North Carolina Folktales, Scary Stories, and Creepy Legends – Places to visit this October
October is here, and I’m one of the many lovers of Halloween. Let’s face it, I probably look forward to Halloween more than I do any Christmas or birthday celebration. It’s my favorite holiday! Even though I love the month of ghouls and goblins more than I probably should, I am an absolute coward when it comes to scary movies and stories. However, this year I decided to immerse myself in some classic scary stories and local, eerie folktales. Surprisingly, I found a lot of spooky stories engrained in North Carolina’s history. North Carolina’s Ghosts, a website that has complied some of NC's most well-known ghost stories, provides its readers with detailed directions to the story’s origin and the supernatural phenomenon associated with each location. Below are some of my favorites from North Carolina’s Ghosts.
Pisgah Forest – The Brown Mountain Lights
The Brown Mountain Lights lore can be traced to Burke County, where the mountain is said to have mysterious, orb-like lights that hover and disappear. Many arguments have been made to explain the eerie lights, but none have been conclusive thus far. The Cherokee Indians believe that the lights were the souls of Cherokee women that were looking for their husbands that died during a battle between the Cherokee and Catawba Indians. Another legend points to the ghost of a woman murdered in the 19th century as the source of the lights.
Rutherford County – The Chimney Rock Apparitions
The apparitions in this tale are said to be clothed in white and have been spotted by several people on many different occasions. Witnesses described the figures being shaped like humans, but not much else has been described.
Harpers Crossroads – The Devil’s Tramping Ground
This folktale is probably one of the more chilling ones on the website. According to North Carolina’s Ghosts, the “tramping ground” is described as a “perfectly round and absolutely barren circle about forty feet in diameter.” Nothing grows in the circle, and if anyone tries to plant a seed, nothing will sprout from it. Additionally, anything planted inside the circle dies as well.
Plants aren’t the only things impacted by the circle. Animals whimper when put near the circle, and even though many people have tried to spend the night inside the circle, none have succeeded.
Visitors beware…You’re in for a scare…
Will you be visiting some of these areas this October? Maybe you’ll see the Brown Mountain Lights, or come face to face with the Chimney Rock Apparitions. Maybe you can survive inside the Devil’s Tramping Ground. You’ll just have to visit and find out.
Looking for more books on North Carolina ghost stories? Take a look at what we have in our collection!
Mountain ghost stories and curious tales of western North Carolina
Tar Heel Dead: tales of mystery and mayhem from North Carolina
Ghost Tales from the North Carolina Piedmont
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