Signs, Curses, & Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore

MILNES, Gerald C.

ISBN 10: 1572335777 / ISBN 13: 9781572335776

Published by University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN, 2007

About this Item

Octavo. 6.25 x 9.25 in. xvi, 245 pp. Fine in original cloth-covered boards and near fine pictorial dust jacket with light shelfwear. Scarce in hardcover.

Seller Inventory # 9656

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Signs, Curses, & Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore
• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572335777
• ISBN 13: 9781572335776
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition, First Printing.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Appalachia

About this title

Synopsis

The various occult practices, symbols, and beliefs of the German immigrants that settled in the Appalachian frontier are described in this study that draws a larger picture of the German influence on Appalachia.

Book Description

The persecution of Old World German Protestants and Anabaptists in the seventeenth century-following debilitating wars, the Reformation, and the Inquisition-brought about significant immigration to America. Many of the immigrants, and their progeny, settled in the Appalachian frontier. Here they established a particularly old set of religious beliefs and traditions based on a strong sense of folk spirituality. They practiced astrology, numerology, and other aspects of esoteric thinking and left a legacy that may still be found in Appalachian folklore today.

Based in part on the author's extensive collection of oral histories from the remote highlands of West Virginia, Signs, Cures, and Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore
describes these various occult practices, symbols, and beliefs; how they evolved within New World religious contexts; how they arrived on the Appalachian frontier; and the prospects of those beliefs continuing in the contemporary world.

By concentrating on these inheritances, Gerald C. Milnes draws a larger picture of the German influence on Appalachia. Much has been written about the Anglo-Celtic, Scots-Irish, and English folkways of the Appalachian people, but few studies have addressed their German cultural attributes and sensibilities. Signs, Cures, and Witchery sheds startling light on folk influences from Germany, making it a volume of tremendous value to Appalachian scholars, folklorists, and readers with an interest in Appalachian folklife and German American studies.

Gerald C. Milnes is the folk arts coordinator of the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis and Elkins College. He is the editor of Granny Will Your Dog Bite and Other Mountain Rhymes and author of Play a Fiddle: Traditional Music, Dance, and Folklore in West Virginia.