a bride.

Give a pair of ivory birch
For a wedding gift,
All the mountain side a church
Where wild flowers sift

Velvet carpet-petals down
To the edge of hill and town,
Showing wild-grape fringes through
Opal cloud-thrones dropped from blue.

Now the summer like a queen
Does her mountain home in green;
With a season for a bier
Some old majesty lies here.

Autumn gold is swift and fleet
With a wing upon the feet,
Rushing toward a winter breath
Pausing for immaculate death.

In such economic bliss
And a swift parenthesis--
In immortal mountain trails,
There are resurrection tales.

All the while the mountains know
Sudden death is never so.

--Rachel Mack Wilson

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CONTENTS

1. THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE 3
THE LAND 3
THE PEOPLE 10
BLAZING THE TRAIL 16
THE MOUNTAINEER 40
2. LAND OF FEUDS AND STILLS 46
HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS 46
PEACEMAKER 55
TAKING SIDES 72
MARTIN-TOLLIVER TROUBLES 91
FAMILY HONOR 105
3. PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL 112
TIMBER 112
WOMAN'S WORK 117
4. TRADITION 122
PHILOMEL WHIFFET'S SINGING SCHOOL 122
RIDDLES AND FORTUNES 135
THE INFARE WEDDING 151
5. RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS 155
FUNERALIZING