Tales of Kentucky Ghosts by William Lynwood Montell

Author:William Lynwood Montell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

ANIMAL GHOSTS AND ANIMAL TALES

Ghosts That Were Not Ghosts

Hopkins County

As a child, about sixty-five years ago, we visited my grandparents often. And when we went to see them, always at night some people always came there [to visit]. They would tell all kinds of stories, and one of the ghost stories I will always remember was about sounds and other things.

Out in the county, houses were fairly close to one another. So the young men always walked to see their girlfriends along a three- or four-mile road. On this road was an old house back off of the road. It was run-down. The windows were broke, and the doors were not closed.

Well, one night this young man was walking by that old house when he heard sounds like someone walking around and up and down the stairs. He looked around and saw white shadows in the door and on the porch. He even saw white shadows in a window. These white things were everywhere! This young man ran all the way home, woke up his father, and told him what he had seen.

The father told him to be still, that they would get some men to go with them the next night to see what it was he had seen. So they did. They hid in the bushes, then about 11:00 P.M. some white things came around in the house. They heard footsteps also. They didn’t know what to think, but to their surprise these white things that had always been seen and heard by many [local people] were nothing more than white goats!

They had a good time laughing.

Evelyn Joines, location unspecified, February 14, 1992.

Courtesy of Folklife Archives at Kentucky Library,

John Morgan Collection, Western Kentucky University

Disappearing Dog Ghost

Adair County

Our old family doctor, Dr. Simmons, rode a horse all the time when going to see his patients. He always said that as he passed a cemetery at Highpoint, a little white dog would run out and follow him along the highway for a short distance, then just disappear. This dog would do that during the day, or at nighttime.

He said he didn’t pay much mind to it when it first started happening, but it just kept on and on. It would come out and run along after his horse, then just disappear in midair right in front of his eyes.

James Keltner, as told to Glenn E. Groebli, Columbia, 1971.

Courtesy of Folklife Archives at Kentucky Library,

Western Kentucky University

Ghostly White Fox

Larue County

This story was used by my grandmother to scare her children into going to bed, or keeping them there after they had been told to go to bed. The story goes like this:

One day my grandfather was out hunting and came upon a solid white fox. He shot at it but missed many times, but couldn’t believe it because he was shooting right at it. After a few days, he saw it right behind the house and killed it, the reason being that it was a threat to the chickens and other farm animals.

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