The legend of Louisville’s Witches’ Tree

If you’ve walked down to the corner of Sixth Street and Park Ave in Louisville, you’ve probably seen what can only be described as a natural monstrosity—a tree so knotted, tortured, and misshapen that it could easily serve as a portal to the underworld in a Tim Burton film. There stands the Witches’ Tree, a gnarled tree clad with trinkets and other offerings to the practitioners that brewed it up. Even if the tree didn’t resemble something from a nightmare landscape, all of the trinkets, baubles, and bead necklaces hanging from the branches would make it impossible to miss. They were placed there by locals to appease the vengeful witches.

During the famous Southern Exposition of the 1880s, a lovely garden near Central Park in today’s Old Louisville attracted throngs of visitors looking for respite from the summer heat. Although the famed botanical gardens have long since disappeared, cleared to make room for an expanding city, one tree from that time still remains.

Before the tree became the creepy wonder it is today, local lore says a majestic maple tree stood there once and was a popular midnight hangout for those practicing the dark arts. Locals know it as the Witches’ Tree. In the late 19th century, this tree was the gathering place for a coven of Kentucky witches. There they would meet under its majestic branches at midnight to cast their spells and brew their potions. They performed their ceremonies and generally didn’t create too much of a nuisance.

This all changed in 1889, however, when Mr. Mengel, the famous lumber merchant and head of a planning committee, announced the city’s plans to chop down this tree for the next year’s May Day festivities. (In Victorian times, this was a popular celebration, and the centerpiece of any May Day festivities was the tall, straight tree that was stripped of its bark and then festooned with garlands and greenery to create a maypole.)

Of course, when the witches found out what was in store for their beloved maple tree, they weren’t too pleased, and they warned the organizers not to take away their tree. They left a parchment warning on the trunk of their beloved maple:

This tree shall stand and not be cut,
We’ve fed her with our laughter.
Our leafy haven you’ll not gut.
Or pay forever after.

But if you, Wooden King, prevail,
And Mother Maple dies,
The force of Fate shall strike this town
And right between the eyes.

If our tree falls, yes, Fate will call
To teach you, heartless Dunce,
That all man’s work can disappear.
BEWARE ELEVENTH MONTH!

But they did not take the witches very seriously back then because nobody paid attention to the admonition. When the grand maple came crashing to the ground, the witches left. West of town they found a new tree in the dark forest. Before leaving, though, the coven promised to have its revenge.

The May Day celebrations were held, the wood of the maypole later being burned in a great Whitsuntide bonfire, and everyone forgot about the witches — until 11 months later, that is. That’s when the coven exacted its revenge, which came in the form of a deadly tornado on March 27, 1890, one year to the day when the tree was cut down.

The witches, they say, brewed up this tornado dubbed “the Storm Demon” in their new copse of trees and sent it — along Maple Street (for a bit of symbolism) — into downtown Louisville to do their bidding. The tornado was an EF4 level tornado that killed 76 and injured well over 200. A number of them were members of something known as the May Day Celebration Committee. Among the dead were two members of the Mengel family. It flattened more than half of the city, mansions, churches, bourbon and tobacco warehouses.

Eyewitnesses reported that, after wreaking its havoc downtown, the twister took a strange right-hand turn and roared south along Sixth Street into what is now Old Louisville. As it passed by the botanical gardens, a bolt of lightning shot out from the tornado and struck the stump of the maple tree that had stood there. There was a tremendous explosion and a new tree magically sprang up in its place — to replace the one taken from the witches. Not a healthy, happy tree, but rather the otherworldly thing that stands there now.

With its burls and gnarled trunk, and its thin and bony branches, they say it’s much more befitting of witches today. The witches returned to the tree and no one messed with them anymore. Since then, they come to the neighborhood and on many nights you will find them at the tree, brewing their potions and casting their spells once again. Now, as a peace offering, people bring trinkets to hang all over the tree so the witches will cast them good luck.