They say these woods will hold a secret tighter
in a church lady's purse, but every now and then,
that secret, it'll hold you. There's a spot up
yonder in the mountains, folks round here won't
speak its name, where compasses go haywire, trails
up and disappear, and sound don't travel like
it oughta. Fella got lost up there once, three
whole days gone. When he come back, he was clean
shaven, clothes pressed like he just stepped
out a Sunday meeting. Swore he'd only been gone
an hour, said he'd been with the shining ones.
But his eyes, they never looked right after that.
You see, around these parts, there's tales older
in any deed, older in the word Kentucky even.
Of a kind of folk that ain't quite people, but
ain't quite spirits neither. They're kind if
you treat the land right, but if you go stomping
where you shouldn't, acting like the forest owes
you something, well, they'll make sure you don't
forget whose woods you're in. The Cherokee call
them the Nunnahee, and friend, they don't got
to show themselves to find you. Welcome to Kentucky
Melodies Scary Stories from Kentucky. where we
spin yarns about ghostly haints, creepy hollers,
and spine -chilling legends from deep in the
hills. So grab a chair, dim them lights, and
let's dig into something spooky. Long four folks
started calling this place Kentucky. Long four
roads were carved or lines were drawn. This land
was something else. It wasn't just wild in the
way of overgrown woods or steep hollers that'll
turn a mule around. Nah, this land was alive
in a way folks couldn't rightly explain. The
Cherokee had a word for it. Atsi -lu -ski meant
the place of many things, and it was many things.
Beautiful, dangerous, sacred. The Shawnee, when
they come through, whispered the name Cane -tucky.
The land of tomorrow, but let me tell you something,
it weren't home, not to nobody, not cause they
couldn't settle it, they wouldn't, wouldn't dare.
This land had a hum to it, low and steady, like
a bow string drawn tight. The trees seemed to
lean in closer here. The wind moved different,
like it was carrying voices just under the sound.
And the rocks, They held memories, old ones.
When the Cherokee moved through, they did it
quiet, like they was walking on church floors.
Hunters traveled in pairs, never alone. They
said certain trails would twist on you if you
didn't show respect. Some caves. Folks said they
breathed like a sleeping giant. You'd hear a
slow in and out if you listened long enough.
Some of the old women wouldn't even speak certain
names out loud in these hills. Said speaking
could wake up what slept beneath. And it weren't
just the Cherokee feeling that weight. The Shawnee
up north felt it too. They had places they'd
cross quick, heads low. The Chickasaw from the
west, they'd make offerings before stepping into
certain hollers. And the Uchi. They told stories
of songs coming from the trees like flutes playing
without hands, but the ones that truly chill
a man to the bone are what the mound builders
left behind. Ain't nobody alive now remembers
who they were, but they built these great big
hills of earth, shaped like serpents, birds,
spirits. Some of them hold the dead, others hold
other things, things that don't sleep. You walk
near him on a still night and you'll feel it.
That pressure in your chest, like the grounds
staring back at you. Every people that passed
through this land, Cherokee, Shawnee, Chickasaw,
Yuchi, they all told tales of hidden ones. Not
animals, not spirits like ghosts, but folk. Strange
folk, watching folk. Sometimes they helped. Sometimes
they didn't, but always they watched. That's
what makes Kentucky what it is. It ain't just
a patch of earth. It's a threshold. A place where
the world we walk in rubs up against another.
Older, quieter, full of rules we don't understand.
And in that world walk the Nunnehy, the immortal
ones. They don't build no towns on the surface.
They don't carry no torches. But they see everything,
and when the wind shifts just right, and the
forest holds its breath, you best pay attention,
cause that's when you'll know, you've stepped
onto their land. The Nunnehee. Now they ain't
just watchers sitting quiet in the shadows. They
do things when they feel the need. Some say they're
protectors, like the soul of the mountain made
flesh. Others call them healers. or tricksters
if you catch them in the wrong mood and now and
then there's something darker something final
there's stories of folks who got turned around
in the woods wandering hours or even days till
they start hearing a kind of music that don't
come from man or bird next thing they know they're
back at their campfire fire still smoldering
like no time passed at all Only thing different
is the way they look at the trees after, like
they know now. I heard tell of a boy up in Clay
County running a fever no doctor could bring
down. Mama laid him out on a blanket in the shade
of a stone ridge where the ground never warmed,
a place her granny always said was special. That
night they heard a sound like lullabies sung
into the wind. By sunrise the boy was breathing
easy and reaching for biscuits, but the Nunnehy
ain't all mercy Mean -hearted men the kind that
strike their kin or take more from the land than
they ought Sometimes go missing out in them deep
hollers folks search for days dogs can't catch
a scent and then nothing Gone like mist in the
Sun Some say the Nunnehy don't take kindly to
wickedness They don't kill, they just take. And
then there's them rare ones. The ones who vanish
clean off the earth and turn up years later looking
just like they did the day they disappeared.
Won't say a word about where they've been, but
their eyes shine different, like they've seen
something we ain't meant to understand. But here's
the truth of it. The Nunnehi don't deal with
just anybody. You gotta carry yourself proper,
like the land matters. Like every rock's got
memory and every tree's got a story. You give
thanks when you take, you hush when the wind
talks. But if you go stomping where you ain't
welcome, if you mock the old ways or take from
a place that don't belong to you, that forest
will twist on you. What was a straight path will
bend like a snake. and you'll walk in circles
till you don't know east from your own name.
And if you're real unfortunate, you might walk
through a place where the air tastes sweet and
the leaves don't move, and find yourself in one
of their hidden villages. And if they don't take
a liking to you, well, let's just say not every
trail's got a way back. To the Cherokee, the
Nunahee ain't just some old bedtime story. They're
real. plain as the dirt under your boots. These
stories folks call legends? Nah. They're memories,
passed down by tongue and firelight, not written
in books but etched in hearts. During the time
of the Trail of Tears, when the U .S. government
was tearing the Cherokee from their land and
marching them west, some of the elders said they
started dreaming strange things. Said the Nunnehy
come to them in those dreams. warning them of
the sorrow that was coming. They told certain
families to follow them, to pack quiet and head
up into the high places, to caves the white men
didn't know about. Those families left in the
night and were never seen again. But here's the
thing. The Cherokee didn't weep for them. They
didn't believe they were lost. They believed
they'd been taken in. into the Nunnehy's world,
where there's no hunger, no sickness, no grief.
A world under the mountain, still breathing,
still watching, waiting for the time they're
needed again. Back in the day, when trouble was
near, sickness, war, storms brewing on the horizon,
the Cherokee would call on the Nunnehy. Not out
loud, but in quiet prayer, in dance, in smoke
and song. And sometimes, if the spirits were
listening, you might catch a glimpse of them,
just beyond the firelight, tall, still, glimmering
like heat off stone, dancing without sound. They
never spoke, they never touched, but their presence,
you felt it, deep in your bones, like the land
itself was standing beside you. Now, the Cherokee,
they ain't the only ones speaking of these hidden
folks. The Shawnee used to talk about the little
men of the forest, small glowing figures that'd
show up in the hills, keeping watch over the
land like quiet guardians. The Chickasaw told
of the Kowe Anukasha, secretive forest dwellers,
tucked away where no man dares to build. Folks
said if you disrespected the woods or walked
where you didn't belong, they'd make sure you
paid for it. Not with a shout or a sign, but
with vanishing trails, broken tools, or worse.
The Uchi and Muskogee people spoke of star walkers,
spirit folk that come from above, passing through
the trees in silence, guiding some, testing others,
always watching. And even before all of them,
way back when the Mississippian cultures built
mounds across this land, they were leaving carvings
and markings that some believe were images of
these same kinds of spirit folk. Tall, strange
figures with eyes like suns and hands that never
aged. Across all these tribes, all this time,
the pattern don't change. These beings are always
there. quiet, invisible, powerful, and always,
always tied to the bones of the land, like they
were born from the stone itself and ain't never
left. They ain't gone, not by a long shot. Every
few years you'll hear another whisper from Red
River Gorge, Black Mountain, Pine Ridge, and
them deep places where the trees don't ever tell
what they seen. There was a fella back in 2006
A backpacker out on his own swore he followed
this narrow path of stones that shimmered under
the moon like it was wet, though it hadn't rained
in days. Said the trail led straight into the
side of a hill, and then he was just gone. When
they found him, he was 30 miles from where he
started, sitting on a boulder like he was waiting
on a ride. Had no memory of what happened, no
food or water on him. But that bum knee he'd
limped on for ten years, healed clean as if it
never happened. Then in 2015, a woman was hiking
near Swift Camp Creek, just as the sun was dropping
low. She said she saw a group of pale figures
gliding through the woods, tall, smooth moving,
not making a sound. Leaves thick on the ground,
but they didn't crunch a single one. They moved
like shadows that didn't belong to nothing, and
there's families too. Folks that wake up shaking,
swearing they had the same dream. Caves full
of music, soft glows floating in the dark, and
people with no mouths speaking straight into
their thoughts. Now, folks don't always share
these stories out loud. Ain't the kind of thing
you talk about at church or the feed store, but
they remember them. And if you sit quiet long
enough and show them you listen more than you
talk, they just might tell you what really happened
up in those woods. The none a he, they ain't
just old stories, they're a warning, a reminder
that this land, as wild and beautiful as it is,
don't fully belong to us. We walk its trails,
build our cabins, carve our names and trees that
were old before our granddaddies were born. But
we're just renting. They're the ones who stayed.
So next time the fog rolls in thick, and your
boots hit a trail that don't show up on any map
you know, and you hear music, soft and far off,
with no fiddle or voice behind it, and that flashlight
in your hand starts flickering. Like something's
messing with it. Stop. Close your mouth. Open
your mind. Because you just might not be alone
out there. You might be standing in the presence
of the Nunnehy. And they're watching. And they're
deciding what to do with you. Now, before we
let the fire burn low tonight, I got a few questions
for y 'all to chew on. You ever been lost in
the woods? I mean, real turned around? And then
somehow just found your way out, like something
unseen was leading you? Do you reckon there's
still places in Kentucky, deep ridges, mossy
haulers, where something older than man still
keeps watch over the land? And here's one that'll
sit with you a while. If the Nunnehy came to
you, offered you a place in their world, a life
without sickness or pain. where time don't touch
you, but you could never come back. Would you
go? If you made it this far, reckon you've got
the heart for the strange and the shadowed. So
don't be a stranger yourself. Join us next time
here at Kentucky Melody, where the land remembers,
the stories breathe, and the truth don't always
come with proof. We've got more tales waiting
in the dark. And next time? Well, next time,
you might not walk away alone.