Blue Waters Mountain Lodge

There is a revealing story about one of the combination farmer-merchant-bankers of Western North Carolina.  A book agent came to sell him a set of books on scientific agriculture.  The old man thumbed through them. “No, I don’t want ‘em.” “You ought to buy these...

As a storied region, celebrated in history and romance, the South has never lacked inspiration or material for storytelling.  Ever since the first voyagers touched on its shores, the Eden-land of the South has been an Eden-land of the imagination, rich not only in...

The highlander often speak in Elizabethan or Chaucerian or even pre-Charcerian terms.  His pronoun hit antedates English itself, being the Anglo-Saxon neuter of he.  Ey God, a favorite expletive, is the original of egad, and goes back of Chaucer.  Ax for ask and kag...

When it is necessary to know the depth of the water at any point in the river, the test or sounding is made by dropping a 33 foot rope, to the end of which is fastened a pipe filled with lead.  The pipe is about one and a half inches in diameter and twelve inches in...

The fox had his eye on a turkey perched in a treetop.  “Hey, Brer Turkey,” called the Brer Fox, “is you heard about the new law? – Foxes can’t eat no more turkeys, and hounds can’t chase foxes.  Come on down and we’ll talk about it.”  “Nothin’ doing,” said Brer...

Bourbon – A Democrat of the straightest sect, a “fire-eater”.  Applied for the most part to Southern Democrats of the old school.  This use of the word probably antedates the Civil War but no instance of such use has been found in print.  We must look to the old...

The Appalachian people have a marked Scotch-Irish strain, one would expect their speech to show a strong Scotch influence.  So far as vocabulary is concerned there is really little of it.  A few words, caigy (cadgy), coggled, fernent, gin for if, needcessity, trollop,...