Janvier - Legend of the Obedient Nun - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Last week I took this site to the old streets of Mexico City for both a look at Hispanic Heritage month (this year the theme wanted a focus upon Hispanic people) and also the spookiness of October. Thomas A. Janvier's Legends of the City of Mexico sought me out to fulfill both those requirements and so I posted the story of a priest going to a back alley to give final forgiveness to a man long dead. 

Going back to the same book, I must have been in a liturgical mood for I found an unusual tale of a nun obedient even after death. The photo is not from the book, but suits it so well that I added https://www.flickr.com/photos/20939975@N04/5119084236.  Throughout the story the word "sor" is used. It's an archaic way of saying "sister" and in telling the story I would call her Sister Teresa.

                LEGEND OF THE OBEDIENT DEAD NUN

It was after she was dead, Señor, that this nun did what she was told to do by the Mother Superior, and that is why it was a miracle. Also, it proved her goodness and her holiness—though, to be sure, there was no need for her to take the trouble to prove those matters, because everybody knew about them before she died.

My grandmother told me that this wonder happened in the convent of Santa Brígida when her mother was a little girl; therefore you will perceive, Señor, that it did not occur yesterday. In those times the convent of Santa Brígida was most flourishing—being big, and full of nuns, and with more money than was needed for the keeping of it and for the great giving of charity that there was at its doors. And now, as you know, Señor, there is no convent at all and only the church remains. However, it was in the church that the miracle happened, and it is in the choir that Sor Teresa's bones lie buried in the coffin that was too short for her—and so it is clear that this story is true.

The way of it all, Señor, was this: The Señorita Teresa Ysabel de Villavicencio—so she was called in the world, and in religion she still kept her christened name—was the daughter of a very rich hacendado of Vera Cruz. She was very tall—it was her tallness that made the whole trouble—and she also was very beautiful; and she went to Santa Brígida and took the vows there because of an undeceiving in love. The young gentleman whom she came to know was unworthy of her was the Señor Carraza, and he was the Librarian to the Doctors in the Royal and Pontifical University—which should have made him a good man. What he did that was not good, Señor, I do not know. But it was something that sent Sor Teresa in a hurry into the convent: and when she got there she was so devout and so well-behaved that the Mother Superior held her up to all the other nuns for a pattern—and especially for her humility and her obedience. Whatever she was told to do, she did; and that without one single word.

Well, Señor, it happened that the convent was making ready, on a day, for the great festival of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe; and in the midst of all the whirring and buzzing Sor Teresa said suddenly—and everybody was amazed and wonder-struck when she said it—that though she was helping to make ready for that festival she would not live to take part in it, because the very last of her hours on earth was almost come. And a little later—lying on her hard wooden bed and wearing beneath her habit the wired shirt of a penitent, with all the community sorrowing around her—Sor Teresa died just as she said she would die: without there being anything the matter with her at all!

Because of the festival that was coming, it was necessary that she should be buried that very night. Therefore they made ready a comfortable grave for her; and they sent to the carpenter for a coffin for her, and the coffin came. And it was then, Señor, that the trouble began. Perhaps, because she was so very tall a lady, the carpenter thought that the measure had not been taken properly. Perhaps, being all so flurried, they really had got the measure wrong. Anyhow, whatever may have set the matter crooked, Sor Teresa would not go into her coffin: and as night was near, and there was no time to make another one, they all of them were at their very wits' end to know what to do. So there they all stood, looking at Sor Teresa; and there Sor Teresa lay, with her holy feet sticking straight out far beyond the end of the coffin; and night was coming in a hurry; and next day would be the festival—and nobody could see how the matter was going to end!

Then a wise old nun came to the Mother Superior and whispered to her: telling her that as in life Sor Teresa had been above all else perfect in obedience, so, probably, would she be perfect in obedience even in death; and advising that a command should be put upon her to fit into her coffin then and there. And the old nun said, what was quite true and reasonable, that even if Sor Teresa did not do what she was told to do, no harm could come of it—as but little time would be lost in making trial with her, and the case would be the same after their failure as it was before. Therefore the Mother Superior agreed to try what that wise old nun advised. And so, Señor—all the community standing round about, and the candle of Nuestro Amo being lighted—the Mother Superior said in a grave voice slowly: "Daughter, as in life thou gavest us always an example of humility and obedience, now I order and command thee, by thy vow of obedience, to retire decorously within thy coffin: that so we may bury thee, and that thou mayest rest in peace!"

And then, Señor, before the eyes of all of them, Sor Teresa slowly began to shrink shorter—to the very letter of the Mother Superior's order and command! Slowly her holy feet drew in from beyond the end of the coffin; and then they drew to the very edge of it; and then they drew over the edge of it; and then they fell down briskly upon the bottom of it with a sanctified and most pious little bang. And so there she was, shrunk just as short as she had been ordered to shrink, fitting into her coffin as cozily as you please! Then they buried her, as I have told you, Señor, in the comfortable grave in the choir that was waiting for her—and there her blessed shrunken bones are lying now.

***

I guess you could call her Too-Tall Sister Teresa! Certainly not your average burial. Imagine the many stories laying in your local cemetery. It's the City of the Dead just waiting for you to tell about it before you join the residents.

************************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:        

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for December 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories

Janvier - Legend of the Callejón del Padre Lecuona - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

September 15 through October 15, 2024 is National Hispanic Heritage Month with this year's theme being “Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together.” The intent of that theme is to " highlight the trailblazers who have led the way for future generations through their innovation, leadership, and unwavering dedication to progress in various fields, including education, science, business, the arts, and social justice."

It's interesting the way the month is split between September and October. This Saturday is the last chance this month for a tale to fit and then it leads into October. October, of course, is a time filled with spooky tales, so the stories I found in Thomas A. Janvier's Legends of the City of Mexico seem to have sought me out. I have books with Hispanic stories, but they don't focus on "Pioneers of Change." Prowling Project Gutenberg I found only this 1910 book mentioning specific people in stories. The book tends to name the stories for places in Mexico City...but all the stories are a ghostly guide to the city. I guess, since next week begins October, it's reasonable to give this week and the next two stories in the spooky category.

The title for today's story tells it happens on a "Callejón." Calle is Spanish for street and Callejón means an alley. The other word that pops up repeatedly is "shrive" meaning a priest listens to someone's confession about what they have done wrong, and offers forgiveness. The number 7 at the end of the title is because the author gives further notes. I'll add them on at the end. The photo is one of six by Walter Appleton Clark in the book, plus the author adds a few showing the actual places.

LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA[7]

Who Padre Lecuona was, Señor, and what he did or had done to him in this street that caused his name to be given to it, I do not know. The Padre about whom I now am telling you, who had this strange thing happen to him in this street, was named Lanza; but he was called by everybody Lanchitas—according to our custom of giving such endearing diminutives to the names of those whom we love. He deserved to be loved, this excellent Padre Lanchitas: because he himself loved everybody, and freely gave to all in sickness or in trouble his loving aid. Confessing to him was a pleasure; and his absolution was worth having, because it was given always with the approval of the good God. My own grandfather knew him well, Señor, having known a man who had seen him when he was a boy. Therefore this strange story about him is true.

On a night—and it was a desponding night, because rain was falling and there was a chill wind—Padre Lanchitas was hurrying to the house of a friend of his, where every week he and three other gentlemen of a Friday evening played malilla together. It is a very serious game, Señor, and to play it well requires a large mind. He was late, and that was why he was hurrying.

When he was nearly come to the house of his friend—and glad to get there because of the rain and the cold—he was stopped by an old woman plucking at his wet cloak and speaking to him. And the old woman begged him for God's mercy to come quickly and confess a dying man. Now that is a call, Señor, that a priest may not refuse; but because his not joining them would inconvenience his friends, who could not play at their game of malilla without him, he asked the woman why she did not go to the parish priest of the parish in which the dying man was. And the woman answered him that only to him would the dying man confess; and she begged him again for God's mercy to hurry with her, or the confession would not be made in time—and then the sin of his refusal would be heavy on his own soul when he himself came to die.

So, then, the Padre went with her, walking behind her along the cold dark streets in the mud with the rain falling; and at last she brought him to the eastern end of this street that is called the Callejón del Padre Lecuona, and to the long old house there that faces toward the church of El Carmen and has a hump in the middle on the top of its front wall. It is a very old house, Señor. It was built in the time when we had Viceroys, instead of the President Porfírio; and it has no windows—only a great door for the entering of carriages at one end of it, and a small door in the middle of it, and another small door at the other end. A person who sells charcoal, Señor, lives there now.

It was to the middle door that the woman brought Padre Lanchitas. The door was not fastened, and at a touch she pushed it open and in they went together—and the first thing that the Padre noticed when he was come through the doorway was a very bad smell. It was the sort of smell, Señor, that is found in very old houses of which all the doors and windows have been shut fast for a very long time. But the Padre had matters more important than bad smells to attend to, and all that he did about it was to hold his handkerchief close to his nose. One little poor candle, stuck on a nail in a board, was set in a far corner; and in another corner was a man lying on a mat spread upon the earth floor; and there was nothing else whatever—excepting cobwebs everywhere, and the bad smell, and the old woman, and the Padre himself—in that room.

That he might see him whom he was to confess, Padre Lanchitas took the candle in his hand and went to the man on the mat and pulled aside the ragged and dirty old blanket that covered him; and then he started back with a very cold qualm in his stomach, saying to the woman: "This man already is dead! He cannot confess! And he has the look of having been dead for a very long while!" And that was true, Señor—for what he saw was a dry and bony head, with yellow skin drawn tight over it, having shut eyes deep sunken. Also, the two hands which rested crossed upon the man's breast were no more than the same dry yellow skin shrunk close over shrunken bones! And, seeing such a bad strange sight, the Padre was uneasy and alarmed.

But the woman said back to him with assurance, yet also coaxingly: "This man is going to confess, Padrecito"—and, so speaking, she fetched from its far corner the board with the nail in it, and took the candle from him and set it fast again upon the nail. And then the man himself, in the light and in the shadow, sat up on the mat and began to recite in a voice that had a rusty note in it the Confiteor Deo—and after that, of course, there was nothing for the Padre to do but to listen to him till the end.

EL CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECVONA

What he told, Señor, being told under the seal of confession, of course remained always a secret. But it was known, later, that he spoke of matters which had happened a good two hundred years back—as the Padre knew because he was a great reader of books of history; and that he put himself into the very middle of those matters and made the terrible crime that he had committed a part of them; and that he ended by telling that in that ancient time he had been killed in a brawl suddenly, and so had died unconfessed and unshriven, and that ever since his soul had blistered in hell.

Hearing such wild talk from him, the Padre was well satisfied that the poor man's wits were wandering in his fever—as happens with many, Señor, in their dying time—and so bade him lie quietly and rest himself; and promised that he would come to him and hear his confession later on.

But the man cried out very urgently that that must not be: declaring that by God's mercy he had been given one single chance to come back again out of Eternity to confess his sins and to be shriven of them; and that unless the Padre did hearken then and there to the confession of his sins, and did shrive him of them, this one chance that God's mercy had given him would be lost and wasted—and back he would go forever to the hot torments of hell.

Therefore the Padre—being sure, by that time, that the man was quite crazy in his fever—let him talk on till he had told the whole story of his frightful sinnings; and then did shrive him, to quiet him—just as you promise the moon to a sick, fretful child. And the devil must have been very uneasy that night, Señor, because the good nature of that kind-hearted priest lost to him what by rights was his own!

As Padre Lanchitas spoke the last words of the absolution, the man fell back again on his mat with a sharp crackling sound like that of dry bones rattling; and the woman had left the room; and the candle was sputtering out its very last sparks. Therefore the Padre went out in a hurry through the still open door into the street; and no sooner had he come there than the door closed behind him sharply, as though some one on the inside had pushed against it strongly to shut it fast.

Out in the street he had expected to find the old woman waiting for him; and he looked about for her everywhere, desiring to tell her that she must send for him when the man's fever left him—that he might return and hear from the man a real confession, and really shrive him of his sins. But the old woman was quite gone. Thinking that she must have slipped past him in the darkness into the house, he knocked at the door lightly, and then loudly; but no answer came to his knocking—and when he tried to push the door open, using all his strength, it held fast against his pushing as firmly as though it had been a part of the stone wall.

So the Padre, having no liking for standing there in the cold and rain uselessly, hurried onward to his friend's house—and was glad to get into the room where his friends were waiting for him, and where plenty of candles were burning, and where it was dry and warm.

He had walked so fast that his forehead was wet with sweat when he took his hat off, and to dry it he put his hand into his pocket for his handkerchief; but his handkerchief was not in his pocket—and then he knew that he must have dropped it in the house where the dying man lay. It was not just a common handkerchief, Señor, but one very finely embroidered—having the letters standing for his name worked upon it, with a wreath around them—that had been made for him by a nun of his acquaintance in a convent of which he was the almoner; and so, as he did not at all like to lose it, he sent his friend's servant to that old house to get it back again. After a good long while, the servant returned: telling that the house was shut fast, and that one of the watch—seeing him knocking at the door of it—had told him that to knock there was only to wear out his knuckles, because no one had lived in that house for years and years!

All of this, as well as all that had gone before it, was so strange and so full of mystery, that Padre Lanchitas then told to his three friends some part of what that evening had happened to him; and it chanced that one of the three was the notary who had in charge the estate of which that very house was a part. And the notary gave Padre Lanchitas his true word for it that the house—because of some entangling law matters—had stood locked fast and empty for as much as a lifetime; and he declared that Padre Lanchitas must be mixing that house with some other house—which would be easy, since all that had happened had been in the rainy dark. But the Padre, on his side, was sure that he had made no mistake in the matter; and they both got a little warm in their talk over it; and they ended by agreeing—so that they might come to a sure settlement—to meet at that old house, and the notary to bring with him the key of it, on the morning of the following day.

So they did meet there, Señor, and they went to the middle door—the one that had opened at a touch from the old woman's hand. But all around that door, as the notary bade Padre Lanchitas observe before they opened it, were unbroken cobwebs; and the keyhole was choked with the dust that had blown into it, little by little, in the years that had passed since it had known a key. And the other two doors of the house were just the same. However, Padre Lanchitas would not admit, even with that proof against him, that he was mistaken; and the notary, smiling at him but willing to satisfy him, picked out the dust from the keyhole and got the key into it and forced back hardly the rusty bolt of the lock—and together they went inside.

Coming from the bright sunshine into that dusky place—lighted only from the doorway, and the door but part way open because it was loose on its old hinges and stuck fast—they could see at first nothing more than that the room was empty and bare. What they did find, though—and the Padre well remembered it—was the bad smell. But the notary said that just such bad smells were in all old shut-up houses, and it proved nothing; while the cobwebs and the closed keyhole did prove most certainly that Padre Lanchitas had not entered that house the night before—and that nobody had entered it for years and years. To what the notary said there was nothing to be answered; and the Padre—not satisfied, but forced to give in to such strong proof that he was mistaken—was about to come away out of the house, and so have done with it. But just then, Señor, he made a very wonderful and horrifying discovery. By that time his eyes had grown accustomed to the shadows; and so he saw over in one corner—lying on the floor close beside where the man had lain whose confession he had taken—a glint of something whitish. And, Señor, it was his very own handkerchief that he had lost!

That was enough to satisfy even the notary; and as nothing more was to be done there they came out, and gladly, from that bad dark place into the sunshine. As for Padre Lanchitas, Señor, he was all mazed and daunted—knowing then the terrible truth that he had confessed a dead man; and, what was worse, that he had given absolution to a sinful soul come hot to him from hell! He held his hat in his hand as he came out from the house—and never did he put it on again: bareheaded he went thenceforward until the end of his days! He was a very good man, and his life had been always a very holy life; but from that time on, till the death of him, he made it still holier by his prayings and his fastings and his endless helpings of the poorest of the poor. At last he died. And it is said, Señor, that in the walls of that old house they found dead men's bones.

***

The author promised notes on this story and it gives an alternate story:

NOTE VII

LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA

By a natural confusion of the name of the street in which the dead man was confessed with the name of the priest who heard his confession, this legend frequently is told nowadays as relating not to Padre Lanza but to Padre Lecuona. An old man whom I met in the Callejón del Padre Lecuona, when I was making search for the scene of the confession, told me the story in that way—and pointed out the house to me in all sincerity. Following that telling, I so mixed the matter myself in my first publication of the legend. Who Padre Lecuona was, or why the street was named after him, I have not discovered. Probably still another legend lurks there. Señor Riva Palacio tells the story as of an unnamed friar "whom God now holds in his glory," and assigns it to the year 1731. The motive of the story is found in Spain long before the oldest date assigned to it in Mexico. The wicked hero of Calderon's play, La devocion de la Cruz, is permitted to purge his sinful soul by confession after death. The Padre Lanza whose name has been tacked fast to the story—probably because his well-known charitable ministrations to the poor made him a likely person to yield to the old woman's importunities—was a real man who lived in the City of Mexico, greatly loved and respected, in the early years of the nineteenth century. Señor Roa Bárcena fixes the decade 1820-1830 as the date of his strange adventure with a dead body in which was a living soul.

WHERE THE DEAD MAN WAS CONFESSED

Aside from minor variants, two distinct versions of this legend are current. That which I have given in my text is the more popular. The other, less widely known, has for its scene an old house in the Calle de Olmedo—nearly a mile away from the Callejón del Padre Lecuona, and in a far more ancient quarter of the City. Concisely stated, the Calle de Olmedo version is to this effect:

Brother Mendo, a worthy and kind-hearted friar, is met of a dark night in the street by a man who begs him to come and hear a dying person confess. The friar wears the habit of his Order, and from his girdle hangs his rosary. He is led to a house near by; and finds within the house a very beautiful woman, richly clad in silks, whose arms are bound. That she is not in a dying state is obvious, and the friar asks for an explanation. For answer, the man tells him roughly: "This woman is about to die by violence. I must give her death. As you please, wash clean her sinful soul—or leave it foul!" At that, he yields, and her confession begins. It is so prolonged that the man, losing patience, ends it abruptly by thrusting forth the friar from the house. Through the closed door he hears shrieks and tries to re-enter; but the door remains closed firmly, and his knocking is unheeded. He finds that his rosary no longer is at his girdle. In order to recover it, and to allay his fears for the woman's safety, he calls a watchman to aid him by demanding in the name of the law that the door shall be opened. No response is made from within to their violent knocking; and an old woman, aroused by it, comes out from a nearby dwelling and tells them that knocking there is useless—that through all her long lifetime she has lived beside that house, and that never through all her long lifetime has that house been inhabited. The watchman—holding his lantern close to the door, and so perceiving that what she tells is verified by the caked dust that fills its crevices and that clogs its key-hole—is for abandoning their attempt to enter. The friar insists that they must enter: that his rosary is within the house; that he is determined to recover it; that the door must be forced. Yielding to him, the watchman forces the door and together they enter: to find a yellowed skeleton upon the floor; scattered around it scraps of mouldering silk; in the eye-sockets of the skull cobwebs—and lying across that yellowed skeleton is the friar's rosary! Brother Mendo covers his face with his hands, totters for a moment, and then falls dying as he exclaims in horror: "Holy God! I have confessed a soul from the other life!" And the crowd of neighbors, by that time assembled, cries out: "Brother Mendo is dead because he has confessed the dead!"

***

How factual and whether you want the story of the priest or brother is up to you in re-telling this Hispanic Heritage tale.

***************************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:        

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for December 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories

 

National Dog Week

 

The last full week in September is National Dog Week in the United States. I'm definitely a lifelong fan of dogs. Sled dogs, Huskies and Malamutes, are my favorite breeds because they are the closest to their wolf origins. I checked and found 20 posts have been made here with the label "dogs" including one from last year on March 24th when I said goodbye to "the best dog ever." Our new boy is quite the character, now six years old, but going on six months in his activity level. He came to us last year with quite a story already. He had lost his original person when the man died. I can understand why this dog proved too much for the man's widow. In fairness to our present hyperactive husky, I try to remember any problems we had with his predecessor.

Twenty posts about dogs! I was all set to give yet another story here. The only problem is I wanted something originating in Native American storytelling about the origins of dogs and their longtime friendship with people. I even found one I thought was pretty obscure, "Why the Dog Hangs Out His Tongue." DRAT! June 6, 2020 as the Covid "Shelter in Place" was coming to an end I posted that very story I planned for today.

I encourage you to go to that search label of "dogs" for lots of stories including June 6, 2020 which ends with the following picture and I repeat its concluding paragraph.

Illustration by R. Emmett Owen

 

The story, "Why the Dog Hangs Out His Tongue" ends with

When our dog is on the trail with me I sometimes wonder about him "not being able to run as fast" while alternating between trying to control him or just keep up. I also remind my husband when our dog is barking (especially if I can tell coyotes are nearby) he's just doing his job. Unfortunately for a pair of possums, that includes protecting us from them. Hmmm maybe I should hunt up some possum stories.

A storytelling conference where I once presented, the Northeast Storytelling's annual conference, Sharing the-Fire, had a wonderful session to let people unwind with Telling Pet Stories. Anybody with a pet, even if it's not a dog, has stories. I'm always happy to encourage storytelling, so if you have or had a pet, I hope you will start or continue telling stories about them. That's all I'm going to tell for now -- I need to hurry away because we've a dog leaping at our back door wanting inside!

Asbjornsen and Moe - The Husband Who Was to Mind the House - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Sunday, September 15 is Wife Appreciation Day, complete with lots of commercial suggestions like "72 Best gifts for your wife that she'll be genuinely excited about." A show of appreciation and good humor is always a good start. 

The Norwegian storytelling team of  Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe wrote Norske Folkeeventyr with plenty of good humor, which Sir George Webbe Dasent managed to keep in his Popular Tales from the Norse. Kay Nielsen took 15 of those stories and illustrated them in East of the Sun and West of the Moon; Old Tales from the North. Many stories have full color illustrations worth looking up at Project Gutenberg if you can't find a reprint.

This story only gets a black and white illustration. Before starting the story, I should explain that the wife is called a "goody" which is short for "good wife", a common way to refer to women who were wives or might just call her his wife.

THE HUSBAND WHO WAS TO MIND THE HOUSE

nce on a time there was a man, so surly and cross, he never thought his Wife did anything right in the house. So, one evening, in haymaking time, he came home, scolding and swearing, and showing his teeth and making a dust.

“Dear love, don’t be so angry; there’s a good man,” said his goody; “to-morrow let’s change our work. I’ll go out with the mowers and mow, and you shall mind the house at home.”

Yes! the Husband thought that would do very well. He was quite willing, he said.

So, early next morning, his goody took a scythe over her neck, and went out into the hayfield with the mowers, and began to mow; but the man was to mind the house, and do the work at home.

First of all, he wanted to churn the butter; but when he had churned a while, he got thirsty, and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of ale. So, just when he had knocked in the bung, and was putting the tap into the cask, he heard overhead the pig come into the kitchen.  Then off he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he could, to look after the pig, lest it should upset the churn; but when he got up, and saw the pig had already knocked the churn over, and stood there, routing and grunting amongst the cream which was running all over the floor, he got so wild with rage that he quite forgot the ale-barrel, and ran at the pig as hard as he could. He caught it, too, just as it ran out of doors, and gave it such a kick, that piggy lay for dead on the spot. Then all at once he remembered he had the tap in his hand; but when he got down to the cellar, every drop of ale had run out of the cask.

Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at dinner. When he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milking cow was still shut up in the byre, and hadn’t had a bit to eat or a drop to drink all the morning, though the sun was high. Then all at once he thought ’twas too far to take her down to the meadow, so he’d just get her up on the house top—for the house, you must know, was thatched with sods, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. Now the house lay close up against a steep down, and he thought if he laid a plank across to the thatch at the back he’d easily get the cow up.

But still he couldn’t leave the churn, for there was his little babe crawling about on the floor, and “if I leave it,” he thought, “the child is safe to upset it.” So he took the churn on his back, and went out with it; but then he thought he’d better first water the cow before he turned her out on the thatch; so he took up a bucket to draw water out of the well; but, as he stooped down at the well’s brink, all the cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders, and so down into the well.

Now it was near dinner-time, and he hadn’t even got the butter yet; so he thought he’d best boil the porridge, and filled the pot with water and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he thought the cow might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he got up on the house to tie her up. One end of the rope he made fast to the cow’s neck and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round his own thigh; and he had to make haste, for the water now began to boil in the pot, and he had still to grind the oatmeal.

So he began to grind away; but while he was hard at it, down fell the cow off the house-top after all, and as she fell, she dragged the man up the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast; and as for the cow, she hung half-way down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for she could neither get down nor up.

And now the goody had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her Husband to come and call them home to dinner; but never a call they had. At last she thought she’d waited long enough, and went home. But when she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she ran up and cut the rope in two with her scythe. But, as she did this, down came her Husband out of the chimney; and so, when his old dame came inside the kitchen, there she found him standing on his head in the porridge pot.

* * * 

Obviously few today would be churning butter or even watering cows, so maybe a new modern version of the possible chaos in role swapping is needed. I first discovered this story in the picture book,

The Man Who Kept House

with wonderful visual humor by the husband and wife team of
Kathleen and Michael Hague.

So I hope on Wife Appreciation Day or on any day you enjoy this story wherever you may find it. If you decide to re-tell it in a modern version, I'd love to hear it.

**********

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:        

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for December 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories

Hachette v. Internet Archive Petition

This week it's more important to post this than a story from Public Domain. I ask you to sign the petition. Not only is electronic preservation and access to books important, but this impacts libraries and their always strained budgets. Even authors of the publishers in this lawsuit, Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House, have supported the Internet Archive. Digital borrowing essentially is the same as libraries have always provided in their role to offer and preserve books. Libraries have paid billions for the books this lawsuit withholds from the public. It gives no new harm to either the publishers or their authors. To read background on the case, go to Hachette v. Internet Archive.

This is an update and request for you to sign the petition in support of the Internet Archive. For a copy of the petition and please be sure to read "An explanation of why it's important", go to https://www.change.org/p/let-readers-read-an-open-letter-to-the-publishers-in-hachette-v-internet-archive?signed=true

Internet Archive Responds to Appellate Opinion in Publishers Lawsuit

 

 "We are disappointed in today’s opinion about the Internet Archive’s digital lending of books that are available electronically elsewhere. We are reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue to defend the rights of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books." - Chris Freeland, Director of Library Services

Take Action Sign the open letter to publishers, asking them to restore access to the 500,000 books removed from our library: https://change.org/LetReadersRead

Received this message from a friend or colleague? Sign up to have it delivered to your inbox. You can also keep up with updates from the Internet Archive team by following us on Twitter and visiting our website. 

***

As the overview article, https://www.eff.org/cases/hachette-v-internet-archive, says: Copyright law does not prevent that lawful fair use. Indeed, it supports it.

Lang - The Death of Abu Nowas and of His Wife - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

This coming week on Saturday, September 7 I will once again tell as if I was an actual person briefly back from the dead. In this case I'm early Clarkston resident, Sarah (Sally) Jackson Merrill. I also have the privilege of being with her husband, Caleb Barton Merrill, portrayed by James Pabst. At their grave marking we bring these two together again,telling of their time in the American Revolution and eventually settling here in Michigan in its early years of statehood. Even if it's only what we can deduce from existing research, they led interesting lives! It has been surprising how much fun it has been letting them become the married couple they once were as we tell their stories. . . if Sarah lets Caleb talk uninterrupted! Sarah, commonly known as Sally, out-lived Caleb by nearly a quarter of a century, finally dying at age 94 after raising children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even three great-great grandchildren.

From Sally's Massachusetts childhood in revolutionary times, to her marriage and family-raising in New York, and finally coming to Michigan, she saw a LOT! . . . and wasn't shy about passing on what she knew.

Of course the life of Sally and Caleb had me thinking about more than I can tell next week. Thoughts of this very real couple now in what I call "the City of the Dead" led me to an unusual story of a couple claiming to be dead. It comes from Andrew Lang's Crimson Fairy Book.

The Death Of Abu Nowas And Of His Wife

Once upon a time there lived a man whose name was Abu Nowas, and he was a great favourite with the Sultan of the country, who had a palace in the same town where Abu Nowas dwelt.

One day Abu Nowas came weeping into the hall of the palace where the Sultan was sitting, and said to him: “Oh, mighty Sultan, my wife is dead.”

“That is bad news,” replied the Sultan; “I must get you another wife.” And he bade his Grand Vizir send for the Sultana.

“This poor Abu Nowas has lost his wife,” said he, when she entered the hall.

“Oh, then we must get him another,” answered the Sultana; “I have a girl that will suit him exactly,” and clapped her hands loudly. At this signal a maiden appeared and stood before her.

“I have got a husband for you,” said the Sultana.

“Who is he?” asked the girl.

“Abu Nowas, the jester,” replied the Sultana.

“I will take him,” answered the maiden; and as Abu Nowas made no objection, it was all arranged. The Sultana had the most beautiful clothes made for the bride, and the Sultan gave the bridegroom his wedding suit, and a thousand gold pieces into the bargain, and soft carpets for the house.

So Abu Nowas took his wife home, and for some time they were very happy, and spent the money freely which the Sultan had given them, never thinking what they should do for more when that was gone. But come to an end it did, and they had to sell their fine things one by one, till at length nothing was left but a cloak apiece, and one blanket to cover them. “We have run through our fortune,” said Abu Nowas, “what are we to do now? I am afraid to go back to the Sultan, for he will command his servants to turn me from the door. But you shall return to your mistress, and throw yourself at her feet and weep, and perhaps she will help us.”

“Oh, you had much better go,” said the wife. “I shall not know what to say.”

“Well, then, stay at home, if you like,” answered Abu Nowas, “and I will ask to be admitted to the Sultan’s presence, and will tell him, with sobs, that my wife is dead, and that I have no money for her burial. When he hears that perhaps he will give us something.”

“Yes, that is a good plan,” said the wife; and Abu Nowas set out.

The Sultan was sitting in the hall of justice when Abu Nowas entered, his eyes streaming with tears, for he had rubbed some pepper into them. They smarted dreadfully, and he could hardly see to walk straight, and everyone wondered what was the matter with him.

“Abu Nowas! What has happened?” cried the Sultan.

“Oh, noble Sultan, my wife is dead,” wept he.

“We must all die,” answered the Sultan; but this was not the reply for which Abu Nowas had hoped.

“True, O Sultan, but I have neither shroud to wrap her in, nor money to bury her with,” went on Abu Nowas, in no wise abashed by the way the Sultan had received his news.

“Well, give him a hundred pieces of gold,” said the Sultan, turning to the Grand Vizir. And when the money was counted out Abu Nowas bowed low, and left the hall, his tears still flowing, but with joy in his heart.

“Have you got anything?” cried his wife, who was waiting for him anxiously.

“Yes, a hundred gold pieces,” said he, throwing down the bag, “but that will not last us any time. Now you must go to the Sultana, clothed in sackcloth and robes of mourning, and tell her that your husband, Abu Nowas, is dead, and you have no money for his burial. When she hears that, she will be sure to ask you what has become of the money and the fine clothes she gave us on our marriage, and you will answer, ‘before he died he sold everything.’”

The wife did as she was told, and wrapping herself in sackcloth went up to the Sultana’s own palace, and as she was known to have been one of Subida’s favourite attendants, she was taken without difficulty into the private apartments.

“What is the matter?” inquired the Sultana, at the sight of the dismal figure.

“My husband lies dead at home, and he has spent all our money, and sold everything, and I have nothing left to bury him with,” sobbed the wife.

Then Subida took up a purse containing two hundred gold pieces, and said: “Your husband served us long and faithfully. You must see that he has a fine funeral.”

The wife took the money, and, kissing the feet of the Sultana, she joyfully hastened home. They spent some happy hours planning how they should spend it, and thinking how clever they had been. “When the Sultan goes this evening to Subida’s palace,” said Abu Nowas, “she will be sure to tell him that Abu Nowas is dead. ‘Not Abu Nowas, it is his wife,’ he will reply, and they will quarrel over it, and all the time we shall be sitting here enjoying ourselves. Oh, if they only knew, how angry they would be!”

As Abu Nowas had foreseen, the Sultan went, in the evening after his business was over, to pay his usual visit to the Sultana.

“Poor Abu Nowas is dead!” said Subida when he entered the room.

“It is not Abu Nowas, but his wife who is dead,” answered the Sultan.

“No; really you are quite wrong. She came to tell me herself only a couple of hours ago,” replied Subida, “and as he had spent all their money, I gave her something to bury him with.”

“You must be dreaming,” exclaimed the Sultan. “Soon after midday Abu Nowas came into the hall, his eyes streaming with tears, and when I asked him the reason he answered that his wife was dead, and they had sold everything they had, and he had nothing left, not so much as would buy her a shroud, far less for her burial.”

For a long time they talked, and neither would listen to the other, till the Sultan sent for the door-keeper and bade him go instantly to the house of Abu Nowas and see if it was the man or his wife who was dead. But Abu Nowas happened to be sitting with his wife behind the latticed window, which looked on the street, and he saw the man coming, and sprang up at once. “There is the Sultan’s door-keeper! They have sent him here to find out the truth. Quick! throw yourself on the bed and pretend that you are dead.” And in a moment the wife was stretched out stiffly, with a linen sheet spread across her, like a corpse.

She was only just in time, for the sheet was hardly drawn across her when the door opened and the porter came in. “Has anything happened?” asked he.

“My poor wife is dead,” replied Abu Nowas. “Look! she is laid out here.” And the porter approached the bed, which was in a corner of the room, and saw the stiff form lying underneath.

“We must all die,” said he, and went back to the Sultan.

“Well, have you found out which of them is dead?” asked the Sultan.

“Yes, noble Sultan; it is the wife,” replied the porter.

“He only says that to please you,” cried Subida in a rage; and calling to her chamberlain, she ordered him to go at once to the dwelling of Abu Nowas and see which of the two was dead. “And be sure you tell the truth about it,” added she, “or it will be the worse for you.”

As her chamberlain drew near the house, Abu Nowas caught sight of him. “There is the Sultana’s chamberlain,” he exclaimed in a fright. “Now it is my turn to die. Be quick and spread the sheet over me.” And he laid himself on the bed, and held his breath when the chamberlain came in. “What are you weeping for?” asked the man, finding the wife in tears.

“My husband is dead,” answered she, pointing to the bed; and the chamberlain drew back the sheet and beheld Abu Nowas lying stiff and motionless. Then he gently replaced the sheet and returned to the palace.

“Well, have you found out this time?” asked the Sultan.

“My lord, it is the husband who is dead.”

“But I tell you he was with me only a few hours ago,” cried the Sultan angrily. “I must get to the bottom of this before I sleep! Let my golden coach be brought round at once.”

The coach was before the door in another five minutes, and the Sultan and Sultana both got in. Abu Nowas had ceased being a dead man, and was looking into the street when he saw the coach coming. “Quick! quick!” he called to his wife. “The Sultan will be here directly, and we must both be dead to receive him.” So they laid themselves down, and spread the sheet over them, and held their breath. At that instant the Sultan entered, followed by the Sultana and the chamberlain, and he went up to the bed and found the corpses stiff and motionless. “I would give a thousand gold pieces to anyone who would tell me the truth about this,” cried he, and at the words Abu Nowas sat up. “Give them to me, then,” said he, holding out his hand. “You cannot give them to anyone who needs them more.”

“Oh, Abu Nowas, you impudent dog!” exclaimed the Sultan, bursting into a laugh, in which the Sultana joined. “I might have known it was one of your tricks!” But he sent Abu Nowas the gold he had promised, and let us hope that it did not fly so fast as the last had done.

[From Tunische Mährchen.]

*******

Well they did say Abu Nowas was a jester. He may not have been good with money, but he certainly was quick-witted.

The Merrills had their ups and downs, both during the American Revolution and beyond, but I'm willing to bet this story would have amused them!

If you're able to come, I think you'll find they, too, led interesting lives.

******************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:        

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for December 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories