Country and County: Tennessee

Atagâ’hï, The Enchanted Lake

Westward from the headwaters of Oconaluftee river, in the wildest depths of the, Great Smoky mountains, which form the line between North Carolina and Tennessee, is the enchanted lake of Atagâ’hï, "Gall place." Although all the Cherokee know that it is there, no one has ever seen it, for the way is so difficult that only the animals know how to reach it.

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Nûñ’yunu’wï, The Stone Man

This is what the old men told me when I was a boy. Once when all the people of the settlement were out in the mountains on a great hunt one man who had gone on ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side.

Hanged Slave, Suck Creek

There is a story that an escaping Slave ran from his master who lived in Suck Creek and fled along what is now known as the Cumberland Trail. He was chased, caught and severely beaten, before being hung on a tree. They must have misjudged the hanging though as the story relates he survived. Unfortunately his slave master returned to the tree and found that the slave had again escaped.

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Ûñtsaiyï’, The Gambler

Thunder lives in the west, or a little to the south of west, near the place where the sun goes down behind the water. In the old times he sometimes made a journey to the east, and once after he had come back from one of these journeys a child was born in the east who, the people said, was his son.

The Nest Of The Tlä’nuwä

On the north bank of Little Tennessee river, in a bend below the mouth of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tennessee, is a high cliff hanging over the water, and about half way up the face of the rock is a cave with two openings. The rock projects outward above the cave, so that the mouth can not be seen from above, and it seems impossible to reach the cave either from above or below.

The Hunter In The Däkwä’

In the old days there was a great fish called the Däkwä’, which lived in Tennessee river where Toco creek comes in at Däkwä’, the "Däkwä’ place," above the mouth of Tellico, and which was so large that it could easily swallow a man.