Greetings Spooky Appalachia, ‘ere’s a witch story my elders told us kids about growing up. Thought you and everyone else may enjoy it. It’s about a witch everyone called Jenny Bad Finger!
Back in the late 1800s in lower eastern WV, way back in the sticks, was an old woman named Jenny that everybody feared. They say she was a short lady. Poor as dirt and rarely spoke but when she did, everybody listened! She lived by herself except for a ton of old crows that followed her everywhere she went. No matter where she was, crows would litter the ground and the tops of buildings.
Jenny would rarely come into town because she knew how to work the land she had in the mountains surrounding her old cabin. But when she did, folks kept their distance and wouldn’t dare look her in the eye. What got that started is one day several years before that she’d came to town to trade some spices and herbs for some flower an lamp oil.
She rarely spoke and would point with her left finger. She always kept her right hand covered by cloth or a lengthened sleeve. When she’d left the general store, a boy born to a wealthy family run into her knocking everything out of her arms and spilling her flour. She just stared at the boy. His daddy seen it and screamed at Jenny saying, “You need to watch where you’re going old woman! You better be glad you didn’t hurt my son!”
Old Jenny snapped! Them old crows started crowing like crazy as she eased up to the boy’s daddy and lifted her RIGHT hand, revealing an real long, twisted, boney, and gnarled up finger. Much longer than any of her other fingers. She said in a raspy yet unsettlingly calm voice, “If you ever so much as even speak to me again, Ned Barrum, your words shall rot out of your mouth.”
When he started to say something, he started to cough and grab at his mouth and throat. His tongue was swelling out of his mouth. Startled, the boy picked up her stuff for her. People ran over to him as she was walking away. The further she got, the more the swelling went down. Hence the name… Jenny Bad Finger!
One day, a man showed up at her cabin and was trying to steal one of her chickens. Said he caught it and was about to run with it when the back door opened as he was running by. He stopped dead in his tracks. She asked, “What do ye thank yer doin?” He said, “I’m so sorry ma’am I’m just starving.” She said, “It against yer beliefs ta ask a body fer a bite ta eat?” He said, “No ma’am.” She said, “Jist easier ta steal ain’t it?!”
She fed the gentleman, and he later told everyone that as he was leaving, she pointed her bad finger at him. He said her eyes turned gray, glossed almost like corpse eyes, and she said, “You ever steal from another’n, they’ll not grab narry another thang!” Said later on he must have stole again. True to her word, the man’s hands was drawn up an curled to where he could barely dress himself.
A local man and woman visited her one day asking her if she had bewitched their cattle and stock. Said she said “Weren’t my doing, there’s mor’n one of my kind in these parts…I just don’t hide like the rest of ’em!” Said he tipped his hat an bid her good day. Said as they was walking off, the lady noticed what looked like a grave. He asked who’s buried there. She said, “Nobody…yet.”
They say old Jenny lived to be 102. Said when she was found, she was laying in that hole that was dug. Said a simple note was in her hand. It said, “Cover me up and feed my babies.” Said the entire property, house, ground, trees and everything was littered with cawing crows! Said the locals fed them for days till they slowly stopped coming around.
They say that even to this day people has seen crows cawing and quite often will get a glimpse of Old Jenny’s ghost roaming the woods.
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