“The superstitions of the folk of any country are not only interesting with thought, feeling, and belief ... but through them much of the inner history of a people can often be traced.”

— anonymous article “Bird Superstitions and Winged Portents” in “Birds”(May 1898)

I agree. The bird lore and superstitions associated with the ancient Cherokees and the early pioneers and their descendents here in the Smokies region are especially interesting. But it’s sometimes puzzling to figure out “the inner history” or the origins of these materials.

For instance, the blue jay is a noisy, showy, and common bird that everyone recognizes. Many have also observed flocks of blue jays raiding nests in late spring, devouring both eggs and baby birds. It’s distressing to hear the anguished calls of the parent birds as they try to defend their nests, for the most part unsuccessfully.

It’s not surprising that a considerable amount of negative lore has accumulated in regard to the blue jay. In an essay titled “Encyclopedia of Superstitions” that appeared in My Mountains, My People (1957), John Parris summarized these attitudes and beliefs:

“The old man is an encyclopedia of superstitions. He carries a buckeye to ward off rheumatism and totes around a pinch of salt in his coat pocket — the left one — for good luck. He is a careful man and he has a keen eye for all the signs, albeit he is just three years shy of a hundred. Sometimes he will talk willingly about his beliefs and about good luck charms and superstitions. But these are rare occasions. When he does break over, however, he lights up his pipe, grins a bit and tells you that a-body’s got to know the signs and go by ‘em if he expects to get along.

“‘Now, take the jay bird,’ he says. ‘That’s a bird that’s been known to be a sign of bad luck as long as I can remember. When I was a boy the old folks told me the jay once sold himself to the devil for a grain of corn. Ever since then the entire jay bird tribe has been paying off the debt by carrying sticks and sand to the devil every Saturday.’

“‘I don’t want nothin’ to do with a jay bird. It’s a bird of the devil. Nothin’ but trouble. They start comin’ in just as soon as spring things start to growin’ and start their devilment.’

“Other old timers,” Parris continued, “consider that the jay bird is a reporter for the devil and that he makes regular trips to hell carrying a list of the sins of people.

“Others say the jay makes a visit to hell only on Fridays to take some kindling, a drop of water or a grain of sand to the devil. Some say this grain of sand is part of a ransom for the souls waiting there who cannot be released until all sand visible on the surface of the earth has been carried below.”

The gist of these superstitions is clear enough. But why blue jays? Ravens, owls, and even crows would seem to be better candidates for these tasks.

And why kindling or drops of water or grains of sand? I feel certain that these items — as gifts for the devil — have their origins in European lore or maybe even in biblical sources, but I can’t locate them. Any help would be appreciated.

I once had a participant from rural north Georgia in an Elderhostel workshop I was conducting. After hearing me voice considerable displeasure about the nest-raiding habits of blue jays, he raised his hand and said that he had a neighbor who felt the same way. By a stroke of luck his neighbor had had the good fortune to have a pair of blue jays nest in his yard.

“So, Andy got his stepladder and climbed up and took the two jay eggs out of the nest,” the participant recalled. “And then he took them in his kitchen and hardboiled them.”

“What did he do with the hardboiled jay eggs?” another participant asked.

“Andy climbed up his stepladder again and put them right back in that nest,” he replied.

George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C. 28713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com.