The Town without Death
They say that death, like love, is careless in its choosing. Everyone will be visited by death eventually, from the most ruthless tyrant to the kindest soul on Earth. And that’s just what Sam Dylan was – a kindhearted and gentle young farmer who everyone agreed deserved nothing but the best in life. Back in the olden days, Sam lived with his childhood sweetheart Marie on a hillside farm deep in the hollows of eastern Kentucky. Sam had loved no one but Marie since he was a boy, and when they finally got to marrying age, Sam immediately made her his bride. They could barely eke out a living on their rocky farmland, but they rarely complained. After all, the only thing they felt they really needed in life was each other.
But in those times, the coming of winter brought sickness and death to many folks deep in the hills. And the first winter after their marriage, Marie came down with a bad fever, which grew worse by the day. Sam watched with anguish as his longtime love slowly slipped away from him. And one sad morning, Marie never woke up from her sleep. Sam’s neighbors buried Marie in a small, windswept cemetery high above the town. But Sam knew he could no longer live in that town without Marie. For it was filled with so many memories of their life together. So Sam sold his farm, stuffed the bare essentials into a tattered canvas bag, mounted his horse and rode far away from his home, never to return.
Sam rode over and through the high, treacherous mountains, his overwhelming grief driving him forward into strange lands he’d never seen. The dirt roads gave way to wild, untamed forests. Strange creatures chattered and shrieked from behind the dark trees. Gentle creeks gave way to raging, dangerous rivers. After a few weeks, Sam finally got tired of being alone, and wanted human companionship again.
One day, Sam fought his way through the thick brush and found himself standing on a ledge overlooking a beautiful valley. And nestled in that valley was a pretty mountain village, with its freshly painted houses, lush fields and gardens, and a clean, sparkling stream flowing through the center of town. A hand-painted sign beside the road read: “Town of Burning Creek. Welcome to All!” Sam rode into the village and looked around. It had everything a mountain town in those times typically had: a church, a mercantile store, a restaurant and a small hotel. But Sam was surprised to find that Burning Creek was missing one key feature. So he rode up to one of the townspeople and asked out of curiosity: “Excuse me sir, can you tell me where the cemetery is?”
The man, who Sam noticed looked extremely tan, healthy and strong, let out a hearty laugh and answered, “There’s no cemetery here. Ain’t no need for one.”
“Why’s that?” Sam asked, surprised at his answer.
“‘Cause there ain’t no death here in Burning Creek, that’s why. We’re all too happy and healthy to die.”
The man then pointed at the stream. “You see that water there? It’s filled with special minerals that come outta old Indian caves.” He then pointed at the thick forest surrounding them. “You see them woods? They’re filled with wild game – the biggest and healthiest critters you’ve ever seen. No one goes hungry here, and no one gets sick. And no one dies.”
The jolly man then looked over Sam’s thin, malnourished frame and said, “Son, it looks like you could use a good meal. Why don’t you come down to the restaurant tonight for supper? They’ll be plenty for you to eat, I promise.”
Well needless to say, Sam had never heard such a crazy story in all his life. But his rumbling stomach convinced him to look over this minor quibble and accept the man’s offer.
Later that evening, Sam cleaned up and went down to the restaurant. Sure enough, it was just as the jolly man told him it would be. The tables were overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables, cheeses and bread. And the sweet smell of glazed, cooked meat filled the air. Sam dug ravenously into a huge, steaming plate of cooked game, the juicy meat just falling off the bones and melting in his mouth. He had never tasted meat so delicious in his life. Sam ate so much that night he nearly passed out. So he decided to make Burning Creek his new home, at least for the time being.
The next day, he found a job as a farmhand on a large cattle farm at the edge of the forest. Each night after a hard days work, he’d go back to the restaurant and devour giant helpings of that steaming, delicious game. Then he’d stagger back to this employer’s farm, his belly hanging over his pants, and pass out in the barn loft. And as time passed, Sam started to believe the story he was told – that there really was no death in Burning Creek. Everyone seemed healthy and fit. No one appeared to be old or sick. He thought maybe in his long travels, he had stumbled across Heaven itself.
But on some nights, a strange thing would happen that would awaken Sam from his deep slumber. He would hear strange sounds drifting from the dark woods surrounding the farm. At first, he only heard the sounds of the night crickets as they called out to one another. Sometimes he would hear the howl of a wolf, or the low hoot of a mountain owl. But then he would hear something else, something that sounded like – whispers. Numerous whispering voices drifting from the blackness, in a hushed conversation Sam could not understand. They would then drift away, and Sam would return to his slumber.
And so each day was just like the last. Sam worked hard on the farm, and then would head to the restaurant for another massive dinner. And as the weeks passed, Sam’s thin physique began to grow more and more plump. He simply couldn’t stop himself from eating that delicious food. But when he would return to the barn at night, he’d awaken to that same strange sound. Eerie, unintelligible whispers drifting from the darkness, growling louder as they surrounded him, then vanishing as quickly as they came. Sam figured something in that food was giving him crazy dreams, but it seemed a small price to pay. Sam followed this same routine day after day until he turned into quite a chubby man. It took all his strength just to do the simple farm chores he had done so many times before. Rivers of sweat would pour down his shirt, and he constantly had to plop down under a shady tree and rest, his chest heaving with each pained breath.
One night, he was awoken again by whispering, but this time the voices weren’t coming from the woods. He looked out the window and saw a light on in the farmhouse kitchen. Through the curtain, he saw the shadows of three men sitting around the table. It was quite unusual for his boss to be up so late at night – and with company, no less. Curious, Sam crept out of the barn and over to the window, eavesdropping on the hushed conversation inside.
“That boy’s getting sicker every day,” he heard his boss say. “We wait much longer, he’ll be too sickly for us to eat.”
“He’s gotten plenty big by now,” said another. “You seen the size of him lately? We’ll get two, maybe three, good meals out of him.”
“Just lookin’ at him work them fields makes me hungry,” answered another.
Sam’s boss then replied, “Alright then, I’ll kill him tomorrow. But you boys gotta help me out this time. I ain’t stayin’ up all night cookin’ him like I did the last one.”
Sam’s stomach turned, his head spinning so hard he had to lean against the house. Now he knew why there wasn’t a graveyard in Burning Creek. He had been eating the bodies of the dead. And what’s worse, he was next! Sam felt sickness building in his throat, but knew he had no choice but to run away into the night. He left his belongings behind and charged straight into the forest, staggering blindly in the darkness, the tree limbs scratching and clawing at his face. For what seemed like hours, he huffed and puffed through the woods until he could take no more. He collapsed under a tree, his heart pounding in his ears.
As the forest grew still around him, he began to hear the whispering again. The same voices he had heard each night in the barn. The whispers grew louder and louder, seemingly surrounding him. And as he listened close, he could finally make out what they were saying:
“Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave.”
It was then that the bright moon shone though the trees, and in that moonlight Sam saw a sight that chilled his blood. The woods were strewn with human bones, hundreds of them – skulls, rib cages, arms, legs, fingers and toes. Maybe they were wayward travelers like Sam, picked clean of their flesh by the human vultures of Burning Creek. And their whispers grew even louder:
“Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave.”
Well, like I said, Sam was a kindhearted man. He was terrified, exhausted and sick to his stomach, but he also knew he had a job to do. So he found a large rock and dug a crude grave. For hours he worked, his hands cut and bleeding. He then gingerly lowered every bone he could find into that pit, and shoveled the dirt back on top. Sure enough, as he kicked the last bit of dirt over that grave, the loud whispering suddenly stopped, and the night was quiet again. Sam then continued running into the woods and vanished into the night.
A few days later, Sam stumbled across a small mining town. He immediately found the sheriff and told him the hideous story. At first the sheriff thought Sam was crazy, but he had heard stories in the past of travelers who had ridden in the direction of Burning Creek, never to return. So he agreed to lead a posse over to Burning Creek to check things out, with Sam leading the way. When the sheriff’s posse finally arrived in Burning Creek, they found the streets eerily quiet and empty. “Hello!” they called out, but no one answered. They then walked over to the restaurant and opened the door with a loud creak.
What awaited them inside was a ghastly sight. It was a dinner party that had suddenly been frozen in time. The tables were filled with smelly, rotting food, with flies and rodents feasting on the remains. Sitting frozen in the chairs were the dead citizens of Burning Creek, their faces twisted in agonizing pain, the skin on their skeletal corpses marked with hideous purple blotches. The sheriff turned to Sam and said, “Them people got poisoned. Real bad poison.” He then picked up a piece of rotten meat and said, “Maybe it was somethin’ they ate.”
That story was good enough for the sheriff. To stop the spread of disease, they wheeled away the bodies and buried them in a mass grave, giving Burning Creek its first real cemetery.
But Sam knew something else had happened. By giving the poor souls scattered throughout the woods a proper burial, he had freed their spirits from eternal torment. And before those spirits traveled to their final resting place, they got their revenge on the citizens of Burning Creek. Sam eventually found another town to live in – one with a prominent cemetery on a hillside overlooking the town. A constant reminder for Sam that there really was no escape from death, and that life must be lived to the fullest each day.
Now if it wasn’t obvious, this last story was the one that wasn’t 100% true. “The Town Without Death” is a combination of two types of folktales told throughout the world. The “No Graves” stories featuring mysterious towns without cemeteries, and “Singing Bones” stories where victims’ remains are literally singing out for justice. But “The Town Without Death” is also a story about how foolish it is to think we can cheat death, and how life is about living each day as if it’s your last. I personally feel like this is where ghost stories, in their folkloric form, come from. A tale to be told on a dark winter night, with your friends and family. Now, I have heard many, many first hand ghost stories in podcasts, tv shows, and the like so I am not discounting those. Those would be more factual rather than fictual in my mind as the people on those tv shows and podcasts have something to lose when they tell their first hand accounts. Ridicule, shame, etc. are all things they are risking by “going public” with their stories. The first story comes from Smokey Mountain Ghostlore by Juanitta Baldwin. (Great book, short, sweet, and more factual than spooky -R)
Cryptids
Ok, now on to the red eyed, furry humanoid with antenna in the room. No podcast on Appalachian Folklore would be complete without the discussion of Cryptids. However, we’re not talking about the Mothman, Bigfoot, the Wampus Cat or anything like that. Those have and will be covered on here in depth. No, I’m going to tell you about Cryptids you’ve probably never heard about. These come from Appalachian Bestiary: Wondrous and Fearsome creatures of the Southern Wilds by Gary Carden.
The first beastie we will be talking about is one that is near and dear to my heart. The whang-doodle, also known as the king-doodle. The whang-doodle is a bit of an enigma. No one knows exactly what it looks like. It might have to do with the fact that it particularly likes to scare children who are out at night doing the chores they were supposed to do earlier. Most descriptions are disjointed as a result. The frightened children come running back in the house screaming “it had big floppy ears” or “It had green eyes and gray hair”. The most accurate description I found was from a child named Moe. He said “Its as long as a cow, high as a goat, and big floppy ears like a mule.” He couldn’t give a better description as it was dark and his father was shooting at the whang-doodle to scare it off. It doesn’t help that different areas have different descriptions of the thing. In Ozarks its thought to be a big lizard, in Missouri its thought to be a giant “boomer” or a ground squirrel ( or a Chipmunk, for the uneducated *cough* Krako *cough*) but also in some other parts of the state a “boomer” is not a chipmunk but a lizard…Very confusing. However, despite its alarming appearance, looming out of the darkness is really all it does. Most folk say it just likes to scare people, but there is one piece of information that makes it a bit more scary. It has a bit of a habit of impressive displays of violence like uprooting trees and fence posts, but it is just your friendly neighborhood cryptid, right? Now to the reason why I love whang-doodles. My FIL says “where the whang-doodles moan” which he learned from his uncle down in South GA. So, imagine my surprise and delight when I found this wasn’t just a saying my FIL and his uncle made up but something from actual folklore! Brought a smile to my little green heart.
The next few on our list are known as “lumberjack followers” or just creatures that hung around logging camps. The whistling wampus is a huge wildcat with supernatural intelligence
and a talent for making beguiling sounds. Some species can whistle, and lure hapless hunters and woodsmen to their doom by whistling at them from “dark cedar thickets.” Lumberjacks often
explain the disappearance of a fellow worker by saying, “I guess the Whistler got him.” In addition to whistling, some wampus cats give calls—usually “Hoo-Hoo” or “Whoo-Hoo.” The combination is supposedly irresistible, something like the siren call in Greek mythology.
Folklore of other regions has some fascinating near kin of the “Whistling Wampus.” Among other variations, the Sliver Cat, which lives in Paul Bunyan country, is a close relative of the Whistling Wampus, with a few additions. With tasseled ears and red eyes that are vertical instead of horizontal, the Sliver Cat also has a long tail with a ball shaped knob on the end. One side of the knob is bare and hard, while the other side contains long, deadly spikes. While perching
on a limb over a woodland trail, the Sliver Cat can use its tail to stun a hapless woodsman. Then, the tail spikes are used to impale the victim and draw him up into the trees.
The will-am-alone is another migratory critter with a nasty disposition. Squirrel- like in appearance, it is devoted to making lumberjacks miserable. It picks poisonous plants and lichens and rolls them into tiny pellets. It then drops its missiles into the ears and eyes of sleeping woodsmen, thereby causing nightmares, painful headaches, and hallucinations.
The Zigmall is another lumber camp follower. It probably migrated from the Northwest with the lumberjacks, and left when they did. The descriptions are varied. James York Glimm claims that it looks like a flying squirrel, but the resemblance is deceptive. The Zigmall actually travels by “following the bouncing ball.” Possessing a very long and limber tail with a hard rubber ball on the end of it, the Zigmall twirls the ball around its head and then throws it. When the ball hits the ground, it bounces, propelling the Zigmall forward. When the ball stops bouncing, the Zigmall repeats the whole process. Of course, Glimm tells the old chestnut about the cook who made himself a pair of boot heels from a Zigmall’s tail. When he jumped off the cookhouse, he bounced so high and so long that the lumberjacks had to shoot sourdough biscuits to him so he wouldn’t starve to death. Well, that’s what Glimm said.
And finally because it is the Squonk and the Hag I leave you with a slightly more sinister cryptid to feast your eyes on…or well ears I guess in this case! The jimplicute is a weird combination of “ghostly dinosaur, an incredible dragon or lizard supposed to walk the roads at night, grab travelers by the throat, and suck their blood.” The jimplicute has kin throughout the Southeast and Midwest, and numerous hunting parties with baying hounds and impressive arsenals have scoured mountaintops, swamps, and isolated farms searching for a misshapen creature that was drinking the blood of dogs, cows, and hapless humans. No doubt the Texas “wowzer” is a close relative. The name of this creature, according to Randolph, seemed to have captured the imagination of several newspapermen, including Walt Whitman. Writing in the North American Review, Whitman mentions a Texas newspaper called The Jimplicute, and allegedly, a Weekly Jimplicute was published in Missouri as recently as 1940. Sightings are not restricted to the mountains and the prairie, either. For example, the “Vampire Monster of Bladenboro” received extensive newspaper coverage in 1954, and an atmosphere of hysteria surrounded this eastern North Carolina community for several weeks. In the final days, over 1,000 armed men scoured the countryside and swamps looking for a “sleek, black creature with a round head” that was slaughtering dogs, sheep, and cattle. When a half starved bobcat was shot, many hunters refused to believe they had killed the “vampire monster” and continued the search. However, the killing of domestic animals stopped. (Now, that’s a bloody good one if I do say so myself!….I’ll show myself the door… -R)
Conclusion
So I know this wasn’t an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. We’ve talked a little bit about a lot, and I feel like that’s Appalachia in a nutshell. There’s so much information about Appalachia out there, from stories on the internet, travel magazines saying where the best places to stay are, to the erroneous misconceptions about the people who live in Appalachia even to this day. We talk a little about a lot of things when it comes to Appalachia because its so densely packed with history, stigma, and mystery, like the roots of the mountains reaching down into the dark depths of the earth. However, it is still a place of growth and life. Many towns are trying to get back on their feet after coal companies left them high and dry when coal became less used, and the companies pulled out of the region. Just ask anyone from Appalachia and they could probably name a few cities that are struggling but seem to be prospering despite the hand they got dealt. All in all I feel like Appalachia is a place of stubborn obstinance in the face of adversity. From the indigenous people who still hold to their tribal traditions, though so far away from their native lands, to the coal miners in the early 20th century and the people of today, trying to make their communities a better place, the mountains are a standing testament to human stubbornness and hope for a brighter tomorrow. So, remember that when the night is dark and you hear the whang-doodles moan. The sun will shine bright in the morning if you just keep your head up high and never give up.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia
Who are the Appalachian People? Documentary Part 1
http://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/8/history/intro.htm
Baldwin, Juanitta. Smoky Mountain Ghostlore. Suntop Press, 2005.
Carden, Gary. “Appalachian Bestiary: Wondrous and Fearsome Creatures of the Southern Wild.” North Carolina Folklore Journal, vol. 59, no. 2, 2012, pp. 60–92.
“Spirit Reveals Where Body Was,” The Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Sunday, Dec. 13, 1936, Page 3.
Themoonlitroad, Craig Dominey. “The Town without Death.” The Moonlit Road.Com, 14 Oct. 2022, http://www.themoonlitroad.com/the-town-without-death/.
The Squonk & The Hag Podcast: True Crime & Scary Stories 