On a wintry night in 1831, a man named Charlie Silver was murdered
with an axe and his body burned in a cabin in the mountains of
North Carolina. His young wife, Frankie Silver, was tried and
hanged for the crime. In later years people claimed that a tree
growing near the ruins of the old cabin was cursed--that anyone who
climbed into it would be unable to get out. Daniel Patterson uses
this "accurst" tree as a metaphor for the grip the story of the
murder has had on the imaginations of the local community, the
wider world, and the noted Appalachian traditional singer and
storyteller Bobby McMillon.
For nearly 170 years, the memory of Frankie Silver has been kept
alive by a ballad and local legends and by the news accounts,
fiction, plays, and other works they inspired. Weaving Bobby
McMillon's personal story--how and why he became a taleteller and
what this story means to him--into an investigation of the Silver
murder, Patterson explores the genesis and uses of folklore and the
interplay between folklore, social and personal history, law, and
narrative as people and communities try to understand human
character and fate.
Bobby McMillon is a furniture and hospital worker in Lenoir, North
Carolina, with deep roots in Appalachia and a lifelong passion for
learning and performing traditional songs and tales. He has
received a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award from the state's Arts
Council and also the North Carolina Folklore Society's Brown-Hudson
Folklore Award.