The Utter Wildness of God
Embracing the Strange and Sacred in Storytelling with SL Linton
What is it about these local legends that sink so deep into our bones? Why do stories of the supernatural, the eerie, and the unexplained still call to us, even when we grow up? SL Linton argues that they echo something bigger—something untamed. Maybe, just maybe, they whisper hints of the wildness of God. Not the neat, box-sized version we sometimes try to hold onto, but the roaring, unpredictable, fiercely loving presence that breaks through our world in ways we can’t always explain. Go ahead, keep reading. But don’t be surprised if something unexpected climbs out of the well.
In the Southern US, particularly the South Carolina Lowcountry where I grew up, there is a strong oral tradition. In other words, we like to tell stories. My earliest recollection involving story was my father telling us about a character he made up named Possum Brown, a wily, talking possum constantly outwitting coonhounds and two little kids who happened to have the same names as my brother and me.
But we also heard about the Summerville Light, the time Bigfoot stalked a family friend through the woods, the local Voodoo Man, and how you should always be home before twilight. Always. Books like The Dark-Thirty by Patricia McKissack only added fuel to the fire. As a ‘90’s kid, I was also fed a steady diet of Stephen King movies, Unsolved Mysteries, and Tales from the Crypt. These stories don’t meet the definition of “fairytale” found in the Cambridge Dictionary, but they are still stories of the unexplained and unexplainable. A different sort of magic, if you will.
Yes, there were the standard fairytales. I heard about Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Rumpelstiltskin, and Jack and the Beanstalk. In fact, the movie Beauty and the Beast remains my favorite Disney film. But these fairytales felt far away, in a land called “Europe” that sounded like a made-up place. But Bigfoot and Possum Brown lived in my backyard.
And they still influence my writing to this day, though many times subconsciously. I like to think of my creativity as a deep well. Into it has gone everything I have experienced, observed, read, or heard in my life. I never know what’s going to climb out of that well.
I’m not the only one who is intrigued, or whose creativity is fed, by tales of the weird, miraculous, and fae. My most popular stories on Substack are the ones set in Baxton County, my fictional Southern county. There, you’ll find Bigfoot, intervening angels, and a mysterious creature known as Chicken Leg.
I think the fascination for such stories goes deeper than the desire to be spooked. I think C.S. Lewis comes close to it when, in the Narnia series, he writes that Aslan is not a tame lion. Aslan is a lion that roars and charges into battle. Aslan loves fiercely and dies for those whom he loves. Of course, we all know Aslan is Christ.
God is wild. I don’t mean that in the slang term sense. I mean that He is untamed and untamable. When we start assigning God to boxes and definite borders, when we make God neat and tidy, He slips away. What we think we have is merely a product of our own imagination. God will not be caged.
This, of course, is not a criticism of theology and theologians. There’s a place for that.
However, it needs to be accepted that God is not entirely explainable. Despite the thousands of books on the subject of God throughout the centuries, there is the deep sense that we have barely scratched the surface. There is so much about God that we do not understand. There is so much about the way He touches and shapes our lives, sometimes even bursting in, that we cannot fully explain. There is nothing tidy about God or being a Christian. A tidy, easily explained Christianity is a false religion.
I think that is why I love fairytale and supernatural stories so very much. They hint at the wildness of God. When I draw on my inner well of weird, it’s to set aside the Sunday School lessons and the dry theology, and say, “What if?” This is not to be disrespectful or suggest anything heretical. Rather, it is to invite a bit of God’s untamed nature into the narrative and, ultimately, into my life and the lives of my readers. It is to acknowledge that some things cannot be explained, and not everything needs to be. God is wild, and we should let Him be wild in our lives.
That means perhaps leaving behind the stories of Europe, if that’s not where we live. God wishes to encounter us where we are. I don’t mean where we are in a figurative sense, but also in locale. God incarnated, after all. He also placed us in certain places and at certain times. Where we as writers are in the physical sense is where we are meant to be. He wants to meet us there and use the stories of our place.
What are the stories in our hometown or home region? Who are our witches and hobgoblins? In the Lowcountry, we have something called the plat-eye, an evil, shapeshifting spirit with fiery eyes whose origin lies in murder and improper burial. It guards the Confederate money hidden by plantation owners, attacking anyone who comes near. Obviously, there’s a lesson here about greed, perhaps, and the taint of old sins. But couldn’t we use that story to tell a tale of reckoning, redemption, and respect for the dead?
There’s a real danger for writers to get so stuck in common tropes and archetypes that we forget about the place in which we inhabit. God’s wildness takes on a particular shade in certain regions. If we step away from our computers, pull our head out of the clouds, and explore the myths, legends, and stories of our locale, what would we find? I suggest that we would see hints of God, glittering and wild, wishing to touch our hearts and challenge us in our storytelling.
So, go on. Turn off the computer. Put down the phone. Ask your elders for their stories. Drop by the library and ask about local authors who curate local history and legend. Be in the place where you are and let God’s wildness be revealed to you, without attempts to explain it all away.
SL Linton is a speculative fiction author who writes fiction at odd angles. She lives in South Carolina with her husband and black cat. Read her take on the supernatural, weird, and fantastic right here on Substack:
I agree completely (though I love the Grimm Brothers and never want to get rid of them!). Utilizing the local folktales in stories also helps preserve them. Have you ever read Manly Wade Wellman and his stories set in Appalachia?
There is another possible explanation, you know.
It could be that people, lost or saved, are drawn to the dark, the paranormal, the eerie, not because such things are a reflection of God, but rather because those things are a reflection of the darkness in the carnal heart of every man.