Swamp Gothic

For this week’s episode, we’ll be taking a short field trip from the Pelican State, across the Mississippi River, to Rosedale, Mississippi. This is the spot, at the intersection of Highways 1 and 8, where Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for legendary skills on the guitar.

For this week’s episode we’ll be visiting the far southeastern corner of the state, near the Mississippi border, to an area between two branches of the Old Pearl River delta. This is the area where the Honey Island Swamp Monster is said to roam.

The Honey Island Swamp, so named because it is home to many colonies of honey bees, is legendary for its biodiversity. Among the many creatures that call this federally protected wetland home is, according to legend, a 7 foot tall hairy creature that walks on two legs, with yellow eyes and a horrible smell. This is not to be confused with the Rougarou which is sometimes described as similar in appearance.

This week we’re going to do something a little different. I’ll be looking into the nature of legends and how they are connected to the supernatural. This is going be a little longer than most of my other episodes, but I hope the subject will be interesting enough that you’ll stick with me to the end.

Imagine if you will, the Louisiana of the early-1700s. New Orleans was already a bustling, metropolitan port city, but the rest of the state, and it wasn’t even a state yet, was untamed swamps and prairies. As busy as New Orleans was, there was one thing that it lacked … women. The obvious solution was to send women over from France. As it turned out, it wasn't the women that turned out to be the problem, but what they brought with them. Allow me to introduce you to the Casket Girls.

For this week’s topic, were going to take a field trip, leaving Louisiana and heading for the sandy beaches of North Carolina to talk about the Seneca Guns. The Seneca Guns is an interesting subject for our investigation because it is solely an auditory phenomenon, there no visual components to this legend.

This phenomenon, consisting of canon-like booms that can be heard for miles, and is most commonly associated with the Southeast North Carolina coast near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, however, is not unique to the area. Indeed, the very name is taken from the Seneca Lake region of New York state, a considerable distance from North Carolina. In fact, these booms, which go by different names, have been reported on every continent with the exception of Antarctica. Come with me on a trip to look into the legend of the Seneca Guns.

Madame Grand Doigts. In English, that translates to “Lady with the Long Fingers”. It is an accurate description. As you can imagine, the mental image that conjures up is terrifying enough to frighten small children. But is Madame Grand Doigts based on a real person, and is she the sinister creature she is rumored to be? FInd out on this episode of Swamp Gothic,

Have you ever heard of the feufolet? Unless you grew up in Louisiana, probably not. How about will o’ wisp? You may not have heard of that phenomenon either, but it’s somewhat more common. The two are very similar in nature.  The feufolet is best described as a light, or group of lights, resembling lanterns, most commonly seen in swampy or marshy areas after dark. Feufolet translates to “marsh fire” in English, so the name is fitting. In this episode we have a look at the feufolet and some of the stories surrounding them.

If you have interest in the horror genre, you’ve probably heard of the Rougarou, but you may not be sure exactly what it is. The term Rougarou comes from a mispronunciation of the French term loup garou, which translates in English literally to werewolf, and like the werewolf, there really isn’t really a single definition of what this creature is or what it looks like. Is it human or least a human that transforms into some kind of beast under a full moon? Or is it a cryptid, a totally separate species unrelated to humans? This episode explores the answers to this question and more.

The Swamp Gothic podcast examines the folklore and legends of the deep South. While most of the stories we look at focus primarily on Louisiana, that’s not to say we won't have occasional field trips to other parts of the South.

I'm your host, Robert Pickering, and I was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, the Heart of the Cajun Country, so I was introduced to these tales from an early age, and I’ve maintained that interest ever since. This weekly show will cover all kinds of interesting subjects, from ghosts and spirits to monsters and cryptids, spooky legends, maybe even the occasional alien. If it has anything to do with the paranormal or supernatural, or even just the unusual, we’ll cover it here. Everything is fair game. In fact, if you have any ideas about what we should cover, visit us at the Swamp Gothic Facebook page and let us know.