Case file · High strangeness

Atsi'la-wa'i, the fire ball of Rattlesnake Knob

A peak about 2 miles north-east of Cherokee was named 'Fire's relative' because a ball of fire was seen to fly through the air from the direction of Highlands and land on it.

1900 CE · 35.50, -83.29 · status: legend

The account

The Cherokee took it for an ulunsuti, a sacred crystal of the Uktena, which its dead owner had hidden on the summit and which came out each night looking for him: in effect a Cherokee ghost light.

Connections in the atlas

Sources

  1. Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (1900), Project Gutenberg
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