There's places in these hills where the moss
don't grow right. Where the wind hushes sudden
and the woods go so quiet you can hear your heart
knocking in your ears. That's where the old Cherokee
said the little people still walk. Not just a
tale, not just a warning, but a living, breathing
truth. Well, evening, y 'all. You're listening
to Kentucky Melody, where the past ain't never
really past. And some legends still walk the
ridgelines come dusk. I'm Earl, your host, and
tonight we're stepping into the truth behind
one of the oldest stories east of the Mississippi.
The Yunwe Junestea, the little people of Cherokee
lore. But what if I told you this ain't just
a story? What if folks have seen them, not just
back in the day, but in recent years? What if
they never left? The name rolls off the tongue
like a splinter of air. Yun we jun sti. It don't
come loud. It don't come proud. It slips through
your lips like a word that knows better than
to be said. Straight from the old Cherokee tongue.
It means the little people. But don't you go
picturing no fairy tale creatures now. No winged
pixies or flower -crowned tree spirits dancing
in the dew? No, sir. You best set that storybook
down. And listen close. Because this ain't make
-believe. The elders didn't call them legends.
They didn't call them myths. They called them
real. Knee -high. Maybe smaller. But shaped just
like us. Arms. Legs. Fingers. Eyes. Still, there's
something off, something wrong, in the way they
almost look human. Their hair, gosh, that hair,
jet black, hanging down so long it brushes the
ground, hides their feet, like a shroud trying
to keep them from being truly seen. And their
eyes? Well, folks that seen them don't talk about
those much, not because they forgot. Because
remembering too well has a way of calling things
back. They make their homes where the sun gives
up, where moss clings like skin, and the rock
sweats cold even in July. Caves that ain't on
no map. Laurel thickets that twist and breathe
when the wind dies down. Underground hollers
where no bird sings. And if you stumble near
them, you'll feel it in your stomach, in your
teeth, like the earth itself's holding its breath.
Now, not all of them are cruel, some are quiet,
some are kind. There's tales of children lost
deep in the woods, only to wander back come dawn
unharmed, with no memory but the feel of a small
woman's hand guiding theirs. There's mountain
healers who say certain dreams whisper what route
to pull what leaf to crush What time to cut the
bark? Those dreams ain't always dreams Sometimes
it's the gentle ones helping but never wanting
to be seen But the woods they ain't made of kindness
alone. There's tricksters among them ones that'll
take your flint Flip your compass, move your
tracks when you ain't looking. Make you walk
the same stretch of trail over and over, laughing
at you the whole time. A high, brittle laugh,
like wind whistling through busted glass. You'll
swear you've been here before. And you have.
Only now it's different, twisted, wrong. And
then, then there's the others. The ones nobody
dares describe too much. The ones the old Cherokee
warned about, in ways that stick to the bone.
The ones that don't trick, don't laugh, don't
help, just watch and wait. See those warnings?
They wasn't carved in stone. They was passed
down, mouth to mouth, night to night, like embers
in a coal bucket. Don't you stare at them? Don't
you follow their lights and for the love of all
that's holy? Don't you speak their name after
dark? Because once they know you see them once
they know you believe They might start believing
in you too, and that's a kind of attention. You
can't uninvite Some things in these hills don't
want nothing except maybe to be remembered and
remembering is how they find you. For as long
as the Cherokee have walked these hills, their
elders passed down solemn words to the young
'uns, not all that walks in these woods walks
like us. The little people, they said, weren't
just some far -off tale meant to spook children.
They were real, and they demanded respect. The
old folks spoke of different kinds of them, not
all alike in heart or habit. There were the ones
that guarded the stone places, mean as hornets,
and twice as still. You trespassed near their
caves or took something without asking, and they'd
know, not just see it, they'd feel it. Those
ones didn't take kindly to footsteps, where they
didn't belong. Then there were the ones hiding
in the laurel. Mischievous, some said. They'd
twist your sense of direction, laugh in the shadows,
or lead your eyes one way, while your pack went
the other. Tricksters by nature. Not mean, not
quite, but they sure enjoyed reminding you who
was in charge out there. And finally, folks whispered
about the gentle kind. The ones said to heal,
to help, to whisper to the sick or the lost.
They were kind, but not tame. Even the best of
them didn't suffer fools. If you came to their
woods with pride or mockery in your heart, that
kindness could turn fast. The Cherokee knew.
You don't take from the forest without asking.
You don't mock. what you can't understand. Folks
that did. Well, they'd come home confused or
sick or not at all. Sometimes a strong, healthy
man would stumble back from a short hunting trip,
babbling nonsense with scratches down his legs
and eyes glassed over like he'd seen something
the world wasn't meant to show him. But there
were those, medicine people mostly, who said
they were chosen. They'd vanish into the trees
for days, no food, no gear, no plan. And when
they returned, they held knowledge they never
learned from man. They knew roots no one had
named, spoke of voices, singing in dreams. And
all they'd ever say was, the little ones taught
me. Back in the late 1800s, A man by the name
of James Mooney set out from the Smithsonian
to record the old stories of the Cherokee. Thought
he was just gathering folklore at first, tales
to tuck away in books and behind glass cases.
But the deeper he listened, the more he started
to realize. These folks weren't talking in riddles
or fables. They were speaking the truth. In his
work, Myths of the Cherokee, Mooney wrote down
story after story that'd make the hair on your
arms stand straight. One told of a child, vanished
without a trace, who wandered back days later,
wearing a calm smile and speaking Cherokee like
he'd been raised on the tongue, even though he'd
never heard a word of it in his life. The family
said he was different afterward. Quieter. like
he'd seen things he couldn't explain. There was
another tale from a hunter who followed the sound
of distant drums echoing through the hills one
moonless night. He came back not with a buck
or a turkey, but empty -handed and hollow -eyed,
mumbling strange words and blind in one eye.
Said the light he saw out there wasn't from no
fire, Nor no man. And then there's the one that
gives me chills. Every time. A stone path, carved
by hands smaller than any man's, leading straight
into the mountain. The Cherokee said it went
to a place that didn't belong to us. A hidden
city, deep beneath the hills, where the little
people still danced and sang, and kept their
secrets far from prying eyes. Now, here's the
part most folks overlook. Moony didn't write
these stories off like some bedtime nonsense.
No, sir. He wrote it plain as daylight. To the
Cherokee, these beings are real. And by the time
he packed up and left, I reckon he wasn't so
sure they weren't. Now, here's the part most
folks overlook. Mooney didn't write these stories
off like some bedtime nonsense. No, sir. He wrote
it plain as daylight. To the Cherokee, these
beings are real. And by the time he packed up
and left, I reckon he wasn't so sure they weren't.
Back in the 1930s, over in Cullowhee, North Carolina,
They were laying the groundwork for what had
become Western Carolina University. Seemed like
just another campus project. Dig the land, lay
the concrete, build some new structures for the
coming generation. But they found something else,
instead. Beneath the soil, workers started uncovering
strange tunnels. Not natural haulers or animal
dens, but arched passages. carefully shaped,
no taller than a man's waist. The walls were
smooth, worn like they'd been used, and used
often. You ask folks that were there, or the
sons of men who worked that job, and they'll
tell you the same thing. They was carved by hands,
small ones, like a people that lived under us.
And then came the bones. Not rumors, not whispers,
tiny skeletons, full sets, with adult teeth,
even wisdom teeth in some cases, which meant
these weren't no children. They were grown, whatever
they were. Some say the skulls were slightly
off, too round, too smooth, but that's just from
the folks who dared to take a close look before
the higher -ups stepped in. The story goes the
site was shut down overnight. The dig rerouted,
and them tunnels covered up. Now, if you walk
the campus today, there's a couple of dirt mounds
that don't seem to belong to any layout. They
sit there, quiet. No plaques, no paths, just
grass and shadow. Some Cherokee elders still
visit, now and then, standing in silence by those
mounds, hat in hand, and one of them, when asked
what used to be there, didn't even blink. That
was their village, he said. They didn't disappear,
they just went deeper. Now, here's where things
start creeping awful close to home. Right here
in the hollers and ridges most of us grew up
roaming. Down in Wolf County, back in the 1970s,
a pair of hikers wandered into the Clifty Wilderness.
following the old trail that snakes along Hell's
Kitchen, that tight stretch of river where the
rock walls rise up like tombstones on both sides.
They weren't expecting nothing strange, just
looking for a place to pitch a tent and maybe
catch a trout or two. But as the sun dipped low
and the shadows started clinging to the cliffs,
one of them spotted something standing up high,
something small. watching, just staring down
from a ledge like it had been waiting there all
along. They didn't say much, just picked up and
moved on. But the next day, another woman out
in that same patch swore she saw three figures,
no bigger than toddlers, dancing slow on a flat
rock, moving in a circle like they was part of
some kind of ritual. When she blinked. They was
gone, like they'd slipped right down into a crack
in the stone and melted into the dark. Over in
Laurel County, back in 1999, a couple was camping
near Laurel Lake. Nothing fancy, just a night
out under the stars. But they woke up to something
strange. Their gear, every last bit of it, was
laid out in perfect little piles, pots, pans.
boots, even their matches, arranged neat -like,
like someone had taken the time to study it,
organize it. But that ain't what got them. It
was the footprints, tiny, in the mud, dancing
around the campfire circle, barefoot. Not a child's,
not quite human, neither. They left that morning
and didn't come back. Then came 2022. The floods
in Weizburg. Water took everything with it. Houses,
bridges, memories. But once the rains let up
and the mud settled, folks started whispering
again. Some said they saw little figures in the
early evening, darting along the roadside, crouched
low, moving too quick to be kids, too wrong shaped
to be raccoons or dogs. One old -timer put it
best. The flood flushed out more than debris,
he said. It flushed out what had been hiding
beneath us all along. And not too far from there,
back in 2015, a ranger patrolling out near Natural
Bridge and Slade caught a sound that didn't sit
right. Laughter, not loud, not playful, but high
-pitched and scattered, like wind rattling through
bone pipes. She spun her light through the trees,
saw nothing, but her radio went dead. Static,
hissing. Her skin crawled. She said it felt like
something was watching her from all sides. She
left the woods early that night and never walked
that trail alone again. And here's what might
just chill your bones a little more. The Cherokee
ain't the only ones telling stories like this.
not by a long shot. All across this country,
from the misty cypress swamps of the deep south
to the pine -thick trails up near the Great Lakes,
tribes have whispered of small -spirit folk that
live just outside the edges of our world, always
watching, always hiding, always waiting for folks
to either show respect or step wrong. The Choctaw
down in Mississippi talked about the Bopoli,
strange little men that had lurked near campfires
testing your heart, peeking at your soul when
you thought you was alone. They say if you was
honest, humble, and good, you'd be left in peace.
But if you was boastful or cruel, you'd wake
up with something missing, your voice, your memory,
maybe even your sanity. The creek and Seminole
folks, not too far off from us, spoke in hushed
tones about a breed of wild little ones that
had lived near the sacred groves. Playful, sure,
but dangerous if you crossed them. Folks who
mocked them or disrespected the woods came back
confused, or not at all. And if they did make
it home, they weren't quite the same no more,
like their soul got scuffed up in the dark. Way
out west, the Hopi told of the Ant People, strange,
quiet folk who, in the old times, saved humanity
from destruction. When the world was burning
or flooding, they took the Hopi people underground,
gave them shelter, food, and songs to carry forward.
When the surface was safe again, the Ant People
sent them back up. Wiser than before. Some say
the Hopis still leave gifts in certain caves
to thank them, just in case they're still listening.
Even the Chickasaw tell tales of children who
vanished into the woods for days, only to return
with strange knowledge, hands that could heal
burns, eyes that saw sickness before it came.
They never remembered who taught them, only that
they weren't alone out there. So it don't matter
where you're from. Georgia Clay or Arizona Red
Rock, these stories rise up the same way. Little
folk in hidden places, watching, waiting, judging.
Makes you wonder, don't it? Maybe these stories
ain't separate after all. Maybe they're just
echoes of the same truth, passed along from tribe
to tribe, campfire to campfire. The truth that
there's something out there in the woods, older
than any of us and not quite gone. Even now,
even in these times of high -speed roads and
satellite maps, the old ways ain't been forgotten.
You'll still find Cherokee elders setting a pinch
of tobacco by a spring or leaving a hunk of sweet
bread at the base of a tree. Right where the
trail begins to turn wild. Not out of habit,
not for show, but out of respect. They say the
little people are still there. Maybe not watching
with eyes like ours, but feeling the shift of
every footfall, listening to the tone of every
word spoken in their woods. Just because you
can't see them, one old man said, don't mean
they ain't there. He wasn't smiling when he said
it either. He was looking straight into the trees
like he was expecting something to blink back
at him. And another elder, quiet fella, slow
to speak but sharp as frost, put it even plainer.
They remember what was done to this land, and
they remember who showed them respect. So next
time you find yourself deep in the hills, far
from signal, far from sound, and the world around
you goes real still? Step soft, speak kind, and
leave a little something behind, cause you ain't
the only one walking those woods. If this story
gave you goosebumps, go on and hit that like
button, and don't forget to subscribe. We're
always digging up what others forgot, and uncovering
what most folks would rather leave buried. Got
your own story about the little people, or a
place where the woods feel like they're listening?
Drop it in the comments below, or send it over
to us at KentuckyMelody .com. Just mind yourself,
and don't speak their name after dark. We'll
see y 'all next time, right here, where the haints
still whisper on Kentucky Melody.