Alabama Folklore is ‘Specious’

Folklore buffs or any persons who delight in legends, and tales handed down, and any others who take pleasure in specious notions widely accepted, should stop off a while in Alabama. (A thing that is “specious” is seemingly true, but not so.)

It has been a quarter of a century since I stopped off in the southeastern corner of Alabama, and I’ve only begun to find the fascinating stories and the bits and pieces of legends and beliefs and practices that make up the state’s treasured folklore.

From Indian tore comes a legend about Dothan -- not of how the town got its name out of the bible (that’s fact) but of a dying Indian Chief’s uncanny vision there beside a spring, one autumn night long ago.

A group of Indians, either Creeks or members of the Alibamu tribe (those who tell the legend don’t say which), had camped near a large spring in a grove of poplar trees. They were headed toward what is now Florida, the old home of the ailing chief.

“It was autumn,” the legend goes, “and a harvest moon gleamed in the sky. The aged chief was sleeping, but he suddenly awoke. Pointing to the moon, he said, ‘My time has come. And I have seen a vision, a strange vision, in the moonlight. The palefaces were running to and fro across our camp site. Our spring was covered over. The wolf, the wildcat, and the deer vanished. And the red man was no more. My Children, this troubles my heart.’ And the old chief closed his eyes again, and died.”

Years later, the chief’s dream was remembered after the white man fulfilled his prophecy. And ‘tis said the Indian spring still flows in downtown Dothan, under two busy streets.

Some story-tellers trace the very name of Alabama back to the Indians.

One legend has it that a large and weary tribe of Indians traveling toward the west from Georgia, crossed the Chattahoochee River. And when they reached the other side, their chief stopped, turned to his exhausted people and announced in a loud voice: “Al-a-bam-a!“ (Here we rest!)

At least one native folklorist declares that this is all wrong. “Alabama,” he writes, “means ‘those who cleared the land and harvested rich crops.’ ... It means, ‘here we worked, and excelled, and were productive.’“

Many Alabama tales still told as truth date back to the Civil War.

One such story, only slightly embroidered, concerns the very survival of Athens College in north Alabama, the state’s oldest college, founded in 1822 as Athens Female Academy and expanded in 1842 to college status.

A noble and very beautiful lady, one Madam Jane Hamilton Childs, from Lynchburg, Virginia, was the principal of Athens College during the War Between the States. She was a highly respected, and yet a little suspect in the town of Athens because of her many Yankee connections and friendships.

One summer day at high noon a very angry and determined Union Army captain and his troops rode into Athens, just after they had suffered an ambush just north of the Tennessee line. When they reached the campus of the girls’ college, the captain ordered his men to halt and to take their horses to the shade of a giant whiteoak tree whose drooping branches almost swept the ground.

The captain rode on to the entrance of Founders Hall, the school’s sole building, where he demanded of Madam Childs that the structure be evacuated so it could be burned to the ground.

Madam Childs didn’t say a word. She merely smiled at the captain and produced from the folds of her voluminous blue skirt a letter and handed it to him.

The surprised Union officer read the letter, drew himself to attention, saluted, and rejoined his troops. They quickly rode away. Later he sent a platoon of soldiers who guarded the campus during the entire seige of Athens.

Those who tell the story say the contents of the letter were never revealed. Madam Childs, some still claim, said that it was a letter from President Lincoln. But students then and through the years have asserted that what the letter actually said was “I’ll meet you tonight under the whiteoak tree.”

Then there are countless other tales and traditions. Take the matter of ‘coon hunting and the hounds and the respect which a good dog demands.

There is even a burial ground for the most elite Alabama ‘coon hounds, located in the northwest corner of the state in the hill country of Colbert County known as Sugar Camp.

Not just any dog can be interred in this hallowed final resting place. There is an unwritten law regarding this novel graveyard. Before a dog can become eligible, he must “first be a hound and second a ‘coon dog of unquestionable reputation.”

So, HEDGEHOPPER readers, while you are stopped off at Fort Rucker, take a bit of time to delve into Alabama’s fantastic folklore. That is, if you care for the “specious.”

Published November 1988. Click your browser’s “Back” button to return.