Hey everyone, Summer here, and welcome back to the Duke Tyner podcast

Today we're diving deep into the Carolina pinewoods. We're talking aboutghosts, curses, and eternal longing turned malevolent. We're talking about oneof Duke Tyner's most haunting creations—"The Woman in Black."

If you've been following Duke's work in the Southern Gothic realm, youalready know about "Devil's Circle"—that chilling ballad about NorthCarolina's legendary Devil's Tramping Ground, where nothing grows and the Devilhimself is said to pace at night. "The Woman in Black" takes thatmythology and expands it into something even darker, even more tragic, andhonestly, even more terrifying.

This isn't just a music video. This is a cinematic descent into NorthCarolina folklore's darkest corner, where a spectral bride waits in cursedcircles for souls foolish enough to answer her siren call.

So settle in, maybe leave a light on, and let's talk about Duke Tyner'smasterpiece of Southern Gothic horror.

PART ONE: THE LEGEND EXPANDS

Let's start with the mythology, because "The Woman in Black"doesn't exist in isolation. Duke built this on the foundation he establishedwith "Devil's Circle."

The Devil's Tramping Ground is a real place near Siler City, NorthCarolina. It's a forty-foot circle of barren earth where nothing grows, nothinghas grown for over a century, and according to local legend, the Devil himselfpaces there nightly, plotting humanity's downfall. Objects placed in the circleget thrown out by morning. Animals refuse to enter. People who sleep therereport nightmares so vivid they wake up screaming.

Duke captured all of that in "Devil's Circle." But then heasked a deeper question: What if the Devil isn't alone out there? What ifsomething else haunts that cursed ground?

Enter the Woman in Black.

Duke researched local folklore and found whispered stories—not aswell-known as the main legend, but there, if you know where to look. Storiesabout a woman in a wedding gown seen at the circle's edge. Stories about avoice that sounds like wind through pines but carries words. Stories about menwho went into those woods and never came back, or came back changed, haunted,speaking about a bride who wouldn't let them go.

Duke took those fragments and built a complete mythology. The Woman inBlack was promised—engaged to be married—but abandoned on her wedding day. Thebetrayal and heartbreak were so profound, so consuming, that when she died, herspirit couldn't rest. She was drawn to the Devil's circle, that place ofabandonment and cursed earth, and there she waits. Eternal. Patient. Lonely.