Farrell: Drivers in Colleton County all want to know, ‘Who is the cuckold?’

Every inch of this land has a story.

“No person has ever walked the shores of Blah Blah Blah, though.”

Well, see. There. That’s the story of those inches.

Sometimes we know the story, like at Monticello in Charlottesville, Va. It’s Thomas Jefferson and this and that and “little mountain.” Got it.

Other times, it’s easy to guess at the story.

At least at the basic facts.

Like with Burnt Church Road in Bluffton.

So … there was a fire? And it involved ... hmmm, a church of some sort? That was on this road? Sounds ghastly, but OK.

Then there are other times — when guessing isn’t good enough. When guessing doesn’t satisfy that need to know, to absolutely know, “What the heck went on in that place?”

For instance, Cuckold Landing.

Don’t get me wrong. The guessing on this one has been fun.

I picture the landing’s namesake in overalls, with one strap unlatched, a dirty linen shirt on underneath it and a straw hat on his head, just kicking rocks.

Every once and again he looks up at the sky and shakes his head.

Then he half-heartedly fishes for his dinner … which he will have to cook himself because his wife is … busy.

But no really, why is this place called that?

Cuckold Landing is in the ACE Basin near Cuckolds Creek in Colleton County, which is just north of here.

A brown recreational sign points to it off U.S. 17, and that’s all it says. It’s just a casual arrow, like “Cuckold Landing? Yeah, sure. Right there. What? Is there something on my face?”

But … but … you know what a cuckold is, right, people who made this sign?

If you don’t know what a cuckold is, I suggest you consult a paper dictionary and skip the Google search this time. I myself have a lot to explain to our IT and HR departments for the things I encountered when trying to get some answers Friday, including an erotic story some man wrote and posted online about his wife after the two drove by this very sign.

She didn’t know why the name was funny, so he explained.

And then she had one question.

“Why do YOU know what a cuckold is?”

From there, the story got a little “shrimp and grits for three, please,” if you know what I mean.

I, too, see this sign — which I will never look at the same way again — every time I drive to and from Charleston, and I think “Yep, I’m looking that up when I get home.” But then I forget.

Not this time, though.

After researching and calling around and getting help from some wonderful librarians, I’m sorry to say I have no answers for you except that everyone who has ever passed this sign has asked themselves the same thing:

What’s the story here?

Well, maybe not the people who live in the area, but they don’t know where the name came from either and they seemed OK with that.

One did correct my pronunciation, though.

It’s apparently “Curcule Landing,” which is a real chicken and the egg situation for me.

Was it always Curcule and somebody was just learning his letters the first time it was written on paper? Or was there really a cuckold, and the Southern accent did this to the word?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about living in the South, it’s that pronunciations take on new shapes down here, and I accept most of them.

Combahee is Cumbee? Fine by me.

Mackays Creek is Mackies? Sure. OK.

Coosawhatchie is Coosaw-Hatchee? I see what you did there.

In 2003, when I moved to the Lowcountry, I learned that Goethe Road in Bluffton was pronounced “Goh-tee Road.” The man who told me this found it simply amusing that Blufftonians would say it this way.

“Haaaaaaa,” the man said in a tone I can only describe as Cabernet Sauvignon. “It’s supposed be ‘Gearta’ like the German philosopher Johann von Wolfgang Goethe. Geeeeartaaaa.”

Yes, I’m sure the people who live on Goethe Road will consider your constructive criticism and thank you for clearing things up for them. You don’t know how badly I wanted to suggest that he try a Burger King breakfast just so he’d get laughed at for his order, “I will have the Frawnsh toast sticks and a Fully Loaded Cwasawhn-wich.”

People throughout history, it turns out, have been wondering the same thing the rest of us have about Cuckold Landing, and it’s so very frustrating.

In their 1965 book “Names of South Carolina,” Evelyn McDaniel Frasier Bryan (subject of my future book, “Names of Evelyn McDaniel Frasier Bryan”) and William E. Fripp wrote, “There are some names in Colleton County which have long aroused curiosity.”

Aroused. Oh boy. Keep it together.

“One of these is Cuckold’s Creek, a tidewater creek flowing into the Combahee River. It was referred to as Wannell’s or Cuckold’s Creek in an act passed in 1787 pertaining to keeping it navigable up to a certain point. Local fisher(men) have (called it) ‘Curcule Creek,’ but no one has been able to give an explanation for the name.”

Come on!

Somebody has to know the answer.

Wait. Could the curcule be Wannell? What’s his story?

This story was originally published March 11, 2016 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Farrell: Drivers in Colleton County all want to know, ‘Who is the cuckold?’."