Classification: Collected Folklore
Region: Summertown and the South-Eastern Boundary
Origin: Various
Estimated Age: Unknown; several predate surviving municipal records
Throughout Summertown, certain warnings are traditionally attributed to an unnamed figure called the Old Mother. There is no evidence that such a woman ever existed. Older residents insist this is beside the point. The warnings vary considerably between families. Some concern ordinary dangers: winter roads, deep water, wolves, poisonous plants. Others are more difficult to explain.
A selection follows.
Never follow a crying child into the trees.
A lost child comes towards the light.
If something knocks three times, wait.
If it knocks four times, bar the door.
If it knocks five, leave by another door.
No surviving version explains what should be done if the house possesses only one.
Never tell the forest your whole name.
Children are traditionally given shortened names when travelling beyond the south-eastern boundary. The custom is now largely ceremonial.
If your mother calls you from the woods, go home.
If your mother is already home, do not tell her what you heard.
Count the people at the table before supper.
Count them again before clearing the plates.
If there is one more, do not look beneath the table.
If there is one less, do.
A dead thing beside the road belongs to the crows.
A dead thing in the road belongs to the road.
A dead thing following behind you belongs to neither.
One warning occurs almost exclusively among families historically associated with charcoal burning:
When the smoke goes down, go inside.
Meteorological explanations have been proposed. These do not explain the second line:
Perhaps the strangest concerns windows.
If you wake and someone is standing outside your window, wake your husband.
If it is your husband, do not wake him.
When the smoke goes into the trees, take the children with you.
The Archive has recorded versions of this warning from households separated by more than sixty miles.
Archivist's Observation
Modern collections frequently describe the Old Mother's Warnings as superstition. This interpretation presents one difficulty. Several warnings correspond closely with documented infestation procedures adopted by Summertown centuries later. Either the old stories remembered genuine encounters—or the monsters learned the stories too.