Subject:Immobility
Entries
Entry 75
There was a fellow who was gambling. His name was Jacob Brown. A lot of people was gambling and this Jacob Brown made a terrible excitement by saying that if he would lost his last dollar, he would curse God and die. There was a tree that had been blown down and they all had this place where they were gambling right close to this tree. And after he had lost his last dollar he cursed God and he went to this tree to sit down. So he laid upon the log. And after laying there he could not be moved. And specta- tors went there to see him. And after viewing his body laying out on the tree, they pitied his condition and some tried to get him away, and they could in no ways move him. So one day three preachers went there to see what was the trouble and so they viewed the place and the man likewise; and they decided that they would cut this log [cut out the piece of tree upon which he was lying] in order that they could move the man away. And when they began to cut, the log began to bleed; so therefore, they couldn't move this man and so they left him. That man lived according to my understanding about two months and nobody could move him off of that log. [Old Point Comfort, Va., (27), Ed.; happened about 1906 in Georgia, so my informant says - actually, this immobility being a folk theme in many forms, see Arrestation in FACI,2ed., Pp. 817-18, etc.]