I hope to meet him face to face.
You may also wish upon the first star you see that night for a similar divination.
When you see a new moon enclose a star, it is a good night to make love.
The three days before and after the new moon are considered unlucky: one can say, “When there is no moon, there is no luck.” However, you can change your luck by looking for the new moon over your right shoulder. Better yet, if you happen to glance at it without trying, and make a wish before speaking aloud, it will surely come true. But beware, some folks say it is bad luck to view the new moon over one’s left shoulder.
If you see the new moon between some trees, it can also bring bad luck, but you can combat it by shaking your dress at it. All the more reason to become familiar with the way the moon rises and sets in whatever holler you live in.
THE STARS
For three nights in a row, gaze out your window and name three stars in the sky. Walk to your bed backwards and without speaking, and the person you dream of two nights out of the three will be your future betrothed. For seven nights in a row, count seven stars and the first person you shake hands with after this shall be your future mate.
You can make wishes on stars as well. When you see the first star of the evening, you must ask someone three questions, all the while keeping your wish a secret. After three more days have come to pass, your wish will come true.
You may also wish upon the first star you see by saying the following classic charm:
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight.
You can also wish on a shooting star as long as you get your wish out before the star disappears. But beware, because pointing at a shooting star is bad luck.
In African folklore in Appalachia, it was bad luck to count the stars in general, for they could fall if you did, and bad luck as well to point at the moon.
Stars can also be portents of danger. Shooting stars can be signs of a disaster, or even war. When the sky is lit and a meteor or comet passes amongst the stars, it is a sure sign of war to come. Comets can also signify strange or unusual events, as can eclipses.
RAINBOWS
Rainbows are always special to see, and in Appalachia that is no exception. If there is a complete rainbow in times of global trouble, it means that war will end.
A moon rainbow is especially rare, but to see one is a sure sign of good luck to come.
SOME FINAL WORDS
In popular culture, Appalachia is a place that seems to exist out of time. In reality, it is a region that is neither primitive nor nostalgic: it simply is. Appalachia holds the imagination of America for many reasons, but it deserves to be seen for the complex, beautiful, terrifying, and nuanced place that it is: a diverse and rich space, filled with songs, stories, and magic all its own. Appalachian folk magic is a microcosm of the story of America. A mixture of Indigenous, African, and European folk practices, forged into something entirely new in the foggy cauldron of the verdant mountains.
Folk practice is not static, and it is not frozen in time. We are writing it still. Whether you delve into this work from the perspective of trying to learn more about history or with the goal of incorporating this work into your own magical practice, it does not matter. We are living it now. The ways that Appalachian folk magic changes and adapts to our ever-evolving world will continue long after we are gone. This information is too precious, strange, and peculiar not to share and hold onto. While some practices are best let go of, others are deeply tied to long lineages of our ancestors’ attempts to find meaning and control in an ultimately chaotic and wondrous world. Appalachian folk magic acts as a window for us, revealing the things most loved and most feared by peoples of the past. Perhaps not much has changed as we sit with those same feelings today.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Jeffrey E. Conjure in African American Society. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007.
Bayard, S. P. “Witchcraft Magic and Spirits on the Border of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.”The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 51, No. 199 (Jan.–Mar., 1938), pp. 47–59.
Boughman, Arvis Locklear, and Oxendine, Loretta O. Herbal remedies of the Lumbee Indians. United Kingdom, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2004. p. 74.
Butler, Jon. “Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage, 1600-1760.” The American Historical Review, 84, no. 2, 1979, p. 317.
Cavender, Anthony. “Folk Hematology in the Appalachian South.” Journal of Folklore Research, 1992. 23.
Cavender, A. “Folk medical uses of plant foods in southern Appalachia, United States.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 108, (January 1, 2006): 74–84.
Cavender, Anthony P. Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Chadwell, J. Tyler and Tiffany D. Martin. “Mountain Mystics: Magic Practitioners in Appalachian Witchlore.” Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov, Series IV:
Philology & Cultural Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 49–56.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. “Hellebore”. Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 1910.
“Conjuring and Conjure-Doctors in the Southern United States (Continued).” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 9, no. 34, July 1896, p. 224.
Combs, Josiah Henry. “Sympathetic Magic in the Kentucky Mountains: Some Curious Folk-Survivals.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 27, no. 105, 1914, pp. 328–330.
Covey, Herbert C. African-American Slave Medicine: Herbal and non-Herbal Treatments. United Kingdom, Lexington Books, 2007. p.133.
