Did you know that Jules Verne wrote about a noted North Carolina mountain in his book Master of the World? The Great Eyrie, as he called the mountain, “rises rocky, grim and inaccessible, and under certain atmospheric conditions has a peculiarly blue and distant effect …”

Verne further wrote of other strange lights and sounds which emanated from the peak that scholars later attributed to the nearby and fabled Brown Mountain Lights. The Great Eyrie “is seen as rising high above the valley to sometimes belch strange sounds and fire over the little village of Morganton.”

Badger’s photo of “The Great Eyrie” was taken from Oak Hill, a community just north of Morganton at a location identified by knowledgeable resident Bruce Alexander.

While the tumult given to Table Rock was burnished with Verne’s fanciful language, he imbued the aura of the region’s most notable promontory with the lore assigned to those rare iconic peaks which inspire a worldwide imagination.

Thomas Mabry – Honey Badger Images

Many of the HoneyBadgerImages are on display at instagram.com/honeybadgerimages.