Subject:Shrouds
Entries
Entry 10467
Witch gets out of skin. "Two witches witchcraftin' to- gether, riding people. When they go out the skin, they put on a shroud-like somepin with wings hangin' down. I'll say, Through de keyhole; you'll say Right after you etc."
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.