Sweeping Dirt in Their Grave

A is 54 years old. She was born in Ft. Waldon, Florida and moved to Sylvania, Georgia at 2 years old. She’d been there all her life until last year (2021). A has a thick Southern accent that’s very pleasant to listen to. She told me about why I should be careful not to sweep over anyone’s feet while sweeping a floor.

“You don’t sweep over anyone’s feet while sweeping a floor because that means you’re sweeping dirt in their grave and that means that you’re wishing them dead, like a curse.”

Another version of this superstition says that sweeping under someone’s feet means they will never get married. For more on Southern broom related folklore, see https://www.weirdsouth.com/post/sweeping-superstitions

The Goodall House

A is 54 years old. She was born in Ft. Waldon, Florida and moved to Sylvania, Georgia at 2 years old. She’d been there all her life until last year (2021). A has a thick Southern accent that’s very pleasant to listen to. She told me this story about a house in the town she grew up in and the curse a travelling evangelist laid on the town.

“This one is a true story… there’s actual… um evidence of this one. There’s a house that still stands… it’s an exhibit now… the Goodall House is what it’s called. The story is… this happened in the town I grew up in, Sylvania, but back then it was called Jacksonborough… um… there was this bridge on highway 301… the Jacksonborough bridge…it got the name because of this community that was there way back in the old days… like the 1800s… um there was a family named Goodall, their last name was Goodall… and there was this preacher trying to find help… he was like a traveling evangelist… he would go around and ask for a bed and a meal… and every house he went to he got turned down… see the townsfolk, they were skeptical and they thought he was out to steal and tell ‘em a bunch of mumbo jumbo, mmm so they turned their back on him. He come to the Goodall house, and they were the only ones in the community that took him in, they gave him food and treated him with the utmost respect and hospitality… and the preacher said from that day forward the only thing left standing in the town would be the Goodall house and the rest of the community would burn to the ground… which it did! So it was a curse put on the town. The bible says be careful of who you entertain because you might be entertaining angels unaware… that’s the moral of the story right there… and that’s the only thing left is the Goodall house and you can go and see it today. I grew up hearing about it because I lived about a quarter mile away from it. The historical society takes care of it now.”

The Goodall House, known as the Dell-Goodall House is a historical site in Sylvania, Georgia. Ashlee’s story differed on one main point compared to what I found on this Georgia tourist site (https://www.n-georgia.com/dell-goodall-house.html) and in this article from the Statesboro Herald (https://www.statesboroherald.com/life/the-house-that-wasnt-cursed/) According to local legend, the traveling preacher was Lorenzo Dow, an eccentric self-ordained Methodist whose unkempt appearance and wild, theatrical public sermons gained him both fame and notoriety. He was vehemently opposed to both alcohol and slavery which made him especially unpopular in Southern states like Georgia. The Statesboro article states Dow was attacked by several townspeople and Goodall rescued him by calming the crowd and offering him his house for the night if he promised to leave in the morning. For more information on Dow, see https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/lorenzo-dow-rowing-life-one-oar/. In A’s version, Dow goes house to house asking for food and shelter. While the moral of both versions is something along the lines of Christian charity and “doing unto others,” A’s version is summed up succinctly in the bible quote of “entertaining angels unaware.” For more information see http://georgiamysteries.blogspot.com/2008/04/jacksonborough-curse.html?m=1

Bunnyman

Content: 

K: So I grew up in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County, right? Um, I have, um, so the story is about, um, it’s based off of a series of murders that happened, uh, sometime in the mid to late 1900s. And the suspect apparently, uh, was seen to be wearing a bunnyman costume when they happened. And it’s like, one of the places that it went down was happened to be down the street from one of my childhood friends. Like in the, he lives in this wooded neighborhood, in the outskirts of Fairfax. And so, you know, the like thing to do as a kid is like, it’s, there’s a tunnel that goes from like the end of the street goes to this, like one lane tunnel. And then, um, on the other side is like a park maybe, but so the dare is to like, get your, you and your friends to get in the car, drive down the road, into the tunnel and then like, turn the car off and then wait for like a couple minutes and then see if he appears. And then, you know, so we did it one time. I’m still alive. <laugh> but yeah, that’s that’s the bunnyman is like the, um, like they never caught him. So he like still roams. 

Me: Right. Did you see, did anything happen or were you all just sitting in a car? 

K: No, I scared them though. <laugh> 

Me: Nice.

Background: K is a 22 year old from Fairfax County, Virginia. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California. 

Context: This story was told to me at a hangout among friends. 

Analysis: Although I didn’t find it as much in the stories I collected for this project, I’ve noticed a trend of dares being associated with ghost stories. The fear of the legend motivates people to go out with their friends in search of a terrifying or potentially dangerous experience. Although these experiences seem to be few and far between, that doesn’t stop the tradition from continuing with each new generation. It seems like most of the lore comes from the performance of seeking out the paranormal rather than the spirit himself. 

The Golden Arm

A is 54 years old. She was born in Ft. Waldon, Florida and moved to Sylvania, Georgia at 2 years old. She’d been there all her life until last year (2021). A has a thick Southern accent that’s very pleasant to listen to. She told me this story, or rather instructions on how to tell the story, in conversation. It’s a ghost story that’s meant to be performed around a campfire.

“There’s one that’s like an old campfire tale, if I can remember how it goes… ok so this woman had a golden arm and this man knew about her right, and he had plotted and planned on how to get that golden arm to sell it and make some money off of it so he went and… he went to try and get it from her while she was asleep and she woke up and he ended up killing her, well as the story goes he killed her, got the golden arm and buried her out in the woods by the swamp and he was… one night out with some friends talking and all of a sudden… after his friends had left… he kept hearing something and it was the woman saying “I want my golden arm…” and remember this is by the campfire and it’s dark so each time you repeat that line “I want my golden arm” you have to say it louder and louder (laughing) and then you pick someone that’s sitting near you and you yell out “you have it!” and grab ‘em! It scared the bejesus out of me every time I heard it! I was probably 13 when I first heard it, you know we went on family trips with friends… on weekend trips out by the river so… I used to tell it too.”

According to John Burrison (see Burrison, John A. (1968). “The Golden Arm” The Folk Tale And Its Literary Use By Mark Twain and Joel C. Harris. Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia State College. pp. 1–23) The Golden Arm or ATU 366 (see http://www.mftd.org/index.php?action=atu&src=atu&id=366) is a very old folktale that has been documented for 200 years but its oral tradition goes back further. The belief underlying the tale is that the dead “can find no rest until its physical remains are intact.” The lesson of the tale may initially have been respect for the dead, but variations have made it a cautionary tale about greed. There are many variations across different cultures where the missing item is not an arm, but some other body part. In media, the tale was told around a campfire by Andy Griffith in a T.V. show. A version similar to the one A told me was a favorite of Mark Twain’s and can be found in How to tell a story and other Essays (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3250/3250-h/3250-h.htm#link2H_4_0003) For more about Mark Twain’s version and a fun but somewhat unrelated story about a ghostly Twain and copyright law please see https://marktwainstudies.com/happy-halloween-twains-favorite-ghost-story-and-twain-speaks-from-the-netherworld/

Hush little baby…

Content:

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word

Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird won’t sing, 

Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring

And if that diamond ring turns to brass,

Mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass.

And if that looking glass gets broke,

Mama’s gonna buy you a mountain goat.”

Background: The informant, S, is a 21 year old who grew up in the southeast United States. Her mother often sang her this song to get her to fall asleep as a child. S’s mother and grandmother are from the southeast U.S., as well. 

Context: S asked her mother what the lyrics to the “mockingbird lullaby” she often sang to S were. S then typed the lyrics and sent them to me via email. 

Analysis: This song, which is sung to babies to fall asleep, is thought to be a regional lullaby for the Southeast United States. It was first collected in Virginia in 1918, and another version with different lyrics was found shortly after in North Carolina. S heard this song when she was living in Georgia. 

See also: For a published literary adaptation of this lullaby, see: Frazee, Marla. Hush, Little Baby: A Folk Song with Pictures. United States, Browndeer Press, 2003.