Most of my generation has at least heard of, if not have actually watched a movie from 1999 called "The Blair Witch Project", where three students make a fake documentary about the Blair Witch of Blair, Maryland.
According to legend, this ghostly 'witch', who's real name was Elly Kedward, was pegged to be a witch who had cast evil spells amongst the townspeople of the 1780's.
Elly was found guilty and was banned to the deep forest in the middle of winter. About a year later, many children just simply went missing. Of course, the witch, Elly Kedward was the first suspect.
The following are some excerpts from "The Blair Witch - The Facts"...
"In the 1820s, the abandoned property of Blair, MD was brought to the attention of a man by the name of Burkitt. He purchased the property from the government, renovated the abandoned buildings, and rechristened the town after himself. Burkittsville was founded in 1824, and still stands in Maryland today.
Just four years after the founding of Burkittsville, there was an incident involving a young child named Eileen Traecle. This small child was wading in a very shallow stream. Allegedly, before the eyes of at least a dozen eyewitnesses, a ghostly white hand reached up from underneath the water and pulled Eileen Traecle into it. The water was reportedly less than a foot deep, yet the body of the little girl was never found. For weeks afterward, several wooden stick figures mysteriously appeared in the creek bed, and the water itself became oily and contaminated for several months...."
"...However, after the little girl returned alone, the search party that had gone out after her had not returned. So a second search party was organized to find them. Their search ended at Coffin Rock, near the creek where Eileen Traecle had met her death less than fifty years before.
The second search party claimed they found the first search party stripped of all their clothes and belongings, and their bodies were tied to Coffin Rock. Their intestines had been removed and their reproductive organs had been mutiliated. On their chests, hands, feet, and foreheads, strange cryptic symbols had been painstakingly carved into their skin...."
"...Outside the shack and a small distance away they found seven graves marked with piles of stones. When the graves were dug up, the children's bodies were recovered. Their bodies had been treated in much the same way as the accounts of the victims at Coffin Rock. Symbols had been cut into their faces, chests, hands and feet. They had been disembowled...."
"...Rustin Parr, it was reported, admitted to the murders, saying the voice of an old woman told him to do these horrible deeds. After the seventh death, the old woman's voice told him he was finally free. He was sentenced to death by hanging, and his house was burned to the ground...."
To read all of the article in it's entirety, please scroll back up and click on the provided (highlighted) link from which these excerpts were obtained. The Blair Witch is an intriguing legend, to say the least. Some people still go to Coffin Rock and step inside the cave.
Those that dare to tread within, both during the daylight hours, as well as in the still of the night, claim to at times hear odd noises no sooner that they set foot on the grounds at the mouth of Coffin Rock. Some even tell of hearing an elderly woman's disembodied voice come from the depths of the seemingly endless cave dwellings. Sometimes, even a manic chuckling or all-out maniacal laughter.
This legend, and it's legendary namesake is of a story where you, the reader must decide for yourself. Is this a tale of a woman of the 1780's done wrong, and wrongly accused, as was the case back in the period of witchcraft, only to pay for the town's mistake and bring forth her wrath to following generations for eternity to come? Did a man claim insanity and admit to murders that he himself committed, only to blame it on a dark fairytale?
Or is The Blair Witch legend just that, a legend? Maybe it is a story to tell around the campfire and make all the children run to their tents and hide in fear of the possibility of something coming to get them?
Only Elly Kedward and Rustin Parr know the REAL truth behind whatever fiction lies behind the story.
3 comments:
In this case, gotta say your article was far more interesting than the movie. Unless you like watching people cry until they snot themselves, that is.
Ya know I had to reference the movie. Even if it was crap. lol
I think the blair witch legend was fiction made up for the movie. It was based on the Belle Witch of Tennessee.
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