Pirates, Ghosts, and Coastal Lore

by Whedbee, Charles Harry

• ISBN13: 9780895872951
• ISBN10: 0895872951
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Blair

Summary

For decades, the folk tales of Charles Harry Whedbee have been available wherever you care to look on the Outer Banks -- in bookstores, certainly, but also at supermarkets, bait-and-tackle shops, fishing piers, historic sites, and lighthouse gift stores. Their popularity has transcended Whedbee's loyal readership among North Carolinians and visitors from the Northeast and the Midwest. His five collections have sold from Australia to Bermuda to South Africa. The thirteen stories selected for this volume are Judge Whedbee's finest. "The Female of the Species" tells of a pair of woman pirates -- Anne Bonny and Mary Read -- as fearsome as any of their brethren. "The Ghost Deer of Roanoke" is the story of the ancient chiefs Manteo and Wanchese, of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony, and of Virginia Dare and her Indian suitors. "Currituck Jack" is the account of a slave who outsmarts a crew of British sailors during the Revolutionary War and thereby earns his freedom. "New Berne's Bleeding Arch" tells of strange happenings at the site of a fatal duel between a former governor and a future speaker of the State House. "Blackbeard's Cup" is the first-person account of the secret meeting on Ocracoke Island at which the author drank from the silver-plated skull of Blackbeard, and of the reward he offered fifty years later for information leading to the mysterious cup. If this is your introduction to Charles Harry Whedbee, you'll soon understand his love for the people and history of the Outer Banks. If you read Whedbee's stories years ago, you'll be reacquainted with an old friend. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Charles Harry Whedbee was an elected judge in his native Greenville, North Carolina, for thirty-plus years, but his favorite place was the Outer Banks, Nags Head in particular. Whedbee was the author of five previous folklore collections. He died in 1990

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
"The Ghost Deer of Roanoke"	3	(16)
from Legends of the Outer Banks and Tar Heel Tidewater
"The Pirate Lights of Pamlico Sound"	19	(12)
from Legends of the Outer Banks and Tar Heel Tidewater
"The Ghostly Hornpipe"	31	(9)
from Blackboard's Cup and Stories of the Outer Banks
"Hatteras Jack"	40	(6)
from Legends of the Outer Banks and Tar Heel Tidewater
"Sea-born Woman"	46	(18)
from The Flaming Ship of Ocracoke & Other Tales of the Outer Banks
"New Berne's Bleeding Arch"	64	(8)
from Blackboard's Cup and Stories of the Outer Banks
"The Flaming Ship of Ocracoke"	72	(7)
from The Flaming Ship of Ocracoke & Other Tales of the Outer Banks
"Currituck Jack"	79	(20)
from Outer Banks Mysteries & Seaside Stories
"The Holy Ghost Shell"	99	(5)
from Outer Banks Tales to Remember
"The Beckoning Hands"	104	(9)
from Outer Banks Mysteries &Seaside Stories
"The Female of the Species"	113	(22)
from The Flaming Ship of Ocracoke & Other Tales of the Outer Banks
"The Indian Gallows"	135	(13)
from Outer Banks Mysteries &Seaside Stories
"Blackbeard's Cup"	148