Pap told me old timers used to say that flowers and trees that bloom out of season are evil. When I think of the old piece of folklore I always get tickled. It seems so silly. But Pap said if we were depending on the blooms of plants to produce our food or else risk starving we’d certainly hope they bloomed in the season they were supposed to.
I’ve also heard a crowing hen is evil. One of The Deer Hunter’s friends said his grandmother wouldn’t stand for a hen that crowed. If she heard one she’d go out and kill it straight away.
Tipper
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Granny always said”whistling girls and crowing hens always come to a bad end
Tipper,
I made a gallon of Kraut by your grandmother’s recipe and it turned out wonderful. Thanks so much for the recipe. Betty Richards, South Lebanon, Ohio
Tipper,
Donna Lynn at our Christian Radio Station at Murphy played one of my Favorite Groups, The Pressley Girls of Brasstown. I know them as Chitter and Chatter, but they have the Best Harmony I ever heard. …Ken
Tipper,
A long time ago we had lots of laying hens. This was before I started to school, mama had done taught me how to read. She didn’t go to school but to the 7th. grade, but I thought she was real smart and she taught me my A, B, C’s and to count. When I started to school, I already knowed more stuff than most of the kids, but I faced the Teacher, Mrs. Zimmerman. I guess she thought I was silly, but I had been taught by Mama to always Face the Teacher. Later, we worked it out.
Daddy had got Dynamite boxes from somewhere and nailed to the back of the house for our laying hens and put broomsage inside. That way we could get Eggs for breakfast without going outside in the cold Wintertime. All we had to do was raise the windows and get the wonderful bounty.
Daddy and Mama raised 6 boys, three of them in the Depression Years, so they knew how to survive. They were the best parents in the World, and I miss them. …Ken
I don’t like seeing plants bloom out of season either, it upsets their entire life cycle a plant that blooms during an off season usualy does not blook when it is supposed to.
Tipper,
My Grandma always said…”A whistling woman and a crowing hen always came to no good end!”
Our forsythias or yellow bells…sometimes have few yellow blooms in the Fall…especially if the weather has been wacky…the shrubs get mixed up too…
Love this post, Thanks….
My husband dad would kill a hen that crowed!! I had never heard that before we married, but then, I have never heard a hen crow!
I learned to whistle very young, because I actually knew some back in the day men who could whistle out a pretty tune. To tie this all into your post about that crowing hen, I wondered who had heard this old saying. “A whistling woman and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.” Mom would admonish me when she would hear my efforts to perfect my whistling skills. A fast google shows this to have Scottish origin. Well, guess I don’t have to worry anymore about that, because many dental procedures later I can no longer whistle out a tune! Anything unnatural or out of the ordinary was considered an evil omen. Many happenings are somehow connected to being evil if not normal everyday happenings. For instance, sunshine with rain brings to mind the old saying of, “The devil is beating his wife.” I will never forget the unnerving sound of thunder while I was traveling on foot into a remote home during a snow storm. I have not googled, but I bet when our forefathers heard that it instantly meant some doomsday forecast. My people are superstitious by nature. I try not to be, but think this just may be ingrained into my very being!
My parents believed the old folklore about hens crowing. Mom probably killed more than a few chickens she needed for egg producers, but who wants to eat an egg laid by an evil chicken?
Do evil hens lay deviled eggs? Just asking.
Ed-maybe 🙂
Don’t you reckon the Deer Hunter’s friend’s grandmother wudden just looking for a reason to fix chicken? I’ll bet you a nickel that “evil” hen went right in the pot jist like an angelic one would’ve.
Ed-no he said she wouldn’t eat the chicken either because it was evil 🙂
Then I guess I owe you a nickel!
“ A whistling woman and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.”
Grandma said they were bad luck. So if a hen crowed she was well on her way to the pot. Bad for the hen , good for us. We had dumplings for dinner.
Well, I had never heard that. Maybe they thought they were witched. My sarvis tree has been blooming this month. I have also seen apple trees bloom some in the fall. I think it is day length that causes it but usually fall bloom is much less than spring bloom. It is mysterious but has been turned to account by the landscape plants that bloom twice.
There’s a song lyric from the great Webb Wilder that goes,
“They say a whistling girl and a crowing hen
Will always come to the same sad end.”
There are lots of old superstitions in Appalachia. If we knew the origin of each superstition I’ll bet it was the best answer they could come up to an unknown situation, and usually a fear based answer. Fear based answers go hand in hand with unexplained situations!