by Willie Higgins

Created on: December 23, 2007

Sand Mountain Witch's
My Grandma told me many stories when I was a child. I'm not so sure that all of them could be proved as the truth. But she was a wonderful lady, and I wasn't about to say I didn't believe her. First of all, she would have boxed my ears. Grandma was born in 1880, she lived on Sand Mountain in North Alabama. She was one half Cherokee Indian, and had tails from days of old. How the Indians practices witchcraft, casting spells. The story goes like this.

She knew a man that would set a small child on a table he would lay his hands on the table and the table would begin to dance around the room. The table would dance up and down until the child was tossed to the floor. She also said the man could cast spells on people. If the person drank a lot, he would cast a spell on him to make him stop. He carried a bag of herbs an bones other things around his neck. He could heal a sick person, or stop bleeding with spider web. He could make the broom fly around the room. I seen it with my own eyes, Grandma would say. I also seen him throw my brother off that table more than once, right there in our house. I never would get near that table when he was around. You didn't want to cross this man. If he got mad at you, he would cast a spell and your hog might die. Her eyes would get big and her voice would get low and her words would get slower. You could feel a chill in the room as she talked. It was like that man was right there with you. You didn't want to go out of the house after dark. He might be out there, just waiting! "Lord how I loved my Grandma."

Just to refresh my memory about this tail, I went to visit my mother, she is in her eighties now herself. I ask, was this man a faith healer? Oh! Heavens no she said. It was witchcraft and he could do all the things Grandma said he could. A man of God didn't want anything to do with a man like that. Her eyes got big as she talked about the story, just like Grandma's did. I ask if it was just a story. She gave me a look that would have stopped a freight train. "It was the truth, she said. Well now. I'm no fool, I wasn't about to tell her that I didn't believe it. To her that would have been the same as calling Grandma a lier "She, like Grandma, would have mashed my mouth. So as far as I'm concerned, there use to be witches living on Sand Mountain, Alabama. "Maybe he's still out there!

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