After years of pondering, Byron Ballard has finally written a primer for the kind of magic she practices. Driven to it by colleagues, friends, and students, writing this little book is an act of stubborn devotion to a fading culture. This deceptively simple system of folk magic has come down to modern Southern culture through the immigrants and natives who called these blue hills home. Written in an easily accessible style and filled with insights and stories, Staubs and Ditchwater is part memoir, part workbook - and an important contribution to the study of Appalachian folklore.