Blue Waters Mountain Lodge

The notion of the South as a “family affair” is the key to Southern loyalties.  Both the Southernism and the Southerness of the South reflect the “clan-virtues” (and their defects) of the old frontier and rural folkways – folkways that were first of all American and...

In the folkways of Southern gastronomy, eating and drinking have played a part not only in general hospitality and sociability but also in community gatherings where the needs of work, religion and politics as well as gregariousness are satisfied.  Such was the case...

Many, many generations ago, long before the white man was seen in the land, a large happy tribe of Cherokee lived around the base of the mountain in North Carolina now known as Bald Mountain.  It was then covered from base to summit with gigantic trees, beneath which...

Justice is sometimes slanted in a peculiar manner in the backhills.  Things move from the sublime to the ridiculous in a singular way.  Take the “bull trial” of the 1880’s.  Old timers continue to talk and shake their heads over this famous trial.  It is a tall tale...

The diet of the mountaineers was enough to kill them even after they’ve survived the rough handling of the midwives, the “stretchin’ hives” and the gamut of diseases.  Of course it varies somewhat with the seasons and economic circumstances, but cornbread and pork are...

There was a time when liquor making was considered just about as important as putting a garden.  Maybe more so, because a family could get along without garden sass.  Once a well-known citizen who spent his lifetime in the county was elected sheriff.  One of his first...

One important pastime of local boys was that of imitating the noise of every bird and beast in the woods.  This faculty was not merely a pastime, but a very necessary part of education on account of its utility in certain circumstances.  The imitations of the gobbling...

“The moon had more to do with running the country than the sun did” said the old timer of the days of his youth.  Root crops and tubers, plants of darkness, are planted in the dark of the moon; above ground crops in the light of the moon.  The dark of the moon is also...

In the old days the animals were fond of amusement, and were constantly getting up grand meetings and contests of various kinds, with prizes for the winner.  On one occasions a prize was offered to the animal with the finest coat, and although the otter deserved to...

If the weather, on the whole, is outside of man’s control, not so with love and health – his two chief fields for charms and cures.  Folk medicine shows some division of labor – in so far as the men minister to the farm animals and stock or serve as “wart takers,”...