Tales of the South Carolina Low Country

South Carolina legends, mysteries, and tales drawn from interviews and folklore.

According to archivists at the Library of Congress, South Carolina is richer in folklore than any other state. After traveling almost every back road in several South Carolina counties, Nancy Rhyne wholeheartedly supports the claim. With her tape recorder in hand, the author interviewed dozens of Low Country people, finding that almost every person had a story to tell. She sought out everyone from millionaires to the humblest of coastal people. From their narratives she has fashioned a collection of stories steeped in the history and character of the Low Country. Some of the tales in this collection are humorous, some mysterious. Others are positively eerie. There are stories of killer hurricanes, bizarre voodoo practices and inexplicable happenings. Effortlessly, the author takes us from a gorgeous plantation estate of the 1850s to an overgrown and forbidding cemetery in 1979. And she never fails to keep our attention on this somewhat alien but fascinating world-a world peopled with witch doctors, ghosts, cruel overseers, slaves and world-famous personalities. Nancy Rhyne has taken scattered bits of folklore and oral narratives, combined these with her gift of storytelling, and created a wonderfully engaging book that will entertain readers for years to come.