URBAN LEGENDS AND HOME
REMEDIES
MAY 10, 2000
Presenting from the NC Mountain Region: Ms. Carrie
Gates
Presenting from the Coastal NC-Ocracoke: Mr. Jim Cornette
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URBAN LEGENDS AND HOME
REMEDIES
Presenting from the NC Mountain Region: Ms. Carrie
Gates |
Jim Cornette |
Cullowhee: Good day and welcome to our Town Meeting, Urban Legends and Home Remedies.
Today we are coming to you live from Ocracoke Island and from Cullowhee. Would our schools
please tell everyone who you are and where you are. Cullowhee: We're very fortunate to have Ms. Carrie Gates in Cullowhee and Mr. Jim Cornette in Ocracoke. Carrie, would you tell us a little about yourself. Carrie Gates: I'm Carrie Gates (Carrie is my nickname , short for Carmelite) from the Little Canada section of Jackson county, up near the Blue Ridge Parkway. I now live in Sylva with my husband and three daughters. I work at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, where we are doing this Town Meeting. Jim Cornette: I'm 57, middle school teacher, grades 3-8, language arts, I've taught at Ocracoke School for 25+ years, a little dab of everything. My pet peeves: yard work or housework of any kind and lazy people Carrie Gates: Hi, glad to meet all of you! |
Carrie Gates |
Ocracoke School
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Glenn Gurley: I am Glenn Gurney from Gaston County and a member of the Teachers Connect team. We also have teachers participating from the TLC Lab in the Iredell/Statesville Schools. Ocracoke School: Ocracoke School says hi. Cullowhee: Does anyone have an opening question? Ocracoke School: What is the scariest legend from the NC Mountains? |
| Carrie Gates: I think the definition of
scariest depends on your age. I tell mostly true life stories and several of them are
scary, some of them dealing with ghosts and chopping off of heads, others dealing with
real-life encounters with what most mountain people feared most: snakes or painters (what
they call panthers, or golden mountain lions.) Cullowhee: Jim, is the same true at the coast, that scary stories center around what people fear most? Jim Cornette: Yes, ghosts, and rabid animals Ocracoke School: and torists!!! Carrie Gates: What are torists? Is that something to be feared like painters? Cullowhee: In Boone they're feared MUCH more than painters! Jim Cornette: Carrie, a torist is actually a euphemism for dingbatter. Math1: A painter is panther? Carrie Gates: Yes, they say painter (just like we would in talking about who changed the color of our house), when they are referring to a panther. Ocracoke School: Are you aware of any legends from the coastal area of the history of Black people on the Outer Banks? Jim Cornette: Black LIFE SAVERS; what is now the Coast Guard left quite a legacy of bravery and sacrifice saving shipwreck victims along the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Cullowhee: Jim, any stories/legends of the Life Savers stand out to you? Jim Cornette: Let me brush up a little on my history and I will get back to you. Carrie Gates: I think people have two basic fears, what they can't explain or understand, and then what can hurt them and they have no control over! Carrie Gates: We have some stories about folks who ended up being heroes for one reason or the next, but not for any specific reason. On Ocracoke, you had specific, regular disasters. Cullowhee: The mountains have the ever-popular Jack Tales. Jim, are there any similar type tales at the coast? Jim Cornette: No, not to my knowledge Carrie Gates: As a matter of fact, some parts of the mountains did not really have the Jack Tales. At least not until we read them in our primary readers. I asked a popular storyteller from up Boone way and he agreed, he read them as a child in school. They may be truly popular up further north in Appalachia, but they were not common here! Glenn Gurley: A question from Iredell County: What remedies did the Native Americans have for bad headaches? Jim Cornette: I don't know but there is a local tree known as the toothache tree, that when chewed has a most definite numbing effect. Cullowhee: I've heard of stewing bark from the north and south side of a poplar tree for seizures Jim Cornette: Back to jack tales Cullowhee: Doesn't aspirin come from tree bark? Jim Cornette: No, on Ocracoke it comes from a bottle Cullowhee: A bottle??? How do you shove the bark inside? Jim Cornette: There is a professional story teller who comes to the island occasionally who is from Cullowhee and Jack Tales are part of his presentation. |
Iredell/Statesville Schools
Iredell/Statesville Schools |
Ocracoke School
Iredell/Statesville Schools
Iredell/Statesville Schools
Ocracoke School |
Carrie Gates:
Your storyteller is Donald Davis, from Waynesville, about 20 miles from here. Maybe he
heard them as a child, he grew up in town, not out in the mountains like I did. Ocracoke School: What is a Jack Tale? Carrie Gates: Jack Tales go along with many of the old fairy tales, which are really stories brought over from England, the popular news or gossip of the day, and remembered for eons by folks who don't have kings, queens, etc. anymore. Carrie Gates: All Jack Tales have to do with a boy named Jack who goes out and meets all kinds of mis-adventures, and always wins. Jack and the Beanstalk, and so forth. Jim Cornette: Short stories that use Jack as the main characters are Jack Tales. Cullowhee: What are the most popular home remedies? Jim Cornette: There are sites listed on the web page for home remedies and stories that may be of interest to listeners or watchers. Cullowhee: Which web page is that, Jim? Jim Cornette: The web page is the one for this conference. Has anyone heard of a mountain remedy of crushing up green cockleburs in sweet milk for rattle snake bites, generally given to dogs? Carrie Gates: Mountain folk, especially families with young children would never be without canned blackberries all year round. If the child got diarrhea, a few teaspoons of blackberry juice fixed them right up. A few years ago, doctors discovered a similar medicine and called it Imodium AD. Carrie Gates: Everybody has heard of snake-charmers, does anyone know that snakes can charm people? Jim Cornette: If you eat peppermint when your stomach aches it makes it feel better. Carrie Gates: And your breath smells better, too. Jim Cornette: Salt water makes cuts heal faster. Jim Cornette: Don't drink milk on top of oysters or fish, no ice cream after dinner when serving with seafood. Carrie Gates: Drinking ground ivy tea from the shoe of the seventh daughter is a sure cure for thrash (thrush, a fungus infection that babies often gets, the inside of their mouth turns white, very painful.) Cullowhee: Jewel Weed rubbed on poison ivy prevents blistering. Carrie Gates: Don't rub it! Rubbing it will make it worse. Jewel Weed is a succulent, just open the stem and gently pat the inside on the itchy spots. Carrie Gates: In fact, Jewel Weed is good for regular burns, also, do the same as if you are using it for poison ivy. Jim Cornette: Put wet tobacco on a bee or wasp sting. Jim Cornette: Roll up a ball of spider webs, and press on an injury to stop bleeding. Jim Cornette: If you put a piece of bread or a match in your mouth when you are slicing onions your eyes won't water. Cullowhee: Jim, how big a part does Blackbeard play in the local legends and lore of Ocracoke? Jim Cornette: At one time the village put on a play of Blackbeard, each summer for the tourist it was quite popular Jim Cornette: Pour Clorox on poison ivy and it dries it out Carrie Gates: There is a verse in the Bible that is used to stop bleeding, there are people who know this verse and would travel from house to house to stop bleeding. Other people blew fire out of burns, and still other could cure poison ivy by just knowing where it was on the person. Jim Cornette: Agrees about people being used to blow on fire victims as a little boy I remember my parents talking about hospitals hiring people to do just that. Cullowhee: What are the weirdest home remedies? Carrie Gates: Once when my daughter had a bad case of diaper rash, I called an elderly friend. She told me to go into the woods and find a rotten stump and scoop out some worm dust and sprinkle it on the rash and it would cure it right up, needless to say, I didn't' go out looking for worm dust! I just couldn't. Jim Cornette: Weirdest home remedy can't remember details, but nailing a lock of ones hair to a tree was supposed to have given the tree your headache. Jim Cornette: Rub a black cat's hair backward for good luck . Carrie Gates: My granny miscarried with her first baby, it was only about 4 months along. They buried the baby, wrapped in soft cloth, in a matchbox, in the drip of the house (where the water dripped off the roof). That was supposed to prevent any future miscarriages. She didn't miscarry again. Ocracoke School: Carrie: what is your most popular home remedy? Carrie Gates: My personal all time favorite is our family's cure for colds, flu, constipation, depression, just about anything that ails you. Take a cup of boiling water, add a tablespoon of sugar, a sprinkling of ginger, and a shot glass of white lightning, and you might not get well, but you immediately feel much better! Jim Cornette: Getting off the subject a little here, but has anyone had any experience with dousing or water witching? Carrie Gates: I have doused, it really has some scientific reason or reality. During World War II, soldiers doused for buried bombs. Ocracoke School: Are there any remedies for a swollen tongue? Jim Cornette: Yes, eat bark out of an aspirin bottle Carrie Gates: Did you say that Ocracoke folks were afraid of snakes? Jim Cornette: We have no poison snakes here, one really ferocious looking one is called the hognose snake, but is harmless Carrie Gates: We do have a couple of poisonous snakes, rattlesnakes and copperheads, they love rocky areas, and love wet areas. Glenn Gurley: Carrie... Please tell me the science behind dousing. Carrie Gates: I don't know much about dousing, it must somehow find empty spaces underground, like water pipes, or electrical lines, just cut you off two pieces of clothes hanger, shaped like an "l", and hold the short pieces in you hand, straight in front of you, then walk slowly. You can find the buried water and electrical lines in you yard, house, almost anywhere. It sure helped my Doubting Thomas of a hubby last year when we had to find where our sewer lines go. Ocracoke School: I once had a dream about a snake in my closet. The problem was that it reoccurred about four times. Any relevance??? Carrie Gates: Is that anything like a wolf in sheep's clothing? I'd be careful whom I let into my closet! Cullowhee: We have about 10 minutes left. Any more questions or areas we haven't touched? Glenn Gurley: We have an extensive herb garden at our house... can you tell me some uses for our St. John's Ward, Varlarian Root (blooming now), and corn flower - and some herbs no herb garden should be without? Jim Cornette: St. John's Wort is good for stress Glenn Gurley: OK. I will keep that one in good supply! Ocracoke School: Amen Ocracoke School: Why do you guys think that people have the need for all of these legends. Could it be some void in our reality? Carrie Gates: I'd be interested in hearing why people think storytelling is important. Carrie Gates: I believe stories help us have a belief in who we are and where we come from. Everyone needs a strong sense of self-esteem, and stories build that sense of who we are. Glenn Gurley: I also think "hearing" the stories is important to put them in perspective. Ocracoke School: On the other side, couldn't they have a negative effect, by making the regular man seem incompetent or irrelevant? Cullowhee: What story is most requested when you're telling stories to kids? Carrie Gates: Most of the stories I tell are about regular men who faced danger and adversity using in many cases the only things they had, their wits, and they survived. I think that tells everyone that even though we may not always do things exactly right, it is the doing, and the trying that is valuable. Glenn Gurley: Good points Carrie... Carrie Gates: If I tell stories to a group of school kids, they often want to hear the old story Tailey Po, which was made popular by David Holt as Tailey Bone. Glenn Gurley: I don't know that story Carrie... would love to hear you tell it sometime :-) Carrie Gates: It's scary, with a surprise ending, kids love it. Glenn Gurley: Just the type of story I enjoyed as a child Jim Cornette: Good lessons come from the stories that we hear throughout childhood, and when you get older. As for their value, Aesop's Fables have stood the test of time for over two millenniums Jim Cornette: Regretfully, coming to the end of a most enjoyable session. Parting Shots? Carrie Gates: As Bill Cosby always said, we all love to be "scared to death". Cullowhee: Well, our time is about up for today, we'd like to thank our special guests, Carrie and Jim for sharing their time and experiences with us. Thanks too, to all of our stations down the line for participating Jim Cornette: Goodbye to all Glenn Gurley: Yes... the Piedmont area enjoyed hearing from the mountains and coast... great session Cullowhee: Carrie and Jim, how can we get in touch with you? Carrie Gates: gates@nccat.org for me, I'd love to hear from anyone who might have more questions. Jim Cornette: Through Ocracoke School P.O. Box 189 Ocracoke, NC 27960 Carrie Gates: Bye everyone, take care, and always remember, there is a difference between a storyteller and a liar, it may be a small difference, but it's there! Ocracoke School: Bye bye Jim Cornette: Thanks for your participation, Carrie Carrie Gates: You are most welcome, thank you for having me! Jim Cornette: Bye Ocracoke now come back to class |
Iredell/Statesville Schools
| Cullowhee: What story is most requested
when you're telling stories to kids? Carrie Gates: Most of the stories I tell are about regular men who faced danger and adversity using in many cases the only things they had, their wits, and they survived. I think that tells everyone that even though we may not always do things exactly right, it is the doing, and the trying that is valuable. Glenn Gurley: Good points Carrie... Carrie Gates: If I tell stories to a group of school kids, they often want to hear the old story Tailey Po, which was made popular by David Holt as Tailey Bone. Glenn Gurley: I don't know that story Carrie... would love to hear you tell it sometime :-) Carrie Gates: It's scary, with a surprise ending, kids love it. Glenn Gurley: Just the type of story I enjoyed as a child Jim Cornette: Good lessons come from the stories that we hear throughout childhood, and when you get older. As for their value, Aesop's Fables have stood the test of time for over two millenniums Jim Cornette: Regretfully, coming to the end of a most enjoyable session. Parting Shots? Carrie Gates: As Bill Cosby always said, we all love to be "scared to death". Cullowhee: Well, our time is about up for today, we'd like to thank our special guests, Carrie and Jim for sharing their time and experiences with us. Thanks too, to all of our stations down the line for participating Jim Cornette: Goodbye to all Glenn Gurley: Yes... the Piedmont area enjoyed hearing from the mountains and coast... great session Cullowhee: Carrie and Jim, how can we get in touch with you? Carrie Gates: gates@nccat.org for me, I'd love to hear from anyone who might have more questions. Jim Cornette: Through Ocracoke School P.O. Box 189 Ocracoke, NC 27960 Carrie Gates: Bye everyone, take care, and always remember, there is a difference between a storyteller and a liar, it may be a small difference, but it's there! Ocracoke School: bye bye Jim Cornette: Thanks for your participation, Carrie Carrie Gates: You are most welcome, thank you for having me! Jim Cornette: Bye Ocracoke now come back to class |
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