Chase, Richard. "Sop Doll!" The Jack Tales. Boston: Houghton, 1943, pp. 76-82. With two drawings by Berkeley Williams, Jr. Jack gets a reward by helping a miller discover that his wife is a witch, haunting the mill in the form of a cat at night; they destroy the witch's gang with fire. Chase notes that this witch tale is very popular in British-American traditions. His notes include comments on the title words and pronunciation. "Jack and the Sop Doll." Folklore of the United States. Jack Tales I. Told by Mrs. Maud Long of Hot Springs, NC. Ed. Duncan Emrich. LP. Washington: Library of Congress, Division of Music, 1947. "Grinding at the Mill." In "Ray Hicks." American Folktales: From the Collections of the Library of Congress. Ed. Carl Lindahl. Vol. 1. Armonk NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004, pp. 149-55. Also includes "Jack and the Robbers," "The Unicorn and the Wild Boar," "The Witch Woman on the Stone Mountain on the Tennessee Side," "Mule Eggs." With photographs of Ray Hicks and background on him. "Sop Doll." Told by Mary Hamilton. Haunting Tales. Audio cassette. Kentucky, 1996. "Sop Doll." Told by Jackie Torrence. Country Characters. LP and audio cassette. Chicago, Il: Earwig Music Co., 1983 and 1986. From an evening of storytelling live in Lexington, MA to benefit Arts Created Together. Recorded at Cary Hall, Lexington, MA. Also includes Old Dry Frye, Wicked John and the Devil, "The Maco Station Light," and "The Fiddler's Dram." See also: Jack's contests with a witch in Hardy Hardhead and Cat 'n Mouse Overnight stays in a haunted house in Soldier Jack, The Hainted House, Jack and the Hainted House, and Cat 'n Mouse "Jack and the Witch," an award-winning tale by a fourth grader, in Students Write Jack Tales Related tales and superstitions from Anglo and African American traditions, as well as Long's and Chase's "Sop Doll" tales, are discussed by Bill Ellis in "Why is a Lucky Rabbit's Foot Lucky? Body Parts as Fetishes." Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 39 (Jan-April 2002): p. 51 (36). Available online through library services such as Academic Index ASAP. Ellis argues that superstitions involving severed paws or hands relate to social power struggles. "Possessing a fetish that embodies the essence of a dangerous Other--whether trickster, badman, or witch--and using it for one's own purposes effectively neutralizes the threat represented by that Other." Last
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