Geek Pizza

She Who Kept Us Alive

Before doctors had licenses and hospitals had beds, there was a woman with a black bag who came in the dark. She delivered the babies and prepared the dead and carried the knowledge of what keeps a community alive through generations when no one else would. Tonight we talk about the granny witch, the Cherokee Corn Mother Selu, and the women of Appalachian tradition who stood at every threshold birth and death and everything in between. This one is for them.

Green and Growing: Plant Folklore & the Magic of the Spring Garden

Spring in the Appalachian mountains is not just a season.It’s a medicine chest opening up.   This week we’re going into the garden and into the traditionof the granny witch, the herb woman, the yarb doctor, the neighbor lady who kept communities alive with nothing but what grew in the holler and what her mother taught her.   In this episode:  • The granny witch tradition who these women really were and why the mountain couldn’t survive without them. • The plants of the Appalachian garden dandelion, willow bark, sassafras, foxglove, witch hazel, ginseng and more. • Willow bark and the aspirin story how mountain folk medicine became modern pharmacy and nobody remembered the woman who started it. • Honey in the mountain tradition from the kitchen shelf to the sickbed. • Telling the Bees the Appalachian tradition of whispering death to the hive. • An original short story What Della Knew about a granny witch, a willow tree and the knowledge that passes forward. • The Green Hag vs. the granny witch what D&D gets wrong about the wise woman of the woods . • A wisdom closer to carry out the door with you.  Referenced this episode: Roots Branches & Spirits by H.Byron Ballard  Find Geek Pizza Media at geekpizzamedia.com and on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. New episodes every two weeks.   #AppalachianFolklore#GrannyWitch #PlantFolklore #HerbLore #Appalachia #Podcast #DungeonsAndDragons#GreenHag #Folklore #Storytelling #GeekPizzaMedia #TellingTheBees #WillowBark#MountainMagic #SpringGarden

When the Banshee Hollers: Death Omens of the Appalachian Hills

Season One is here. Welcome back to the Geek Pizza MediaPodcast.  We’re kicking off a brand new format short, focused episodesevery two weeks, each one tied to the natural calendar and the folklore, lore, and mountain wisdom of the Appalachian hills. Then we follow it straight into the fiction, the games, and the stories we’re all trying to tell.   This week we’re starting where spring starts with death.   In this episode:  • The death omens of the Appalachian mountains screech owls, stopped clocks, death moths, and dogs thathowl at nothing • Where these omens came from the Scots-Irish, Cherokee and African American traditions that layered together inthe hollows • An original short story The Fourth Morning about a grandmother, a screech owl and what warnings are reallyfor • The Banshee in D&D vs. the Bean Síthe of Irish and Scottish folklore what the Monster Manual got right, what the mountain knows that the stat block doesn’t • A wisdom closer to carry with you   Runtime: 17 minutes   Find Geek Pizza Media at geekpizzamedia.com and on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. New episodes every two weeks.   #AppalachianFolklore#DeathOmens #GrannWitch #Folklore #Podcast #DungeonsAndDragons #Banshee#Appalachia #Storytelling #GeekPizzaMedia

The Wild Hunt and Threshold Spirits Belief, Boundaries

Come on in. Gather round the hearth. Once a year, folklore tells us, the world thins. The wind sounds like hooves where hooves should not be, and ancient riders move along the edges of reality. In this episode of Geek Pizza, we explore the Wild Hunt as more than a ghost story. We look at it as a moving boundary, a reminder that thresholds, not dates, are what truly change us. Along the way, we turn to The Hogfather as a modern myth that understands an old truth. Belief is infrastructure. Rituals do not just celebrate the world. They hold it together. And when belief falters, something else still rides the track. This is a winter story about doorways, crossroads, and the danger of standing halfway through a choice. Because New Year’s does not change you. Stepping across a threshold does.

A Christmas Carol of the Holler | Appalachian Ghost Story (Geek Pizza Holiday Special)

A Christmas ghost story from the Appalachian holler. This Geek Pizza Holiday Special reimagines A Christmas Carol as a fireside folk tale set in a coal-town valley, filled with bottle trees, candlelit windows, and restless spirits. Eben Crane has money, property, and power, but on Christmas Eve, he is forced to face the cost of a life lived cold. Three spirits walk him through memory, consequence, and the future still waiting to be changed. Atmospheric. Narrative. Appalachian to the bone. Light the fire. Listen close. Christmas is knocking.