For heaven’s sake! I thought that was just an old Southern tradition! I’ve even heard of the old folks that would tie a black ribbon around a hive to let the bees know of the keeper’s death.
“I thought that was just an old Southern tradition!”
Fascinating!
Most of those old southern traditions came from their British heritage, even down to their speech. I’m from Mississippi and my dear grandmother, born in 1904, came from a well educated rural family of English descent. Her speech pattern was non-rhotic and she sounded like a well spoken Englishwoman even though I doubt she’d ever heard a native Englishwoman until radio came about in the 1930’s. A lot of the old timers sounded that way, sadly that’s been lost and now everybody in my area has the southern white trash twang we’re so used to hearing.