Warts are a common issue in people, often caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV). They can be treated with various methods, such as grape seed oil extract, herbal home remedies, over-the-counter wart freeze-away products, or seeking professional help. Warts can also be cured by rubbing a rock on them, wrapping it in a neat package, and throwing it away.
During the 17th-century Salem witchcraft trials, it was believed that a wart was a “devil’s mark”, which justified accusing women of witchcraft. Warts have seeds and can be used to cure folklore. Prescription creams and surgical treatments can stop existing warts from spreading but do not cure the virus.
Wart treatment, causes, and removal are important aspects of understanding and managing warts. Halloween witches often have a big, fat wart on their noses, which are small, noncancerous growths that appear when skin is infected with one of the many viruses of the HPV family. Warts are not just for witches and goblins; they can also affect children and teens.
Dr. Timothy Dailey in Freeland discusses the causes of plantar warts and why it is important to get professionally treated for them. It is essential to seek professional help if you notice any signs of warts, as they can be a sign of other health issues.
📹 Wart Removal Folklore in Appalachia
Sharing wart removal folklore in this video. I’ve heard about folks who could remove warts all my life. The most common methods …
📹 Wart Charming- Folklore and folk remedies related to warts.
Folklore, folk remedies, old wives’ tales related to warts. Don’t forget to subscribe. #JCRamZ #folklore #wartcharming.
My pawpaw was a faith healer I remember women coming to his house with there babies to get them cured from thrash and a family member coming over after a motorcycle wreck with burns from exhaust to get the heat out, I asked him why he could heal people he said his father died before he was born, he was the best man I ever meet but he didn’t get saved until he was seventy, I was cured of thrash by a black women who took me beside running water and cut my back and took my blood and put it in my milk to drink but he couldn’t cure me because I was his relative, thank you for keeping this tradition alive.
Eastern NC here! When I was a little girl, I had around 70 warts around my knee. I was terribly self-conscious and my mother tried everything. I had them treated at the drs office but they kept coming back. My great uncle was a healer. On a gag hunch, we gave him a call. He began talking gibberish and asked me to rub my knee in circles. 5 days later, I woke up with NO WARTS. Our family still laughs to this day, and we’re still astonished.
I’m southern and when I was a kid my Grandpa was the person all the cousins went to for most anything. Warts being one of them. Anyway while I never had any lots of my cousins did so I saw him do this often. He would ask the child for a nickel and he would rub the wart with the nickel while muttering something that you could not understand under his breath. Within a few days the wart was gone. I saw this happen many times and he never failed to remove it. He never would tell anyone how he did this so it died with him. Once I asked him why he wouldn’t tell anyone his secret. His response was God gave him his gifts when he was a very young man and if anyone truly wanted to know that secret they needed to seek God because it wasn’t his to pass on.
Matt’s warts went away cause of the company he was keeping. He’s holding your hands and in the power of love and bond no affliction could matter. The warts simply gave up and disappeared. You said you never had a wart. It is your touch, your powerful being and faith. I enjoy this website. Thanks for sharing
Well here’s my story…when I was probably about about 11 or 12…I had a wart on my forehead. My uncle( my Mom’s only brother) put his thumb on it and prayed to God for it to be removed. He had done this type of thing before so that’s why my Mom got him to do it. Well not sure now how long it took but in a few days it was gone!!🙏💕 So I do believe these things can happen. And they are healers🥰
When I was young I had a wart on my thumb. My grandmother told me to “charm” the wart away. She told me to take a paring knife and cut a notch out of the bark of a pine tree in a place that was close to my house. She told me once the tree was cut I was not to look at the tree until the wart was gone. Well, I peeked at the tree a few times and did not lose the wart. So I chose another tree after a few months. This one was outside my bedroom window and one I would have to purposely have to avoid looking at. After about a month the wart was gone! I’ve never had another one and I’m 65 now.
I had a plantar wart on my heel and my mother’s brother, Uncle Lyman, heard me complaining about it. He said he would buy it from me if I would give him a penny, then he buried it under a tree stump. I don’t remember how long it was before I noticed the wart was gone. I was about 20 years old. Now I’m 81 and you reminded me of that! He lived near Coffeyville,Kansas on a farm, where there were many stone fences, that had been built by pioneer farmers. Those fences are still in place. I enjoy your Celebrating Appalachia posts and hearing about your life and family.
I have heard about the dishrag.The old folks had to have a cure for everything,few doctors around.Just love your articles and the love of our wonderful mountains.I was born and raised in the Virginia mountains.I live in the north Georgia mountains now,same mountains just a little further south.Keep up the love you have for Appalachian mountains.
I just found your website and love it! I wanted to tell you my story about removing warts. My little 2 year old niece had a wart just inside her nose and of course at 2 years old she kept picking at it and it kept bleeding. So my Mom’s best friend Milly came over to our house and told us and her that she would rub the wart with a bean (just a dried bean from our kitchen) and then place it in a paper bag and throw it over the hill – not to retrieve it and the wart would go away. So this she did and the wart dissapeared within a week. I was about 12 years old and it so impressed me. One day when my girlfriend’s son got a wart I just knew this remedy would work because I saw it work with my own eyes at 12. So I got a dried bean from the cupboard, placed it in a paper lunch sack and we threw it over the hill – telling the little boy that he should not retrieve it. His wart disappeared within 2 weeks. So, it must be a belief – Believe……… 🙂 After reading all of these other comments – it seems to be the case.
I just recently bought my grandsons warts. I gave him 10 cents for four warts. They are totally gone now I come from a long list of family that have this gift of healing. My uncle was a country preacher. He bought some warts from me some 50 yrs ago. He also did the blowing out burns, etc. I believe it is a gift from God
Some of these stories are really just conjecture and assumptions. However, an old Indian remedy for warts was taking Willow tree bark and making a strong tea with it and rubbing it on the wart, and keeping it covered. This would be done over several times until the wart disappeared. Well, this has a basis in current science. Aspirin is made from willow bark. It is salicylic acid…salicylic acid is exactly what is used in Compound W wart remover and is used in other dermatology applications for doing skin peels as well as having other skin applications. If you get a wart you can use a mortar and pestle to grind up very fine aspirin and make a poultice for your wart. Years ago I got rid of a planters wart on my son’s foot doing this. My doctor was amazed!
When I was a young boy about 8 years old,my Great Aunt Carrie took a potato and sliced it, one slice for each wart. I probably had 5 or 6 warts on each hand,she rubbed each wart with a slice of potato and put the slices in a paper bag and told me to toss the bag away.In a couple a weeks I noticed they were gone.All I know once I had warts and now 60 years later and I still haven’t any warts.🙂Thanks Tipper, this topic brought back a lot of good memories.
My mother told me that when she was a child she had warts on her knees. My grandmother took her to a woman who could “talk the warts off”. She did this and then she told her to steal her grandmother’s dish towel and bury it and then the warts would be gone. They were gone the next day. The lady was also known to be able to talk the fire out of people. I love all of your stories! Blessings!
When I was about 10 years old I had a wart on my middle finger of my right hand on the palm side of my finger. It was the size of a pencil eraser. It made it hard for me to write in school. My granny was asked for a remedy. She told my mother what to do to make it disappear. Mom was told to soak a cotton ball in cod liver oil and tape it over the wart. Every night for about a week she would replace the oil soaked cotton ball with a fresh one and re-tape it. One night when she removed the oily cotton ball the wart came off completely and was stuck to the cotton ball. It never came back. That was over 60yrs ago.
The wart stories are fascinating and I have a personal experience to tell you. I’m the woman that just found your blog and vlog from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. When my son was 10 we were at a family reunion and my Mother’s cousin in law was there. My son had warts all over his hands. Casis, the cousin in law was a seventh son of a seventh son and he told my Mother he could help my son. He held his hands for a few minutes and told him soon his warts would leave. I was very skeptical however, I just put it out of my mind. Within 6 weeks, I notice there were no more warts on his hands. He is now 54 and still there are no warts anywhere on his hands or body. I promise you this actually happened. But I was open to unusual things of this sort. My maternal Grandfather could witch for water and would be able to tell if it would be good water or not. I actually saw the peach tree limb down down and the bark split when he found the water. That’s my wonderful experience to share with you. I love perusal all your articles, they give me such peace. Thank you for sharing.♥️
My great grandmother could “talk fire out of a burn” and bought a wart from me one time when I was a small child. She gave me a penny for it, and I was instructed to rub the penny on the wart and throw it over my left shoulder. If I were to ever come across that penny again the wart would return. All I know is that wart went away and never came back. (I’m from rural georgia) I was delighted with this article, thank you so much!
Dear Tipper, So this is two memories from my mother as a child on the farm in Indiana. There was a old woman in there area, a rural area and she was a healer and mom saw her do two things. A older man had a black cancer on his face, the old woman talked to it and rubbed it with her hands and then told him to go home and not think about it, two weeks later he came back saying the growth which was large had just peeled off. Second thing was a woman with a very badly burned arm and the old woman put leaves on the burn and wrapped it telling the woman don’t touch this! If it gets dirty just put more wrapping. I don’t know how long but mom said when the woman with burn returned the old lady took the bandage off and the burn was gone and healed with new pick skin. My mother was a child and probably around 10 years old but she always remembered this woman and her healing power. I don’t know if this was the power of belief or what but the cancer story fascinated me. I wish I knew what leaves she put on the burn. The family was in such a rural area, no doctor was there and the gravely sick needing a hospital which would have been very expensive for them was almost impossible to get to because not many had a car. They needed the old woman and I suspect she needed the people and I also suspect that this person was greatly respected in the community. We have modern medicine now and the old ways have fallen off but I wonder if you combined traditional medicine with holistic medicine if treatment would not be better.
I had a wart on my middle finger on my left hand. We had 4 lady’s in our small town we were all scared of and we called them the witches. Later in life I learned to respect them. The mother’s name was Tilly, and her daughters name was Francis, Margaret, and Mary Ellen. Francis used the dime and some words she mumbled and told me to spend the dime and forget about the wart, sometime in the next two weeks it was gone and never came back. That was near as I can remember some 48 yrs ago. Wonderful stories to hear Tipper. 🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸
My daddy could rub off warts! He never told me how he would do it but he rubbed off 100’s! One girl had warts all over her even in her mouth and her mother brought her to daddy and he rubbed them off! All I know for sure he told the ones he rubbed their warts with his thumb and told them to forget them! He had so many but the best one was the little girl her warts all left her! I always believed he prayed for them to go away and by telling them to forget them was them showing faith that they would disappear! Daddy came from farmers and preachers and I believe his faith is what helped so many in our area!
Many years ago I witnessed my best friend’s grandma “take the fire out of a burn.” My friend accidentally put her hand on a hot burner on the kitchen stove and really burnt her hand. Her grandma grabbed her hand and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. My friend immediately felt the burn go away and no blister or even any redness formed on her hand. I begged my friend’s grandma to tell me what she said over the burn, but she said she couldn’t tell me or she wouldn’t ever be able to take the fire out of a burn anymore. She did say that it was something that was passed down in her family. I witnessed this first hand and whether you believe it or not, it did happen. Appalachia can be mysterious sometimes.
Granny would use a pinto bean to rub it and she’d store the bean . (It went away.). Father-in-law was a seventh son of a seventh son, he could blow in the mouth of kids with thrush to treat. Had fire talked out of a BAD burn when I was 5 (pain immediately removed) . Stopping the blood was taught to me when young (repeated scripture ) . Seen them all used, also seen all the ailments cured.
Good morning Tipper, I grew up with a bleeding issue. When I was just a child, my mamma and daddy took me to a woman who said she could stop the nose bleed. This was before I was diagnosed professionally. The end result was not positive. I used folded brown paper sack held between my cheek and gum, scissors held between my shoulder blades on my back. All to no avail. The doctor’s diagnosis was I T P, I had a spleenectomy which stopped the nose bleed. So my experience with different home remedies is not great. On a different note, do you know Mr. Tom Brown of Clemons, N. C. ? He’s a retired chemical engineer doing amazing work in rescuing vestige apple trees. The article I read said thus far he has rescued about 1000 trees. These trees were thought to be extinct. Isn’t this exciting and his work has been in APPALACHIA. VERY INTENTION. Thanks for another great article. Jeri Whittaker
My former wife who is a dear friend to this day, as a girl had many warts on her hand. Her granny rubbed each of them with a rock she told her to get from the creek and then tied a knot over each then told her not to think about it that the warts would be gone. She did the double wammy I guess…cause the warts did go away. I’ve heard many, many stories about this. The mind is an extremely powerful and untapped source of healing and knowledge if we would just let it in. Most folks from not around here dismiss this kind of stuff as back woods folklore. I disagree and think if one believes strongly, they can do miracles with their own mind. Love your website!
Well, here’s my wart experience. Believe it or don’t. It’s true. I had a plantar wart. It hurt like walking on a jagged rock. I saw a podiatrist who gave me an acid to use on it, covered with bandages. I did this faithfully for a year and the wart got nothing but worse. It was huge. One day, in pain and despair, I cried out to God and begged Him to heal me. The next morning I noticed that my foot didn’t have that telltale burning feeling. I took the bandages off and there was a deep hole in my foot. From that morning my foot healed. The wart never returned.
I am a Baptist Preacher’s wife and in our first church there was a lady who they said could remove warts. I was skeptical and really didn’t know what to think about that. Everyone told me I should ask her to look at a wart I had on my hand. I finally did but I thought it was weird. The best I can remember is that she looked at it and rubbed it and said to go home and forget about it. In a few days, the wart was gone and never came back. I don’t know what or how she did that but I’ll just say that it couldn’t have happened if the Lord did not want it to happen. I asked her latter how that happened and she said that she could tell a man how to do it and a man could tell a woman how to do it. This lady was probably in her 80’s. This was in Texas in the 70’s.
Hi back when i was 12 or 13, (51 now?), My great Uncle Leon took me into a room on the far side of his house and told me to write down on a piece of paper how many warts I had and to not tell a soul. Of course being 12 or 13 these prominent warts were an embarrassment, so naturally I was skeptical to say the least that he could rid me of these 4 or 5 warts. I did as he said and I vaguely remember him putting the piece of paper in a paper bag. I never told a soul and within a few days all my warts were gone. I wish he were here because I want to ask him, how? We never spoke a word of this to each other nor did I ever mention it to anyone. Fascinating. My cousin had the fire talked out of her after a severe burn on a metal great at my Great grandmother’s house. This is REAL. Thank you!
I had warts on my hand back in the 80’s. They were with me for about 5 years so I just learned to live with them. One day a fella that I worked with saw them and he said, I can get rid of those warts for you. I said sure and as I recall he held my hand and said a short prayer. He then told me that they would be gone in a few days. I can tell you that at the time I was skeptical about faith healing but I went on and didn’t worry about them. The next few days I started noticing that they started drying up and just sort of peeled away a little at a time. I don’t think it was more than 2 weeks and they were all gone. I couldn’t chalk this up to the power of positive thinking on my part because like I said I was skeptical. I definitely know that this was the power of prayer at work through Jesus.
I am 73, pushing 74 years of age. Lived most of my life in Maryland. My grandmother could do just about anything, and I adored her. One day she noticed me looking sad and asked me what was wrong. I showed her the ugly wart on my hand. I was very young, and the girls refused to hold my hands as we played in the circle due to that wart. She got a penny and rubbed it on the wart. Then she buried it outside. Within a week it was noticeably smaller, and within two weeks it was gone and never returned. She’s been gone a long, long time, and I sure do miss her.
When growing up many, many years ago, the wart removal practice in my section was to go to a person who could “talk the wart off.” I never had the experience, but folks believed in the wart person. You mentioned having a wart on your hand. That sounds like what we would call a seed wart. When I was in high school, I had two seed warts, one on a thumb and one on the bottom of a foot. Well, I went to the doctor, and he numbed them up, then burned them off. They never came back. I asked the doc what caused my seed warts, and he said they were caused by a type of virus.
My aunt has always been a thrush blower and she’s cleared it up in probably three dozen babies since the 1970s. My grandma used the chicken wart removal often starting in the 1930s until she died in 2001. Tennessee mountain medicine at it’s finest. I never heard them mention magic or faith as the basis of their doing those remedies.
My wife’s great-uncle in Virginia could “trick off” warts. What he’d do is take a broom straw and break it into two-inch pieces. Then he’s touch each of your warts with one of the pieces of straw. Then he’d tell you he was done and that he was going to do something secret with the pieces, and that he couldn’t tell you what or else it wouldn’t work. Well, I had a bunch of warts on the back of my hand about 50 years ago so I agreed to let her Uncle Ned “trick” them off for me using the above method. After about two weeks my warts were gone. This is the God’s honest truth.
Tipper a friend of mine told me a wart story where he was told that if he would “name” the wart on his lip and talk to it, the wart would go away. So just for fun, every morning around the breakfast table his children would say “Good morning Joshua” talking to the wart. He said it was hard to believe but many weeks later he looked in the mirror and the wart, aka Joshua, was gone. 🙂
Tipper has that warm, soothing motherly quality that would make any kid feel better. I had a few warts when I was a child. I think I got them from playing with toads in the yard. My mom put some sort of wart remover medicine on them and they eventually came loose and fell off. I remember the crater they left in my finger afterwards.
I had a wart on my wrist. I had heard about rubbing it with a potato, burying the potato, and the wart going away as the potato decomposed. I assumed there was some science behind that, so I shredded part of a raw potato and fixed it against the wart with a bandaid. I think it only took 2 or 3 days for the wart to get soft and fall off. Must have been enzymes. It has never returned … this was back in the early 1980s.
My great aunt had the power to “try for” things like removing worts and removing the fire from skin burns. My grandmother took me to see her older sister at the height of a full moon when I was about 12 years old. I had worts on my hands for years. She mumbled words to herself (not understandable to us), used a penny and touching that penny with her index finger, touching her tongue, then touching my worts. Repeating this touching each wort. At the end, she took her whole hand across mine, in a motion to wipe away. The worts disappeared during the decrease of that full moon. They’ve never come back. This power was passed to her from her father, who was an only child – it was to be passed a daughters, if any. We’re from Western, central MD.
One thing I saw as a kid was about wart removal. We went up to a cabin outside of Newport on the mountainside. No electricity or running water. Had to come when the moon was right. He’s talk until the moon was up. He’d go into the cabin for a little while. I remember him coming back with his pocket knife out. He’d scrape it in the moonlight whispering something. A few days later, it’d fall off. Now, it may come back and may not. Kinda like when they’re frozen off. The last time we went, one of his blueticks got bit on the leg be a rattlesnake. He said he’d made a poultice of something and put on it. You could see where it was healing. I don’t know what he said or did. I always wanted to learn his secrets, but he refused. I heard that, before he died, he took a neighbor in as an apprentice, though I don’t know her name.
Many years ago I lived on an Indian reservation in Oregon. I was close friends with a couple there and lived on their ranch for awhile. I was walking down a path one day and fell down a spot where roots from an old scrub tree was above ground on a downward slant. I was able to eventually get up and could hardly walk but managed to get back to the house. I told his wife. The pain was terrible in my upper leg. She said her husband, who was a retired rodeo rider, was a healer and took me to him. He said, pull down your jeans and I was shocked! lol. But his wife helped me and my entire upper leg was swelling, black and blue already. He quietly placed his hands on my leg and held them there, with his eyes closed. I felt the fire of the pain start leaving my leg! After a few minutes he said, just take it easy for a few days. All the swelling was gone and the bruises were much lighter! Within a few days, were gone. It was the most amazing thing I witnessed!
So here’s what I’ve learned (and sorry friends if this is a bit long) and it’s going to sound silly but if you read through all these replies to your vidio you will recognize a common treatment… Cut a piece of duct tape just big enough to cover that wart. Leave it on for 6 days. Replace the tape if it comes off. Then wash it and scrub it good. Give it a day in the air. Buff it down a bit with sandpaper or emery board the next day. Then replace the tape. Keep this up for 4 to 6 weeks. It’ll be gone. Now look back and see how many times people said someone rubbed that wart and it was gone latter. That rubbing, that duct tape, caused an irritation that triggered one’s body to get rid of that skin virus. Eat well and heal thyself. Country healers might not have been able to tell us HOW it worked but they were sure smart enough to know that it did!
I have lived in East Tennessee all of my life and heard a lot of interesting remedy’s. I had a great Uncle Noah that removed warts. My sister had a wart on her knee and he removed it. Soon after her wart went away I got one on my knee. My sister was 8 and I was 5 so she walked me down to Noah’s house where he was sitting on the front porch as always. I showed him the wart and he told me to go out in the yard and find a small stick and bring it back to him so I did. He took the stick and cut a “V” in it with the knife and set the stick aside then took his knife and picked the wart until it bled. He put a drop of blood and put it in the “V” the told me to take the stick to his backyard and throw the stick behind me and never look for it. The wart was gone in a couple of weeks and never returned same as my sister. I think about that every time I drive past that old house. Have you ever heard of the gift that a 7th son of a 7th son has? I hope you do a story on that subject.
As a child, I had a wart on my knee. My dad took a potato and cut a piece of it and rubbed it on the wart. He then said we had to take it outside and bury it, so we did. That wart went away and never returned. We live in central PA. I’m not sure where that treatment came from, unless maybe the Amish?
I’m 72 now. But as a very young child, I had warts on my knee and foot. And as others reported, nothing removed them. My parents took me an old country woman that spoke over me, rubbed something over those warts and they disappeared within a week. Pretty amazing. Especially since my parents were very religious and normally would never have considered something outside of church. Whatever she did, worked.
My youngest daughter developed a lot of small to tiny warts when she was only 5 years old. I rubbed them with my bare hands & told her they were going to disappear, talked to her soothingly and asked her to believe, to have faith. All the warts disappeared in 3 days, all of them. She woke up in the morning & they were all gone.
When I was 3 or 4 I had several warts on my hands. My mother and I would visit her sister several times a week and my aunt’s mother-in-law would always make me tea cakes. One day mother told me to go into the kitchen, that Mama Kate, would remove my warts. The first thing she did was take a knife out of a drawer and I ran, screaming, back into the living room. Everyone laughed and assured me that she wasn’t going to cut me or the warts. So, again, into the kitchen. Mama Kate took a sweet potato and cut off a small piece. She then held my hands and rubbed each wart over and over and told me the warts were going away. She told me to pay no attention to the warts and that what she was doing was a secret just between the two of us and that I shouldn’t tell anyone, even my mother. Sure enough, a short time later most of the warts were gone. I had a very large one on my right thumb that didn’t so she repeated the process, and this time it did go away. Mama Kate was from a very rural community in the hills of northeast Mississippi on the Alabama line. Her married name was Murff. I’m sorry to say I never learned her maiden name. I doubt very much that she had heard of hypnosis, but I feel that this must surely be what she did to me. Her low, slow, repetitive talking about the warts going away, swearing me, if you will, to secrecy, and my belief that she could do such things, allowed my subconscious mind to take over and do whatever it is that subconscious minds do. I’m in my 70s now, but I can still hear the sweet voice that was silenced more than 60 years ago.
When I was about 8 or 9 years old I had 7 or 8 warts on my body. I remember only one large one on one of my knees and one was on the index and the rest one on top of the others on the middle finger of my left hand. One of my friends dad saw them one time and he asked me if I wanted him to get rid of them for me. Well, I was all for that. I hated them. He explained that he was going to pay me for them. Course this poor little gal’s eyes lit up at that prospect. He said he would pay me a nickel for all of them, but I had to keep the nickel and never spend it. I vaguely recall him saying something quietly to himself, but don’t know what it was before he gave me the nickel. He said the warts should be gone in I think it was in a few days to a week. I just remember all at once they were all gone and never returned. This was 60 years ago now. I may even still have that nickel somewhere.
My mom told me that when she and my dad first started courting that she had a wart on her foot. As I remember she said dad cut it with a knife and then went into the woods and made a cut on a tree, wouldn’t tell her where and that the wart went away some time later. I have also heard it said that if you took the seeds out of a wart it would go away. Personally, I didn’t know that a wart had seeds. lol! Thanks Tipper for the stories!
I’m 58 years old and I had a wart on the inside of my middle finger and a wart on both thumbs. A woman who knew my Aunt rubbed my warts and was talking as she rubbed. When she was finished she told me not to think about them or touch them for two weeks and they would be gone. She was right they did go away I was shocked wild
As a kid I never had warts. When I was older I had a couple of growths on the back of my left hand. I don’t know if they were warts but I had heard that doctors “burned” off warts with liquid nitrogen. That’s -320º F. I didn’t have any of it but we had dry ice where I worked. It is -108º so I figured I’d just have to hold it on longer. I took a sharp piece and stuck it to one of the things. It hurt for a little while then I guess it burned the nerves ’cause it quit hurting. I held it on until the dry ice was gone. It turned white and in a couple of weeks it came off. It left a little scar but it blended in with all the other scars accumulated over the years. I did the same thing with the other one.
Reminds me of a time in 7th grade, our teacher, who was well informed on folk remedies and such, went over some of the purported folk remedies for removing warts, in class. During recess, when we were allowed to go outside and play, I told a friend who had several warts on his hand that I had the ability to conjure warts away, just like our teacher had just described. Trusting me, his mistake, he gave me his hand, palm up, and I proceeded to talk some mumbo-jumbo, all the while working up a lot of saliva in my mouth. I then spit a big ol’ puddle of spit right in the middle of his palm. He just stood there staring at it for a second, which gave me a chance to get away, but I couldn’t do so successfully because of laughing so hard. I don’t think I was successful in removing his warts, but we both got a good laugh out of it, he much later than me, of course. LOL
I remember seeing in one of Mark Twain’s books how to get warts to go away. I think it was Tom Sawyer. You put your hand down in the water that was in a stump (they called it ‘spunk water’). For some reason, I still remember the incantation: “Barley corn, barley corn, injun meal shorts. Spunk water, Spunk water, smaller these warts!” The vernacular Twain wrote the stories with was entertaining to say the least.
Hi Tipper, I enjoyed this vid. I never had warts but I remember in grade school in California, I was asked to hold the hand of a boy and his hand had warts on it. I didn’t do it cause I thought I would get the warts. Thats what my parents told me. I was probably 7 or 8 years old so this was 1958 or so. Funny that I remember this very vividly. Thanks for the vid. Karla
Back when my Son was in 8th grade he had a wart on his toe. I had an old remedy book and I looked up what to do for warts. I found something that said that you had to cover the wart with garlic oil and (I think) a penny and go outside with this on your wart, under a full moon. Well, we waited until the next full moon and commenced to doctor the wart and get it ready for it’s ‘moonlit debut’. My Son thought I was nuts but agreed to try anything. (I think he went along with it just so he could laugh at me when it didn’t work), but much to both of our surprise within a few days or a week at most it had somehow dissolved. Now, I’m not sure how long he was outside under the moon, but it was Summer time and since I always gardened and cut my hedges after dark, he may have been out there an hour or more because I do remember talking to him while he was out there doing that. Also, it seems that it also said to do something with the penny (like bury it or ?) But I can’t remember exactly what it said. But I do know it worked! It really did and after that my Son didn’t ‘poopoo’ my old remedies anymore, no matter how strange they sounded. LOL He’s 36 now and has a family of his own, and a few years ago he mentioned that night we used the moon and garlic to get rid of his wart. (I do remember telling him at least we didn’t have to worry about vampires or whatever coming after him with that garlic on his foot!) LOL
The potato remedy is a common folklore in N.ireland, rub it on the wart then bury the potato in the ground. I had a couple of them on my wee finger when I was younger, my mum took me to an eldery farmer in a place near me in Co. Down called Castlewellan, he held my finger in one hand, muttered something under his breath whilst at the same time making the sign if the cross on each wart. A week later I happened to notice both had gone. Can’t explain it, so I have to believe it was thanks to the old farmer!
When I was young I had a mini bike and wrecked it. The gas tank leaded on my left leg and the gas on my leg caught on fire. I had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my left leg. I went to the doctor and they put cream and a wrap on my leg. The leg was getting infected. I went to my grandmas house for the weekend and she said lets go down to Luma’s house, I said why and she said she can talk the fire out.. Well I never heard about talking the fire out…This old woman took the cloth off and next thing I know she was speaking some words that I really didn’t understand.. She wrapped my leg up with some of her lotion. She told myself don’t take the bandage off for 4 days.. Once she talked the fire out the burn went away. I took the bandage off after 5 days, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I went back to the doctor and he was amazed… The doctor asked myself what did I do, I told him I had the fire talked out and he looked liked I was crazy.. To this day you can barely see the scars… I feel like I was blessed.. Thanks Tipper for your stories…
Live in SC. Was pretty common to have it talked off. I was around 12 my buddy took me to the local bar and met his uncle who took us outside. He took a close pin and rubbed the warts on my hand and threw the pin in the bushes and said when the pin rusts your warts will be gone and went back inside. Week later they were gone lol. Can’t make this stuff up
This is so funny! My pap rubbed my wart located on my knee with a penny which we wrapped up in a dish towel and buried in the back yard and I was not to look at it a week, but when I did look it would be gone. Well low and behold it worked! But even if it hadn’t I wouldn’t have cared it just felt right to have this special time with pap.
well ive had a plantar wart on the bottom of my foot when i was young. i bought or my mom bought some wart compound w. wart remover. and i used it and picked at it with a needle and it went away. ive gotten on on my nose and my chin. the one on my nose was more like a round very small bump but didnt really look a lot like a wart. i picked and picked at them and they both went away. ive had a few on my hands one on my thumb where my finger prints are. one my index finger and i think that was it. i used compound w. wart remover and picked at both of them with a needle. and they went away. the one on my thumb was the hardest to remove. those were all when i was younger in my twenties and younger.
Like many others, I had “seed” warts at a preschool age, 4 or 5. My middle finger’s tip was covered and growing into the nail. They said it was because I played with frogs and they peed on me. Truth was, I did play with frogs; built them fresh plowed dirt homes using my foot as structure to pat the dirt around, but was REAL careful to pick them up by their sides. No pee on me;)!! My mom good an old dirty, greasy gray dishrag, wiped out the extra grease, smeared it all around the top of my finger and had me go bury it under the porch. Sure enough, warts disappear and never grew back…throughout my lifetime, I’d get one here or there, once in awhile, but never like the finger covered one. Not anymore, though. Mom always told the stories about my aunt having severe nose bleeds as a kid, and Grandpa writing the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept”, on a piece of paper and put it in his or her pocket,(maybe?), and the bleeding would always stop….faith? Or superstition?
My aunt, Nanny, could remove warts. I watched the procedure in the early sixties performed on my younger sister. Sis had a couple of warts on her hands. Nanny held her hands and mumbled a few unintelligible words under her breath, then asked for a penny. The warts went away. Nanny said she had been taught the words by an elderly woman friend of the family to pass on the knowledge of how to remove warts. She would not say what the words were, but did say she had to be paid money or it wouldn’t work and that a penny was enough. I do not know if she passed on the words to anyone else. As kids, we would also occasionally get ringworm on our skin, a perfectly round, pink to red ring that appeared in the hot weather months. Mom-mom would dip a penny in apple cider vinegar and put it on our skin in the middle of the ring and it would be gone in a day or two.
Hello My great grand mother would say Rub fat back on warts and throw the fat to the chicken ?? Also take thread and tie around warts or moles leave it and it will fall off Rub warts and burry the rag I’ve heard that one too Yes they told us if you play with frogs and they pee on ya you’ll get warts 😄 Some old ways really do work 👍 Thanks
When my Mom was about seven in Indiana a neighbor of her Grandmother told my Mom if she stole a dishrag and rubbed it on the wart and then buried the dishrag the warts would disappear. She did what the neighbor said and in a week the warts were gone. Hard to believe my Mom stole her Grandma’s dishrag.
We would make necklaces from burdock roots for babies when they would be teething and they never cried or fussed with their teething. I was sceptical at first with my first child, but he was so miserable and fussy teething that I was desperate because nothing else was working. We made it long enough not to choke but short enough that they couldn’t get it in their mouths. I was amazed that it actually worked, and then I found out it’s an old native American medicine remedy used forever. The roots were first dried and then strung.
At the Blue Ridge Folk Festival in Ferrum VA, an old lady had a booth..”Remove warts for $5″. I paid her $5. She took a sip of her coffee. Licked her finger (nasty thinking about it now). She rubbed the wart with her finger. She said something about grandma’s cornbread and buttermilk and some other things. It was like a saying or a weird prayer. She told me to forget about it, and it will go away. Clearly, I thought I had wasted my $5. I kept looking at it. One day, I thought…I forgot about that wart. I looked, and it was gone. This was probably 2 weeks later. A friend that was with me at the Festival did the same thing. Her wart was gone too.
I once had a wart as a child. My grandmother had me close my eyes, she rubbed the wart with a peeled arsh potato, then buried the potato in her backyard and my wart just disappeared sometime afterwards. My uncle was known to talk the fire out of people that had been burned. If I remember correctly he recited a verse of the bible while touching the burn.
My wife’s family has been living in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains since before the Revolutionary War. When she was 11 or 12 years old, she developed a sizeable wart on her hand. Her mother tied a string around the wart and then told her to take the string off, bury it under a rock and “forget about it”. According to my wife, the next day the wart began to dry out and within a few days it had fallen off. My mother in law was one of the most dedicated Christians I have ever known.
Tilly Bartlet was Her name, the oldest Sister of three Women who lived together all their lives in our Town. (Population 85) Tilly was the more talkative one, the others were very quit people, but they would say hi and wave when you saw them, we all knew Tilly was the Boss. I can remember everybody called them Witches, and they were, I mean it. But they were Good Witches that you dare not cross. So many witnesses including myself knew they were able to heal people of different things. They were well known on our side of the County. Wart removal was done by coin rubbing with any coin the person brought to Her. She would say a few words under Her breath and then rub the coin over the wart. Most were gone in about a week. Burning, She blew her breath over the burn and took the pain away. Witches? maybe, but I can tell you this, they never missed a Sunday service, and they were always very nice to us Kids. Another thing we always thought was funny, is they would take walks around our Town, and when they felt like it would just walk into anybody’s house and visit. When they would come see us, Dad & Mom were always hospitable. So many stories I could tell of these Women.
I always liked the way Huckleberry Finn said to get rid of warts Huck and Tom converse, comparing notes on charms to remove warts. Huck carries with him a dead cat, which he plans to take to the graveyard that night. According to superstition, when the devil comes to take the corpse of a wicked person, the dead cat will follow the corpse, and the warts will follow the dead cat.
When I was very young, around 8 years old, I had warts. They were all over my hands. A woman i met one day held my hands and said she could remove them, if i wanted her to. She rubbed the warts with white chalky stones. Afterwards, she placed the stones in a wash cloth and buried them at the corner of her house. She said that when the wash cloth rotted away, the warts would be gone. Some month later they the warts were all gone…
I had a great uncle everbody took kids to wi who had warts he did not touch them but in 2 or 3 days warts wold be gone . his mother my great grandma could stop blood people came to her with nose bleeds cuts and some brought animals bleeding would stop on her tombstone it says walk around my grave i think 3 times and pray and you will be healed . i think this is god given gift to heal
I know this my uncle had thrush and was cured that way when he was a baby, and a lady got rid of a wart on me she looked at me and said a few things while looking at me, and not even a day the wart fell off, I believe in this and it is a gift from the Creator, there are mad because they weren’t blessed.
I’ve prayed over 2 people to remove their warts. Within the 3rd day both had no more warts. I wish other things I pray for, other healing. But I guess God doesn’t want me to get puffed up. But still, not sure why I can do those simple healing. But I give the Glory to God. Not me but God healed. All I did was to pray.
I grew up in the 70s and we wore hip hugger jeans with thick leather belts and the year we got momma to let us buy bikinis instead of making them I got 3 wats on my right hip. I know the leather belt irritated them and they had gotten larger but on the first day to the beach in our store bought bikinis was so embarrassed I would not even get wet. Finally my sister poured water all over me and sand was sticking to me everywhere so I had to go in. A big wave come along and took me down hard but when I got out my sister said look your warts are gone. All I could say was God is good and answers prayers.
I had a seed wart on the end of my big toe as a child of about 8-10. It was huge and covered the whole top of my toe and the side. We tried every medical remedy known but nothing worked. One day, my dad took me to see an old man (probably 70-80 at the time) who lived about 2 miles from us. I don’t know what he did, but he went in his house, came back a few minutes later, spit in his hand, put his hands over my toe in a sort of praying-hands position, and said something I couldn’t catch. 2 weeks later the wart was gone and it never came back. I was too young to go visit him myself and my dad and I never went back to his house; I was never ever able to ask him what he did. I can’t explain what happened–I only know that it did. This has put me on a lifelong search for folk remedies and magic. I keep looking, searching, studying. Thank you for adding to my knowledge and sharing your wisdom.
I have used Castor Oil to remove warts. I was ignorant as to what you are referring, but I had tried several things that didn’t work. I had a bottle of Castor Oil and thought, why not, I’ve tried everything else. I used it for several weeks and the warts slowly began to disappear. It has been several years, and the warts are still gone.
There are mysteries we can never fully explain. I do know that I have had injuries or afflictions where Doctors had suggested real invasive and perhaps debilitating interventions, and when simply left alone got significantly better or disappeared just by leaving “nature” to do its thing. My mom, a Sicilian by decent, said Eggplant juice would cure warts. She called them “watts” Every time she would salt and sweat eggplant for Sunday dinner she’d call out ” Who has watts?” Sicilians have folk beliefs that match Appalachians.
My brother had a few warts on his hands and my grandfather tied a knot in a string for each wart and then he buried the string. My brothers warts went away in about a week. My grandson had a wart on his finger and my husband had a wart on his elbow. I had read that if you take a penny and put it in vinegar for 24 hours and then rub the penny on the wart the wart would go away. I put 2 pennies in a small cup with vinegar and the next day I rubbed one penny on the wart on my grandson’s finger and the other penny on my husbands wart on his elbow. A couple of weeks later my daughter-in-love told me that the wart was gone from my grandson’s finger. I told my husband and he said ” that’s hog-wash, the wart is still on my elbow”. He raised his sleeve to show me and the wart was gone.
When i was alot younger, about 4 or 5, I had really bad warts on my hands. We lived in the hill of north ga. and used the old ways. My mom took me to an old man and told me he was a wart charmer. I walked up to the old man and he said it will be ok and rubed my hands with his. He said that he would like to buy them from me. I said ok and he handed me a jar of honey. He told me to go home and they would be gone in a few days. sure enofe they were gone. Love your articles. Reminds me growing up.
Such fascinating tales. I have only ever “caught” a wart once, and I was so bothered by it I had my blacksmith cut it off but it promptly grew back. I then cut it back, again, and rubbed it with a slave of frankincense, tea tree oil and lemon. Sure enough within a week it shriveled up and never came back.
I used to grow marigolds in my flower bed when I lived in wv. You can take the flower of the marigolds and rub them into the warts twice a day for about 2,3 weeks and the warts leave and never come back. I did this for a neighbor’s daughter whose hands were covered with warts and they all disappeared.
Wow, never knew people heard about these things. My grandmother could stop bleeding, she would say words out of the Bible. Funny story though she could not read a lick. Her father was a preacher and she was a God fearing woman, so no witching from her. She also told me about stealing the dishrag from my mom and burying it in the back yard for wart removal, l can’t say it worked though, my mom caught me with the rag and took it away, it was a new rag, like l would know it was….lol. As l got older, l learned a lot of ‘healing’ stories from my dad snd aunts and uncles.
My husband and I are from southeast Ohio, and years ago we got a church to pastor in Glasgow WV. I had developed a wart on my right thumb about the size of a dime and it was bothersome in that it affected my handwriting because it was pretty big. A lady at our church saw it and took my hand and gently rubbed the wart and told me it would be gone soon. I didn’t believe her but thought it was nice of her to care. Within a week that big ole wart peeled off with brand new beautiful skin underneath. I was shocked. I asked her about it, she said she couldn’t tell me what she did,it had to remain a secret and that it was passed down in her family for years. I don’t know what exactly happened but I’m a believer now!
When I was young I had warts on the instep and side of my right big toe. My mom bought every over the counter remedy in the 60’s to no avail. We even had compound W which stank, and took layers of skin off but not the warts. I used to spend summers down at my grandparents in NE Oklahoma. My mom told them I had a problem with warts on my foot and big toe. Grandma told me to take a chicken bone and walk down the road till I came to a fork in the road. I was then to rub the bone on my warts, turn my back to the fork in the road, and toss the bone over my left shoulder not looking back and walk away. Well, it didn’t work, (I may have peeked). Then my Aunt from Tulsa came over for a visit, and she was told about my problem with these warts. She simply stated No Problem! She went into her handbag and pulled out her old snap closure coin purse. She went in and got out a quarter. Then she told me she would buy my warts for that quarter as long as I put that coin up hidden, and never spend it. Well I agreed and the coin was given to my grandpa who’d hold it till summer was over then pass it on to my mom. (Down at the local store candy was 3 pieces for a penny). so I didn’t have the opportunity to spend that quarter. The end of summer came, and mom was given my wart quarter, and I never seen it again after that. Low and behold when I went back to school in the fall, I was wart free, and they never came back.
I believe this is true!!! Like you I have experience with a person that would never make up a tale about such!!! My grandfather was able to remove warts. He wouldn’t talk much about it so my grandmother answered my questions. They are both gone now and I really wish that I had asked many more questions about a world of things!!! He did tell me that as he got older he no long felt able to remove the warts. My grandmother actually experienced his gift first hand and had many warts on her elbows removed by my grandfather. As I remember his method involved burying a dish cloth. Also to address faith in the realm of this gift, my grandfather was a very religious man. He was also very knowledgeable about the bible. Thank you for sharing this, it really brought back some very special memories!!!!!! Stay safe!!!!
Tipper, I believe Jesus Loves you and thanks you for saying what you said here at the end of this article. You gave my soul a leap of Joy, God bless you! *my sister had warts from kissing frogs when we was little, we drew a circle around them everyday with black ink and this caused them to go away after a couple weeks, up in Ky we learned to put Duct tape on them and they would leave much quicker cause it sweats them out . 👍🤪
I love all the stories on wart removal. I agree, it is fascinating. The human mind is much stronger than most realize. They say we only use about 10% of our brain. Imagine what we could do if we developed the other 90%. I believe it is absolutely true that some people have developed at least some of those powers. Thankfully, I have never had a wart.😄❤😄
I used to think supernatural gifts were strictly witchcraft or evil, even if they helped someone, in this day and age. Then I became aware of a gift I was given shortly after I finally accepted Christ for good that allows me to feel what someone or something else is feeling. It took me years of experiencing things that had no explanation, and doctor visits for ailments that I was told weren’t there, for me to even entertain that I might have an empathetic gift. I’m can be hyper aware of most living things and even take on, mostly, the same pain. I don’t know if that means I take some of the pain from whoever or whatever, but I can definitely tell when someone in my presence is hurting and where on their body. I think most of my pains belong to someone else and it could explain why no remedies help. I haven’t actively tried to imagine taking the pain away from anyone though. No one has ever asked me to. It would be both an exciting prospect and terrifying at the same time. My daughter’s pain I can feel even though she lives several states away from me. And my old elderly cat, who I had been super attached to, and vice versa, I knew when she was headed downhill for good and when she was ready to be given rest, though I tried to deny it. I still miss her terribly. Maybe next time my daughter visits I’ll try taking away any pain.
I’m from north eastern Kentucky. Healing magic is in our DNA. My grandma was a witch and she could charm warts, take fire out, etc. This is true knowledge from our ancestral line. The power usually runs thru the mother’s line and it seems as though it was my parents generation that was brainwashed away from using old medicine like this. We should carry this knowledge onto future generations. Magic is returning to this realm in fantastic ways, we are going back to the ways of our ancestors as those who choose an organic ascension timeline instead of the hive mind AI timeline. God bless all of you who carry the blood of the ancients. You are more special than even you realize.
Oh my. When I was a little girl in the 60’s I had warts on both my hands and my knees and was told it was from toads peeing on me. My sister and me and my cousins use to catch frogs so I wondered why they didn’t have warts too. LOL My mother carried me to the doctor and he prescribed wart cream and I used that all up and I still had warts and my momma took me to a man who was supposed to be able to talk warts off but for me that didn’t work either and I was embarrassed and they hurt and I wanted them gone. My granny told my momma to count my warts and tie a knot in a piece of thread for every wart and have me bury the string in a place where I had never been and would never go or the warts would come back. I couldn’t wait to do it to see if it worked. Me and my momma counted and tied the knots and she had me go in the crawl space underneath our house with a spoon to dig a little hole and bury that string. I will never forget because I was afraid I would see a spider or even a snake so she said don’t be scared I will go with you, but it was just a little space but she went under there with me but I was farther up under the house than her and it was dark and spooky so I didn’t mess around and got it buried. In a few weeks my warts started to go away one by one until they were all gone and I have never had another wart. I do believe that my granny said as the string rotted the warts would go away. I loved hearing your stories about others. I live in Georgia by the way.
My grandparents on both my parents side used milkweed and if it didn’t work they got the old dish rag out. And asthma was cured by cutting a sour wood stick it was then notched to the height of the child and placed into the attic. When the child grew taller than the notch the asthma was gone. One of my dads younger brothers was cured this way. My uncle has passed away now but the sourwood stick is still in the attic of my grandparents house but my uncle never had asthma again. As for the warts I finally had to be taken to the dr. I love to hear your Appalachian ways.