Fayetteville Haunts

12/21/2024

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”

12/21/2024

Though the practice is now more associated with Halloween, spooking out your family is well within the Christmas spirit

12/21/2024

❄️

12/21/2024

12/21/2024

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE YULETIDE
Twas the night before Yuletide and all through the glen
Not a creature was stirring, not a fox, not a hen.
A mantle of snow shone brightly that night
As it lay on the ground, reflecting moonlight.
The faeries were nestled all snug in their trees,
Unmindful of flurries and a chilly north breeze.
The elves and the gnomes were down in their burrows,
Sleeping like babes in their soft earthen furrows.
When low! The earth moved with a thunderous quake,
Causing chairs to fall over and dishes to break.
The Little Folk scrambled to get on their feet
Then raced to the river where they usually meet.
“What happened?” they wondered, they questioned, they probed,
As they shivered in night clothes, some bare-armed, some robed.
“What caused the earth’s shudder? What caused her to shiver?”
They all spoke at once as they stood by the river.
Then what to their wondering eyes should appear
But a shining gold light in the shape of a sphere.
It blinked and it twinkled, it winked like an eye,
Then it flew straight up and was lost in the sky.
Before they could murmur, before they could bustle,
There emerged from the crowd, with a swish and a rustle,
A stately old crone with her hand on a cane,
Resplendent in green with a flowing white mane.
As she passed by them the old crone’s perfume,
Smelling of meadows and flowers abloom,
Made each of the fey folk think of the spring
When the earth wakes from slumber and the birds start to sing.
“My name is Gaia,” the old crone proclaimed
in a voice that at once was both wild and tamed,
“I’ve come to remind you, for you seem to forget,
that Yule is the time of re-birth, and yet…”
“I see no hearth fires, hear no music, no bells,
The air isn’t filled with rich fragrant smells
Of baking and roasting, and simmering stews,
Of cider that’s mulled or other hot brews.”
“There aren’t any children at play in the snow,
Or houses lit up by candles’ glow.
Have you forgotten, my children, the fun
Of celebrating the rebirth of the sun?”
She looked at the fey folk, her eyes going round,
As they shuffled their feet and stared at the ground.
Then she smiled the smile that brings light to the day,
“Come, my children,” she said, “Let’s play.”
They gathered the mistletoe, gathered the holly,
Threw off the drab and drew on the jolly.
They lit a big bonfire, and they danced and they sang.
They brought out the bells and clapped when they rang.
They strung lights on the trees, and bows, oh so merry,
In colors of cranberry, bayberry, cherry.
They built giant snowmen and adorned them with hats,
Then surrounded them with snow birds, and snow cats and bats.
Then just before dawn, at the end of their fest,
Before they went homeward to seek out their rest,
The fey folk they gathered ‘round their favorite oak tree
And welcomed the sun ‘neath the tree’s finery.
They were just reaching home when it suddenly came,
The gold light returned like an arrow-shot flame.
It lit on the tree top where they could see from afar
The golden-like sphere turned into a star.
The old crone just smiled at the beautiful sight,
“Happy Yuletide, my children,” she whispered. “Good night.”

Poem author C.C. Williford
Art by HolgaJen

12/20/2024

Photo Friday!

Hope you get a good laugh with a friend today.

Pictured here is Vance Randolph (seated, right) with Robert Sargent outside Paul Pool Hall in Eureka Springs (Carroll County); August 1956.

Read more here about folklorist Vance Randolph, whose wide-ranging studies in the traditional culture of the Ozarks made him famous with both academic and popular readers starting in the 1930s: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/vance-randolph-2265/ And browse our thousands of other images here: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/media/

12/20/2024

British History Advent Calendar: Day 19

Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol was first published by Chapman & Hall on 19th December 1843, the first edition of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve.
Thirteen more editions had been released by the end of 1844 and it has never been out of print, it has been translated into a number of languages, and has spanned into many adaptations for the theatre, film and TV.
It was Dickens 4th Christmas story and he would go onto to write four more but it was the Christmas Carol that was his most successful, so much so that in 1849 he began public readings of the story, which proved so successful that he undertook another 127 performances until the year of his death in 1870.
The story was published at a time when Christmas was becoming popular again, with a renewed interest in carols and people looking back to the glory days when those living in the countryside celebrated for twelve days, something that didn’t happen in the city, after all money could be made just as easily on Christmas Day as it could any other day, Scrooge is never given a job title because he is meant to represent people who work in the city.
Dickens himself said in 1836 that ‘People will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be’.

12/20/2024

12/19/2024

12/19/2024

12/19/2024

The Arkansas Secretary of State‘s office and the U.S. Marshals Museum announced this summer that they were seeking artists for a formal portrait of Bass Reeves to hang in the Arkansas State Capitol. Yesterday, the portrait, by James Loveless Jr. of Texas, was unveiled, making Reeves the first African American to have an official portrait on display at the capitol. Read more about Reeves, an Arkansas native who was one of the first Black lawmen west of the Mississippi River, here: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/bass-reeves-1747/

Image courtesy of the Arkansas Secretary of State's Office.