Blow the tannery whistle: Foxfire Christmas: traditions and superstitions
Back in the 1980s, when I was telling stories in the Cope Crest Conference Center in Tiger, Georgia, I heard about Eliott Wigginton, who was teaching English in the Rayburn County school system.
Wigginton had asked his students to go home and interview their family members. In a short time, Elliott had acquired enough interviews to publish a book, “Foxfire,” which contained fascinating Interviews that dealt with topics such as hunting, cooking and folklore.
I immediately bought a copy of “A Foxfire Christmas” and found myself reading about traditions and superstitions. Some were familiar since I had encountered them in my own childhood, and some were unique. I had never heard of “serenading,” but I would eventually discover that my own relatives in Macon County had been “serenaders” in the past! I also discovered that it was an old Christmas tradition that was now “against the law” according to a newspaper article I read in Clayton in 1990.
According to my relatives in Cowee and Rabun Gap, “serenading” was practiced by groups of local citizens who traveled in the dark and often on Christmas Eve to a neighbor’s house. They traditionally covered their faces with soot, and the women dressed as men and the men dressed as women. They carried an assortment of objects, including pots, pans, shotguns, firecrackers and hammers, and when it was near midnight, the group burst into celebration which lasted until the neighbor’s light came on!
Eventually, the neighbor would open the door and invite the serenaders inside where everyone had a cup of apple cider and a slice of poundcake. I immediately knew that the neighbors knew that the serenaders were coming, and I guess they had prepared an ample supply of cider and poundcake. Now, it occurs to me that the active serenading was a community event; in the past, it was actually “an honored tradition.” However, why did they cover their faces with soot? Why the crossdressing?
Another ritual which was carried out in conjunction with serenading was the burning of large fires on mountain tops. I remember participating in gatherings on mountain tops on Christmas Eve and when I looked around, there were similar fires on surrounding mountain tops. This tradition is popular in Scotland and Ireland and is thought to be older than other Christmas celebrations. In fact, the fires are thought by modern folklorists to date from a distant past when people who lived through harsh winters sometimes felt that “the sun had stopped.”
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The fires and the loud noises were thought to be an effort to make the sun return to its traditional journey through the sky.
An interesting tradition that was practiced in Foxfire country and in Appalachia was the belief in “first footers.”
In essence, it was a superstition that the first person to step into and out of your home on New Year’s Day would determine your future in the coming year. Specifically, if your “first footer” was a blonde or a redhead, you were in danger of failed crops, domestic disasters (divorce) and poor health. On the other hand, if your visitor was dark-haired, your crops would be generous, your household would be blessed and you would have good health. Now, I am sure you would have guessed how to enjoy a blessed future — traditionally you would invite a ”first footer” who was dark-haired and you would ask him to come early. The general belief is that the first footer tradition dates back to a war or invasion by those fair-haired French.
My great-grandmother in Macon had a huge fireplace, and the annual selecting of a Yule log was a big tradition. Since the back log would be in the fireplace for the entire Christmas, it was selected for its ability to last a long time. It is supposed to last from Christmas Eve until Jan. 6. In my great-grandmother’s house, the remains of the Yule log were removed on Jan. 6 (old Christmas), wrapped in cloth and placed in the barn. In the following year on Christmas Eve, the remnants of the Yule log are used to ignite the new yule log. This is an old English tradition, and it suggests that the fire never goes out in my great-grandmother’s fireplace.
When I was teaching at Lees-McRae, a local folklorist told me about a “dumb supper” which is a meal prepared by four unmarried women in the hope of seeing the face of their future husband in the plate. It was a complex ceremony which had to be performed by the four ladies while walking backwards. One of the unmarried girls left a knife on her plate and it disappeared. According to this folklorist, the knife returned in the hand of her future husband. He killed her with it. Oh my!
It is interesting that many of these old beliefs have a “dark” side. There is an old folklore belief that the animals talk on Christmas Eve. So it is that animal owners are warned that they should never attempt to hear the animals talk. To do so is to risk hearing the animals talk about their owner’s death.
However, most of the traditions involving animals were gentle and promised blessings, such as the one that said that the bees always hummed the 100th Psalm on Christmas Eve. I never heard that one!
(Gary Carden is one of Southern Appalachia’s most revered literary figures and has won a number of significant awards for his books and plays over the years, including the Book of the Year Award from the Appalachian Writers Association in 2001, the Brown Hudson Award for Folklore in 2006 and the North Carolina Arts Council Award for Literature in 2012. His most recent book, “Stories I lived to tell,” is available at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, or online through uncpress.org.)
