Aunt Granny Lith by Chris Offutt
"Aunt Granny Lith" by Chris Offutt is a modern folktale set in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, exploring themes of love, loyalty, and supernatural promises. The narrative begins with Beth, who retrieves her alcoholic husband, Casey, after he has spent time with a woman of ill repute. As the story unfolds, it reveals Casey's troubled past, including the mysterious deaths of his previous wives, which create a sense of foreboding surrounding his character.
Beth learns from her mother that Casey is cursed by an old woman named Granny Lith, who once received a promise from him in jest. The story vividly depicts Beth's determination to reclaim her husband from this supernatural influence, including a dramatic encounter with Granny Lith herself. After a desperate and pivotal night spent with the old woman, Casey becomes ill, but ultimately, the couple’s bond is tested and reaffirmed. The tale concludes with a sense of resolution, showcasing their enduring love and the strength of their family, symbolized by their four daughters. This story intertwines elements of folklore with the realities of rural life, offering a glimpse into the complexities of relationships and the supernatural within Appalachian culture.
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Aunt Granny Lith by Chris Offutt
First published: 1990
Type of plot: Regional
Time of work: The 1960's and 1980's
Locale: The Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky
Principal Characters:
Beth , an Appalachian mountain womanCasey , her husbandNomey , her motherLil , a neighbor womanAunt Granny Lith , a wizened witchlike woman who lives in the woods
The Story
This modern folktale of the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky begins in the present time with Beth retrieving her drunken husband from the clutches of a local woman of dubious reputation. Casey has made his yearly batch of moonshine and has gone on a two-week bender, ending up at the house of Lil, their nearest neighbor. After a knockdown, hair-pulling fight between the two women, Beth begins the trip home with Casey but has an accident that sends the pickup truck into the creek.
When Beth walks the two miles home to get the mule and some chains to pull the truck out, the story shifts to the past, when Casey's first wife died the day after they were married from a broken branch that pierced her face and when his second wife was found dead of a broken neck at the bottom of a cliff. A year after his second wife's death, Casey met Beth, but her mother, Nomey, warned her he was hexed and gave her a charm to wear. After the wedding, Beth saw an old woman with ragged clothes and long hair scurry into the woods near her house. She followed the old woman, who crawled into a hollow log.
When she described the old woman to Casey, he told her a story of something that happened twenty years before when he and a friend were playing in the woods. When he saw his friend hiding in a log with his hand sticking out, he put a ring he had made from a buckeye with his initials on it on his friend's finger as a joke and said, "I take you as my wife . . . 'til death do us part." However, it was not his friend in the log but rather a dried-up little old woman. Beth's mother told her that the old woman was the last granny woman, or midwife, in the area, who stopped delivering babies when a hospital was built in the nearby town and who went to live in a cave with a log over the face of it.
After Beth became pregnant, she went to the cave and spoke to an unseen Granny Lith, telling her that Casey belonged to her, not to Granny. When she found what was left of the buckeye ring Casey put on Granny's finger, she knew that Granny still held Casey to his promise. Her mother told her the only way to break the promise was for him to go and spend the night with the old woman. After much urging from Beth, Casey stayed the night with Granny Lith and then lay in bed for two weeks with a fever. He told Beth that after he spent the night with Granny Lith, the old woman begged him to kill her.
The story then shifts back to the present with Beth pulling the truck out of the creek and rescuing Casey. That evening, with both of them safe in bed, she remembers the night Casey spent with Granny Lith and thinks they did the right thing; their four daughters are proof of it. The story ends with Casey and Beth making love.