The Devil's Tramping Ground

In the woods of Chatham County, North Carolina, there is a bare circle of earth some forty feet across where, folk say, nothing will grow and objects left overnight are flung out by morning. The Devil himself is said to pace the ring at night, plotting mischief, wearing the ground bare with his tread.

Soil tests have found high salt and poor fertility; the legend has found something older and less tidy. It is one of the South's enduring cursed-ground stories. O Devil, Where Art Thou? walks the circle in song.