Haints, Ghosts, and Boogers
No knitting yesterday cause I was so exhausted when I got home from medieval drama (apparently it takes a lot out of me, exploring the ways in which the N-Town Passion Play rips up the Doctrine of Transubstantiation; I have to wave my arms around a lot and then require lots of rest in front of the TV when I get home) that I did Nothing To Speak Of, BUT
this morning I was so extremely helpful to my Dad, in revealing the profound and miraculous mysteries of Googling, because of which he now knows where a quote he needed came from (see the comments from this entry), that he has given me permission to quote an email I got from him concerning the differences among three different sorts of East Texas spirits: the Haints, the Ghosts, and the Boogers.
He was setting these things out in the first place because his sister was going off to some folklore conference and needed the Facts. So he has Facts. And as a special treat, I'm a-gonna share them with you. (Yo! Dad! Did I spell a-gonna right?)
He explains the spirits of his East Texas childhood according to the ways in which they interact with children, the children in question being his numerous cousins, his brother and sister, and he himself.
1) The Haint lives in graveyards, he says, and is set on terrifying children by disguising itself as briar patches:
A haint resides in a graveyard and on some nights they come out as balls of fire and roll down the hill and along the ground. Their inclination is to scratch and claw. Jack F took some of my first grade friends to Saron cemetery to see the haint on halloween night. Jack said a rabbit hit the fence and that bunch of 1st graders got clawed up trying to run through a briar patch. My friends said the haint grabbed them and scratched and clawed until they broke away and ran like greased lightning. My friends were more to be believed than Jack F who was about 10 years older and prone to fabrications. My mother who had a command from God to not allow me to have any fun caused me to be the only 1st grade boy who did not go on the haint expedition.
I'm sorry that my grandmother tormented my father by not letting him go down the the graveyard at night when he was six years old. What a mean lady. (My child's not going, either, let me tell you.) I know well the graveyard in question, and although OF COURSE I believe my father's long ago six year old friends and not the teenager who led the expedition, I do have to say that the briars proliferate there.
2) Ghosts, on the other hand, have apparently escaped from the graveyards, and are congregating in the trees, often disguising themselves as grapevines:
Ghosts tend to hang out in the shadows and are difficult to see if you look at them straight on. They are best viewed from the corner of the eye. They tend to be grabbers from behind and chokers. Thomas M had a run in with the ghost that hangs out at Ghosty Branch. It is thought that that ghost is associated with Thornton Church graveyard. Thomas was riding home from some play party out on the Thornton Church road. He took a short cut through the woods when the ghost grabbed and choked him, yanked him off his horse, who went to the barn but Thomas got away. The M's lived close by and Thomas came over the next day and asked Dad to go with him to look for his hat. It was only a short distance behind the house. They found the hat and Dad said Thomas had almost pulled a grape vine completely out of its home tree. Thomas said it was a ghost. Dad was about 35 years old and already beyond much understanding.
I'm not clear here why it is that my grandfather, who had himself had dealings with the ghost at Ghosty Branch (unless of course he didn't and I'm disremembering the story he told me), so wrongly assumed here that Thomas M. had run into a grape vine and not the ghost itself. But the general import is clear: the haints are scratchers and biters. After they escape from the graveyard (or perhaps they get kicked out at the Graveyard Co-op Meeting), they become grabbers and chokers.
3) Yes. But what, you may ask, are Boogers?
Well, I think that the Brannen-Murphy-Courtney clan of Trinity county, East Texas, made them up. (How Irish Americans of the rural South amuse themselves.) They seem to live under beds and grab their cousins, though sometimes they go hang out with weird guys who get chained to trees:
The only one I ever directly knew about was associated with the man who had been chained to that big oak tree in the old log house where my mother's grandparents had lived. He was hell on kids. One time he put a scorpion up my britches when we were sliding down the shingled roof on the barn. All of my cousins had experiences with him. He got involved with all 10 of us in our games of "under the bed booger." When we played utbbooger, there was a subtle transference of power to the IT. IT playing the part of the booger. If you were the booger and power transference was good, you might make somebody pee themselves.
(Dad explained in a phone call that the method of making one's cousins pee their pants is by use of a particularly good scary growl. At which, I'm pretty sure, he excelled. How do I know this? Well, I did grow up with him. I've seen him in action.)
From reading this, I can tell that Boogers, whether they be Under-the-Bed Boogers or not, are not connected with the Ghost/Haint contingent. They are concocted out of sheer ol' meanness and have nothing to do with dead people. They are Pretend Spirits of the sort you invent if your mother won't let you go on over to the graveyard and you're having a little snit fit. I'm surprised, frankly, that guns weren't involved.
But ask yourself: would I rather be set upon by spirits pretending to be briar patches and grapevines, or would I rather have some weird guy stick scorpions up my pants?
And where, on this scale of Dreadful Things that could happen to me, would my cousin causing me to wet my pants out of terror fit in?
And, hey, should I just move the hell out of East Texas and go to Austin?
There's a thought.
*****************************
Ok, all right. Some of you, having read this far, are asking yourselves: Wait! Hold on a minute! Why the hell was the weird guy chained to the tree in the first place?
Good for you! You were really paying attention!
As a further reward, and assuming you haven't had enough of this hoo-hah, I'll tell you:
He went mad, finally. He had rabies.
Unless he didn't! Who knows! Watch the comments, is my advice. You never know what might turn up.
this morning I was so extremely helpful to my Dad, in revealing the profound and miraculous mysteries of Googling, because of which he now knows where a quote he needed came from (see the comments from this entry), that he has given me permission to quote an email I got from him concerning the differences among three different sorts of East Texas spirits: the Haints, the Ghosts, and the Boogers.
He was setting these things out in the first place because his sister was going off to some folklore conference and needed the Facts. So he has Facts. And as a special treat, I'm a-gonna share them with you. (Yo! Dad! Did I spell a-gonna right?)
He explains the spirits of his East Texas childhood according to the ways in which they interact with children, the children in question being his numerous cousins, his brother and sister, and he himself.
1) The Haint lives in graveyards, he says, and is set on terrifying children by disguising itself as briar patches:
A haint resides in a graveyard and on some nights they come out as balls of fire and roll down the hill and along the ground. Their inclination is to scratch and claw. Jack F took some of my first grade friends to Saron cemetery to see the haint on halloween night. Jack said a rabbit hit the fence and that bunch of 1st graders got clawed up trying to run through a briar patch. My friends said the haint grabbed them and scratched and clawed until they broke away and ran like greased lightning. My friends were more to be believed than Jack F who was about 10 years older and prone to fabrications. My mother who had a command from God to not allow me to have any fun caused me to be the only 1st grade boy who did not go on the haint expedition.
I'm sorry that my grandmother tormented my father by not letting him go down the the graveyard at night when he was six years old. What a mean lady. (My child's not going, either, let me tell you.) I know well the graveyard in question, and although OF COURSE I believe my father's long ago six year old friends and not the teenager who led the expedition, I do have to say that the briars proliferate there.
2) Ghosts, on the other hand, have apparently escaped from the graveyards, and are congregating in the trees, often disguising themselves as grapevines:
Ghosts tend to hang out in the shadows and are difficult to see if you look at them straight on. They are best viewed from the corner of the eye. They tend to be grabbers from behind and chokers. Thomas M had a run in with the ghost that hangs out at Ghosty Branch. It is thought that that ghost is associated with Thornton Church graveyard. Thomas was riding home from some play party out on the Thornton Church road. He took a short cut through the woods when the ghost grabbed and choked him, yanked him off his horse, who went to the barn but Thomas got away. The M's lived close by and Thomas came over the next day and asked Dad to go with him to look for his hat. It was only a short distance behind the house. They found the hat and Dad said Thomas had almost pulled a grape vine completely out of its home tree. Thomas said it was a ghost. Dad was about 35 years old and already beyond much understanding.
I'm not clear here why it is that my grandfather, who had himself had dealings with the ghost at Ghosty Branch (unless of course he didn't and I'm disremembering the story he told me), so wrongly assumed here that Thomas M. had run into a grape vine and not the ghost itself. But the general import is clear: the haints are scratchers and biters. After they escape from the graveyard (or perhaps they get kicked out at the Graveyard Co-op Meeting), they become grabbers and chokers.
3) Yes. But what, you may ask, are Boogers?
Well, I think that the Brannen-Murphy-Courtney clan of Trinity county, East Texas, made them up. (How Irish Americans of the rural South amuse themselves.) They seem to live under beds and grab their cousins, though sometimes they go hang out with weird guys who get chained to trees:
The only one I ever directly knew about was associated with the man who had been chained to that big oak tree in the old log house where my mother's grandparents had lived. He was hell on kids. One time he put a scorpion up my britches when we were sliding down the shingled roof on the barn. All of my cousins had experiences with him. He got involved with all 10 of us in our games of "under the bed booger." When we played utbbooger, there was a subtle transference of power to the IT. IT playing the part of the booger. If you were the booger and power transference was good, you might make somebody pee themselves.
(Dad explained in a phone call that the method of making one's cousins pee their pants is by use of a particularly good scary growl. At which, I'm pretty sure, he excelled. How do I know this? Well, I did grow up with him. I've seen him in action.)
From reading this, I can tell that Boogers, whether they be Under-the-Bed Boogers or not, are not connected with the Ghost/Haint contingent. They are concocted out of sheer ol' meanness and have nothing to do with dead people. They are Pretend Spirits of the sort you invent if your mother won't let you go on over to the graveyard and you're having a little snit fit. I'm surprised, frankly, that guns weren't involved.
But ask yourself: would I rather be set upon by spirits pretending to be briar patches and grapevines, or would I rather have some weird guy stick scorpions up my pants?
And where, on this scale of Dreadful Things that could happen to me, would my cousin causing me to wet my pants out of terror fit in?
And, hey, should I just move the hell out of East Texas and go to Austin?
There's a thought.
*****************************
Ok, all right. Some of you, having read this far, are asking yourselves: Wait! Hold on a minute! Why the hell was the weird guy chained to the tree in the first place?
Good for you! You were really paying attention!
As a further reward, and assuming you haven't had enough of this hoo-hah, I'll tell you:
He went mad, finally. He had rabies.
Unless he didn't! Who knows! Watch the comments, is my advice. You never know what might turn up.
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