Sacred Words: The Healers of Eastern North Carolina

Have you ever heard about people who could talk the fire out of a burn? I've heard about the phenomenon all my life, but never seen it done.

The kitchen fell silent when Sarah entered the Johnson family's farmhouse near Bucklesberry, in Lenoir County. Only the soft whimper of twelve-year-old Tommy broke the stillness as he stood rigid by the sink, his right arm held away from his body like a broken wing. Angry red welts bloomed where scalding water had splashed across his forearm, promising blisters by morning. Yet instead of racing to the emergency room, his mother had called for Sarah, one of the last fire talkers in eastern North Carolina, a keeper of ancient healing wisdom.

Sarah didn’t speak at first. She simply pulled a straight-backed chair from the kitchen table, positioned it beneath the yellow glow of the overhead light, and gestured for Tommy to sit. His mother watched from the doorway, worry etched across her face but faith in her eyes. She had seen Sarah’s gift at work before.

This scene has played out countless times across eastern North Carolina, where special healers practice the ancient arts of “talking out” burns and removing warts through whispered verses. These gifted individuals serve as living links to a time when medicine meant more than pills and prescriptions—when healing came through whispered words and unwavering faith.

In those days, burns were as common as summer thunderstorms. Wood stoves heated homes and cooked meals, open flames warmed water, and every daily task seemed to carry the risk of scalding or burning. Children learned early to respect the heat of cast iron stoves that sat in corners of small living rooms, though sometimes lessons came the hard way.

Before fire talkers were called, rural families had their own arsenal of remedies for burns. Some would create poultices from potato scrapings, believing they could “draw the fire out.” Others swore by soda paste or vinegar, while many kept a precious jar of balm of Gilead mixed with hog fat, cooked down in a skillet into a soothing salve. The first snow in March was collected and saved, its water believed to hold special healing properties. Some even followed the curious practice of holding the burned area near another heat source, thinking one fire could draw out another.

Brenda Wainwright-Dudley remembers how the old healers had their own methods for treating wounds beyond burns. “They would lay a penny with a piece of fat back on a wound and wrap it up with cabbage leaves and string,” she recalls. These practical healing traditions existed alongside the more mysterious gifts of the fire talkers and wart healers.

Bettie Powers, raised in Hookerton, grew up witnessing this tradition firsthand. Her grandmother from Snow Hill possessed the gift of taking warts away with nothing more than a verse. This power ran parallel to the gift of fire talking, though each required its own specific words and methods. The traditions were distinct but related, both operating on the principle that certain people could channel divine healing through sacred words.

The wart talkers’ gift came with its own peculiar rules and consequences. Dudley also experienced this firsthand when she sought help for a stubborn wart on the back of her leg. After removing it, the healer gave her a stern warning: “If you look back there where it was or if you get mad with me, it will come back.” His words proved prophetic—when Brenda later became angry with him, the wart returned, twice its original size.

Only after they made peace did the wart vanish, demonstrating how these healing gifts operated on both physical and spiritual planes.

The line between practical folk medicine and spiritual healing is often blurred. While fire talkers wielded their gift through prayer and verse, they didn’t discourage the use of traditional remedies. Anthony Cavender’s “Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia” documents an extensive range of folk treatments for burns: slippery elm bark solutions, egg whites, vanilla extract, and various poultices were all widely trusted. These natural remedies complemented the divine art of fire talking, each contributing to the multifaceted practice of rural healing.

The prevalence of burns in daily life made the fire talkers essential members of their communities. One local woman remembered getting burned on her grandmother’s wood stove despite warnings. Like many children, she had been drawn to its warmth, standing too close in her pretty coat with its fake fur-trimmed hood. She burned both the coat and her arm that day. An uncle told her the best thing for a burn was to burn it again, though whether he meant this literally or was referring to the practice of drawing out heat with heat, she was too shy to ask.

The power of fire talking follows strict, unbreakable rules passed down through generations. Michael Slaughter understood these constraints well—his great-grandmother held the gift but could only pass it to a man, never to her daughters or granddaughters. She had intended to teach young Michael the sacred words, but she died when he was just eight years old. Yet somehow, the power seemed to find him anyway. Years later, while working at Hatteras Yachts, he severely burned his wrist with a heat gun. By the next morning, the burn had vanished completely, as if it had never existed.

The verses themselves have evolved over time, reflecting the complex cultural heritage of eastern North Carolina. The oldest version speaks directly of angels: “There came an angel from the east bringing fire and frost. In frost, out fire. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Later variations replaced frost with salt: “God sent three angels coming from the East and West. One brought fire, another salt. Go out fire, go in salt. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

Many fire talkers ground their practice in scripture, particularly Daniel 3:27: “And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.” This biblical foundation merged with even older traditions—Native American healing practices that predated European settlement.

As cultures mixed and married in early colonial times, these practices evolved. Native American healing rituals blended with European folk medicine, and both were eventually wrapped in the language of Christian prayer. The result was something uniquely American, yet ancient in its power.

The ritual itself remains remarkably consistent despite its varied origins. The healer must speak their chosen verse three times while moving their hands just above the burn, as if drawing out the heat like poison from a wound. Some practitioners describe it as “pushing” the fire away from the victim’s body. All agree that gentle breathing on the burn is essential, though none can explain exactly why.

The rules governing the transmission of this gift are equally rigid. A fire talker can only teach their power to three others in their lifetime. Most believe the gift must cross between sexes—a woman teaching a man, a man teaching a woman. No money can ever change hands; this is considered sacred work, freely given in service to God and community.

Back in the Johnson’s kitchen, Sarah completed her work. Three times she had spoken the sacred words, her hands moving slowly above Tommy’s scalded arm, her breath cooling the angry skin. Already, the bright red had faded to pink, and by morning, no trace of the burn would remain. She didn’t explain or justify what she had done—fire talkers rarely do. She simply gathered her things and headed home, leaving behind another small miracle in a tradition stretching back generations.

In a world of increasing complexity, where medicine has become a matter of laboratories and clinical trials, these healers remind us that some of the most powerful healing still comes through faith, tradition, and the mysterious power of sacred words. Their gift operates in that liminal space between the explicable and inexplicable, where ancient wisdom meets lived experience, and miracles still occur in the whisper of a verse. As long as burns need cooling and warts need banishing, the fire talkers of eastern North Carolina will continue their quiet work, preserving a tradition as powerful as it is mysterious.

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