{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Loreplay","title":"The Witch of Yazoo: She Said What She Said","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1947,"description":"This week we're going fully unhinged in the Mississippi Delta, and I need you to be prepared for that emotionally. We're covering the Witch of Yazoo — a nameless woman, a swamp shack, a very unfortunate boy on a raft, and a dying curse so specific it included a date, a year, a time of day, and somehow still got dismissed by an entire town. We'll get into the legend itself (fishermen, arsenic, skeletons on the ceiling, yes really), the fire of 1904 that happened on the exact date she said it would, the chained grave in Glenwood Cemetery that someone is literally employed to maintain to this day, and what this legend is actually about underneath all the chaos. Also Willie Morris, who chose to be buried thirteen paces from her grave and is an icon for it.Spooky? Yes. Funny? Absolutely. A little bit sad if you think about it too hard? Unfortunately also yes.\nSources:\nMorris, Willie. Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. — This is the one. The book that put the Witch of Yazoo on the map. Semi-autobiographical, beautifully written, and the primary source for the version of the legend most people know. Worth reading in full.Morris, Willie. Good Old Boy and the Witch of Yazoo. Oxford, MS: Yoknapatawpha Press, 1989. — The sequel, in which Willie and his friends get tangled up with a woman rumored to be the witch's granddaughter and chaos ensues. A delight.McElreath, Leisa S. and Lindsley, Ashley McElreath. \"1904 Destruction of Yazoo City: A Case Study of Community Resilience.\" 2018. — A genuinely fascinating academic paper about the fire itself and how the town recovered. Available via ResearchGate. If you want the non-supernatural account of what happened, start here.Yazoo County Convention and Visitors Bureau — The Legend of the Witch of Yazoo. visityazoo.org — The official tourism page, which is somehow both completely earnest and deeply charming. Also has a downloadable map to the grave. Yes, really.The Clarion-Ledger — \"Great fire in Yazoo...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/qrKRCVgS-SidSX8b9CGzZDHhnpF4bwxZyw2FLc5pukw/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS83MTBl/MDI3MGZkZGE0M2U0/MmJlYjhmNGQ4NjAy/NmY0Ny5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}