BEWARE THE BOO HAG

No Lowcountry Halloween would be complete without a warning about the Boo Hag, a troublesome vampire-like creature that features in Gullah/Geechee folklore. More than a mere "haint", or ghost, a Boo Hag visits in the night to perch on its sleeping victim and steal the air from the sleeper's lungs before disappearing at sunrise. Feeling tired and drained in the morning, despite eight hours' sleep? A Boo Hag may have come in the night to "ride" you!

A Boo Hag "rides" a victim

According to Gullah/Geechee belief, humans have both a soul and a spirit. The soul leaves the body at death, but the spirit remains behind to guard the people to whom it was close in life. But an evil life leaves an evil spirit behind to become a Boo Hag - a skinless being that can walk among the living during the day cloaked in the skin of its last victim, who made the mistake of waking and trying to fight off the demon. At night, the Boo Hag sheds the skin and begins the search for a new victim.

How to avoid a visit from a Boo Hag? You could place a broom outside the door to your bedroom, because Boo Hags are inordinately fond of counting and will stop to count the broom's bristles long enough for the sun to come up, which will cause the Boo Hag, left defenseless without a stolen skin. to disintegrate. (You can also try hanging a colander or a strainer on your room's doorknob. The holes are just as irresistible at the broom bristles.) If brooms or colanders aren't available and you are unfortunate enough to find a Boo Hag in your bed, throw salt at it. Boo Hags hate salt, which also makes them disintegrate.

Even better is to paint your outside window frames, doors and porch ceilings with "Haint Blue", the robins-egg blue said to have first been made by enslaved workers on indigo plantations, who mixed the residue from dying vats with lime. The color confuses Boo Hags and other troublesome haints who think it's water, which they are unable to cross. As added protection, hang blue glass bottles from a nearby tree or make your own bottle tree. Curious haints slip inside the bottles and become trapped.

So this Halloween, beware! As the Gullah/Geechee warning goes, "Don't let de Boo Hag ride ya!"

BUGS IN LOVE

Love is in the air, at least if you're a Plecia nearctica, commonly known as the love bug, which appears in great numbers this time of year in the Lowcountry. First described in detail only in the 1940's along the Texas Gulf Coast, this species of fly has since followed warming temperatures across Florida and up the southeast coast and is now well-established throughout Georgia and South Carolina. Males and females remain mated tail-to-tail as they hover in the millions during two flight periods in the late spring and late summer, each lasting up to five weeks and giving the species its other common name, the honeymoon bug. (In the photo above, the male is on the right.) Adult life spans are only several days long, so to ensure maximum fertility, the pair remains bonded for two or three days until the female disengages to deposit her eggs, up to 300 of them.

Feel the love: chrome is one magnet for love bugs

Love bug larvae feed out of sight throughout the year on decayed vegetable matter before pupating for about a week into adults. Males emerge first, hovering until females appear and nuptial flights begin, which may reach altitudes as high as a thousand feet. But the insects are attracted to light-colored surfaces, and so share space with us on our decks, patios and most annoyingly, our cars, when white road markings and signs beckon the insects. Because their body chemistry is slightly acidic, expired love bugs who met their ends in collisions with cars once caused pitting in chrome and paint, although modern coatings have mostly eliminated that difficulty. Love bugs are otherwise non-threatening. They don't bite and are not known to be vectors for disease of any kind; and because the larvae feed on decaying matter, they are among nature's important recyclers. Adults, who feed on flower nectar, serve as pollinators.

Because the bugs seemed to appear in the largest numbers in Florida, a popular myth once making the rounds speculated that the bugs were accidentally released from a University of Florida laboratory experimenting with genetically engineered methods of reducing mosquito populations. But research clearly indicates that warmer air temperatures have encouraged northward migrations since the mid-twentieth century, bringing the season of love (bugs) to our backyards.

THE FIRST SHOT

Another trivia question: where did the first bombardment of Fort Sumter that began the Civil War originate? No points lost if you incorrectly answered The Battery along downtown's sea wall or Fort Moultrie in Mount Pleasant, but the first shot on Sumter actually came from James Island's Fort Johnson, on the southern shore of the harbor's mouth and almost directly opposite Fort Sumter in mid-harbor (that's Sumter in the distance in the above photo).

Once called Windmill Point. there have been at least four military fortifications on the site, starting with a colonial-era British one erected in 1708 and named for the Proprietary Governor of the Carolinas at the time, Nathaniel Johnson. While any traces of this original fort have long disappeared, segments of the tabby walls of a second, pre-Revolutionary War fort built in 1759 can still be seen at the site. By 1775, an enlarged and better defended fort rose on the Point, at first occupied by colonial rebels but seized by the British during their occupation of Charleston and later destroyed by a hurricane. Yet another fort rose on the site as a second British invasion of Charleston seemed possible during the War of 1812. All that remains of this third structure are the stone base of a wooden observation tower, and a free-standing brick magazine which remains intact.

The c.1830 magazine remains intact.

Fort Johnson during the Civil War

By 1861, South Carolina troops had placed two 10-inch mortars on the point. On April 12, 1861 one of the mortars fired on Fort Sumter in the opening salvo of the war that split the nation. During the war, Confederate forces drove off two Union regiments that attempted an approach from nearby Morris Island, keeping the Fort in Confederate hands until the winter of 1865, when it was abandoned in the general withdrawal from Charleston as Union forces approached the city.

A post-war, federally operated quarantine station next occupied the site until the 1950's when the College of Charleston and MUSC took title to the 40-acre property, but by the 1970's most of the land had been transferred to the South Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resources Department, which continues to operate a marine research station there. The College's Grice Marine Laboratory serves as a research and teaching facility at the site, while MUSC sold its waterfront portion to the South Carolina Battlefield Preservation Trust, which has created a 20-acre park and historic site for the public.

On the point, with its sweeping view down the harbor toward Charleston, you can still walk where guns once roared and a war began.