Who was the Bell Witch? | Hacker News Reader

Who was the Bell Witch?

atlasobscura.com

61 pointsgus_leonel22 comments

> Who was the Bell Witch?

> Eventually, in the Post story it is revealed that Betsey had been using ventriloquism to simulate a haunting, and the ghost, so exposed, “vanished into thin air.”

Almost everything else sounds like a fiction made up by Ingram, who wrote the "definitive" book 70+ years after the events took place, loosely based on the facts he was able to gather.

The article is still interesting, especially the part about the societal issues at the time that influenced Ingram, but the mystery of the Bell Witch seems to be a teenager who wanted to marry a boy, and didn't much like her dad.

1st wave black metal band Mercyful Fate wrote a song about it. Worth the click for the intro riff alone:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VrK-wQxuTXQ&pp=ygUYbWVyY3lmdWw...

There's also a doom metal band called Bell Witch[1]. I can't say I know this event is the inspiration for the name but I'd be surprised if it was just coincidence.

[1]https://www.bellwitchdoom.net/

From the second paragraph of the article:

  The legend has inspired all manner of music, from Charles Faulkner Bryant’s
  classical cantata to the Seattle-based doom metal band that took Bell Witch 
  as its name.

In 2018, at the Roadburn festival, I got the chance to see them play their single-song, 80+ minute album “Mirror Reaper”[1] live. It was quite an experience; at some points both the band and the audience were so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop in the venue.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10q1ZJyLXFk

I saw them open for Conan a few years ago. I loved it, though an accurate description from the girlfriend of an acquaintance was "it was like listening to the end of a song for 40 minutes"

Despite what the Wikipedia article's [1] reference say to support their characterisation as "first wave of black metal", Mercyful Fate are nothing like early or late Black Metal bands. Encyclopedia Metallum lists them simply as "Heavy Metal" [2]. It is known.

The Wikipedia article on the "first wave" bands and the articles it lists as references are all making the same mistake that music journos have always made, about Black Metal, the genre, and about the bands that played it before and after the '90s. To be clear, before the '90s there was only one band that played recognisable Black Metal and that therefore makes any sense to be classed as "first wave of black metal", and that was Bathory; and then primarily for "Under the Sign of the Black Mark" and "Blood Fire Death", both classic Black albums that stand with the best of future bands [3].

Other bands, for example in this list of "Essential Black Metal albums" (used as a reference in the Wikipedia article on Mercyful Fate):

https://heavymusichq.com/essential-black-metal-albums/

fall into two categories: either they are not black, but some kind of combination of speed (Venom), thrash (Celtic Frost), death (Sarcófago) and heavy (Mercyful Fate), or they started playing after the '90s (Burzum, Mayhem, Emperor... wtf are Marduk doing in a list of "early black metal" albums?).

Of course, defining a genre, especially when it comes to Metal, is a frought affair. Are Death, Death Metal, or Progressive Thrash? Are Slayer, Thrash, or are they Speed Metal? Well, OK, but grouping together bands as diverse as Celtic Frost, Bathory and Merciful bloody Fate, is just reckless. More to the point, the only thing such bands share are the themes of their lyrics and album covers. For example, Venom, who never played Black Metal, have been associated with Black Metal because they have a song titled... Black Metal. Except of course that song sounds more like Motorhead [4]. Black Metal, the song, has a lyric that says "lay down your souls to the gods' Rock and Roll". As far as I can tell, after the 1950's, nobody called their music "Rock and Roll" except a) AC/DC, b) Motorhead, and, c) Venom. The latter, of course, used to open for Fats Domino and Neil Sedaka.

I know, I know. King Diamond wears facial make up that looks a biiit like corpse paint, if you squint. But, by that token, KISS are Black Metal also.

... Knights in Satan's Service \m/:P\m/

_______________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercyful_Fate, pointing to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_metal#First_wave

[2] https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Mercyful_Fate/182

[3] It should be obvious that I'm a fan. I won't bother to tell you all about how every band that played Black Metal in the '90s sounded exactly like Bathory sounded in the '80s. Oh, oops!

[4] Yeah, here's your umlauts, they fell over and I can't put them back :

Yes, I was simply parroting my impression of the current metal categorization zeitgeist. I appreciate your enthusiasm for detail in this matter and enjoyed the scholarly nature of your post. I totally agree with each of your points. FWIW, I bought the nuns EP on its release date based on the review in Thrasher magazine so I think that qualifies me as OGMF :-). Musically, I consider MF to be a mix of speed metal, heavy metal and hard bluesy groove rock (e.g. the Bell Witch intro riff and many others).

>> FWIW, I bought the nuns EP on its release date based on the review in Thrasher magazine so I think that qualifies me as OGMF :-).

Evidently! :P

>> Musically, I consider MF to be a mix of speed metal, heavy metal and hard bluesy groove rock (e.g. the Bell Witch intro riff and many others).

Excellent analysis dear colleague :)

Bullshit. Early Sepultura while mostly death is also equal parts black (both genres were being developed and undifferentiated at that time but we can see in hindsight now). Masters Hammer and Root had black metal before 1990. Samael had demo material before 90. I am sure I can probably find some greek bm from pre 90s too. And regarding Sarcofago while I consider them mostly death metal, INRI has black metal in it.

I disagree with Celtic Frost as just thrash. Its a bit unique but the clearest would be experimental doom and a precursor to some death metal.

And if your comparison is with the big norwegian bands, while Von and Profanatica 's earliest material is post 1990, it still predates the first black metal releases from the norwegian bands. Same for Mystifier.

I recommend the Astonishing Legends podcast on the Bell Witch:

[0]https://astonishinglegends.com/al-podcasts/2017/10/08/ep-85-...

[1]https://astonishinglegends.com/al-podcasts/2017/10/15/ep-86-...

Someone gave me a book about the Bell Witch in the 1970s and I just remember it scaring the hell out of me. I usually don't get scared easily, even back then. But things like that did for some reason.

Some of the descriptions on Wikipedia of what happened in the Bell house seem similar to reports of demonic vexation and infestation [0].

[0 https://catholicexchange.com/vexation-obsession-possession-t...

that catholicexhange site is incredibly fast- all those excess church dollars going to good use!

Early colonisation America is a great place for witch stories - isolated homesteads, earnestly religious people, old forests with old memories...

The 2015 movie The Witch utilised it damn well.

The last podcast on the left has a great two part story. They do a great job going through the materials related to the story. Highly recommend the podcast.

Episode 427 and 428

really disappointing to be repeatedly interrupted in this long-form journal article, with modern PC interpretations of context 200 years ago.

"Of course he really meant a White Man.. " is injected without any hint of self-reflection.. go away

> which remains enduringly popular despite having only the most tenable connection to the legend itself.

Newly discovered pet peeve: using the word tenable in place of tenuous.

Neither to be confused with one of my favorite words that I never get to use: tenebrous (although it applies nicely to this subject).

Agreed, writers should know their vocabulary.

This writer tried really hard to shoehorn in as much PC/woke takes as he could in one piece. must be how they are paid these days.

>As such, modern tellers of the story have put their own spin on it. In addition to the films and books, dozens of paranormal podcasts have devoted episodes to the Bell Witch, and nearly every one of them offers a different explanation. Some insist that the Bell farm was on Native American burial ground—a standard trope, almost exclusive to white Americans, as a way of engaging with the Native American genocide while keeping it at arm’s length. Another popular interpretation focuses on a schoolteacher named Richard Powell, who supposedly wanted to marry Betsy Bell when she was a teen. He is said to have summoned the Bell Witch to haunt the family after being rebuffed by Betsy and her father—an explanation that plays up Betsy’s vulnerability in a world of toxic, abusive men. Others conclude that Kate Batts, as an unpleasant (by all accounts) and unmarried woman, was a scapegoat, a version that taints the story with misogyny.

Is this the paragraph that hurt you?

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