hide.
Entry 541
I was about ten years old. Well, mah grandmother used to tell me if ah wouldn't be good that a hag. she would come at night an' ride me. Well, ah never did believe it tull - when ah'd go to bed, jis' about ev'ry mawnin' jis' about fo' 'clock, it would always be some dark woman would come an' git right on mah bed an' seemed if she tried to choke me. An' she'd be chokin' me an' chokin' me an' it seemed like always jis' de time ah'd be tryin' tuh holler she'd choke me all de tighter. Well, she kept doin' dat fer about a week - she never would choke me to death but she always would choke me where ah really would be stran- gled. She did dat about two weeks out of ev'ry month an' it wus jes' like dat fer about six months. De doctor he said ah was nervous. So my mother she kept on tryin' ev'rythin' an' so a ole lady [doctor] tole her to take straws an' put 'em in de center of bed at night when ah go to bed, like a cross, an' dat would stop it. Well, she tried dat - two crosses dere fer a while an' fer a while de woman she'd always come an' bother me but she never would come near to choke me, she'd stand off with one of her hands up in front of her face. So mah mother she started to put mah brother in de bed to sleep with me. Well, instead of bothering me de woman would go to mah brother an' bother him, an' she did him de same way she did me fer a long time until she had him where he Was gittin' pore - losin' weight all de time. She tried de straws on mah brother but dey wouldn't help him at all. So she would take him an' put him in bed with her an she could wake up an' really see him choking at night. But de woman never did come bother me long as: de straws was in mah bed. So de ole lady tole my mother that it wasn't but one thing fer her to do, that Was to burn this heah sulphur in all de rooms at night befo' we go to bed - shut de windahs tight down an' wouldn't open up de windahs no mo' atall at night to let air in - let her in - fer at least a month. So mah mother she did dat for at least a month. Well, grad'lly - we'd always hear a noise lak somebody scratchin' on de side of de windahpane tryin' to git in. So purty soon it stopped an' mah mother she could raise de windahs again. But always, along about around de full of de moon, dis woman she'd come back. She always would come back an' yo' could hear her laugh - a funny laugh at night.
(But she never bothered you any more?)
Nevah bothered us any more but she always jes' come back an' laughed.
Entry 542
Well, I know a lady one time that was sick from - ah don't know what was de cause of her sickness, but they said that they thought someone was mad at her and they claimed that the witches Was riding her. But what I was just speaking about was here in - this has been 'round about twenty-one years ago. And - oh, the witches would ride 'er nights. A witch got after her one day in the daytime and she described the lady's dress and called de lady's name, and de lady came there to de house that day. She said the man [doctor] told her that he would bring her there to her. And the lady came there and she said this lady had on a blue dress with white round the sleeves - said that she had a real fat wrist. And this lady, we children used to call her butter-wrist. She wasn't neither light nor red; she was a kind of a pumpkin color and we used to call her butter- wrist - her complextion, you know. And so she said this lady was mad with her - see, over a young man. Seems if - she had a niece that, why she had raised, and this young man you know had visited her [the niece] once or twice and he liked this other girl better than he did her, and someone had circulated the news that they were married, going to marry. And this girl [niece] got sick, and then when she began to get better, why then this witch commenced to bother her. And sometimes you could be settin' beside of her bed and you could hear just like someone came in the door, but the door would still be shut. Sometimes the door would shake and the people would say it was the wind. And then you would hear her keeping [imitating?] the noise - see if it would go away. She'd say, "That witch pest is after me," says, "there she go." And so one night we said we were going to stay there and watch - I was always like a little curiosity. So we said we were going to set up and watch for her that night. So they heard 'em say you could hang a sifter over the door, you know, or over your bed, and the witch couldn't bother you because it had to count all those holes, and before they'd get through counting those holes it would be dawn. So we hung the sifter up and then they crossed nine needles and nine pins in the back - said they would stick in her when she come down the back of the fireplace.
(Where did they cross these needles and pins?)
In the back of the fireplace - you know, the fireplace that has the little shoulders, two of them. And you cross them, you see, and they gets hot. And they took a horseshoe and hung up over the door [demonstrates] - see, that will keep evil ones out.
(They hung it with the open part up - I see.)
Yes - see they hangs this horseshoe with the open part up. Say, long as that horseshoe up over the door with the open part up - and we'd taken and got us a box of new cayenne pepper and a box of salt and a box of sulphur, and we mixed that together and put some of that in a thin bag or a piece like mosquito lawn, so it would just set right down over the door, and anyone come in, see, opening the screen door, why that would touch it, you see. Well, they say a witch, you know, doesn't have any skin on, you see, and if that salt and pepper gets on 'em, you see, that will hurt them. And so then we all goes in de room and lays down and we leaves de door open a crack so we could watch her bed, and so we fixes de light out there in her room. And so we takes some Sunday School books - a man told us to take some Sunday School books and Bibles and turn to a certain chapter in de Bible, but have de whole nine chapters - books of de same chapter and lays 'em open - said, and she would come and we could see her in person. Said the person -
(They used nine books?)
Uh-huh - there wouldn't be any way fer her to get on de bed.
(Nine books of what - nine different Bibles?)
Nine Bibles, all the same chapters - see, use those Sunday School books or whatever books you can; little Bible stories that have the same chapter, just like the 15th Chapter of John, you see, or the Psalms. Well, you see, we had difficulty in getting nine Bibles and they used Sunday School books with them. And you take those Sunday School books, and you just lie them down, you see, on de side of de bed and one to the head of de bed and one to de foot and then she takes the Bible, you see, and lies that right 'cross her breast. [Nine Bibles should be used - three on each side of the bed, one at head and foot of bed, and one on the breast; the latter must be a Bible. These nine books are unevenly, odd-numberly placed.] And so, we hadn't just finished fixing that and been in the room more than thirty-five minutes before she says, "Here she is" - says, "here's Miz So-and- So" - says, "here's Miz So-and-So." She said that she made a shadow between her and de light. She says, "Hurry up - she's done blowed out dat light - hurry up and come on out with a lamp - she's done gone and blowed out de light." The lady [aunt] she says, "No, she ain't." "That was her shadow," says [bewitched woman], 'that's her'" - says, "that's her - the light's not out - that's her - she's in between me and the light - ah thought mah light was out." And the door shook again, but we didn't fix but one door, and then she come in the back door. There was two back doors and a shed on the house, and we didn't fix both of those back doors because it usually been the front door, see, where we come in to, the nearer the girl's bed - see, the bed was like there and we fixed the door there, but we didn't fix these two back doors. So, when she went through this door it just shook, and the back door just opened and shut, and we opened the door - opened the inside door and it looked just like looking out through her kitchen door, and it was still so just like we left it.
(Did you see anything at all?)
No, we didn't see anything, but she seen it.
Entry 543
Her daughter wouldn't let her be shrouded.
(Well, why wouldn't they let her be shrouded - what's the idea of that?)
Well, they said people would find out where she was.
(Oh, I see.)
You see, that was to keep people from finding - knowing where she was, and she had been shot in her hip, and she was crippled in her hip. Of course, you know, she wasn't shot person'ly - she fell on the road and it [her hip] broke, but they said a man had drew her pitchure in the woods, you know. He had a little store and each and ev'ry night someone would go in there, you know, and get things outen the store and he couldn't see nowheres they entered. So a man [doctor] told him one day what to do to prevent 'em - says, "Now, you put a hacksaw in there [storeroom? or keyhole?].
(A hacksaw?)
A hacksaw - that's one of them things with a whole lots of picks sticking up. I don't know now what you use it for. [He] says, "When you come back tomorrow, you kin sprinkle some salt and pepper 'round here near the keyhole" - says, "and when you come back tomorrow morning, she'll be standing out chere anxious fer you to go in" - says, "and don't you open the door and let her in" - says, "if you do, why you can't taken it offen her." So that morning, the man says, when he came down, why she was standing there. And she says, "Ah been here waiting and waiting fer you fer hours." [He] says she just hollered at him. [She] says, "And ah want some matches. I can't make a fire," she says, "and cook me and my children nothing to eat." He says, "Well, I'm sorry, I haven't got no matches, '' says, "I'm started down to the post office and I haven't got time to go in the store. I'm in a hurry." And he went right on. Ooh, they says she just shook and she ran on then and started running home. So he went on back to the house - instead of keeping on to the post office, he went on back to the house. And he'd always heard that you could draw a person if you [the person] was a witch and draw dey pitchure on a shingle, or eitherwise on a cake of bread, you know, like people used to bake bread to a fireplace, flour bread. I don't know whether you've heard talk of it but they could.
(Flour bread?)
Yes, take and make it up like you gon'a make biscuits and put it on a griddle and sit it up to a fire - in front of a fireplace and let it bake. And he draw her pitchure as near as he could, or the image of her, you know, and taken it back in de woods and shot it - cut up silver money and put in there instead of the shots in de shell and shot it. And they said that she was just about a quarter of a mile from home and on a plain straight road, smooth road - no roots, not anything - and when he shot that pitchure just through de hip, she fell. Her leg broke - her hip. And so de people went and found her - she hollered and the people came. And she said she had stumped her foot over a root and there wasn't any root there, and they said she had a broken hip. And so her daughter wouldn't let anyone shroud her when she died.
Entry 544
So we didn't have any more trouble. Ah seen a man [doctor] and this where I was telling you about de frogs. So ah told him [about the witch or hag bothering his mother]. And he told me - it's about a piece of beef, says, "We goin' tuh kill beef tomorrow,"' say, "when you buy a piece of beef, be sure and have a piece of silver money to pay for it - you fetch it but I give it back to you." He says, [When] "you buy this piece of beef," says, "don't carry any pan or nothing out there for tuh bring in de house then, but let the blood drop from that beef right on straight on through the house, from beginning right on in the kitchen," say, "and you won't be bothered anymore, ' and he says, "they might come but they cain't come in."
(Was he a white man or a colored man?)
No, he was a colored man.
(Colored man.)
He was a colored man. And so I went down there to the gate and got the beef and he gave me a piece of beef liver too, see, and I had a piece [of beef] in each hand and de blood was just a-dripping, and it dripped right all round there [the gate]. And I carried it in de kitchen and put it on de table and I'd taken a cloth and wiped my hands. And my mother called me - she was helpl's then, and she called me then to come in and get the [silver] money [for the man] and I threw this cloth right on de floor. And it seems - looked like de blood just got right down there. And my sister was out there and so she picked it up and hung up beside de door. Well, you see it was so bloody and all because it was - the porch, see, down there. They had one of those walkways [breezeway or dogtrot] between the house, and she hung it up there. And see, there was so much blood on it until it just ran up there, you know, against the side of de door - you know, like you have a nail for to hang a pan or somepin beside de door. So, that was a Saturday evening [afternoon] round about two o'clock. So, I hung de beef up in de kitchen. He tole me to put just a piece of paper or somepin lak that what I could throw right on away, under it fer to ketch the drops. And that Saturday night 'tween nine and ten o'clock my mother lied down. So then, brother and I, and my niece what stayed there with us - we sits round dere. There wasn't but three of us dere to home - and my sister's child stayed with us. And so we wasn't more than in the bed good before my mother called me and she says, "There's [they are] right round de house." And I got out and looked and I didn't see anything at all. She says, "Is there [they are there]." And we had some geese and they was just de same as a dog in de yard when there Was anything out there, and they was just running round and keeping a noise, just lak whenever a dog would get dere in de yard, or some person - just a-honking and keeping a lots of noise, and it seems like I had de funniest feeling to de shoes. And she says, "It was right there in that window. It was in the summertime and we had the screen in the window, wire tacked in. We didn't use drawed [sliding] screens - used de wire nailed in - and de curtain were up, and see there was a moon shining just as pretty and bright as day. And she said they were standing right dere in dat window, 'Cause ah seed 'em, ' says, "and I wouldn't tell you that there was somebody there, 'cause I was afraid you would get frightened and I know you would take the gun and shoot," she says, "and then that would tear my nerves all to pieces." "Well, '' ah says, '"mother, ah does feel funny. She says, "Well, when you went out in de other room, dey come back," she says, "you go back in the other room and see will dey come back." Ah says, "Well, if dey do, you kin'ly knock on de house or somepin." And she says, "Ah clear up mah throat." So I went on back den in de livingroom and went on through in de shedroom, and she said, "Here dey is," and I went back and looked and ah couldn't see anything. My brother and I we took de gun and shot and ah thought my mother would die. And I've been shootin' dat gun ever since I guess I was round about ten year old, and had never had it kick before. But I don't figure though where it kicked me - see, I didn't hold it fast 'nuff when I was shootin' in de excitement, but I know it was a miserable feelin'. And those geese kicked up until day. That's my last great experience that I've had with witches.
[After informant leaves I comment to microphone.]
(And that ended the witch story end of 438 repeated things of yesterday because of bad recording.) [Elizabeth City, N. Car., (438), 410:1.] [Although relations between layman and doctor were previously mentioned, here we will consider in greater detail and wider field laymen's thoughts about and experiences with doctors. This will complete our preparation for meeting doctors personally in the following interview section. Where to begin is the prqblem because doctors are many-sided persons - healer, witch doctor, ghost layer, seer, fortune-teller, shrine keeper, spiritual, buried-treasure hunter, love adviser, courtroom specialist, gambling consultant, bootlegger's friend, and just about anything wanted. I start with a rather broad subject I must call diagnosis.]