#ghost days

“So many things to know” starts the second chapter of Ghost Days, an anthology of Appalachian folklore and witchcraft tales. For readers interested in Southern craft, this quote serves as a guiding reminder, as the book (which focuses on fictional tales) provides honest insights into Southern traditional folk magic and Appalachian life and witchcraft. Despite being a collection of fictional stories, there are true knowledges hidden throughout, and scores of practical holler magic. As the stubborn and clever-minded protagonist, Anna O’Brien, learns that salting graves puts down haints, that Yellowroot is best for cuts, that carvings and nails on a holly tree will kill them that works against you, that witch-balls and hag skins are tools of witch trade, so too do readers catch genuine glimpses of Appalachian folk craft and conjure magic. Any Southern practitioner worth her salt (if you don’t mind the turn of phrase) will find reflected here familiar wives’ tales, half-remembered knowledge, and old ways of working magic worth returning to again. 

And then there are the stories themselves, which transport readers to the turn of the twentieth century in the Tennessee hills where knowing the land, knowing the old ways, and knowing somebody goes a long way. With no other means of responding to the strange goings-on around her, Anna O’Brien, the book’s quiet protagonist of mixed white and indigenous heritage, turns to magic and witch knowledge to address the folklore horrors that inhabit the deep, foreboding woods of Appalachia. As she faces down the Cherokee Ewah, the skin-slipping hags of the hollow, the ancient Raven Mocker, a hog of the bog, and more haints than you could shake salt at, readers get their fill of folklore knowledge, chills, thrills, and happy (and unhappy) endings. 

These stories abound with savvy (and scary) women, engaging characters of color, reminders of the living land, and one particularly apt and modern-feeling tale of a lesbian couple facing down (magically enhanced) male entitlement. Much like the folklore it’s based around, this book invites us to draw upon the old ways to address the modern world. What might we accomplish by remembering old tales, long-forgotten magics, strong communities, and a reciprocal relationship to our environments? Ghost Days offers a meaningful, if fictional, glimpse of that world, and with direct and engaging writing that keeps you turning pages, Ghost Days is a bookshelf favorite waiting to happen.