We’ve written plenty about the problems with what is now ubiquitously called “artificial intelligence”: see for example These new “artificial intelligence” programs don’t know what they’re talking about, Another day, another catastrophic “AI” failure, If you believe in “Artificial Intelligence”, take five minutes to ask it about stuff you know well, What LLMs are really […]

Appalachian Folklore & Myths A lantern in the dark above town On autumn nights in Jenkins, it is easy to see why stories grow on Pine Mountain. The coal camp lights pool in the narrow valley, U.S. 23 climbs toward Pound Gap, and above everything the black outline of Raven Rock hangs over town. From time to time, people say, a single light appears on that high flank of the ridge. It swings or drifts as if someone is walking with a lantern.

Appalachian Folklore & Myths A lost treasure story in the Cumberlands For more than two centuries, people in the central and southern Appalachians have told stories about an Englishman named Jonathan Swift who came into the Kentucky wilderness before Daniel Boone, found rich veins of silver, and left his fortune hidden in caves and crevices that no one has ever quite been able to find again.

Appalachian Folklore & Myths A stone witch on the Smoky Mountain border Long before the Great Smoky Mountains became a national park, Cherokee families told stories about a stone skinned witch who hunted human livers in the ridges between what is now eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. In Cherokee she is called U’tlun’ta, often glossed as “the one with the pointed spear,” a reference to the knife like forefinger on her right hand.

Appalachian Folklore & Myths A Stone Wall Above the Clouds High on a ridge in north Georgia, just above the modern trails and campsites of Fort Mountain State Park, a low stone wall winds along the crest. It zigzags for roughly eight to nine hundred feet, rises only a few feet above the soil, and ties itself to boulders and outcrops as it goes.

Appalachian Folklore & Myths On a foggy night on Kentucky 160, the climb up Black Mountain feels longer than it really is. The road coils above Lynch and Benham, past the old mines and the dark slopes that once made Harlan County famous under a grim nickname. For some drivers, it is still not just Black Mountain. It is Headless Annie’s mountain. Today the legend of Headless Annie is one of Harlan County’s best known ghost stories.

The “publish or perish” race is a fixture of academic life, even as studies periodically warn that we are approaching a dead end. Since the 1980s, we have referred to this as the “serials crisis,” usually pointing the finger at commercial publishers who profit immensely from the scientific system.

Appalachian Folklore & Myths In American cryptid lore, Mothman usually shows up as a fully formed monster. He has wings, glowing red eyes, and a habit of appearing right before disaster. Yet if we back up and treat him like any other Appalachian folk figure, the story looks less like a jump scare and more like a case study in how legends grow.

Appalachian Folklore & Myths Introduction Somewhere in the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky, people will tell you, there is a hillside gravestone that carries a warning: “you will never leave Harlan alive.” Tour guides mention it. Facebook posts swear by it. Fans drive winding mountain roads hoping to stand in front of the stone that inspired one of Appalachia’s most haunting modern songs.

Appalachian Figures In the early 2000s, the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? turned “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” into a global hit. Long before that soundtrack and long before the Stanley Brothers or Bob Dylan sang the song, a quiet singer from Wayne County, Kentucky stepped into a Chicago studio and cut the first commercially released recording of it. His name was Emry Arthur.

Appalachian Figures Micajah Burnett is usually remembered as the Shaker architect whose limestone houses and twin spiral staircases still surprise visitors at Pleasant Hill in Mercer County. He is less often remembered as a frontier boy from Wayne County, growing up on the edge of the Appalachian plateau before he ever laid out a village street or calculated a water system.