When the Signs are Right

When the Signs are Right by Sidney Saylor Farr In southern Appalachia it is easy to be superstitious and believe in ghosts. Ghosts or "hants" as we called them became very real. And people spoke of them naturally, easily. There was also belief in the power of the moon, and how it affected the seasons of our lives. How does the moon affect our üves? Scientists are not altogether sure, but there is evidence that the moon may 43 affect us more than we realize. As a physical force, the moon pulls relentlessly at the oceans and seas, and even upon the surface of the earth as if it too were a sea. Scientists tell us that the earth reacts to the moon's tugging like a layer of breathing skin, expanding and contracting as much as five inches a day. We have the rising and falling of the tides. We have the different phases of the moon. And each phase exerts different influences. People used to be more keenly attuned to the elements and did their planting and harvesting, butchering, and healing according to the different cycles of the moon. Despite our faith in technology and the progress of modern civilization, a rising moon can still conjure up for some of us memories of ancient legends, villainy, and magic feats. At such moments, strange tentativeness or dread comes over us and stirs wonderings of our primordial beginnings. And the moon is a constant reminder of our wild heritage. In the Appalachian mountains we lived close to the earth and the rhythms of the seasons. Our lives were pretty well dictated by the changing seasons, by the different phases of the moon, by old superstitions and beliefs. My grandparents and parents always planted crops by the sign according to the Zodiac; they wouldn't cut hay or dig potatoes in the fall until the signs were right. My father neutered hogs and livestock for the neighbors and he always did it when the signs were right. Sometimes strange noises and floating mist-shrouded shapes would confound us and make us uneasy; people said they were hants. It was probably easier for people to explain the weird but natural moans, groans, screams and screeches occasionally made by birds and animals, as well as the sounds of the creeks and rivers, freezing and thawing, and caverns back in the limestone ridges of Pine Mountain, and down in the deep hollows and long valleys in that way. During my childhood, speaking of hants and supernatural things was almost as natural to us as talking of rain and snow and early frost. Some Indians believed that the souls of the dead traveled with the changing tide. It is said that even the man who never sees the ocean feels the pull of the moon, the surge of the tides. Perhaps what we felt was the response of the mountains to primordial times when water covered their peaks. While I still lived at Stoney Fork, I acquired my first reel-to-reel tape recorder . One early September morning my father and my grandfather walked to the mouth of the creek to the post office. On their way back up the creek they stopped by my house for a cup of coffee. They knew that I usually had a fire in the Warm Morning Heater on cold mornings and a coffee pot would be sitting on the back. We visited awhile and I asked them to talk about hants and other strange things they had seen or heard. I asked permission to turn on the tape recorder. They responded so well that later on I interviewed my grandmother and some of my uncles. The following are excerpts from the transcription of those tapes. Sol Saylor (1887-1980) When Gs a year old, why my old man moved to the head of Stoney Fork. Gs born in Rockcastle County, at Brodhead, Kentucky. But Pap was born and raised at the head of Stoney Fork on Peach Orchard. Pap said his old man and my great-uncle Samp was the first ones ever to come into this territory. Somebody told 'em they was good farrnen land at the...