Spells, haints and such
Black cats, full moons, witches, etc. It’s that time of year. Halloween. The favorite holiday of my beloved grandmother fondly called by me and my cousins, Mrs. Johnston. She enjoyed Halloween much more than Christmas or Easter, so you armchair psychologists can make of that what you will. She delighted in terrifying young (grand) children by hiding in a closet and wailing like a banshee (more on that later) almost as much as she delighted in “switching” our legs with a “hickry stick” for various infractions, such as, speaking. Mrs. Johnston had a penchant for telling stories of ghosts and “haints”. Not the cutesy, short versions that ended in ‘boo!’ either, but gory tales of murder and spirits that she never told you later weren’t true as she tucked you into bed. She liked a lingering fear for us 27 grandchildren. And the more she scared you, the harder she laughed.
Mrs. Johnston also educated us about home remedies, spells, omens, “second sight” or “fey”, good luck, bad luck, and what portends both. We learned to “X out” black cats crossing our path. A triple X-ing ensured that the bad luck was cast off. A bird in the house foretold death. Iron on the corners of your real estate held evil spirits at bay. A horseshoe must always be hunt with the points up so that the luck didn’t run out. An edged instrument under a mattress of a woman giving birth cut the labor paints. Owls were bad luck, no exceptions. Dream of spiders: good luck. Dream of snakes: you have enemies. Dream of fish: someone is pregnant. Wedding dreams portended death. A funeral dream meant a wedding was near. Spirits can’t cross running water. Some women in my family had the “sight” or were “fey,” meaning that they could see things invisible to ordinary people, and could foretell the future. After I reached adulthood, my mother explained that what I’d thought was singing as I watched my grandmother and older aunts churning butter was in actuality a chant, or a “spell” to keep the milk from turning.
And my mother. A woman who attended nursing school and obtained a post-secondary education in the late 1940s, an era when most girls in north Georgia aspired to find a good husband, work in mills or help run the farm. With a BA in nursing as well as certifications in cardiac, prenatal and other fields, she was well prepared for a career in the medical field which carried her all over America as well as abroad as she traveled with my Air Force father.
Mother was an intelligent, educated, traveled person, who read voraciously and followed national and world politics until she passed away at 86. She could “read” tea leaves (called “turning a cup”), read cards, forecast sweethearts and spouses, forecast elections ( quite handy for my profession) and never allowed a bird to fly into her house. These things run deep, this Appalachian-Scotch Irish predilection for the being in touch with things we can’t always see.
I understood this better as I sat in an old bed-n-breakfast inn one night about 10 years ago in southwestern Scotland where my mother’s family originated. I happened across a book entitled “Old Scottish Myths and Superstitions” and they were all there, iron, horseshoes, birds, snakes, churning milk, etc. A “banshee” is a female Scottish ghost who shrieks foretelling death. At least I’d solved the mystery of where all these ridiculous superstitions originated. After all, I’d worked in a field for 20 plus years where only facts and evidence counted, so now I could lay all of my childhood fears to rest. I would end the generational cycle of unreasonable fears and superstitions. I don’t have to worry over what my dreams meant, and if the moon had a ring around it last night. I am logical and rational. But when I returned home and looked into Mrs. Johnston’s eyes peering at me from a 100-year-old photograph, I straightened all my horseshoes, made sure my shoes pointed away from the bed and asked my wife to check the front porch for any telltale signs of a birds nest.