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Yarns of Horror

Me Tie Dough-ty Walker

The following content is intended for mature audiences.

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Mathraptor

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This story is safe for those under 18 to read, I have marked it as "Mature" only to make those aware of it's content...

CW: This story features a lynching (of a rich, old, white, man) and animal death.

This tale was popularized in Alvin Schwartz's "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark". Schwartz originally came across this folk tale in a book under the title "The Rash Dog and the Bloody Head", which cited it as originating in Kentucky (though collected in Indiana). The phrases shared between the dog and the bloody head have long been considered "gibberish", but the overall tone of the story gave me the impression that it was in fact much older than believed. It shares a lot in common (in my opinion) with the classic absurdity found in several Scottish and Irish tales, and it gave me a thought. What if the "gibberish", was just spelt wrong? After all, folktales are a generational game of telephone, changing slightly each time the story is handed down. What really convinced me that this tale has Scottish origins, was learning that "mi tie" means "my house" in Gaelic. And in a story about a haunted house, that was a pretty loud click. I became more certain in my theory, learning that the old use of the word "dote" meant "a feeble minded, or elderly person", and Walker being a clan name left me with a ghost shouting "My house! Old man, Walker!". I similarly found the same connections with the dog's response roughly translating to "Lynch it, kinch it (meaning to tie a noose), lost it, ruin it. I'm going to, I'm going to".

If you've read all of this, thank you for indulging in my pandemic ramblings! Either way, I hope you enjoyed my retelling of "Me Tie Dough-ty Walker", and thank you for reading it! The next Yarn of Horror, is already being woven...

#horror #ghost_story #folktale #folklore #ghost #haunted_house #spooky #Halloween #scary_story #terror

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Yarns of Horror

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Frightening folk tales have been shared for generations around the fire. Today, fires to tell stories by are rare, but the tales are eternal. Collected here are such stories, retold for the next generation to share.

2 episodes