"...Aunt Nancy had stirred my imagination and curiosity with her stories, and I decided that I wanted to be a witch when I grew up. So I asked her how people got to be witches.
She began to talk: 'Becoming a witch is not simple, son. fust, you should give very serious thought to hit.' Then, she paused, filled and lighted her clay pipe and, between puffs, she continued, 'Effen a body wuz shore he wanted to be a witch, what he has to do is to swap his soul to the Devil for the soul of some wicked dead person. He'd have to promise to do what the Devil told him the rest of his life. Hit would be easier to become a witch effen you wuz the seventh son of a seventh son, but ennybody who wants to be a witch bad enough can get to be one.'
'Fust, he'd have to climb to the top of the highest knob on Witch Mountain and tote either a black cat or a black hen. Then, he'd have to find the Indian graveyard at the place nigh where the two Indian trails cross. There he'd have to draw a big ring in the dust 'bout fifteen feet acrost, and dance in this circle each morning at break of day for eight mornings in a row. Then, on the ninth morning, he'd have to put one hand on top of his head and 'tother on the sole of his foot and say, "I give all betwixt my two hands to the Devil. I swear I'll do everything he axts of me."
Then, the Devil comes right up over the edge of the cliff and nips him on the shoulder so hit bleeds. Then, the Devil tells him to wet his finger in the blood and sign an X to his pact. Then, the soul of the wicked person swaps places with his soul, and he'd be a witch. Then, the Devil will say some magic words over the cat or the hen and change hit into an imp. Or, if you'd rather, the Devil wil change the imp into a toad, a crow or a beetle."
Collected by I.M. Warren, Roanoke County, Virginia, June 9, 1939. This story was told to P.E. Crowder when he was a child by Hosiah Ward of Bridle Creek, Carrol County, Virginia. Witch Mountain lies about seven miles north of Hillsville, in Carrol County, near Big Island Creek.
