Hant

“[…] Say, Mister, did you ever see a hant?” The gentleman did not understand. “A hant, a ghost, some calls ’em,” explained Jed.

[…] he shivered as though a hant had touched him with its ghostly fingers, for night was near and he was alone in a depth of the swamp where he had never been before.

The term “hant” covers all malevolent and inexplicable sights and sounds. Primarily hants protect buried treasure and linger about ghoulish death spots.

Naturally, I believed in hants and ghosts and “thangs.” Having been raised by a super-religious Southern Negro grandmother, it would have been abnormal had I not been superstitious.