Photo courtesy of Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
sull (also sull up) verb, verb phrase, To sulk, pout act or become sullen, stubborn, or listless; hence to “play possum,” pretend to be asleep or dead; hence participial adjective sulled up.
1923 Furman Mothering 247 For two days he sulled, and never come anigh her mornings, and mended the back fence. 1944 Hayes Word-List NC 36 sull up = to “play possum,” pretend to be asleep or dead. Applied to persons and opossums. 1956 Hall Coll (Mt Sterling NC) So mad you’re foamin’ at the mouth like an old bull when he is sulled up. 1962 Dykeman Tall Woman 150 Since his brother left, seems like he’s just sulled up like a possum. 1964 Williams Prep Mt Speech 55 [By the time] I clomb down, that possum had sulled and was a layin like as if he were dead. 1974 Fink Bits Mt Speech 25 A ‘possum’ll sull when a dog ketches it. 1975 Chalmers Better 66 Should you contrary him, he may sull or stub up. 1995 Montgomery Coll He was sulled up all the time I was there (Cardwell). 2009 Benfield Mt Born 196 sulled up = in a pout, holding a grudge, or not speaking.
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
I could add my own line to the dictionary entry since using sull to describe someone who is sullen or is pouting is beyond common in my area of Appalachia as well as my household.
Someone might be sulled up because you hurt their feelings or because you made them mad. Often children get sulled up because they didn’t get their way. I guess adults do that sometimes too.
When Granny was a girl she was playing with her sister Geneaive and their cousin Mary. They found what they thought was a dead possum. They decided the poor possum deserved a good funeral so they had a grand time pretending to hold a very serious burial service. Midday came quickly and they ran home for dinner.
Once they finished eating they couldn’t wait to go back and continue the funeral proceedings. They had a real surprise waiting on them. The possum had only been sulled up when the girls found it. While they ate Gazzie’s good home cooking the possum dug itself out of its premature grave and headed for the hills far away from three little girls never to be seen again.
Tipper
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Pop said Possums are real greasy to eat, but the “possum fat” makes a good boot grease. I’ve never tried one myself, but did go coon hunting a number of times where we treed a few of them. They are few and far between where I live now in Colorado.
That’s a cute story. TY. I still think you ought to make it to the Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, https://www.storytellingcenter.net/festival/main/
You would also like the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University. https://www.etsu.edu/cas/cass/archives/
We now have armadillos, or as my friend the late Terry Branson of Waycross used to say, “Possum on the half shell”
Tipper, there is a delightful poem titled “Carmen Possum” that I am sure you and your readers will enjoy. It is written in a mixture of Latin and English, but don’t let that scare you! It is believed to have originated with 18th century Latin students. (I’ve often thought a high school group should present this with a toga-clad narrator dramatically reading the poem from a scroll while the troupe acts out the tale. )
I can’t figure how to attach the link the website to this comment, but Goggle search provides several entries, so maybe you can do that.
Enjoy, everyone!
I saw my first armadillo a couple weeks ago in Lebanon, TN. I did not know they had migrated this far east. Sadly, he was in the middle of the road, if you get my meaning.
Loved the story! Reminds me of all the times I heard, ” are you playing possum?” Sulking is very common here but I don’t recall hearing sulled up.
For Kathy Gautier, I left a late reply to you last night about what someone else had wrote about those pickled tomatoes and hot pepper. I set my mouth on fire when I was a young kid, my Grandmother had clay pots of flowers sitting everywhere, in one pot she had a pepper plant with different colored very small round pods of pepper. I tried eating one, it set my mouth on fire and broke me for life from eating anything that is hot. I think these peppers are now called “bouquet pepper.” I don’t think it would have been worse in if I had bit down on a lit stove wood match!
I have never heard “sulled up”but we do use sulking sometimes. Mostly, if someone is acting that way, we just say they are pouting. That possum story with Granny is too funny. When I was a kid, my sister and I would also have a funeral and bury things like dead birds we found. We would even put a cross up at their gravesite. I don’t think we would have been brave enough to touch a dead possum though. We have also heard that possums eat ticks. We have a possum that occasionally wonders through our property at night…sometimes during the day. We don’t bother it because we hope he’s eating any ticks that may be around.
My neighbor caught a young possum and made a pet out of it. She kept it in her house and made a bed for it in a lower dresser drawer. In past days, possums were caught and ate, my grandparents would catch a live one, put it up in a cage and feed it buttermilk and bread for awhile to “clean it out” before killing and baking it to eat. My Daddy had his own simple recipe for a beef stew, he would always have “possum taters” to go along with his stew. His possum taters were sweet potatoes he had peeled and boiled until soft and then put in a baking dish with salt, pepper, sugar sprinkled on top and a little bit of the liquid from his beef stew add to them and then placed in oven to bake for a few minutes. His beef stews were more like a soup and would be put over white rice. I loved eating them and the recipe is so simple, I can even cook it and do cook sometimes.
An older friend of my mother asked my sons to come to her house to dig a grave for her dog that they assumed was dead. After toiling digging the hard ground ( during a drought) , even soaking ground with water hose , they took a break and around the house came the little dog barking and wagging its tail to their surprise! They dropped their shovel and pick and told the owner that the dog was alive and well . She said she was getting ready because the dog was old and sick. They acknowledged the miracle and was grateful to not toil in the soil. I’m sure there is a moral to the story?
Oh, that was too funny!!! I remember members of my family getting sulled up at each other many times when we were kids. Thank goodness, we outgrew it and all get along very well now as adults. Thanks for the good belly laugh this morning! 🙂
My late Granny would say we were “a touch me not” if we were sulled up over something. And if you didn’t want someone to fool with you, you played possum especially if you didn’t want to go to school for some reason or another. Blessings from Ohio!
Love that story. I’m glad the possum stayed “sulled up”/”played dead” while the girls were having his funeral! My dog brought a possum to the house several times. He would lay them on the porch like he was bringing me a gift. Each time, it would look like it was dead, but after it laid there a little while it would jump up and run off.
Stubbed up and sulled up is how we describe friends and family when they are mad at us. I set a live trap near the pond to catch the otter that was digging holes in the dam, but caught a possum instead. My neighbor came to help dispose of the ‘dead’ animal I thought had starved to death in the trap I had failed to check for a few days. He told me to stand back when he prepared to open the trap door and put the possum in a bag. He said I guarantee that thing is just sulled up and will eat you up if you ain’t careful. It was alive and ready for a fight.
I reckon “sull” is Appalachian for “sulk”. Not sure I ever heard the latter growing up but I heard the former as a common thing. And as to the resurrected possum, were I him or her I wouldn’t be seen again in that neighborhood either! Wonder what proportion of the words in DSAE are about some relationship to nature? I’d guess it would be above 50%, maybe 60 or 65, which would be one kind of indicator of the strength of the people atom land connection.
I’ve not heard any of my people use sull. They just said pout. My mom would say I was playing possum while I was napping because she thought I was not actually napping, but I was. She always woke me up when she would say, “stop playing possum and go to sleep”. The joke was on her, because I really was a sleep. Once I was awake, I then had to keep my eyes closed to play possum so she wouldn’t make me stay in bed for a longer nap. I later found out that I sleep with my eyes slightly open, which is why my mom thought I was playing possum. She didn’t know that either until I told her as an adult. We both got a good laugh out of it.
What a cute Granny story. Oh that poor little possum. lol. Haven’t heard sulled before but sulky or sullen are familiar.
I agree with you, Laura Lee Baird (what a pretty name.) Since following the Blind Pig, Tipper’s musings have me reminiscing! “All sulled up” is a favorite of my husband’s. I like the reference to the word “sullen,” which we don’t use often in conversation but fits its meaning so well.
Loved the story. We had funerals for dead animals too. Love the word too. Hope everyone has a great day!
I liked the possum story about granny and her sisters. When I was little sister Pearl and me held court on our cat Railroader (he was found on railroad tracks.) He had killed a bird and was definitely guilty of murder so we “sentenced him” to sitting under a clothes basket with the ventilation holes for a good while one afternoon. He was a good sport about the whole thing. Lol. Kids are a “T” total trip… our world needs little people brought up in love and good things. What a world we can have if we turn off the tv, throw out “news” and get into the world we choose which ain’t whatever THIS IS OUT THERE. Shiver me timbers!! Lol
Oh I love your possum story! It is so cute!
I can just see those three little girls so solemn getting that possum read to bury.
I haven’t heard sull up, but I knew what it meant, or guessed right. I know a little three year old girl who sulls up a lot lately when things don’t go her way. I will have plenty of opportunity to use the phrase!
“He was sulled up like an old possum”
I have heard that one all my life. I hope everyone has a great week and God Bless!
Amazing story. Since moving to Murphy we discovered we had a family of possums living near us. One of our local neighbors told us that it was a blessing. Since we live in the woods and ticks are a problem we have never had a tick since moving here in 2013 and that is due to the possum. Through the years we have seen many generations of possums and not one tick. When the possum walks through our property ticks jump on his body and he eats them. One can eat over one hundred ticks per day.
They are cute as babies but ugly as adults. But we love them.
Ron, that is a well-known myth, but a harmless one. Opossums don’t consume ticks, according to scientific studies of stomach contents. They do groom themselves to remove ticks that they pick up. I do, too. Here’s a tried and true way to remov an imbedded tick: cover it with liquid soap, let it drown in the soap, and lift it off with a knife or fingernail. Do not pull it off and leave the head.
Sulled up and sulking are common for us too. I love the possum story. I think all of us kids growing up had a possum story as we lived on a farm and about 10 acres of it was woods. We explored and had so much fun in it. I surely miss those days.
Our daughter brought one home one evening. The mother had been hit and she knew she could have babies in her pouch. Sure enough, there was one alive. She came carrying it in. To this day she is always rescuing something.
I remember my daddy say that a lot. He’d be pickin on me and I would cross my arms and stop talkin. I just love how your blog brings up fond memories.
My father would say that too about anyone that was mad or had their feelings hurt. Sometimes he would apply that old saying to me.