Southern Mystical Moments is an anthology of Southern myths and beliefs, concluding with a captivating short story based on Voodoo, titled Magic Under the Willow Tree. Welcome to the enchanting world of Boojums, Clurichauns, and Whispering Willows.

Delve into tales of man-eating monsters, witches, and mysterious lights that defy scientific explanation. We dare you to enter this mystical realm, if you are brave enough.

This collection comprises myths, legends, and folklore from Western North Carolina. Discover the traditions and local myths of Fontana Lake's man-eating monster, the Boojum of Swain County, or the Healer of Tuckasegee.

Explore the mystery behind the Brown Mountain Lights, the Clurichaun, and the birthing of the Smoky Mountains. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in for an eye-opening experience.

Magic Under the Willow Tree is a short story by Verna Humphrey. Set around New Orleans, it explores how dreams, sometimes manipulated through magic, span across time to affect two individuals.

Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double.

On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree. There he is taken by the changelings—an unaging tribe of wild children who live in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make him one of their own. Stuck forever as a child, Aniday grows in spirit, struggling to remember the life and family he left behind. He also seeks to understand and fit in this shadow land, as modern life encroaches upon both myth and nature.

In his place, the changelings leave a double, a boy who steals Henry’s life in the world. This new Henry Day must adjust to a modern culture while hiding his true identity from the Day family. But he can’t hide his extraordinary talent for the piano (a skill the true Henry never displayed), and his dazzling performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an imposter.

As he ages, the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent memories of life in another time and place, of a German piano teacher and his prodigy. Of a time when he, too, had been a stolen child. Both Henry and Aniday obsessively search for who they once were before they changed places in the world.

The Stolen Child is a classic tale of leaving childhood and the search for identity. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue has created a bedtime story for adults and a literary fable of remarkable depth and strange delights.