Witches, Ghosts, and Signs: Folklore of the Southern Appalachians

I am a heredity witch, however I would never do any of the things that are written in this book! I certainly love this little book. It was not exactly what I expected to get when I bought it, but couldn't return it as when I started to read I couldn't stop. My dad was born and raised in the Hollow of Oak Hill WV and went to Fayetteville high school. He then come to Michigan and my great grandma on my mom's side gave him a few acres to build a home and start family life after he was in the Air Force and out of state in Arizona and then Greenland. So many of the things in this book are HIM!! the way he talks to this day, and not surprising I speak some of my words just as he still does at 91 yrs. My dad started planting and farming at the age of 10 and he just bragged to me a week or so ago about his plantings this year. My mother always worried about the hot sun as he got older and worked so hard after retiring from the Railroad where he spent his entire career. I told her not to worry at all, he would either do one of two things, die in the gardens or on the golf course. Its that simple, and in my book beautiful as that is the way we would all love to transition doing something we love. Both sides of my dad's family are early settlers here in the states and my dad is one of 18 children, a few being half brothers and sisters. Then they had borders. My dad used to talk about coming home from school and thinking they might not eat that night, but by dinner my dear grandma had a full course of food on the table for all those hungry mouths. In the book where they describe the bean parties, and the corn parties I had to laugh as that went right through our generation. Along with a lot of other foods and apples and pears and concord grapes that my mom and dad worked so hard to put up at harvest for us to have good food for the winters and good for us also. The parties involved anyone who come by the house, and I have to laugh now reading this book, I wonder how many of them just really didn't want to be bothered but couldn't tell my dad NO! He would give the shirt off his back and always gave his fruits and veggies to friends and church folk alike. This all ended with my generation, I am almost 68 and my sister is 65 and this next generation took absolutely no interest in cooking, baking and putting up veggies as I did. I loved it and even went back to help my mom the best I could when I knew they had a lot to do. This book is about the most beautiful state in the UNION and I will never back down from that. There is just nothing like driving through WV and going back by grandma's old house which is no longer there, but feeling the mountains hugging me and it is a very comforting thing to feel. I love WV and spent many summers there with my family having the time of my life. In the winter we buried my grandma in the family cemetery on a day with about 12 inches of snow back in 1978 and it was miserable driving home back to Michigan, however, those mountains covered in snow will take your breathe away, or so it did mine. There is nothing like WV, it is as John Denver said, almost heaven... he was truly right on that one. Witches get a lot of bad rap but we are good people who love the land, and take care of it as Great Spirit wanted us to. We are white, and we don't cast spells on people as it comes right back to you as if you can't tell in this little gem of a book. We practice only the good! Back in the day people were so close to our mother earth, they knew more than most now, they didn't have a phone hanging off their ear, nor a radio blasting off, no a television to watch all day, they spent their time next to nature as I do, and this is why in one story a man said " he didn't want to move the stones that were sitting there as they felt like a family, alive " it is true, even the stones are alive and know how we are treating them!! I have had the same experiences and reacted as he did. I wish for all of you to read this book if you want to understand the folklore and the different things that went on in the mountains of this most gorgeous state of ours. People can go an visit anywhere in the world, but you won't see anything more beautiful than WEST VIRGINIA!! I love it! Pleas read this little book, you will love it. Amazon please keep this book alive and let the generations read it, there are so many truths in it and so many things that our news generations have no idea of, good stuff for them to learn and appreciate. I just can't say enough about this little book! 1 million stars +t

Full disclosure: I am one of Dr. Gainer's many grandchildren. Throughout the years of my childhood, we would trundle over the mountains from the Tidewater of Virginia, to my grandparents' house in Gilmer County, WV, for our Summer Vacation. "Papa" Gainer was a wonder to children. He was funny and loved to sing and tell funny stories. Invariably, he would load us up on the local ghost lore, always prefacing a story with, "Now this story is absolutely true, it happened to so-and-so (insert name of neighbor or relative here) just on the other side of that ridge (pointing out the living room window)." I'm not sure if he realized how hard it was to sleep the night of one of those story-telling sessions! Many years later, we were thrilled to have a book that contained those very stories.While my perspective as to the value of this book is colored by the privilege I had of being able to hear much of the subject matter first-hand from the author, I feel proud that the book is first and foremost of high scholarly value. It, and "Folk Songs From the West Virginia Hills" is a compilation of his field work and of his lectures during his time as a professor at West Virginia University. To see one of Dr. Gainer's works translated to Kindle is particularly pleasing to me, because it not only signifies the worth of the text, but it makes me wonder what he would have thought of an electronic reader. Having the Kindle edition available insures that this text will always be available to students and to anyone who wants to know more about early Appalachian culture.I hope that "Folk Songs From the West Virginia Hills" also will be preserved in Kindle edition some day, for generations of students to come.

I'm writing a book set in WV, and wanted to broaden my knowledge of Appalachian folklore. Not only did I get that, but there's so much information about culture, language, and basic history that far exceeded my expectations. I love it!

This is a great read, and I'm sure the book is incredibly valuable for academic studies of folklore. As casual reader interested in regional stories, some of the content beomes redundant. But that is not the point: the point is that variations on themes have been dutifully recorded, along with their sources. However, I would suggest for any marginally curious readers like me, picking up this book to pass a pleasant hour, that you understand what you're actually paying for is a lot of the same stories and beliefs told in different ways. If you were expecting a compilation-style collection of unique material, you will be disappointed. Personally, though, I still found it all very interesting.

I began looking at books by James Gay Jones on Appalachian folklore and ghost stories and in the process I found a book by Professor Patrick W. Gainer of West Virginia titled Witches Ghosts and Signs that I continue to return to because of his decisive stand against negative stereotyping that has been directed toward Appalachia and the disassociation that it has caused internally. Appalachia remains in many respects a region regaining a lost identity. The work that Patrick W. Gainer did as a scholar in Witches Ghosts and Signs has helped to redirect more positively the perception of the culture within itself and at large.