PARLANCE PUBLISHING

MYTHS, MYSTERIES
and
FRONT PORCH STORIES

           Storytelling is an art form in the South. Professional storytellers circuit the region entertaining the populace with high tales and a few outright lies; no one cares, however, as most elicit healthy belly—laughs and a cacophony of “Oh no’s and Dear Gussies.” There‘s nothing to compare to a Sunday afternoon front porch gathering of friends and family. A superb summer day, with the old ceiling fan squeaking, the ice cream freezer whirring and the conversation revving up to include politics, schools, the preacher‘s sermon and old days down South. Mama said that this was one way they kept the past alive. To some, she explained, the past was preferable to the present. Many afternoons of my youth were spent listening to my relatives regaling each other with tales of misadventure, myths and mysteries; here are a few, not necessarily my own.

The Snake Bit Mule

           Mama said that her Papa had a mule that was forever tearing out of his corral and wandering off. Once he wandered into the deep woods and was bitten by a rattlesnake. Fearing that he would not live, my grandfather took him back into the woods and tied him to a tree. The next morning the mule, exhibiting no ill effects of the snake bite, showed up at the back lot waiting to be fed. My grandfather, puzzled as to how this had happened, went to where the mule had been tied to determine the remedy. When questioned, he calmly stated that the Mississippi mosquito, extraordinarily large and unusually prolific in that region, had swarmed the mule, biting him and in the process of removing their quota of blood had in addition removed all the poison from the snake bite. “Ya think?”

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