What happens when a traveling preacher seeks revenge on an inhospitable farm couple? This darkly funny ghost story—passed down from Ireland to the Arkansas hills—follows a man of the cloth who decides to teach his unkind hosts a lesson they’ll never forget. It is a quintessential Southern folk tale where revenge takes a very strange, and very hungry, shape.

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Audio Story

Back in America’s early days, some folks lived so far out in the country they didn’t even have a church to go to.  So church would come to them, in the form of “circuit riders.”  These were traveling preachers on horseback, riding miles through unsettled and often dangerous land, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ far and wide.

Wesley Cartwright had received the calling when he was a teenager.  He was a staunch Methodist, with no family to speak of.  Just his trusted horse Pilgrim, a rickety wooden wagon, and the Good Lord by his side.  

Decades of endless travel had turned him into a gaunt, wild looking man.  He had long, greasy hair tucked under a weatherbeaten hat, and a filthy beard caked with road dust.  His muddy clothes, torn in spots and several sizes too big, practically fell off his body.  But worst of all were his boots, the soles falling off and offering little protection from rocks or the elements.

It was said you could smell Wesley riding into town from miles away.  But Wesley didn’t care – God would provide whatever he needed.

Late one winter, in the mountains we now know as the Arkansas Ozarks, a fierce snow storm blew in.  Wesley trudged onward, pulling his horse along steep, treacherous roads, blanketed with several inches of snow.  As night fell, only his dim lantern provided the faintest amount of light.  Wesley had faced bad weather before, but not this far out and not this cold.  For the first time, hints of doubt wormed into his brain. Had the Good Lord forgotten him?  Show me a sign, he thought.

Wesley then tripped over an object in the road.  He thought it was a log, but something made him turn around and examine it.  As he lowered his lantern, his eyes shot open.  For there in the snow were two black boots!  They looked nearly new, made of the finest soft leather.  Best of all, they were just about his size.  

Problem was, they were still attached to legs.  Welsey saw there was a whole dead body somewhere under the thick snow and ice.  He was too exhausted to dig this poor man out.  What could he do with a dead body anyway?  In the spring thaw, someone would certainly find him and give him a proper burial.

But those boots – the Good Lord had produced a miracle, he thought.  In fact, God was flat out ordering Wesley to push on and spread the gospel.  Besides, the owner was long dead, and wouldn’t be needing his fine boots anymore.

So Wesley untied the laces and tried tugging them off his legs.  He pulled again and again with a loud grunt, but the boots were frozen solid in their feet.  Wesley cried in exasperation, then looked back at his wagon.  An awful thought came to his mind.  

In his tiny wagon he only kept a few things: food, his fiddle, religious books, and a tool bag.  He pulled that tool bag out and found a rusted hacksaw.  Convinced the Lord intended for him to have those boots, no matter what, Wesley got down on one knee and started sawing that dead man’s feet clean off, boots and all!

It was like sawing through a long frozen slab of deer meat as the rusty blade sliced through frostbitten skin and bone.  But Wesley finally yanked them off, the flesh too frozen to leave any blood behind.  If he found a warm spot, or a rock overhang where he could build a fire, he’d just thaw those feet until the boots slipped right off.  He threw them in his wagon and pressed onward.

Shortly after that, the Lord produced a second miracle.  For as Wesley rounded the bend, he spotted a golden light in the valley below.  It was a hearth fire glowing in the window of a simple farmhouse.  Wesley swore he could smell the sweet aroma of stew and turnips drifting up the mountain road. It would be warm inside, and certainly any God-fearing family would take him and Pilgrim in for the night.  And he’d be happy to share the Word of God while slurping down a bowl of that stew!

Wesley finally made it to the farmhouse door, tied up his horse and knocked.  No one answered, so Wesley peered through the window.  Through the lace curtain he could plainly see an old farm couple enjoying dinner by the fire.  Maybe they were hard of hearing, he thought.  So he pounded on their door even louder.  

This time, he heard silverware clanging and thunderous, agitated footfalls approaching.  The door swung open and there stood a portly old farmer, droplets of stew down the front of his nightshirt.  His cheeks were flushed, both from anger and a hint of whiskey that Wesley detected with his wrinkled nose.  But Wesley figured they’d have a chat about that later.

“Good evening, dear sir,” Wesley began.  He doffed his torn hat, his dirty long hair cascading down his back.  “I mean no harm, I’m a simple man of God.  We’re seeking shelter from the snow.  I have no money, but could I avail you of a warm place to sleep?”

The farmer’s nose wrinkled at the smell of him.  “I don’t wanna talk to no more preachers,” he spitted out.  “You got a wagon there, go somewheres else and sleep in it.”

“But we will freeze to death out here, sir!”  Wesley begged.  

The farmer slammed the door in his face and returned to his dinner.  Stunned but desperate, Wesley grabbed his fiddle from the wagon and pounded on the door again.  As it swung open, Wesley played a creaky rendition of the old hymn “Wake Every Breath,” stomping his foot on the porch.  “I’d be happy to entertain you and your wife with my trusted fiddle.  I know many songs from far and wide…”

Now armed with a rifle, the farmer angrily swatted the instrument from his hands.  “I told ya’ I don’t want you in my house, preacher!  Git off my land!”

This time the farmer’s wife came to the door.  She glared silently at her husband, nearly retching at the preacher’s smell.  The farmer looked Wesley over with disgust, sighed and pointed to a rickety old barn across the way. “Alright, you can sleep in the barn with ol’ Bessie if you’d like.  From the smell of you, that’s where you belong.  But when my wife milks her in the morning, you best be long gone.”

Stifling his anger, the preacher nodded and dragged Pilgrim toward the barn.   “One more thing, preacher, “ yelled the farmer after him.  “Bessie is a fat old cow.  She’ll eat just about anything.  You got anything important, keep it away from her mouth!”

Wesley trudged into the drafty barn and saw Bessie lying in the corner, loudly chewing on a clump of hay.  The old farmer wasn’t lying, he thought.  Bessie was about the fattest, brown spotted cow he’d ever seen.  She fairly resembled her slovenly owner, he thought (“Now, now,” chided the Lord).  

Despite the frigid temperatures, Bessie produced a lot of body heat.  Here is yet another miracle, Wesley thought.  He took those frozen boots and feet and stuffed them under the cow’s belly.  Surely by morning, they would have thawed enough that he could pull them apart.

Before sunrise, Wesley carefully pulled the boots from beneath the snoring cow.  Sure enough, they had thawed overnight.  He yanked them off the severed feet with ease.  He sighed with pleasure at the boots’ perfect fit, support and soft, velvety leather.  But what to do with the dead man’s feet?

Well, the preacher had been up all night, angrily tossing and turning in the freezing barn at the farmer’s lack of hospitality.  It certainly wasn’t the Christian thing to do, turning away a desperate man in the dead of night. And a man of God no less!  Certainly the Lord wouldn’t mind if he played a small trick on them as a lesson.

So Wesley took those severed feet, put his old boots on them, and slipped them right up against Bessie’s mouth.  He scurried into the hayloft and waited.  As the sun rose, the farmer’s wife entered with a milk pail.  She made her way over to Bessie and screamed, dropping the pail with a loud clang.  She ran back to the house, crying “Wake up!  Bessie ate the preacher!  The cow ate the preacher!”

The farmer rushed down to the barn and saw the gruesome sight for himself.  Poor Bessie kept snoring away, the preacher’s feet wobbling in her lips.  The couple ran back to the house and locked the door.  

Up in the hayloft, Wesley could barely stifle his laughter.  But he wasn’t satisfied, no sir.  So he stayed in that barn until night fell.  Then he took his fiddle, stood outside the farmhouse in the blinding snow, and again played a creaky rendition of “Wake Every Breath.”  You remember these words next time a stranger asks for help, he thought to himself.

The curtains parted, and the farm couple saw a shadowy figure in the blizzard, wailing away on his fiddle.  “It’s the preacher’s ghost!” they screamed.  “What have we done?  Lord forgive us!”  They flung open the door and ran screaming down the road, disappearing into the frozen darkness.  They left the door wide open.

Wesley crept into their blissfully warm home and straight into another miracle.  What had he done to deserve this?  For on the table was a steaming, savory pot of stew and freshly baked bread.  With fresh milk and jam.  The preacher lunged at the table and devoured the meal, also taking a bowl out to Pilgrim and old Bessie, thanking her for her service.  He then returned to the house and stretched out on the couch.  In no time, he’d fallen into heavenly sleep.

That is, until he was awakened in the middle of the night by a pounding at the door.  Who could be out there this time of night?  He staggered over to the door and slowly opened it.  

Outside stood a pale, emaciated man in a dark suit, small icicles forming on his beard.  A silver cross dangled around his neck.   He was a little shorter than Wesley but otherwise could be mistaken for his brother.  This stranger is a fellow man of God, thought Wesley.  And he wasn’t going to treat him like that mean old farmer, no sir.

“Please come inside, my brother.  There’s plenty of stew and a warm fire where you can put your feet up.”

The stranger stared at him for a moment, then with a deep, menacing voice replied, “I’d be happy to put my feet up.”  He then pointed to the ground.  “If I had any.”

Wesley looked down and saw the mangled stumps where the man’s feet once were.  The stranger then pulled a rusty hacksaw from behind his back, his gaunt face stretching into a demonic grin.

And Wesley Cartwright was never seen in those parts again.

-THE END-

Where Did This Story Come From?

Our story is a reimagining of the old Irish folktale “The Cow That Ate The Piper.” Instead of a preacher, the main character is a bagpiper traveling the Irish countryside, looking for shelter in a snowstorm. He offers to play his pipes for an agitated Irish farmer, and similar chaos ensues.

This is one of my favorite folktales, and while we added some horror elements to it, there are several great versions of the original tale out there. Here is a version told by popular storyteller Bill Harley:

Our main character is based on the real life circuit rider, Lorenzo Dow, who was said to have placed a curse on a Georgia frontier town after they showed a similar lack of hospitality. We thought it was more believable for a traveling preacher to be riding through Arkansas than a Scottish piper!

Story Credits

Adapted from folklore and directed by Craig Dominey

Storyteller: David Hirt

Music by Randall Franks

Audio Production: Henry Howard