Deep in Glenwood Cemetery in Yazoo City, Mississippi, there is a grave surrounded by heavy iron chains. Local legend says those chains were meant to keep something inside.
The story of the Witch of Yazoo tells of an old woman who lived near the Yazoo River and was accused of luring fishermen to her home and torturing them. When authorities came after her, she fled into the swamp. As she sank into the mud, the legend says she cursed Yazoo City and promised that in twenty years she would return and burn the town to the ground.
Then, on May 25, 1904, Yazoo City burned.
The fire destroyed 324 buildings, including more than 200 homes and nearly the entire business district. Local folklore says that when residents visited the witch's grave afterward, the chains surrounding it had been broken.
Of course, there is another explanation. Yazoo City's official history says the fire began when a young boy playing with matches accidentally set his home on fire.
So what actually happened? Who was the woman buried inside the chained grave? How much of the story existed before Mississippi writer Willie Morris helped make the Witch of Yazoo famous? And why do people still visit that strange little plot in Glenwood Cemetery more than a century later?
Come with me to Mississippi for one of the South's strangest legends, where a real catastrophic fire became permanently tangled up with a witch, a curse, and a grave that supposedly refuses to stay chained.
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Sources:
[Visit Yazoo County: The Legend of the Witch of Yazoo](https://visityazoo.org/witch-of-yazoo/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
[City of Yazoo City: The History of Yazoo City](https://cityofyazoocity.org/visit-yazoo-city/the-history-of-yazoo/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
#YazooWitch #WitchOfYazoo #YazooCity #MississippiFolklore #SouthernFolklore #HauntedMississippi #ParanormalHistory #AmericanLegends #ChainReaction #WitchBetterHaveMyMoney
0:00 The legend of the chains
0:46 The swamp witch's curse
2:41 The fire and the aftermath
4:20 Folklore versus facts
5:56 Final thoughts on the legend
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