Most of Richard Dorson's thirty years as folklorist have been spent collecting tales and legends in the remote backcountry, far from the centers of population. For this book he extended his search for folk traditions to one of the most heavily industrialized sections of the United States. Can folklore be found, he wondered, in the Calumet Region of northwest Indiana? Does it exist among the steelworkers, ethnic groups, and blacks in Gary, Whiting, East Chicago, and Hammond? In his usual entertaining style, Dorson shows that a rich and varied folklore exists in the Region. Although it differs from that of rural people, it is equally vital. Much of this urban lore finds expression in conversational anecdotes and stories that deal with pressing issues: the flight from the inner city, crime in the streets, working conditions in the steel mills, the maintenance of ethnic identity, the place of blacks in a predominantly white society. The folklore reveals strongly held attitudes such as the loathing of industrial work, resistance to assimilation, and black adoption of middle-class-white values. Miliworkers and mill executives, housewives, ethnic performers, storekeepers, and preachers tell their stories about the Region. The concerns that occupy them affect city dwellers throughout the United States. Land of the Millrats, though it depicts a special place, speaks for much of America.
The word "folklore" was coined in 1846 by an English antiquary, William John Thoms, although Professor Dorson's intellectual history of the folklore movement shows that the study of folklore had its origins in an earlier period. Educated men and women in many fields, especially in Victorian times, succumbed to the fascination of noting curious tales and odd rituals both at home and abroad. The British Folklorists describes how the influence of folklore extended into many fields such as literature, history, the classics, archaeology, philology, psychical research, legal and medical antiquities, Scandinavian, Germanic, and Celtic studies, and the history of religions. Interest in the collection of folklore was carried to the far corners of the British Empire by colonial administrators, missionaries, and military officers, who found that a knowledge of local folklore helped them understand the strangers they lived among. Professor Dorson traces the historical development of folklore as a field of learning, beginning with sixteenth-century antiquarians whose studies encompassed the preservation of local customs and reaching its climax with the "Great Team" of Andrew Lang and his co-workers from the 1870's to the First World War.
Remote and rugged, Michigan's Upper Peninsula (fondly known as "the U.P.") has been home to a rich variety of indigenous peoples and Old World immigrants--a heritage deeply embedded in today's "Yooper" culture. Ojibwes, French Canadians, Finns, Cornish, Poles, Italians, Slovenians, and others have all lived here, attracted to the area by its timber, mineral ore, and fishing grounds. Mixing local happenings with supernatural tales and creatively adapting traditional stories to suit changing audiences, the diverse inhabitants of the U.P. have created a wealth of lore populated with tricksters, outlaws, cunning trappers and poachers, eccentric bosses of the mines and lumber camps, "bloodstoppers" gifted with the lifesaving power to stop the flow of blood, "bearwalkers" able to assume the shape of bears, and more. For folklorist Richard M. Dorson, who ventured into the region in the late 1940s, the U.P. was a living laboratory, a storyteller's paradise. Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers, based on his extensive fieldwork in the area, is his richest and most enduring work. This new edition, with a critical introduction and an appendix of additional tales selected by James P. Leary, restores and expands Dorson's classic contribution to American folklore. Engaging and well informed, the book presents and ponders the folk narratives of the region's loggers, miners, lake sailors, trappers, and townsfolk. Unfolding the variously peculiar and raucous tales of the U.P., Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers reveals a vital component of Upper Midwest culture and a fascinating cross-section of American society.
Delightfully illustrated, this collection of Japanese myths and fairy tales presents readers with a rich folk tradition. Folk Legends of Japan contains of over one hundred Japanese folk legends. These have been selected by a distinguished American folklorist, drawn from expert Japanese transcriptions of oral legends, and carefully translated in such a way as to bring out the charming, unadorned, and sometimes disarmingly frank folk quality of the originals. Each legend is carefully annotated for the student, scholar, and a full bibliography is provided. Fortunately, the scholarly attributes of the book are now allowed to intrude between the general reader and his enjoyment of the legends themselves. Anyone who loves a genuine old wives' tales, who savors firelit evenings of listening to the folk stories will find much pleasure in these Japanese stories. At the same time the folklorist will find a mine of information, and the Japanophile will discover the folk basis for many of the beliefs and customs that may have puzzled him in the past.
Here, grounded firmly in American history, is a skilled folklorist's survey of the entire field of America's folklore—from colonization to mass culture. Tracing the forms and content of American folklore, Mr. Dorson reveals the richness, pathos, and humor of genuine folklore, which he distinguishes from the "fakelore" of popularizers and chauvinists. At the same time, however, he shows what the creation of spurious folklore (the Paul Bunyan legends, for instance) discloses about our national character. Based upon authentic field collections and research, the examples cited include folkways, jests, boasts, tall tales, ballads, folk and legendary heroes. "His volume enlarges our understanding of the American past and present through an empirical survey of the extant folk traditions and it also provides us with the means for appreciating what is valuable in these folk traditions."—Virginia Quarterly Review
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