“Paint your porch ceiling blue to keep away the haints”

 

Kelly Bugg

Fredonia, KY

May 20, 2020

 

 

Informant Data:

Kelly Bugg is my mother. She was born in 1961 in Fredonia, KY to a family of farmers who had been farming on the same land for generations. Kelly grew up in an extremely small, rural town and has lived there for the majority of her life, surrounded by other rural family members and friends.

 

Contextual Data:

I collected this folklore by asking Kelly for examples of Southern Superstitions. I had heard the superstition of painting the porch ceiling blue, in fact my ceiling is painted blue for this very reason. Kelly learned this piece of folklore from her elders when she was a child and believes that the underlying reason for this folklore, as well as being aesthetic, is to keep the insects away from the porch, as well as the “haints” that the folklore speaks about.

 

Item:

If you paint your porch ceiling light blue, it’ll keep away the haints.

 

Transcript:

 

I don’t really know how I learned these superstitions or sayings, my grandmother and really all my grandparents would just come up with them based on the situation. But one is painting your porch ceiling a light blue color, actually there’s a haint blue color out there, some of the paint companies have it. What it was thought was to keep the haints or the dead away. Really what I think was more like (pause, I believe that she was developing her own thoughts as to why this superstition occurs) was to keep the insects, the insects, the wasps, the mosquitos would think that it was the sky and they would kinda go on away from the porch. So either way, insects or haints, it kept things away off your porch so you could sit out and enjoy.

 

 

Jack Walker

314 JD Bugg rd

Fredonia, KY 42411

RUSS 13 20S