DONEGAL, Pennsylvania — It is 6:14 p.m. on a Thursday. You’re hiking along the Forbes Trail, nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains somewhere along the Westmoreland-Somerset County lines. It is 19 minutes until sunset, and you have just over a mile to go, mostly uphill, before you are out of the deep forest and in the clearing.

The mountain range, which stretches from Maine to Georgia and is documented to be one of the oldest in the country, shares characteristics across the approximately 420 counties. It is rugged, often mist-covered with deep hollers and rugged peaks that cling to a rich tapestry of folklore — folklore that is a mix of generational stories and superstitions that came from the Scots-Irish, a variety of native American tribes, and African Americans who have carved out often isolated lives in this region.

Your heart starts to race as the clearing gets within reach because if you grew up in any part of Appalachia, your elders have warned that if you find yourself in the woods after dark, that is not a good thing. And no matter what, never, ever, whistle.

The legend goes, the folklore varying in each little community in the thousands of miles that make up the Appalachian Mountains region, that you should never whistle after the sun sets in the woods or you will draw supernatural attention from someone or something you do not want to encounter.

Whistling at night in the woods is a tale that has been passed down for generations, usually by an elder with a warning about someone they knew who never made it out of the woods. These tales have caused the young and the old to avoid waking ancient spirits. It is also advised never to respond or run if one hears a whistle, but instead to ignore it, state your intentions out loud, and leave the area calmly.

Everybody loves a good ghost story, whether you believe in them or not. Because of their age and isolation, the Appalachian Mountains have had plenty of them passed along through the ages — stories like the Appalachian Whistle that endured for centuries. It is one of many folk tales prevalent in American culture that go beyond the boundaries of the people who call this mountain range home.

Clay Newcomb is a seventh-generation Arkansan, storyteller and the host of “Bear Grease,” a widely popular podcast filled with rich recalls of communities and traditions that is part of the MeatEater podcast platform. A prolific publisher, writer and cinematographer, he joined MeatEater in 2019 and is uniquely connected to the art of storytelling and folklore. He focuses on forgotten history that is highly relevant to the people who remain connected to their roots.

Newcomb said his favorite local legend is sightings of the legendary black panther in Arkansas.

“You could go any direction a mile, 10 miles, 100 miles from my house and just knock on a door. And I’d say there’s a 60% chance the person that lives there will have had an encounter with a black panther,” he said.

What is so bizarre about that, Newcomb said, is that there are no black panthers in this part of the world, nor have there ever been.