December 22, 2016
A few weeks back I told you I’d share some Christmas folklore from one of my favorite books Dorie Woman of the Mountains written by Florence Cope Bush. The book was first published in 1992 and has been published at least 7 times since then if not more. In the introduction Florence Cope Bush writes
“Dorie: Woman of the Mountains was not written with the idea that it would ever be published. I wrote it as a gift to my daughter, my mother, and myself. The manuscript was in my possession for fifteen years before a friend talked me into letting him publish two thousand copies in paperback for local distribution.”
The book is a biography about Bush’s mother, Dorie. The story spans the years between 1898 and 1942 and is set primarily in the Smoky Mountains.
Here’s an excerpt that tells of Christmas folklore that was common to Dorie:
Many legends and superstitions came to the mountains with our ancestors. One legend says that on Christmas Eve the animals talk. Bees in their hives are said to hum the melody of an ancient carol from dusk to dawn. The old people say they have heard the music of the bees and have seen cows kneel and speak. On this holy night, the plants will bloom as they did when Christ was born. Although covered with snow, underneath, the ground is covered with soft green vegetation.
Old Christmas, or January 5, is surrounded with superstitious beliefs. On this day the dawn comes twice. The first dawn comes about an hour earlier than usual, and the skies brighten until sunlight seems close. The poke weed sends up sprouts big enough for everyone to see if they’re lucky enough to be awake. When dark returns, the sprouts die, then the true dawn appears. Also, the week before Christmas, roosters crow in the middle of the night, trying to make the day come sooner.
You can hear an angel sing if you’re willing to pay the price. If you sit under a pine tree on Christmas Eve, angel voices will sing all around you. The price you pay for the miracle is death. You won’t live to see the sun rise again.
Wear something fresh and new on Christmas, and your luck will be good. Don’t wash clothes on the Friday before Christmas if you want to stay out of trouble. Don’t let the fire go out on Christmas morning, or spirits will come and take you away. Don’t give your friends or neighbors a match, a warm coal, or even a light to be taken out of the house. If you do you’ll be giving away your hope of a good future. If you leave a piece of bread on the table after Christmas supper, you’ll have enough to eat until next Christmas.
I checked out Frank C. Brown’s Collection of NC Folklore to see if there were any other interesting tidbits of Christmas Folklore. Here’s what I found:
- Nothing made of leather during Christmas time will be durable
- It is unlucky to carry anything away from the house on Christmas morning unless something is brought in first
- If it snows on Christmas day-the grass will be green on Easter
- A warm Christmas means a cold Easter
- If a rooster crows repeatedly at midnight he is crowing for Christmas
- Horses talk on Old Christmas (Reminds me of the first time Chatter saw a ‘talking’ horse on America’s Funniest Videos-she said “Oh Momma I didn’t know horses could talk!” She was so excited-I hated to tell her they really couldn’t.)
- Water turns to blood at midnight on Old Christmas
- I discovered there are many variations to the one about animals kneeling at midnight-such as: On Old Christmas animals kneel down and face the East; On Christmas Eve at midnight Cows kneel and low; At midnight on Old Christmas all horses and cows stand up and then lie down on their other side.
The folklore about plants blooming on the Holy Night and animals kneeling are the ones I’m most familiar with. Hope you’ll leave me a comment and let me know if you’ve ever heard any folklore mentioned above. And if that wasn’t enough Christmas folklore for you, jump over to Appalachian Mountain Roots and read some more.
—December 22, 2016
Early this year I shared the poem “Old Christmas Morning.” The poem highlights some of the folklore above.
The poem was written by Roy Helton and it reminds me of the many ballads associated with Appalachia. It’s a haunting poem, much more of the ghost story variety than the heartwarming Christmas story variety.
A week or so ago Kim Taulbee left the following comment about the poem.
“I stumbled across your site 2 years ago when I was trying to find some examples of an Eastern Kentucky accent. I had a good laugh at the “Appalachian Vocabulary Test.” Tonight my wife and I happened across your YouTube reading of “Old Christmas Morning.” What a wonderful reading of that great poem and multi-layered story. I first read it in High School over 50 years ago. It got my attention because my last name is Taulbee. During the pandemic, I picked up the mandolin. I would stay up late at night practicing and jamming with myself. At one point I had written several riffs that were crying out to be a song. I was looking for a poem to set to music and remembered the poem from school, “Taulbe kilt my man.” I did a google search and rediscovered OCM. I was looking for some KY accents so my daughters could sing the characters of Sally and Lomie with authenticity. LOL, we gave up on that, but we did find a voice artist from KY who recorded the prologue for us. I grew so fond of the story that I worried listeners would get confused about who was saying what, and miss all the subtleties of the story, so I decided to make a video to help tell the tale. I’d be honored if you gave it a listen.”
If you’d like to see the video Kim made go here. The music and vocals are outstanding and the videography is beautiful, eerie, and down right spooky.
Last night’s video: My Life in Appalachia 31 – December.
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I remember as a child of 12 or 13 trying to talk my brothers into go to the barn with me to hear the animals talk. We are by no means from Appalachia here in Canada. I love your posts and even though we aren’t connected it seems that we are in spirit. Have a wonderful Holiday.
I wonder if Dorie believed all the folklore.
Randy I hope you’re enjoying the book as much as I did.
Prayers and blessings sent to all and especially to Ms. Wilson aka Granny.
So far the book has been very interesting. I am enjoying it. I had rather read a good book than watch tv. My mother got me interested in reading just as soon as I learned to read. Since I didn’t win any of the books in the give away I have bought several more to read on these cold winter days.
January 6, in the UK where I lived many years, is known as Twelfth Night. My late husband who was British said that it was bad luck to take the Christmas decorations down before Twelfth Night, and it was bad luck to leave them up after Twelfth Night…. So I’ve always made a point of taking my decorations down on Jan. 6 …. Not that I’m superstitious or anything!…Also, I recall when I was a child living in Puerto Rico that they celebrate Christmas but also January 6, which they refer to as three king’s day.
Thank you so much for sharing the old customs and folklore! I’ve learned some new things!
Love the folk tales. I will be watching to see if the horses do this Christmas Eve. The old ways are better. It was a better time and a better life except I don’t want to have to build a fire or go fetch water. Merry Christmas everyone!!
Horses sorta fall down. They get up front feet first. Cows, sheep and goats are different. They kneel down on their front legs then lower the udder end. When they get up it is butt first with their knees still on the ground then put their feet under them one at a time.
I love reading about the Appalachian folklore surrounding the Christmas Season. My mothers side of the family is Scotch-Irish and I wonder if we have ancestors from Appalachia. I will be checking our family tree, that a cousin traced back to the 1600’s. Merry Christmas Season to all!
I recall my family referring to “Old Christmas” and also calling it Twelfth Night. It wasn’t until I was older that it was corrected to the proper name of the Epiphany on January 6. We never took down the tree until January 7th. Proper December 25th activities were attending church.
We always heard the stories:
If it snows on Christmas day-the grass will be green on Easter.
A warm Christmas means a cold Easter.
We’d mark the calendar with the weather and check to see if it was right. It was right almost all the time. I guess our ancestors understood the seasonal shifts better than the fancy weather stations.
Good morning. It is a cold, frosty morning but the weather is about to get warm for these days before Christmas. My favorite folklore is the one about the animals kneeling and having the ability to talk on Christmas Eve. We also raise bees, so it would be curious to put my ear to their hive and listen on Christmas Eve. We always do that in winter to make sure they are alive and well inside their warm hive. I did not get to make any candy with the granddaughters yesterday, but they got to go outside with their Pap and make two huge snowmen and a baby one. They love the snow. I stayed inside with baby brother and watched out the window at all the fun. They came back in starving. The two-year old was eating her simple lunch of a cut-up hotdog, corn and cucumber slices when she announced to everyone that this was the best food she ever tasted. The cold refreshing air does wonders for the appetite! I hope everyone has the merriest Christmas!♥️
That is great! A ghost story set to music is the best.
Morning, Tipper. Once more you have given your followers an interesting reading! Folklore can be so intriguing! Thanks again for educating and entertaining us!! God’s blessings on you, your family, and all those who read and watch all you share.
When I opened Kim’s video, the picture of the young lady was enough to scare me. I’ve heard my parents talk about Christmas folklore from the list. The one I have not heard is the one about sitting under a pine tree. That will have me checking out everyone’s tree to see if it’s pine and sitting across the room on Christmas Eve.
I’ve heard about the animals kneeling at midnight on Christmas Eve and the one about what the weather would be on Easter. My grandma said you couldn’t wash clothes and hang them out on old Christmas or someone would die in the family that year (I think that’s how it went) when she saw her neighbor (her nephew’s wife) doing that one year, she went over and told her she couldn’t do that and made her take the clothes down. One reason for me writing my 2 books was to keep all the superstitions and traditions alive and not be forgotten by the younger generations of the family.
Poke sprouts on Christmas! Maybe I need to be there when they emerge. I’ll slice them in little rounds, roll them in cornmeal, salt and black pepper and fry them in bacon grease. Taste something like a cross between fried okra and fried green tomatoes they will. Got to hurry though so they don’t disappear before I make them.
Interesting old sayings. I’ve only heard that the animals knee at Christmas to honor Jesus. I followed the link to the song and it was interesting. It was made well, enjoyed the music and singing. They acted it out well too. I remember reading it in your blog sometime in the past. It was creepy then and sorry but it’s still creepy, but I guess that was how the author meant it to be or he was trying to get across that vengeance never ends well, which is why we should never be vengeful when someone has done us wrong. I guess it’s not so creepy after all since I just now realized the poem has a moral lesson to it’s story.
I had never heard any of these, but it makes me curious to want to find out if some of them are true!
I loved the video by Mr. Taulbee. I remembered hearing you read the poem when I saw the video.
I’ve never heard of any of things you mentioned this morning and I’m right here in HARD TACK Appalachia, rugged, rocky WV….but my people were NO saints and so I’m not surprised I never heard this good stuff. If I would hear animals talking, bowing down and bees humming an old Christmas carol, I’d be plumb tickled pink like Chatter!!! I’m not going under a pine tree on Christmas just to be safe I reckon about death! I don’t know if y’all have cured me or scared me this morning.
Taulbe…is a great song…thanks
My people may have lived in the Appalachians very early but they ended up in the Ozarks several generations back. Many of the traditions are the same. I remember my father saying the animals would talk at midnight on Christmas Eve. I never stayed up that late to find out! Though there were years my little sister and I woke up almost that early to see what Santa had brought.
Love this Christmas folklore as it tells me just how magical and real Christmas is to all living creatures and plants. As the carols remind us,
“Let heaven and nature sing”
“While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy”
Everyone have a good day as Christmas draws nearer.
I watched the video! I’m always stunned by the talent I see on videos such as the one I just viewed. You can bet that I will be checking out Kim’s channel.
Every time I watch Celebrating Appalachia, The Pressley Girls, or listen to the music on TBPATA, I am in awe of the talent, love of work and love of family and of course, love for the Lord. These people know how to live the best life and are blessed by the Lord.
I must say that video was excellent! It captures the way I think of those haunting tales we’ve heard about where Momma grew up in eastern Kentucky.
I have heard of the animals kneeling, but never heard about the bees. We raise bees, maybe I should check out that tale.
I love old folklore and I love mountain people! Our people were/are shy, quiet, and humble people, but look out if they got worked up. The Scot-Irish came out. We have tales about that too. I believe there is some truth in some of those old tales.
Thanks for sharing and God bless all y’all!
I do with I had the ‘lore’ all together written where I could print it out. Very interesting stuff, I must say. Perhaps I will keep this post handy so that between now and the 25th I can retype it, print it out and gift it to my girls and their youngin’s. It all brings a smile to my fact and I do thank you for posting it. About 35 this morning in upstate Florida and suppose to be down around 30ish for the next few nights. I don’t think my ‘Bird of Paradise’ plant will survive, but it is worth a try to cover it and pray for no frost to kill it. Prayin’ for Granny and you guys and maybe one day, try to make the trek up there to meet her. She is a Gem for sure. God Bless
Santa Claus came to the house, he was disguised as a UPS man, driving a big brown truck, Merry Christmas
Back when I was a kid and before Walmart, me and many others thought Mr. Andrew Ferguson, the owner of the Hone Path, SC Western Auto store worked for Santa Claus. He even had an extra large empty building to keep the toys in for Santa Claus. Most of them were bought on credit. I wrote this last year, but it is worth repeating, after many of us kids were grown and had started our own families, we still bought and had credit accounts at WA. One year my best friend Kenny’s work at the cotton mill was slow but he had managed to pay off his bill right before Christmas. Mr. Ferguson asked Kenny if his two little girls were looking forward to Christmas, Kenny told him they wouldn’t be much Christmas that year because of his work. Mr. Ferguson got him by the hand and walked him through his store picking up toys for his two girls telling him his girls were going to have a good Christmas and told him he could pay him whenever his work picked back up and things were better. Mr. Ferguson has been dead for many years but I still think of him and thank God for knowing him and others like him in my life.
Tother day I caught the Fed-Ex man putting a package on my porch. I hadn’t ordered anything and when I picked it up it didn’t have my name or address. I chased down the driver and showed him the numbers on my house and told him my name. He looked puzzled and told me GPS told him to come here. I said “I don’t know the address on the package and nobody by that name lives here.” He took it away but the next day he snuck back and left it again. This time it had a printout of a map, showing the house in question, taped to it.
I called Fed-Ex and asked them what I should do. They talked to me as if I was doing something wrong and tried to tell me how to fix it. I didn’t agree with their solution so I proposed my on, “How bout I put it back where he put it and if it is there tomorrow I’ll throw it in the trash?”
I printed of a sign saying “No matter what GPS tells you, this does not go here!” and stapled it to the package. The next day it was gone. In the meantime I had figured out who it belonged to. He lives through the woods behind my house. He has a very long driveway that comes out on another road, where his mailbox is. I wouldn’t have put his stuff in the trash and would have walked through the woods to take it myself. I went out the next morning to do exactly that but I was too late.
Maybe Santa is disguised as the UPS man. If he is Fed-Ex and Rudolph uses GPS I might be getting toys this Christmas.
PS: My mailbox is on a different road than the one I live on. That why I kept my PO Box from when I lived in Connelly Springs. I would love to have a mailbox out in front of my house like normal people do but it don’t work like that here. If your mailbox is visible from your house then how can passersby steal your stuff. I go by and empty all my junk mail once in a while because thieves won’t take it. I go through it to check if there was somebody else’s real mail stuck in there by mistake. Is it that bad where you live?
Back earlier this year I had a Fed-Ex drive deliver a package I had ordered 25 miles away in a completely different town from my post office town. I live out in the country not in town. My correct name and address was on the package along with my telephone number. The lady at the home the package was delivered to called me. I knew exactly where she lived and just went to her home and picked it up. I talked with the driver’s supervisor at Fed-Ex and he said he was very interested in hearing the driver’s explanation for doing this. I often get other people’s mail/ letters mixed in with my mail, makes me wonder how much of my mail goes to other people. I have not had any problems with UPS.
I am reading the Dorie book now and remember reading this Christmas folklore a few days ago. The one about animals kneeling is the one I have most often heard. I find the one about the Christmas weather determining the Easter weather interesting. Last year the coldest days of winter were at Christmas, this year it is forecast to be warm and rainy. Today is the first day of winter and it feels like it -26 degrees. I hope it is ok for me to write this, today would be my parent’s wedding anniversary if they were still alive, Daddy always teased Mother and said he wanted his honeymoon to be on the longest night of the year. She would fuss at him and tell him to hush. When she did this he would just laugh harder.