Old Bones Don't Lie: I Finally Got My Hands on Mountain Magick & In a Graveyard at Midnight

And this is where the posers step aside.

Some books are easy to buy.

Click, add to cart, delivered with the toothpaste and the cat litter.

Then there are the others —

the deep-rooted ones, the smoke-heavy ones, the ones the land itself protects.

The ones you have to hunt.

I spent weeks slipping through used-book graveyards, stalking listings like a wolf after a deer. Watching prices spike, vanish, reappear like ghosts. And then — finally — not one, but both of them dropped into my hands like bones from an ancestral altar:

📚 Mountain Magick — Edain McCoy

📚 In a Graveyard at Midnight — Edain McCoy

Not reprints.

Not watered-down summaries.

Not “inspired by Appalachia” cottagecore.

The real damn thing.

Old-road knowledge, creek-bed knowledge. Magic made from necessity, not novelty. Witchcraft that still smells like woodsmoke and lard, not lavender-aesthetic Instagram filters.

I didn’t just buy books.

I reclaimed a lineage.

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Why These Two Matter (and why most witches will never understand them)

These aren’t spell-jar manuals for manifesting coffee money.

They’re books written in the voice of a land that doesn’t coddle you.

Inside them is:

Witchcraft practiced for survival, not attention

Remedies learned from mothers, not memes

Spirits dealt with respectfully, not “summoned for vibes”

Herbs picked by moonlight because winter was coming, not because it matched an outfit

There’s grit in these pages.

There’s teeth.

They are not friendly to anyone who treats witchcraft like a fandom.

This is Appalachia.

She’s patient — but she remembers who disrespects her.

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Where Modern “Mountain Witchcraft” Falls Flat

Now we come to the tender part — if you bruise easy, stop here.

There’s a growing crowd online wearing flannel and calling themselves “Appalachian witches” because they burned mugwort once and their great-uncle had a truck.

But what they’re practicing is aesthetic, not blood.

Performance, not practice.

Let’s lay it plain:

Real Mountain Craft  or TikTok Mountain Aesthetic

Dirt under the nails or Perfectly lit cauldron photos.

Weather lore passed down orally or Graphics stolen from Pinterest.

Spells disguised as remedies or “Manifesting a Jeep Wrangler”

Spirits treated like neighbors or Spirits treated like props

Magic rooted in poverty + survival or Magic used for personal branding

One path keeps grandmothers proud.

The other keeps engagement high.

The difference matters.

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What These Books Teach (that trendy witches don’t want you to know)

You don’t earn the title witch by owning crystals.

You earn it by:

Sitting with the land long enough for it to speak

Learning which plant heals and which one kills

Knowing a storm by the taste of the air

Bargaining with spirits like kin, not entertainment

Doing the work when no one is there to applaud

These books don’t hand you spells.

They hand you responsibility.

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Why I’m Writing This

Because the old ways are being drowned out by glitter and algorithms.

Because people are selling “Appalachian magic” like merch while never once speaking with the dead or the living mountains.

Because lineage matters.

Not in blood purity bullshit — but in respect.

If you want to walk the mountain path, walk it with your hands in the dirt.

Not your phone in your hand.

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Final Word

I didn’t just buy two rare books.

I dug up bones.

And now I’m going to read them, work them, bleed them into my craft — and when I’m done, I’ll come back with truth in my teeth and ash on my tongue.

If you want to learn the old ways, start by listening.

If you just want the aesthetic — there are easier costumes.

But if you want the real magic —

pull up a chair, y'all 

The mountains are speaking again.