"Despite its diminutive size, Kathryn Tucker Windhams Count Those Buzzards! Stamp Those Grey Mules! is an entertaining collection of vernacular beliefs and cultural practices of rural Alabama in the early twentieth century. Written for entertainment, it nevertheless documents superstitions, rituals, and informal codes that shaped social life in the American South. Windhams recollections illuminate oral traditions and life in the South. Presented in the Windhams beguiling voice, these stories preserve a disappearing body of folklore. Although intended for a wide audience, the book invites engagement with themes of memory, regional identity, and the transmission of belief systems across generations. This new edition includes a short introductory note by Dilcy Windham, Kathryn Tucker Windhams daughter as well as a foreword by Emily Blejwas (MA Sociology, Auburn University), the author of The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods. Blejwass foreword contextualizes Count Those Buzzards! as a cultural document, highlighting its role in preserving Alabama folklore, evoking childhood memories, and inspiring readers to record and share their own lived traditions. Count Those Buzzards! Stamp Those Grey Mules! is a loving, sharp-eyed romp through the superstitions that once quietly governed childhood in rural Alabama.

This is not a scientific study, nor does it pretend to be one. Instead, Kathryn Tucker Windham gathers the beliefs we absorbed as naturally as red dust on bare feet: buzzards that must flap, grey mules that must be stamped, vines that judged love, apples that spelled destiny, and bottle trees that kept the devil busy admiring himself. With wit, warmth, and a storytellers perfectly pitched voice, Windham records a world in which luck could be courted, evil discouraged, and futures guessed-often over wash pans, chicken bones, and dew wet grass. Her recollections are affectionate but never sentimental, amused but never cruel. Readers will laugh, recognize long-forgotten rituals, and perhaps feel an urge to test their own memories"-- Provided by publisher.