Imagine settling into a new home decorated with aesthetic mood boards, dreams, and big ideas. Only to find the ground underneath your feet soaked with a heart-gripping tale that leaves you questioning what’s living in the walls. 

That’s what happened to John and Annie, a couple from the North who packed up their lives to buy a piece of land in North Carolina.

They were excited, maybe a tad bit pretentious too, and undoubtedly naive about the property that caught their eyes. They unknowingly stepped into a portal of tragedy and justified reparations.

This is the folklore of Po’ Sandy, the short story written by Charles W. Chesnutt.

Originally published in his collection The Conjure Woman in 1899. The story is one of Chesnutt’s conjure tales that effortlessly blends black folklore, dialect, and themes of slavery with supernatural elements into a haunting that we all sense is brewing.

Some stories don’t die—They root themselves in the south

Annie had a vision for their new home—a cozy place with a kitchen separate from the main house, just like they did in the old South. It seemed practical enough, and maybe even a bit charming, to have that old-fashioned setup with an antique feel.

But that dream home had a particular naiveté taste, glossing over history’s troubling truths. You see, back then, it wasn’t just any folks sweating it out in those undesirably hot kitchens.

It was black folks. Usually, slaves without the luxury of choosing where or how they worked.

Being the practical type, John settled to save some money on bringing Annie’s vision to life by using reclaimed lumber from an abandoned schoolhouse on their new property.

He assumed it was just a pile of wood with a bunch of planks ready to be repurposed.

But when he went to the sawmill with their coachman, Uncle Julius, something gut-wrenching stopped him in his tracks.

The story Po’ Sandy still tells

As the saw bit into that first log, Uncle Julius jerked up goosebumps like a chill had settled right in his bones. “Ugh! But dat des do cuddle my blood!” he muttered, his voice low and uneasy.

John, feeling a bit unsettled himself, asked why. And that’s when Uncle Julius started to spill the tale of Po’ Sandy—a story so consuming that it sticks to your soul like the thick, humid air of a Southern summer rain.

Sandy, bless his heart, was a man who’d seen too much of life’s cruelty and whom the siblings of his owner, Master Marrabo McSwayne, passed around like a worn-out tool.

Sandy was a true nomad in all the wrong ways: no roots, no home.

Just a man shuffling from one plantation to another. Whose spirit was worn thin by the weight of it all. 

He had a wife, but like many things in those dark days, she was taken from him. And sold off to who knows where while he was away.

By the time he returned, she was nothing more than a memory.

But even with all that in the back of his mind, deep in his heart, Sandy’s soul still longed for something he could hold onto.

He found that in Tenie. And she had a touch of magic that could pull a man from the jaws of misery, at least for a little while. 

Tenie saw Sandy’s gloom, how he needed a place to settle, and how he desired to be more than just a name on a bill of sale. With a heavy heart and hands full of old-world magic, she turned him into something strong and solid—a tall and unyielding pine tree.

It worked just fine for a while. Sandy stood tall and unbothered by the ruthlessness of everyday life.

But life’s got a way of twisting even the best-laid plans. Master McSwayne’s mistress decided she needed a brand new kitchen. And that pine tree was just what she desired — Cut and chopped.

When the saw tore into that tree, it split Sandy into pieces. It was tearing Sandy’s spirit up. He was crying out in pain, even down to the final bits of sawdust misting through the air. And when that tree was hauled to the mill and turned into planks, piece by piece, that poor man’s soul was nailed into place.

And Tenie, as heartbroken, lost, and stuck as she was, stayed in that kitchen, repenting and weeping to Sandy, trying to hold onto whatever was left of him.

But that kind of grief it can tear a person apart. And in the end, Tenie was too gone, swallowed up by the sorrow of it all.

After pitying Sandy’s story, Annie couldn’t carry the burden of cooking her meals in a place made from a man’s suffering. John might’ve brushed it off as a wild tale, but it sat heavy in Annie’s heart.

That old schoolhouse wood wasn’t going anywhere near her kitchen. Not a chance.

So when Uncle Julius mentioned his church was splitting and needed wood for a new building, Annie didn’t hesitate.

She offered up the schoolhouse lumber, ghosts, and all.

When John questioned the haunted wood, Uncle Julius smiled with a twinkle in his eye and proclaimed, “Ghosts don’t bother churches. And if Sandy’s spirit comes around, well, maybe the preaching will do him some good.”

And maybe, just maybe, it would.

What Po’ Sandy’s Story Still Teaches Us

Folklore’s easy to shrug off—just another old tale folks like to spin. But sit with a story long enough, read between the lines, and you’ll start to hear the truth humming under the “myth”.

Pull up a chair with Uncle Julius and let him walk you through Po’ Sandy’s story—a tale stitched together with love, loss, and the kind of magic that don’t fade with time.

It’s a story about the land remembering, about the past holding on tight, and about the healing that only comes when you stop running and turn to face what’s been chasing you.

History don’t just disappear, you know? it seeps into the soil, lingers in the trees, and waits in the spaces between the stories we tell ourselves. And if you listen real close, you just might pull up on a manifestation.

1. Healing blooms where the wild things are

There’s something about nature when it’s gentle—it doesn’t rush you, doesn’t ask for explanations. It just lets you be.

That’s what Tenie gave Sandy—a place to rest, a way to become something steady when life kept pulling him apart. And for those of us without wide-open fields to run to, healing is still in the little things.

A garden. A deep breath. A quiet moment with your hands in the dirt.

Sandy turned into a tree, y’all. Maybe that was the only way he could find peace. But the truth is, we don’t have to wait for the transformation to feel it.

Nature is already within us.

Our breath—steady, strong, willing to hold us when nothing else will. Whether it’s the hush of the wind, the weight of the sun on your skin, or the stillness of a slow morning, it’s always there.

Because healing isn’t escape. It’s the choice to keep showing up.

2. Some threads to the past never break

We’re all tied to the past by invisible threads that don’t just snap when we’re ready.

Folks love to say, “just let it go” like it’s as easy as dropping your keys on the counter. But when you’ve been cut deep—by heartbreak, or betrayal, and the weight of what’s come before—letting go is a mess.

Sometimes, the past holds on tight, like a bad song stuck in your head or a storm that won’t clear out. You try to outrun it, drink it off, move forward—but it’s residual. It lingers. Sinks into your bones. Clings to you like mud on your boots.

Po’ Sandy’s story doesn’t lie. It’s a chilling truth wrapped in Spanish moss—proof that pain don’t just vanish because you’re ready to walk away. His suffering still lingers in that wood, same as the ghosts we carry when we don’t make peace offerings with where we’ve been.

Because trauma don’t just fade—it seeps. It seeps into our days, our breath, the places we call home. And if we don’t face it, reckon with it, and lay it to rest, it’ll keep following us, medalling resolve  ‘til we finally stop and listen.

3. Rituals rewrite the scars into stories

Rituals turn scars into stories. They’re the stitches that mend what’s been torn, the steady hands that hold what’s too heavy to carry alone.

Folks like to talk about routines like they’re the answer to everything when they’re really not. But rituals? They’re different. They’re the habits you set and never forget. They’re the heartbeat of something deeper. They turn the ordinary into the sacred. They take what’s broken and make it mean something.

Tenie knew this deep in her bones. Her folk magic wasn’t just superstition—it was love woven into rootwork, a ritual of remembrance. A way to give Sandy the peace he was owed, the rest he’d been denied.

And when the church took in that haunted schoolhouse lumber, it wasn’t just wood—it was history, grief, and something unsettled. But in the hands of faith, it became a sanctuary. A place to let old ghosts go and build something new.

Rituals aren’t just habits you pick up and drop when life gets busy. They keep us together when we get lost in the mess.

But honestly, at the end of the day, rituals aren’t just practical. They’re personal. They’re holy. And they give us something no routine ever could—a way to heal, toast to transformation, and carry on without feeling like we’re doing it alone.

4. Folklore runs in our blood

There’s nothing new about women carrying the weight of the world in their wombs. But in the Black diaspora, that weight holds wisdom—born, carried, and passed down.

Protected by a knowing—mystical and unshaken—of when to heal, when to guard, and when to stay quiet about what the world doesn’t really need to understand.

On the surface, folk medicine may look like just spells and potions—like Hollywood would have you believe. But it’s love wrapped in knowing, passed from mother to daughter and sometimes from soul to body.

Hidden in plain sight, between Sunday supper and the way she folds her hands when she prays.

Kept close. Sacred. And out of reach from those who would turn it into something it was never meant to be.

And in Po’ Sandy, Tenie knew. She knew how to turn pain into power and bend what was broken into something that could still stand.

Turning Sandy into a tree wasn’t just manifestation—it was survival, the kind of intention a woman casts when she don’t got no other way to set things right.

She was the kind of woman the world wouldn’t dare write history books about—but ought to.

The kind who floor-washed culture into every nook and cranny of the home wove medicine into meals, and carried stories in her bones so the past wouldn’t go quiet.

Her magic was a remedy, a resistance, and a badass reckoning.

A bridge between what was and what’s still coming.

A reminder that no matter how much the world moves forward, some things ain’t meant to be left behind.

Because women like Tenie refuse to be forgotten.

Her magic is the bridge—between what was, what’s still coming, and what forbids to be erased.

Through the women who still walk this path (IYKYK), we keep the spirit of folklore alive.

When all’s said and done, healing takes the long way—through our scars, through our stories

Folklore’s funny like that—it’s got a way of weaving magic and meaning into the bones of everyday life. Po’ Sandy’s story might feel haunting, but if you listen close, there’s something deeper in the roots.

Sandy didn’t just end up in the trees—he returned to them. Because sometimes, nature’s the only safe place left.