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Show BOTH HUMOR AND POETRY EVINCED IN PLACE NAMES The southern mountaineer's whimsical whim-sical humor Is seen not only In some of his songs and hoe-downs but In place names commemorating some Jest, some episode more or less grimly comical or tragic Broke-Jug creek, Tear-Breeches ridge, Chunky-Gal Chunky-Gal mountain, Seldom-Seen hollow, Rip-Shin ridge ouch ! How vividly that recalls certain scrambles through stony thickets Burnt-Shirt mountain, moun-tain, Jerk 'Em Tight, Hanging Dog creek. Headforemost mountain, Bore-Auger Bore-Auger creek, Fiery-Gizzard creek, the Devil's Courthouse, and so on. In Cumberland county, Tennessee, two beautiful brawling streams unite whose names are No Business creek and How Come You creek. Undoubtedly, Un-doubtedly, there Is a story back of each name. But the mountaineer Is often poetic, too, and gracefully descriptive descrip-tive in his place names. The touch of melancholy In his nature Is evidenced evi-denced by the frequent recurrence of such names as Lonesome and Troublesome. Desolation, Defeated, Poor Fork, Kingdom Come, Falling Water and Lost creek are significant names of streams. Craggy Dome, Balsom Cone, the Black Brothers, Lone Bald Thunderhead, Little Snowbird, Grandfather; Hawksbill; Graybeard and Wine Spring Bald are all mountains lyrically and descriptively de-scriptively named. I asked a mountain man In North Carolina whether a certain bold promontory pro-montory had a name, and I have a pleasant memory of the slow lift of his eyes to where It towered 1,000 feet above us, and the soft drawl of his mellow, low-pitched voice as he answered: "Yas, hit's called the Winter Star." Alvin F. Harlow in the Saturday Evening Post. |