{"id":170,"date":"2015-06-07T00:04:24","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T04:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=170"},"modified":"2015-06-07T00:04:24","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T04:04:24","slug":"folklore-charms-and-old-wives-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=170","title":{"rendered":"FOLKLORE, CHARMS, AND OLD WIVES\u2019 TALES"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My latest book, HALLEY,<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In the Georgia mountains of my childhood, there were some people who were superstitious.\u00a0 Not many actually believed in ghosts, but many believed in \u201csigns.\u201d\u00a0 If your hand inched, you were going to come into some money.\u00a0 If your nose itched, you were going to have company.\u00a0 Many believed that people could bring bad luck on another simply by wishing it on them.\u00a0 I think practically all the women believed that a pregnant woman who got scared or had a bad experience could \u201cmark\u201d her baby.\u00a0 When expecting me, my mother saw her pet dog run over by a car, and when I was born I had a red birthmark on the back of my head.\u00a0 \u201cIt was just exactly the shape of the puddle of blood around my dog\u2019s head,\u201d she would say.\u00a0 My grandmother Long believed she had marked her firstborn son by constantly craving strawberries while pregnant.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t a bit surprised when he was born with a birthmark on his chest shaped like a strawberry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My Grandfather Long, like many other farmers of that place and time, planted and harvested by the astrological signs of the zodiac.\u00a0 He was sure that his success depended on obeying these signs precisely.\u00a0 Not only that, he believed that as mundane a chore as digging fence post holes had to be planned by the signs and the phases of the moon.\u00a0 According to him and others, you had to dig out a lot more dirt when you didn\u2019t go by the signs.\u00a0 In addition, common illnesses could have worse consequences if they happened at an unfavorable time.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was folklore about having your wishes granted too.\u00a0 Many believed that if you wanted something very badly, you could simply name that wish and then open the bible at random.\u00a0 If either of the pages contained the phrase \u201cIt came to pass,\u201d then your wish would be granted.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really believe this, but I did try it a few times just to be sure.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t work for me. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some people were reputed to have mysterious healing powers.\u00a0 Some could \u201cdraw the fire\u201d out of a burn injury, so there would supposedly be no more pain.\u00a0 My great grandfather Fields was said to be gifted with the power of curing babies of\u00a0 the \u201cthrush,\u201d by breathing in their mouths.\u00a0 He dipped snuff, so the smell of tobacco spit and rotten teeth might have driven away almost anything!<\/span><\/p>\n

A college friend of mine grew up on a Georgia farm along with four sisters.\u00a0 Eleen\u2019s father died a couple of months before the youngest girl was born.\u00a0 That child never saw her father, and according to a common superstition that fact automatically gave her almost unlimited healing powers.\u00a0 People would bring their loved ones from great distances to have a laying on of hands.\u00a0 She did not charge–that, it was believed, would have canceled out her power–but people would give free will gifts in accordance to their means–a quarter, fifty cents–occasionally even a dollar.\u00a0 Perhaps from jealousy, the older girls teased the youngest constantly about her \u201cpowers.\u201d\u00a0 The reluctant healer began hiding in the woods when she saw visitors coming.\u00a0 Her mother always sent the other girls to fetch her–the family needed the money, but Mama also didn\u2019t want to turn desperate people away. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I remembered Eleen\u2019s story when writing HALLEY, and I gave Opal, an African American girl, this power of healing.\u00a0 But I decided I would also give her the goal of going to medical school and becoming a true healer.\u00a0 Opal\u2019s family, who all worked so one could go to school, served as a stark contrast to Halley\u2019s family, who valued education so little.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to laugh at superstitious beliefs from earlier times, but we have our own illogical beliefs. \u00a0 If you doubt, just look at those who play the stock market. They shell out big money on \u201chunches\u201d or unchecked tips.\u00a0 And every time the stock market shows a long rising trend, they believe against all logic that it will last forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

I guess each generation has to give young people something to disbelieve and laugh at!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 My latest book, HALLEY, Awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon In the Georgia mountains of my childhood, there were some people who were superstitious.\u00a0 Not many actually believed in ghosts, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}