You ask for a story. I will tell you one, fact for fact and true for true." So begins ""Crook-Neck Dick,"" one of twenty-three stories in this beguiling collection of Charleston lore. Derived from African American legends, these fables have entertained generations of Charlestonians with sheer storytelling magic. To delight of folklorists, students of Charleston history, and all those who love a good ghost story, this treasure features photos of the storytellers who shared these remarkable stories with John Bennett.

Julia Eichelberger, the Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature and an executive board member of the Center for Study of Slavery at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, provides a foreword.