Episode 138: Witchcraft Never Leaves Tennessee - The Witches Circle and Bell Witch Legends

In the woods of Tennessee, there’s a circle you’re not supposed to step inside. Locals call it the Witches Circle, a ring of stone which sits somewhere outside Kingston, TN although the specific location is not known. Although not much information is confirmed, legend tells of a coven turned to stone for practicing their craft. People have seen dark figures roaming the forests and even heard whispers coming from the stones themselves. The location is said to be a possible portal to the underworld, but where? This not the only legend told in the state of Tennessee. Just miles away in what is now called Adams, TN, in the early 1800s, one family was terrorized by something unseen. An entity that scratched. Choked. And claimed it was a witch. The Bell family endured years of torment from an entity that would take the form of a beast with glowing red eyes as well as attack one of the family’s daughters physically. Only after the death of the patriarch John Bell did the occurrences cease. Today, locals still claim to see the figure with the glowing red eyes wandering the old Bell farm property. Others have claimed to encounter the witch in the network of caves underneath Adams. Join us as we discuss these two legends which lie in the rolling hills of Tennessee.   Sources: “7 Scariest Places in Tennessee” by Baylee Vrtiska on Mastered in Tennessee on October 30, 2024 (https://tnecd.com/news/7-scariest-places-in-tennessee/) “The Bell Witch: The Scariest Ghost Story in Tennessee” by Meghan E. Gattignolo on Customs House Museum & Culture Center (https://customshousemuseum.org/news/the-bell-witch-the-scariest-ghost-story-in-tennessee/) “Tennessee Legends: The Bell Witch” by Tori Kleinpeter on Tennessee State Museum on October 27, 2022 (https://tnmuseum.org/junior-curators/posts/tennessee-legends-the-bell-witch) “Historic Bell Witch Cave” on Historic Bell Witch Cave (https://www.bellwitchcave.com/) “The Strange but True Story of the Witches’ Circle” by Paul Brown on Medium on October 28, 2020 (https://paulbrownuk.medium.com/the-witches-circle-bed7e083b127) https://www.britannica.com/topic/witchcraft https://www.britannica.com/topic/Malleus-maleficarum https://www.facebook.com/edgarallanpoets/posts/in-the-early-1800s-the-bell-family-of-adams-tennessee-reported-a-series-of-stran/1392347992259027/ “Terror of the Bell Witch” on Expedition X, Season 2, Episode 3 on Discovery+