Customer Reviews

Ghostly Chills (Devil's Backbone)

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Local Texas Hill Country author and folklorist Bert Wall has been collecting and telling tales about The Devil's Backbone for years now. This is his second book detailing some of the ghostly stories that he has heard and/or personally experienced around the area.

The Devil's Backbone is a very real paranormal hotspot located along a five-mile stretch of highway along Ranch Road 32 between the towns of Wimberly and Blanco. It's a scenic drive with a nice observation area and an elevation of over 1200 feet. You can see for miles from the highest points along the ridge. Comanche and Kiowa Indians used the area extensively and there is also evidence of Spaniard activity in scattered spots. It's not surprising that a land this beautiful and primal would have stories to tell, and I'm positive that the region has yet to divulge all of its secrets.

Enter Devil's Backbone resident and amateur historian Wall. He's been chronicling and telling spooky tales about the area for a number of years now, and it's a safe bet that few know the region like he does.

This is homespun folk writing in the truest sense. It isn't the embellished work of professional writers, only Wall telling these tales straight-up and his wife typing them out with little in the way of fanfare. Only one story really came across as scary, that of the family forced to move out of their new home by vengeful spirits. Most of the tales describe residual haunts or fairly benevolent intelligent encounters. All of the stories touch deeply on the immense presence of the land itself, as if the overwhelming beauty and ruggedness of the Devil's Backbone itself was a looming character in the book.

One can't deny that this particular region of the Texas Hill Country has a distinct sense of `Place' with a capital P. It's one of those areas that just seems like it has a thousand stories to tell, a place where the land itself is charged with a dynamic energy. I'm thankful that there are people like Bert Wall who are willing to bend an ear and listen to a few of the tales that the land has to tell. His stories give life to the spirits that still dwell out on...The Devil's Backbone.