Folktales Re: WNC

[Rob Neufeld]

WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA BOOKS
(Please feel free to make suggestions)
Written by Rob Neufeld, February 2007, Revised Sept. 2007
(Go back to starter list)

Reading audience key: [E] Young children [C] all children [W] children with adult help [M] middle-school students [H] high school students [G] general readers [S] scholars

Folktales

• Mariah of the Spirits and Other Southern Ghost Stories by Sherry Austin (Overmountain Press, 2002) [W,M,H,G]
• Haints of the Hills by Daniel Barefoot [W,M,H,G]
• Ghost and Haunts From the Appalachian Foothills by James V. Burchill, Linda S. Crider, Peggy Kendrick, and Marcia W. Bonner [W,M,H,G]
• Grandfather Tales by Richard Chase (Houghton Mifflin, 1948) [C,M,G]
• Aunt Mary, Tell Me A Story: A Collection of Cherokee Legends and Tales by Mary Ulmer Chitoskey (Cherokee Communications, 1990) [C,M]
• Tall Tales form the High Hills by Ellis Credle. Out of print. [C,M,G] Beaverdam, north of Asheville, is the locale.
• The Jack Tales by Richard Chase (Houghton Mifflin, 1943) [C,M,G]
• Listening for the Crack of Dawn by Donald Davis (August House 1990) [W,M,H,G] Humorous yarns by master teller.
• Southern Jack Tales by Donald Davis (August House, 1997) [W,M,G]
• Mountain Jack Tales by Gail E. Haley [C]
• The Devil’s Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories by John Harden (1980; Lightning Source, 2005). [G]
• The Jack Tales: Stories by Ray Hicks as told by Lynn Salsi illustrated by Owen Smith [C,G] A CD gives the true flavor; a text homogenizes the tales in decent fashion.
• The Granny Curse by Randy Russell and Janet Barnett [W,M,H,G]
• Mountain Ghost Stories by Randy Russell and Janet Barnett [W,M,H,G] Ghost stories that don’t fall flat.
• Ghosts of the Southern Mountains and Appalachia by Nancy Roberts (U. of South Carolina, 1989). Out of print. [G]
• Cherokee Animal Tales by George F. Scheer [C]
• North Carolina Legends by Richard Walser [C]
• The Jack Tales told by R.M. Ward and his kindred in the Beech Mountain section of Western North Carolina and by other descendants of Council Harmon (1803-1896) elsewhere in the Southern Mountains (1943, Houghton Mifflin, 2003). [G]

See also some of the entries under “Cherokee studies.”

[Gary Carden]

Please add my two books, "Mason Jars in the Flood," and "Belled Buzzards, Hucksters and Grieving Specters."
Gary Carden

[Rob Neufeld]

Gary, they're there. Look under "Folklore and Humor." Carry on!/Rob

[Gary Carden]

Okay.
I looked under folktales.
Gary

[Gary Carden]

Rob,
Is it possible to discuss notable examples of WNC folklore here? I'm thinking about stuff like Frankie Silver, T'sali, Dr. John R. Brinkley and Major Lewis Redmond. All of these are real people with a factual story, but they have become folklore topics because of all of the tales that have developed about them that have no basis in fact. We could start with Frankie Silver since a well-known WNC storyteller, Bobbie McMillan claims to be a direct descendant of Frankie and tells stories about Frankie's bizarre murder of her husband and her subsequent hanging.
Gary Carden

[Rob Neufeld]

Gary, you are such a font of ideas! And you get me going. One of the "books" with which I wanted all of WNC to engage was "WNC Folktales." It never got support because there wasn't a single book that could be used the way we all did John Ehle's "The Road" or Robert Morgan's "Boone." The allure was great because, within individual story subjects, we could combine a diversity of traditions (e.g, Br'er Rabbit). Now, you have provided a means by which to achieve the end. I am going to start a new forum category titled, "Folklore subjects," and then the specific forum, "Frankie Silver," to start with. We all can build up the sources. No one has to give away the store. Links to existing creative works of literature and scholarship will be great--and there'll be commentary. From all this, we can create a series of programs, a guide, a curriculum, whatever.

[Gary Carden]

Okay, let me " salt the mine" a bit regarding Brinkley. There are hundreds of stories about him and this kind of folklore is best served if lots of people participate. The "real" Dr. John R. Brinkley was born in Jackson County and there are quite a collection of monuments here that Brinkley erected in memory of the people he loved. If it is appropriate, we might get a few of them posted here. For those of you who do not know, he became one of the most successful hucksters/con artists in America. He built the most powerful radio station in the country, XERA in Del Rio, Texas and once operated an equally powerful station in Kansas, KFKB (Kansas First, Kansas Best). He sold patent medicine, professed to be a skilled surgeon who could "revitalize" old guys by transplanting goat glands into them and became obscenely wealthy. He loved country music, so he hired the best to play on XERA and that included the Carter Family and a large percentage of the Grand Ole Oprey. My grandfather used to listen to him and I have a childhood memory of going with my grandfather to hear him speak at Cullowhee around 1940. I'll hush now, but I would love to have some questions and additional information posted here.
Gary