The Old Ways, superstitions, and healing came along with our foremothers on the ships from Ireland, Scotland and Northern England and drifted down on the mountains where they settled. Some beliefs were borrowed from the Native Americans living among them. These beliefs made their way down through the decades. Our foremothers knew the ways that were handed down, were divine and from The Almighty God.
My momma could rub a wart between her fingers and it would be gone within a week. She would look them over, cast her eyes upward and then say, ” now just go on and don’t think about those warts”. I can’t tell you how she did it, but she did it, to several people, including myself.
She could tell my fortune. I was a teenage girl sitting in the kitchen with coffee grounds in the bottom of a simple coffee cup. After turning the cup up on it’s top and then picking it straight up and returning it to the table on it’s top three times, I would hand it to her and she would begin. This line of dripped coffee grounds meant I was interested in a fair haired boy. This small one meant I would be getting a gift in the mail. The next one perhaps meant, within the week, I would be going somewhere I’ve never been. Each line from the dribbles signified something different. Amazingly, most of the time she was right.
She knew about herbs, also called yarbs, and knew remedies for certain ailments.
She was taught from older women in her family about the subject of my last story, The Backward Supper.
She knew the old way of staring through a looking glass, through a glass of water, backward, to see envision the one you are to marry.
Although she never did it herself, my mother knew of neighbor women who could cure thrush (or thrash)of the mouth. She knew of neighbor women who could recite passages of the Bible and heal a burn, a bruise or stop bleeding.
She planted her garden according to the signs in the Almanac and she only made kraut in certain signs.
She had a meaning for nearly every dream. For instance, If one dreams of being stabbed, he is going to be sued. If one dreams of weather out of season it means trouble out of reason.
She had a superstition for every situation: If someone sweeps under another person’s feet, then that person will become a widow or widower. Never close another man’s pocket knife, it is bad luck. Always go out the same door you came in, it is bad luck.
It may sound strange to you that my mother had a strong belief in her Maker and depended on Jesus for her needs. She was saved and baptized when she was 13 years old. She prayed for her family and read her Bible. God knew her and she knew Him.
Don’t dare say she or any of the others was a witch. Don’t dare say she or any of the others was in league with the devil. She and the others, were nothing if not God fearing. These were simply ‘gifts’ that were passed down from some granny or great aunt. It was her heritage. Their heritage. The heritage that they brought with them and a heritage we shouldn’t forget.