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Tales from the Swamp

© Virginia Marin

Folklore Table of Contents

"What is legend without history? What is history without legend"?

Welcome to the swamp! A baygall of paludal and quagmiry intrigue. It is a dark and forbidden-looking land that in itself supports a total and complicated ecosystem. A swamp contains beauty that few will ever see and dangers that none would care to see. It is home to eerie creatures of the night, and creepy-crawlers, and brutes with jaws of such strength that they could crush a large tree trunk. It is a primordial land of unexcelled beauty--giant cypress trees rising from the still and deadly snake-infested waters; fragrant wild azaleas; orchids of every imagination; lazy moss floating from the skeletal arms of gnarled trees and ravinous quicksand that will swallow anything invading its domain. Swamps are unique because they are one of the few least-altered environments in the world...

...And what a great hiding place a swamp makes, IF one is corageous enough to enter into this world of lurking death. Swamps speak of fear, evil, ghosts, specters and sparits. Swamps have always been notoriously known as the hiding quarters for pirates and buccaneers who reserved no compunction against engaging in swordplay with loathsome reptiles and encroaching beasts. Blackbeard is one pirate, with his band of cut-throats, who used swamps for hiding while off ship.

Legends of the Great Dismal Swamp, which North and South Carolina share, make great campfire tales. The cub scouts of Summerville, South Carolina, Swamp Fox District, are quite proficient in the telling of nerve-shattering swamp tales.

The Swamp Thing mythos, that grotesque creature neither human nor animal, which rose out of the dark and gloomy swamp water has given to the world countless swamp tales. Native Americans whose homes are near swamps have also contributed to the body of swamp lore.

Swamp tales from the bayou of Louisiana are both historical and legendary. Take a virtual swamp tour but don't let the Roux-Ga-Roux get you or you will never again be seen.

War sometimes takes humankind into the swamp, as it did in Viet-Nam. The American Revolution was also carried into the swamp, but few who entered walked out. Those who did knew the swamp and no one knew it better than the greatest guerrilla fighter of the American Revolution, Francis Marion, belovedly known as the Swamp Fox.

South Carolina's Francis Marion possessed incredible boldness and mettle as he terrorized the entire British army in the area. He struck their outposts with the swiftness of a tiger, never to be seen by the Red Coats, before he disappeared into the swamps of the Low Country around Charleston. The Swamp Fox was a man whose being exuded every facet of courage, determination and integrity.

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