Readings in American Folklore

by Brunvand, Jan Harold

• ISBN13: 9780393950298
• ISBN10: 0393950298
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1979-07-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

The distinguished folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand has selected 26 essays, arranged in four sections of increasing sophistication and difficulty, to introduce the beginning student to the best in modern folklore scholarship. As he writes in the Preface:These articles were chosen to illustrate a variety of approaches and folklore genres; they are rich in actual examples of folk materials and are above all well written and thought-provoking. Many are definitive studies, others appeared only recently.The essays include the work of prominent folklorists as well as several student research papers. All provide practical models for student research and writing, and the editor also gives many useful suggestions for student projects in his introductions.The articles are reprinted in full, including the original illustrations; the editor provides a short introduction to each selection as well as additional footnotes to explain unfamiliar terms and allusions to the student.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Section 1 Collections of American Folk Materials	5	(106)
Unpublished Folklore in the Brown Collection	5	(11)
Charles Bond
Some Coyote Stories from the Maidu Indians of California	16	(6)
Roland B. Dixon
Collecting Folklore Among Mennonites	22	(9)
Warren Kliewer
Songs I Sang on an Iowa Farm	31	(22)
Ida M. Cromwell
Collected by Eleanor T. Rogers
Edited with notes by Tristram P. Coffin
Samuel P. Bayard
Some Accounts of Witch Riding	53	(11)
Patricia K. Rickels
The Surpriser Surprised: A Modern Legend	64	(27)
William Hugh Jansen
Lore of the Finnish-American Sauna	91	(8)
Aili K. Johnson
Cokelore	99	(7)
L. Michael Bell
The Cornstalk Fiddle	106	(5)
Roget L. Welsch
Section 2 Folklore in Context	111	(152)
Folklore at a Milwaukee Wedding	111	(13)
Richard M. Dorson
Heart Disease and Folklore	124	(14)
Richard M. Dorson
Con Safos: Mexican-Americans, Names and Graffiti	138	(14)
Sylvia Ann Grider
"Sorry Chuck"--Pioneer Foodways	152	(16)
Roger L. Welsch
Mr. Westfall's Baskets: Traditional Craftsmanship in Northcentral Missouri	168	(24)
Howard Wight Marshall
Coyote Tales: A Paiute Commentary	192	(7)
Judy Trejo
"Hogs are Playing with Sticks--Bound to be Bad Weather": Folk Belief or Proverb?	199	(4)
Ronald L. Baker
Folksongs and Functions: Some Thoughts on the American Lullaby	203	(12)
Bess Lomax Hawes
Talking Trash in the Okefenokee Swamp Rim, Georgia	215	(21)
Kay L. Cothran
Symbiosis of Joke and Legend: A Case of Conversational Folklore	236	(27)
Linda Degh
Section 3 Analysis and Interpretation of American Folklore	263	(127)
Method in the History and Interpretation of a Proverb: "A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place"	263	(4)
Archer Taylor
Three Medieval Tales and their Modern American Analogues	267	(12)
Shirley Marchalonis
The Migratory Anecdote and the Folk Concept of Fame	279	(10)
Mac E. Barrick
"The Lane County Bachelor": Folksong or Not?	289	(20)
Jan Harold Brunvand
"Mary Hamilton" and the Anglo-American Ballad as an Art Form	309	(10)
Tristram P. Coffin
"Miller Boy," One of the First and Last of the Play-Party Games	319	(5)
John Q. Anderson
The Fiddle Tune: An American Artifact	324	(10)
Louie W. Attebery
On Game Morphology: A Study of the Structure of Non-Verbal Folklore	334	(11)
Alan Dundes
Plain and Fancy: A Content Analysis of Children's Jokes Dealing with Adult Sexuality	345	(10)
Rosemary Zumwalt
Cut-Eye and Suck-Teeth: African Words and Gestures in New World Guise	355	(19)
John A. Rickford
Angela E. Rickford
The German-Russian House in Kansas: A Study in Persistence of Form	374	(16)
Albert J. Petersen
Section 4 Some Theoretical Perspectives in American Folklore	390
Folklore in Culture: Notes Toward an Analytic Method	390	(14)
Roger D. Abrahams
Metafolklore and Oral Literary Criticism	404	(12)
Alan Dundes
New Directions for the Study of American Folklore	416	(11)
Jan Harold Brunvand
Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context	427	(17)
Dan Ben-Amos
Participation in Tradition	444	(5)
Kay L. Cothran
Folklore and History: Fact Amid the Legends	449
William A. Wilson