H. Byron Ballard telling us ghost stories from Asheville is on YouTube:

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About the Guest: H. Byron Ballard

Byron has studied and practiced Appalachian folk magic for half a century. (She tells us that the term Appalachian Granny Magic was a manufactured term, never used by the original practitioners.) She’s a senior priestess at and a founder of Mother Grove Goddess Temple, and also a pastor. She also knows a lot of stories about Asheville hauntings, as she’s guided ghost tours there.

Her books on traditional Appalachian craft are published by Llewellyn Press. Order her books from Byron’s local indie bookstore at malaprops.com, and she’ll sign it for you before it is shipped. Also visit her website myvillagewitch.com or follow her on Facebook as H. Byron Ballard, author, Witch About Town, for events and more info.

Show notes

The Lost Sea of Appalachia

The Lost Sea, within Craighead Caverns near Sweetwater, Tennessee, is the world’s second-largest non-sub-glacial underground lake. Craighead Caverns themselves have been in use for centuries, originally by Cherokee under the ownership of Chief Craighead, then for mining saltpeter to make gunpowder during the Civil War, then for bootlegging moonshine during the Prohibition Era.

In the nineteen-noughties, a little boy named Ben was spelunking deep in the network of caves under Appalachia. He came upon a small opening, and squirmed his way inside. When he held up his lantern, he found himself within an enormous underground room. The cavern was so large, the boy couldn’t see the walls of the cave.

Intrepid Ben started tossing mud at the walls, thinking he would use this rudimentary echolocation to determine how deep the cave was…but all he heard was splashing. Indeed, the cavern was full of water, stretching farther than the light could travel. When he finally convinced his father to come check out the cave, the tiny subterranean entrance to the lake was blocked by rising water.

Where does the Lost Sea’s water come from?

The Lost Sea of Appalachia is pitch black, the dark water seemingly bottomless. The only creatures known to live in the lake are the tagged rainbowless rainbow trout that were released there by researchers in the 1970s in an attempt to trace the source of the water. Becky says that, although the water in the lake rises and falls, no human has ever been able to figure out the source. The fish were no help, as they stayed put, slowly starving to death in the isolated and previously lifeless dark water.

How big is the Lost Sea of Appalachia?

Looking at it from the surface, the massive underground lake is about 800′ x 220′. But divers have found underground rooms adjacent to the part of the lake that is visible from the surface that seem to have no end. Apparently, the divers have always had to turn back before ever finding the boundary. So the Lost Sea could be much larger down deep.

Visiting the Lost Sea of Appalachia

A modern tourist attraction exists there today: The Lost Sea Adventure. Nowadays you can visit the Lost Sea in Craighead Caverns without spelunking your way through dangerous cave cracks. Becky thinks it’s one of the creepiest places on Earth. And she’s going to force Diana to paddle out on the Lost Sea in a canoe, and witness the Feeding Frenzy of Darkness.

We plan to broadcast live from the Lost Sea some time in the first weekend of May, 2024! This will be the same trip where we visit Asheville, to see if the ghost stories are true in person. Follow our socials below for updates and live events.

What are Haints and Boogers in Appalachian Folklore?

In Appalachian slang, the word “haints” sometimes is just synonymous with “ghosts.” “Boogers” are what we call “cryptids” nowadays. They are usually referred to concurrently. Becky points out that in some Afro-Carribean traditions, haints are specifically the type of ghosts you absolutely do not want in your house, as opposed to a benign relative lingering in that rocking chair in the corner. That’s why so many southern houses are protected by haint blue porch ceilings.

How to make an energy trap, or a HEPA filter for negative energy

Byron walked us through the steps on how to make a DIY energy trap for your home.

• Cut out bottom of aluminum pie plan to create a metallic circle.
• Put a dark rock from your own property and a tealight candle in the center of the disc.
• Around the rock, make a circle of heavy salt (like ice cream rock salt).
• Around that, make a circle of regular table salt.
• Light the candle.

But what does a DIY energy trap do?

Byron theorizes that, the way our houses are laid out is ideal for bringing energy in. She says we need to occasionally clean the energy back out of the house so it does not build up. If you haven’t cleared the energy in your house for a while, it can start to take form, or appears to at least. Many of the calls she gets about ghosts are actually just stuck energy. She’s not sure how it works, but 75% of the time, this simple energy trap alone solves her prospective client’s “ghost” problem.

If this energy trap doesn’t quite cut it for you, Byron provides many other DIY field magic tips in Small Magics and her other books. And yes, the tips work even if you don’t live in Appalachia. If you’re not keen on DIY magic, Byron herself might be available to help clear your house.

Why is Appalachian Folk Magic traditionally practiced by women?

If it seems like only women practiced witchcraft in Appalachia, there is a historical reason for that. Traditional gender roles in old Appalachia would’ve delegated nearly all the paid work and political power to men. Basically, men didn’t have any time for practicing magic, because they were the only breadwinners of their families, working 12 hour days in mines and factories. Women, at the time unemployable, traditionally handled the busy work, like searching the woods for wild medicinal plants; dirty work, like dealing with a dead body; and one-off tasks, like emergency healthcare. Whereas now these are valued career fields and have distinct courses of study, remote early settlements wouldn’t have had the work nor resources to support a full-time mortician or doctor. The knowledge would’ve been passed down from and to the people who had the time to learn it: mainly women.

And besides, most Appalachian men had no use for magic, as they had practical power to influence their world. Byron says that the only Appalachian folk magic traditionally practiced by men was Water Witching. Nowadays, as we claw our way ever closer towards true gender equality, Appalachian folk magic is practiced by people of all genders.

But is there some inherent biological process tying field magic to womanhood?

Byron mostly feels and senses spirits, only rarely seeing ghosts visually. She is, however, sandwiched between 2 generations of women who naturally see spirits through clairvoyance. In fact, all the women in her family are told from an early age, that, upon menarche, they will receive an inherited psychic gift. Familial gifts include precognitive dreaming, hands on healing, second sight, clairvoyance, and clairsentience.

She thinks of menarche as having a biological reason to cause a shift in perception: protecting one’s young through intuition. She also advises middle-aged women about the supernatural nature of perimenopause. It is, perhaps, times of great hormonal shifts that awaken the senses to the supernatural world. Because many people who were born with ovaries experience more of these shifts throughout a lifetime than those without (like pregnancy and menopause, in addition to puberty), they may on average have more access to these supernatural perceptions. Interestingly, she also associates the supernatural nature of puberty and other hormonal changes as potential catalysts for poltergeist activity.

Are poltergeists really just bundled up feminine fury?

Byron tells us that many stories of poltergeist activity she’s called out for around Asheville are actually caused by oppressed anger, seeping out energetically, not actual ghosts. So why do people ascribe poltergeist activity to ghosts? Byron theorizes that it’s easier to accept the idea that the house is haunted than to come to terms with the idea that you or your teenager is so full of bottled up rage that it’s manifesting physically. We still don’t have a clear explanation for the nature of this type of manifestation, but this is far from the first time we’ve heard poltergeists explained this way.

Do you have any ghost stories from Asheville?

Have you visited the Lost Sea of Appalachia to feed the forsaken fishes? Or are the women in your Appalachian family vested with psychic abilities? Homespun Haints is looking for people from Asheville and Appalachia with personal ghost experiences to tell their stories on our future episodes—submit yours today to join us, and have a spooky day!

The post All the Haints in Asheville appeared first on Homespun Haints.

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About Today’s Guest: Ronda Caudill

Ronda Caudill, PhD, had a very religious upbringing. The strict denial of the supernatural conflicted with her lived experience when, at just 5 years old, she began seeing ghosts. At 15, she shed the mantle of organized religion to become a practicing pagan and witch. At 19, she followed in the footsteps of her paternal grandmother (a table tipper in the 1920’s) and her aunt (an Appalachian Granny Woman), and began offering psychic readings to family.

Ronda has been a professional psychic medium for 18 years and began tea leaf reading (tasseography) at the age of 19. Ronda has also practiced mirror scrying, table tipping, using dowsing rods, pendulums and spirit boards for over thirty years. She’s also a Reiki master and teacher. She is the lead psychic for The Southern Research Society, or SRS Paranormal. She recently purchased the Nickerson-Snead House in Glade Spring, VA (the skinny part between Tennessee and West Virginia), and is in the process of opening a haunted AirBNB therein!

A true pioneer in Pagan education

Ronda is also an author, who uses her talents to educate people about witchcraft traditions. Self-publishing her own books took on a life of its own, and she founded Full Moon Publishing LLC. In 2022, Ronda appeared on the documentary Season of the Witch, produced by Sword & Stone Entertainment and T. Lee Films. This film explores various aspects of and misconceptions around witchcraft. You can watch it on Amazon, Roku, Tubi, or walmart.com.

If you’d like to connect with Ronda, you can follow SRS Paranormal on Facebook and follow Ronda’s Facebook page @rondacaudillphd and Insta @caudillronda.

Show notes

What is Appalachian Granny Magic?

We’ve spoken about the “granny witches” of Appalachia myriad times (although the right words to describe them probably wouldn’t include terms like witch or magic). There might even be a great grandmother in Becky’s family who practiced Appalachian folk magic. Commonly, Southern Appalachian women who practiced this type of folk medicine and faith healing would staunchly declaim the term “witch,” due to its conflict with Protestant Christianity.

Early European settlers of the Appalachian Mountains depended on a local granny witch in the days when the roads were often unpassable. Or when the nearest doctor was so far that there was no chance of survival en-route. Or when the veil of poverty made going to a doctor for something as mundane as flu symptoms seem wasteful.

But did Appalachian Granny Witches practice magic?

Or did they just possess intimate knowledge of local herbs and the common sense wisdom of their ancestors?

The long tradition of folk healing in the Appalachian region can be viewed as granny witchcraft or folk magic, but these are terms most Southern Appalachians won’t use due to their negative connotations within Abrahamic religious communities. According to folklife.si.edu, “Throughout the years of the Spanish Inquisition, religious institutions used the term ‘witch’ to identify someone practicing healing and ritual outside the bounds of the Christian Church.”

Instead, Granny Women’s healing methods were seen as an extension of their strong belief in the Christian God, not as contrary to it. Psalms, Bible verses, and Christian devotions were common elements of their practices. In this context, the term “magic” may refer to the perceived extraordinary effectiveness of their remedies. Also, the deep respect these wise older women commanded in their communities. For most Appalachian Granny Women, their magic existed simply in weaving folk wisdom from generations of common sense and trial and error.

Are there still Granny Women in practice?

Highways and telecommunications have significantly reduced rural Appalachians’ reliance on a local granny witch as a first responder. Since modern medicine’s organized disbandment of as many other healing traditions as possible, traditional and indigenous healing practices in the United States are now viewed as anywhere on a spectrum of ancillary to snake oil (e.g. malicious fakes).

Granny magic is still practiced in modern day Appalachia. Yet today, most people who practice Appalachian folk magic mainly provide services as a gift for their own family, not for the whole community. The more remote the community, however, the higher the chances it will still look to the local Granny Woman before seeking a big city doctor hours away.

What is sympathy magic?

Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on the principles of similarity and contagion. It operates on the belief that like produces like (meaning an effect resembles its cause), and that objects once in contact with each other continue to affect each other at a distance after contact has been severed. Even early Western medical scholars followed the belief that like cures like, which they termed the “Doctrine of Signatures.”

In magic, this concept can manifest through traditions like using effigies or objects to influence people or environments, often seen in the use of voodoo dolls, where actions performed on the doll are believed to affect the person it represents. It also includes beliefs in the influence of one object or being on another based on their former contact, a concept evident in various folk magic throughout the world.

What is root magic?

Root work, in Southern Appalachia and specifically the coastal region of North Carolina, is a spiritual and healing folk magic tradition deeply intertwined with nature, especially plants and herbs. Herbal medicine might be labelled as fringe nowadays, but around 40% of modern pharmaceuticals are derived from natural sources like roots and herbs, often developed based on traditional knowledge and herbal remedies. For example, aspirin originated from the 3,500 year-old practice of using willow bark for pain relief and inflammation. Similarly, the antimalarial drug artemisinin was developed from sweet wormwood. Root workers and granny women knew just what local plants could soothe colic, ease flu symptoms, or heal a bad burn. Their reasoning for why these remedies worked, however, may not have aligned with modern medical concepts.

The term “root magic” is mainly associated with Hoodoo. This religion, founded by enslaved African people in the American South, combines old world African spiritualities with indigenous botanical knowledge. It often incorporates Christian elements in spells.

Is granny magic root work?

Appalachian granny magic similarly used intimate knowledge of native plants to treat ailments and provide medical care in isolated, underserved, poor communities. Yet the average granny magic practitioner wouldn’t typically use the term “root magic” for her practice any more than she’d call it witchcraft. Both folk healing practices contain a deep respect for nature and a belief in the healing and spiritual power of the natural world.

Want more info on granny witchcraft and Appalachian folk magic? Don’t miss our interview with H. Byron Ballard, senior priestess and Village Witch of Asheville, North Carolina! Then, come along as we explore the similar yet distinct practice of Ozark folk magic with author Brandon Weston.

What are Ronda’s tips on how to shield yourself during an investigation?

Are ghosts are intruding on your day-to-day life because of paranormal investigating? These are Ronda’s tips on how to take charge.

• Meditate in advance to put oneself in a safe space,
• work hard at having complete faith in your safety,
• envision a bubble of protection around yourself,
• draw representative boundaries,
• say aloud that the entities cannot attach to you or follow you home in any way,
• carry snowflake obsidian, or pretty much any other black crystal as a protective charm.

Kingsport, TN, Ghost Hunting

Ronda has investigated many haunted places near Kingsport, Becky’s hometown, including:

• The Chester Inn in Jonesborough, TN,
• The Tipton-Haynes Historic Site in Johnson City, TN,
• The Old Deery Inn in Blountville, TN, and
• Rocky Mount museum in Piney Flats,TN, of dead sheep fame.

She also mentioned the following paranormal Appalachian (and other) locations:

• The Hinsdale House in Hinsdale, New York,
• Rockwood Paranormal,
• Rarotonga in the Cook Islands,
• Ghost Hunt Weekends with Tennessee Wraithchasers.

Listen to more Jonesborough ghost stories:

The Haunted AirBNB

Ronda now owns the incredibly haunted 1835 Nickerson-Snead house which is build around a 1700s cabin by Francis Kincannon. It was once a Fort, then a civil war hospital and morgue. Now it houses the headquarters of SRS Paranormal. People see the spirit of Betsy Snead wandering the house, calling her “the lady in blue.”

As of March 15th, 2024, it is now a haunted Airbnb! You can check it out at thenickersonsneedhouse.com. And it just so happens that Becky and Diana will be some of the first guests to stay the Nickerson-Snead house in April 2024. Check updates on Patreon to catch us there live!

She’s also planning to rent out her Airbnb at the Nickerson-Snead house for private paranormal investigations led by Tennessee Wraith chasers on two weekends a year. Because she doesn’t live there. She’d never ghost hunt where she lives. Unlike us. Oops.

Was there an Appalachian Granny Witch among your ancestors?

Homespun Haints is currently seeking fellow mountain people from Appalachia with true personal ghost stories! Do you have a yarn you’d like to share, or could you deepen our knowledge of granny witchcraft? Please click this link to submit your story, and we’ll be in touch soon. Have a spooky day!

The post It is Always the Season of the Witch in Appalachia appeared first on Homespun Haints.

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About the guest: Dr. Bob Curran

Becky found out about Dr. Bob when she read his book, A Bewitched Land: Witches and Warlocks of Ireland. is the author of over 40 books on the ghosts and folklore of Ireland, published by O’Brien Press.

Irish folklore we discussed in this episode

We spoke about so many great stories and legends from Ireland, and still we only scratched the surface! Here’s a very brief summary of the topics discussed.

• Bob shares the story of the fear gortach, the hungry spirit who roams the mountains and can seize travelers with fatal hunger.
• The gruagach is a petite hairy critter who will work hard for only a jug of milk, but is incredibly stupid and disappears if you ever give it a present.
• The Banshee (Irish spelling Bean Sídhe) wasn’t always the wailing woman spirit we hear tales of today. She used to just be a fairy woman who would advise ancient kings.
• The Cóiste Bodhar or death coach, a harbinger of doom driven by a dullahan, which is a headless horseman hobgoblin of the unseelie type.
• The filid were basically ancient tabloid reporters.
• Abhartach may have been the very first vampire, as we know them in the western world today. According to folklore, the grave of this blood-drinking 5th century Irish warlord is in Glenullin in County Derry, just a short drive from where Dr. Bob lives. You can see the actual grave site in the Irish horror movie Boys from County Hell. Like Eastern European vampires, Abhartach’s bloodlust is easily thwarted by scattering small items about (like thorns or poppy seeds), as these monsters are easily distracted by counting and sorting things.

Why is storytelling so important to Irish culture?

Ever since Diana was young, her Irish relatives taught her to value the “Gift of Gab.” Far from just being talkative and outgoing, this uncommon gift was somewhat ephemerally defined as the ability to orally weave a spellbinding tale at the spur of the moment. Being good at improvisational storytelling, basically. According to legend, if you’re not born with this gift, you can attain it by kissing the Blarney Stone.

During this interview, Bob helped us understand why the Irish place such a high value on oral storytelling and folklore. The Druids apparently advised against down any knowledge because it could be stolen by the enemy. And so, oral storytelling was the primary format for handing down knowledge. Couple that with a huge population of poor, rural farmers, and a ruling elite class that preferred their peasants to remain uneducated and illiterate so as to be easier to control, and verbal communication becomes the obvious default. And sure, a bit of knowledge may be communicated verbally simply by explaining it to someone. But having an interesting story attached helps as a mnemonic device. Folklore also grabs the attention of those whose minds may otherwise wander.

What’s your favorite Irish folk tale?

Baby Diana grew up hearing stories of selkies and dancing to songs about why it’s important to hold a wake. She thinks there’s something undefinable yet uniquely magical about Irish folklore. After hearing all the Irish ghost stories we’re releasing this October, we hope you’ll agree! Does your Irish family have a unique legend? Or do you know some juicy info about folklore from other regions? Submit your story now for a chance to be the next guest on Homespun Haints. And beidh lá scanrúil agat!

The post If You Die in the Dumb Supper, You Die in Real Life appeared first on Homespun Haints.