The Bell Witch Part 2

Astonishing Legends

Scott Philbrook

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2017

⏱️ 182 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Folklore can simply be described as beliefs, customs or legends handed down and preserved among a people. Some believe they are merely made up tales designed to entertain, while others believe folklore may be based on truths that have been gilded over the years by the oral tradition, yet their truth survives as valuable instruction or even a warning. Whether the legend of the Bell Witch was based on a real poltergeist event with the details being accurately preserved, or somewhat true but padded for effect, or wholly a lie spun to cover more humanly misdeeds, we'll likely never know. But before you dismiss the Bell Witch story outright, first think about your own family's stories or even how your own true tales you've told will be perceived through the lenses of bias and time. Will you be remembered as a faithful narrator or a liar? The purported entity called "Kate" may have left her legend behind for later generations to make that judgment but there are many who live in the area today that claim something may still be lingering. So before you bravely disrespect the legend of whatever it may have been, remember there is nowhere you can hide from a force that will gleefully visit misfortune upon you to make its point.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I haven't seen you since Starbucks after that festival. Oh, yeah, we need to hang out with the weather's good
0:06.2	This weekend shopping Saturday Sunday meals then lunch with Oscar next weekend
0:12.3	Thursday night with tops in a month next Friday and a most about thing another one
0:17.5	How about right now perfect Starbucks the new chocolate waffle cone frappuccino
0:24.2	You read my mind summer hits different with Starbucks subject to availability whilst stocks last
0:30.0	This week's episode of astonishing legends is brought to you by blue apron beach body and our contributors at patreon.com
0:36.8	According to legend the bell which of Tennessee devoted nearly four solid years to taunting the Bell family of Red River
0:43.6	It was never clear exactly what she was
0:46.2	But she allowed them to call her Kate after a local eccentric woman known as Kate bats who at one point she claimed allegiance to
0:55.1	In daylight or candlelight she was invisible and darkness
1:00.0	Deadly physical leveling severe attacks on Bell's daughter Betsy and her brother Joel as well as investigators who came from as far away as England to prove that all of the
1:10.4	Goings on were in fact some kind of hoax being perpetrated by the family
1:15.4	Kate's first appearance was in 1817 after the patriarch or the family John Bell senior took a shot at some sort of bizarre creature
1:23.5	He saw in one of his cornfields
1:26.4	Some reports say it had the body of a rabbit and the head of a dog all
1:31.7	Reports indicate that after he fired upon it it vanished in a thin air
1:36.7	That very night the Bell family was visited at their cabin by wrapping sounds on the cabin walls
1:43.2	fingernails scratching the furniture and
1:45.9	Eventually the sound of what seemed like rats nong on the family's bedposts
1:51.8	Quiet raspy voices were heard at first, but only by John Bell senior
1:57.2	Over time they developed a clear conversation that could be heard by anyone present
2:02.8	Then the physical assault started the children's hair would be violently yanked as they slapped their faces slapped with enough
	...

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