Tuggie Bannocks's Moonack by Alice Morse Earle
"Tuggie Bannocks's Moonack" by Alice Morse Earle is a short story set in the Narragansett region of New England, centering on Tuggie Bannocks, a Narragansett Black woman with a local reputation as a witch, and her failed attempt to cast a revenge charm on Bosum Sidet, an elderly Black tinker who has ruined her copper tea-kettle. Tuggie is no ordinary community figure. Tall, gaunt, and sharp-tongued, she has carefully cultivated her reputation as a witch, conforming her behavior and appearance to everything her neighbors expect of one. She possesses a double row of teeth, front to back, which she deploys for effect whenever anyone doubts her powers. She refuses to sit on chairs, preferring tables, dressers, and cradle-heads, and it is whispered that she runs along the chair-moulding of her kitchen wall when alone. Despite these eccentricities, she is also practical and industrious, spinning, weaving, dipping candles, making soap, and working for farm families throughout the region. Her quarrel with Bosum Sidet motivates her to prepare a conjure, a malignant charm meant to bring him physical suffering in the form of rheumatism. The preparation is elaborate and deliberate. She first visits Bosum's home under the pretext of arguing with his wife, Molly Sidet, over a coveted green dye recipe, which she claims she deserves as compensation for the ruined kettle. The visit is a ruse, designed partly to provoke Molly into expelling her from the house, since a witch cannot work a full conjure against someone who has shown her genuine hospitality. Molly obliges, infuriated by Tuggie's pointed reference to Bosum's shameful arrest and public whipping in Boston, an episode the Sidet household regards with deep sensitivity. Expelled from the house, Tuggie departs having secretly gathered sprigs of southernwood from the dooryard and hairs from the tail of Bosum's cow, both essential ingredients for her charm. Back in her own home that evening, Tuggie sets to work. She kneads cow-hair into dough, shapes it into a heart stuck through with pins to represent arms and legs, intending the figure to bring misery to Bosum's limbs. She then prepares a boiling project in a pot over the fire, combining the southernwood sprigs, rusty nails, a smoked herring tail, red flannel, grave-dirt, and a rabbit's foot, which she regards as the essential ingredient in any Negro charm. As the pot begins to bubble, she works herself into a ritual state, swaying, chanting half-remembered words taught by her mother, and rolling her eyes in superstitious ecstasy. At the height of her conjuring, her door bursts violently open and something heavy crashes into her shins, throwing her face-forward onto the floor. Stunned and terrified, Tuggie concludes she has conjured a moonack, a terrifying supernatural creature she believes her own wicked magic has summoned against her. Convinced that meeting its eyes will bring instant death, she keeps her face buried in her hands and begins pleading desperately, promising to abandon all witchcraft, return stolen wool, destroy her charm figures, and never again pretend to be a witch. What has actually happened is considerably less supernatural. Four local boys, Tom and Jeffrey Hazard, Zeke Gardiner, and Pel Noyes, had built a crude imitation of a Boston-style double-runner sled after Pel returned from the city full of enthusiasm for the design. Setting out that winter night to coast past Tuggie's door with a shout of mockery, their makeshift steering mechanism broke halfway down the hill, sending the sled crashing directly into her door. The boys were thrown into the snow outside and initially fled in panic, but quickly realized from Tuggie's terrified moaning that she was far more frightened than they were. They crept silently back inside, dragged their sled out of the room, and stole away. Jeffrey Hazard, described as someone with a far more active devil in him than anything Tuggie could conjure, could not resist grabbing her by the foot as he left, sending her into fresh paroxysms of terror before releasing her and fleeing into the night. Tuggie, still face-down and eyes shut, hears only retreating footsteps and dragging sounds, which she interprets as the departure of demons. When silence finally falls, she rises, closes the door, removes the pot from the fire, takes up a horseshoe and a prayer-book, and goes to bed, her conjuring career decisively ended by four boys and a broken sled.
By Alice Morse Earle · First published 1898 · Genre: Historical Fiction, Folklore and Legends, Gothic Fiction · 2,495 words
First lines
Tuggie Bannocks, the Narragansett negress, decided to work a charm on old Bosum Sidet, the negro tinker. She was not going to charm him in the ordinary commonplace way, albeit pleasing, that most dames follow -- be they old or young, black or white -- to allure human beings of the opposite sex. Her charm was, alas, a malignant one, a "conjure," that she angrily decided to work upon him as a revenge for his clumsy and needless destruction of her best copper tea-kettle while he was attempting, or I suspect pretending, to repair it. This charm was not a matter of a moment's hasty decision and careless action; it required some minute and varied preparation and considerable skill to carry it out successfully, and work due and desired evil.
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Tuggie Bannocks's Moonack is listed on Textopian as a short story by Alice Morse Earle, dated 1898 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: Alice Morse Earle
- Date: 1898 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Historical Fiction, Folklore and Legends, Gothic Fiction, Humor and Satire, Domestic and Social Realism
- Length: 2,495 words
- Structure: 1 section, 16 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Historical Fiction — The narrative is set in colonial Rhode Island (Narragansett) and depicts period-specific practices, crafts, and social conditions of early American communities, grounding the story in a particular historical context.
- Folklore and Legends — The story centers on witchcraft beliefs, conjuring practices, and supernatural superstitions prevalent in folk traditions, with detailed descriptions of charm-working rituals and magical practices.
- Gothic Fiction — The work employs atmospheric elements characteristic of gothic literature including a mysterious protagonist, supernatural occurrences, fear and terror, and an isolated setting with an old dilapidated house.
- Humor and Satire — The narrative employs ironic humor, particularly in the juxtaposition of Tuggie's pretended witchcraft powers with the mundane reality of mischievous boys with a homemade sled, satirizing superstitious beliefs.
Tags
historical nonfiction · local history · New England · Rhode Island · Narragansett · colonial America · American history · social history · cultural history · regional culture · early American life · colonial customs