Here There Be Spooks

It's the time of year when folks start thinking about ghosts and witches and such. Now, I've never seen a ghost, but I've gotten pictures of orbs before, and others have taken pictures of orbs on parts of some property I own—like this one from Polecat Creek Farm:

Photo by Robin Bevins

When I went on the historical society's ghost tour back in 2007, I found some orbs on the photos I uploaded to my computer. You can see them in "Another Interesting Day" blog-post. I've gotten orbs in my neighborhood, too, like the ones in "Seizing the Moment" blog-post and "Evening Walk Alone."

Supposedly witches lived in Franklin County back in the day. The settlers' map of the county even notes where a reputed which was located:

Whether the reputed witch was Juggs Burton or someone else isn't clear. However, there's a well known story about two witches who once lived in the county: Duck and Montague Moore.

Raymond Sloan, a local historian of days gone by interviewed someone in the 1930s about these two Franklin County witches. His tale is included in Virginia Folk Legends, edited  by Thomas E. Barden, Published by University of Virginia Press, 1991. Here are the pages as they appear in Google Books:

An easier-to read-version appears on Dave Tabler's Appalachian History blog. I'm not sure when these two witches were around, but it must have been over a century ago. They're long gone now.

It wouldn't be Halloween if I didn't repost "Samhain, Shut-Ins, and the Resurrection" from 2006. It's not often that you see a critter spring back to life.

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