Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be reproduced without permission. Transcribed by Sloan Mason. A WITCH FROM TURKEY "Our Heritage" by Claude MOORE Mt. Olive Tribune October 23, 1992 I usually write a ghost story for Halloween, but a few days ago a friend came by our shop and told me a story about a witch, which had been told to him by his mother. It was about his mother's grandfather who was a Portuguese sailor named Owen. He had an encounter with a witch. A student once asked me if I believed in witches and ghosts and I replied that I thought witches and ghosts were so interesting. A Portuguese ship was enroute from Lisbon, Portugal to Wilmington, N.C. to pick up cotton. This was in the 1850's. The ship stopped over in the Azores for seven days to unload some cargo. Owen was one of the sailors and he ran out of money and borrowed some from a girl who was working in a tavern. He sailed without repaying the girl. The ship had hardly gotten under way when a strange colored parrot was seen on the sip and was not in a cage. A few days later, the parrot disappeared and an oversize Maltese cat appeared which had not been seen before by any of the crew. Owen began to feel that his girlfriend back in the Azores was a witch and had transformed herself into first a parrot and then a cat. The cat slept in the deck near Owen's hammock. The cat made strange sounds and attempted to bite some of the crew. When the ship arrived in Wilmington, they unloaded the cargo and loaded with cotton. The ship left Wilmington a day earlier than scheduled for Norfolk, Virginia. The sailor had gone fishing with some acquaintances and missed the ship. He decided to walk overland to meet the ship in Norfolk. He had hardly gotten to the bridge across the North East River when the same cat was following him. Several days later, Owen arrived in the Turkey community and stayed overnight with a family near the main road. He fell in love with one of the daughters and decided not to try to meet the ship in Norfolk. Owen and the girl were latter married and built a house on her father's land. He was energetic and industrious and liked to clear land. The cat had disappeared years before, but was later seen by some raccoon hunters in an old abandoned house near a thick woods. The house was not furnished but occasionally Owen would go to the old house and find hot ashes and coals in the kitchen fireplace. On one occasion, Owen was burning a fat lightwood stump in a new ground and the stump began to sparkle with light, popping like firecrackers. He found that holes had been bored in the stump and filed with explosive "goofer" powder. A real witch came out of the woods and said "don't you do that." Owen left the new ground and went to the house and told his wife what he had seen. She told to forget about that because she thought he had been eating too many mulberries. That night the witch came to Owen's house, transformed him into a horse and she rode him all over the community until sunrise. She then turned him back into a man and she disappeared. For three nights the witch did the same thing. Owen was so tired and broken down that he could not work. He went to his father-in-law and told him of his experience with the witch. The father-in-law told him to wear a sifter over his head when the witch came she would be confused by the mesh which she could not penetrate and she would leave. He did just that. The witch never came back again. No one ever saw the witch again, but years later some hounds treed a strange object in a tall tree. When the tree was cut down, nothing was seen. ============================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. The electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Sloan Mason ==============================================================