Whisper in the Woods: Folklore of the Marsh

 —By Tiffany Amber Stockton

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September always feels like the right time of year for stories that live in the shadows. The air starts to shift, the days get shorter, and you're well on your way to the early autumn time that makes old tales feel a bit more alive.

And Chincoteague, it turns out, has plenty of old tales.

Strange Lights and Uneasy Spirits

Elisha Bloxom house

Back in May of 1890, a reporter for the New York Sun traveled to Chincoteague and wrote up what he found there. He was clearly charmed by the island and its people. And among everything he observed, he devoted an entire section of his article to what he simply called, "Ghosts and Charms."

He described a community that read meaning into everything around it. The wind sighing through the pines. Strange voices drifting in from the sea. Calls from across the meadows that couldn't quite be identified. And strange lights that danced above the stagnant water in the glades.

My great-grandfather lived there during that era. When you live on an isolated island with no books, no newspapers, and few neighbors, surrounded by marsh and open water, the supernatural tends to fill the space that other explanations can't reach.

The reporter also wrote about a specific haunted house. The home of a man named Elisha Bloxom, who had drowned in an accident at sea when a yawl capsized and struck him on the head. His neighbors suspected his mates could have saved him and didn't. The story claims old Elisha's soul couldn't rest. Sounds visited the house at night. The widow moved out. A family of newcomers who didn't know Elisha moved in ... and moved right back out before their lease was up. That was eight years before the reporter visited, and the house still stood empty, its reputation firmly intact.

What Fear Tells Us About Faith

The reporter noted something that I find quite profound. He wrote that when the preachers eventually came to Chincoteague with their prayers and sermons, the old islanders would attend, and listen, and believe, but they wouldn't be wholly comforted.

I mulled a bit on that and realize faith doesn't always arrive all at once or replace everything that came before it overnight. These were people in the middle of a transition between an older world of signs and spirits and conjurers, and a newer one shaped by Scripture and the church. The two coexisted for a long time on that island, just as they have in communities throughout history.

Folklore and superstition were never really about the supernatural. They were about the very human need to believe that the world has meaning, that suffering isn't random, that there is something to appeal to when your own hands aren't enough. First John 4:18 says that perfect love casts out fear. The Chincoteague residents of 1890 hadn't fully arrived there yet. But they were looking for the same thing faith offers: a reason to believe that the darkness around them wasn't the whole story.

The strange lights still dance above the glades in autumn. The pines still sigh when the wind comes in off the Atlantic. The island still holds its secrets. But the stories those things once generated say more about the hope for something bigger than the actual subject of the story itself.

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* Have you ever heard a piece of local folklore that turned out to have a real emotional or historical lesson underneath it?

* Do you think superstition and faith can coexist in the same community, or even in the same person?

* Is there a place near where you grew up that has a spooky reputation, and do you know what gave rise to the stories?

Leave answers to these questions or any comments on the post below.

** This note is for our email readers. Please do not reply via email with any comments. View the blog online and scroll down to the comments section.

Come back on the 9th of each month for my next foray into historical tidbits to share.

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BIO

Tiffany Amber Stockton has embellished stories since childhood, thanks to a very active imagination and notations of talking entirely too much. Honing those skills led her to careers as an award-winning and best-selling author and speaker, while also working as a professional copywriter. Through her love of words, she encourages others to Get Rooted in truth and live a life of purpose.

Currently, she lives with her husband and fellow author, Stuart Vaughn Stockton, along with their two homeschooled teens, and five cats in southeastern Kentucky. In her 20+ years as a professional writer, she has sold twenty-six (26) books so far and has agent representation with Tamela Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. You can find her on Facebook and GoodReads. She also rebooted her longtime blog and is expanding her content creation to Instagram and Twitter, maybe even an audio podcast at some point.