Tales with a Texas Twist Original Stories And Enduring Folklore From The Lone Star State

by Ingham, Donna; Hoffman, Paul G.

• ISBN13: 9780762738991
• ISBN10: 0762738995
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-01
• Publisher: Globe Pequot

Summary

Join award-winning storyteller Donna Ingham as she recounts 28 of her favorite myths and legends, Texas style.

Author Biography

Donna Ingham leads workshops and training sessions on storytelling and has taught storytelling classes at the University of Texas in Austin. Her repertoire includes original stories and tales based on history, folklore, and outrageous lies. She has five audio recordings and is listed as a Texas Touring Artist by the Texas Commission on the Arts and a Heartland Arts Fund Regional Artist through the Mid-America Arts Alliance. As a humorist and folklorist, she takes the ancient art of storytelling and gives it a Texas twist to entertain audiences of all ages. She lives in Spicewood, Texas, with her husband, Jerry, and has one son, Christopher.

Artist Paul G. Hoffman has illustrated books of many genres, including the Globe Pequot Spooky series. For this title he recalled the storybooks of his childhood.

Table of Contents

Lone Star Storytelling	vii
The Myth of Cora Persephone	1	(5)
Cupid Was a Mama's Boy	6	(7)
The Coming of the Bluebonnet	13	(5)
The Ghost at Hornsby's Bend	18	(6)
The Legend of El Muerto	24	(5)
The Lobo-Girl of Devil's River	29	(4)
The Ghost Light on Bailey's Prairie	33	(5)
The Babe of the Alamo	38	(4)
The Yellow Rose of Texas	42	(6)
The White Comanche of the Plains	48	(7)
Sam Bass, the Texas Robin Hood	55	(3)
The Story Behind the Story	58	(5)
Mollie Bailey Was a Spy	63	(4)
Arizona Bill	67	(4)
Diamond Bill	71	(7)
Bigfoot Wallace and the Hickory Nuts	78	(7)
The Life and Times of Pecos Bill	85	(8)
The Meandering Melon	93	(5)
One Turkey-Power	98	(5)
The Texan and the Blue Lambs	103	(3)
The Texan and the Grass Hut	106	(4)
The Three Bubbas	110	(3)
Teeny Tangerine Twirling Rope	113	(4)
Pedro y El Diablo	117	(5)
The Old Woman and the Robbers	122	(5)
Pretty Polly and Mr. Fox	127	(8)
Br'er Rabbit's Sharecropping	135	(5)
Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Coon, and the Frogs	140	(5)
Bibliography	145	(4)
About the Author	149

Excerpts

From "Cupid Was a Mama's Boy"
Cupid was a mama's boy. He was. If you've read any of the stories about him, you'll remember he was always doing the bidding of his mama, Venus, who just happened to be, of course, the goddess of love.
These days we see Cupid as a fat little naked boy-child with a toy bow and arrow who's full of mischief, flying around shooting people and making them fall in love with one another. But he wasn't always that way. No sir. When some Roman fellow--Lucius Apuleius, his name was--wrote about Cupid back in century ought-two A.D., he made him a perfectly handsome young man. But he was still a mama's boy.
One day, you see, his mama called him in and said, "Son, I've got a job for you."
"Yes ma'am," Cupid said. You would go far to find a boy that was any more agreeable.
"There's this girl named Psyche," Venus said, "the king over yonder's youngest daughter. They say she's pretty enough to make a man plow through a stump, and I just can't take the competition. Why, folks have stopped coming to my temples and lighting fires in the altars. They're all over at the king's place fairly worshipping this mere mortal of a girl-destined to get old and ugly and die some day, but I can't wait. So here's what I want you to do . . ."


From "The Life and Times of Pecos Bill"
Way back, when little Bill was just a baby, his ma and his pa decided it was getting a might too crowded where they were because some new neighbors had moved in just a mere hundred miles away. So they loaded everything they owned into one of those Conestoga wagons--one of those covered wagons--and headed west with little Bill and his sixteen brothers and sisters in the back.
Some folks say little Bill was having a fine time bouncing along in the back of that wagon when he just bounced right out as the wagon was crossing the Pecos River. Others say no, that's not right. What happened was that Bill decided as long as they were crossing a river, he'd just throw him a fishing line in and see if he couldn't catch something. Sure enough, one of those big old Texas catfish came along, grabbed Bill's line, and jerked him into the river. Well, whichever way it happened, there he sat on the banks of the Pecos River watching his whole family still moving west. They didn't even miss him for several weeks until they finally took a head count.
Meanwhile, Bill was about lower than a gopher hole, and his prospects didn't look too good. . . .

---

Excerpted from Tales with a Texas Twist: Original Stories and Enduring Folklore from the Lone Star State by Donna Ingham
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.