The Witch of Bull Run Meets Her Match
“This story was contributed by Lenore Danley, who was a student in my class in folklore at Glenville State College.
Old Aunt Eunice, a native of Bull Run, Gilmer County, was well known as a witch. She had sold herself to the devil at sixteen years old, and she said the devil promised her that she would live a hundred years after that. She was approximately one hundred and twenty when she died.
Aunt Eunice was able to make people’s cows stop giving milk. She could take a hatchet and stick it in the corner of the house, steal a dishrag and hang it on the hatchet, and that evening the cows of the neighbors would give no milk.
One time Aunt Eunice bewitched Hezakiah Griffith, who lived on Crooked Run. Every night when Hezekiah went to bed, a darning needle would hop across the floor and jump on his chest. Finally he couldn’t put up with it anymore, so he went to the witch doctor to get a cure. The witch doctor told him to catch the needle and fetch it to him.
The next night he lay in bed and pretended to be asleep, but when the needle jumped on his chest he was ready for it. He grabbed that needle and held onto it, and early in the morning before daylight he took that needle to the witch doctor. The witch doctor heated the needle until it was red-hot, then he bent it double. He told Hezakiah not to let Aunt Eunice get hold of the needle.
Well, it wasn’t long till she sent someone after him, and she said she wanted to see him right away. When he got to her house, he found her all doubled up with the cramps. She was bent, just like that needle. After she promised him that she wouldn’t bother him any more, he put the needle in the fire to get it hot, and when he did this she moaned with pain. When he straightened out the needle, she got well right away. And Hezakiah was never bothered any more after that.”
-Witches, Ghosts, and Signs: Folklore of the Southern Appalachians
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