While in that cave, of course, my thoughts turned to stories about the eye. I had one in mind collected by 20th century American folklorist, Richard Chase. It's an Appalachian story, "Old One-Eye", in Grandfather Tales, about an old woman stopping a robbery by accidentally describing a one-eyed robber and his two partners.
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| Richard Chase from Knox Co. P.L. calendar 6-25-2014 |
There are many Americans who keep,
unreflectively, a store of traditions which they call, not 'folklore,' but
simply the old songs, the old tales, the old ways. And those of us who preserve
this heritage are not just Southern Mountain people, nor are we only country
folk. We live in every state, and we can be found in large cities as well as
out on the lands.
There are many Americans who keep, unreflectively, a store of traditions which they call, not 'folklore,' but simply the old songs, the old tales, the old ways. And those of us who preserve this heritage are not just Southern Mountain people, nor are we only country folk. We live in every state, and we can be found in large cities as well as out on the lands.
There are many Americans who keep, unreflectively, a store of traditions which they call, not 'folklore,' but simply the old songs, the old tales, the old ways. And those of us who preserve this heritage are not just Southern Mountain people, nor are we only country folk. We live in every state, and we can be found in large cities as well as out on the lands.
There are many Americans who keep, unreflectively, a store of traditions which they call, not 'folklore,' but simply the old songs, the old tales, the old ways. And those of us who preserve this heritage are not just Southern Mountain people, nor are we only country folk. We live in every state, and we can be found in large cities as well as out on the lands.
I find that quote interesting because I was always told he vigorously defended his copyright of the many Appalachian stories and songs (listed on that calendar page) including his making the public aware of Jack Tales. These stories deserve to be kept alive in re-telling. He claimed that he was among those "who preserve this heritage" and yet such a copyright stance would keep those stories out of Public Domain.
A side note here, my own works carry a copyright notice, but will grant permission freely to use IF my authorship is acknowledged, complete with source and ways the public can reach me.
Chase knew his sources were unaware of the implications of copyright. Associate professor of English, Tina L. Hanlon, Ph.D. at Ferrum College in Virginia teaches about Appalachian literature (her website for her academic page is full of wonderful references in both Appalachian and children's literature -- including her Dragons in Children's Literature bibliography page). Not on that page is her Bibliography of Works by and about Richard Chase that she compiled. It even gives us the facts about that photo of Chase (at Ferrum College) and a link to her far bigger site, AppLit, Resources for Readers and Teachers of Appalachian Literature for Children and Young Adults. I followed her listing of Appalachian Folktales in Collections to the page where she refers to Chase's tale of "Old One-Eye"-and- Characters with One, Two, and Three Eyes and includes today's story. This came only after I had already found today's tale in that gift to Public Domain storytellers, Mary Huse Eastman's Index to Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends.
Aaron Shepard made a humorous picture book version. I love his subtitle, "A Very Grimm Fairy Tale" although it's hardly one of their grimmest. In Shepard's constant generosity, he gives a storytelling version and tells more about how he worked with the tale. He wondered if it would be too long, involved and quiet to hold young listeners, only to find they were so involved in following the twists and turns in the tale "they lose themselves completely." Look up his book, for as Deirdre Baker, in her Toronto Star review points out, “With its fairy-tale extremes of dearth and bounty, powerlessness and
power, and reversal of fortunes, this is a good choice for anyone
discussing fairy tales with kids. It makes a nice alternative to the
story of Cinderella and, for an enterprising teacher, a comparison with
the Grimm brothers’ version of the same tale would bring up telling
differences. . . . Illustrated with such comic quirkiness that it has
the ironic edge of a cartoon.”In bringing that original version collected by the Grimm Brothers for today's story, it is a less well known tale. Finding a copy from those listed in Eastman's index, I chose the 1892 version in Andrew Lang's The Green Fairy Book. Lang doesn't cite the translator, only crediting "Grimm", but includes the lovely old illustrations by H.J. Ford found in all Lang's rainbow fairy books.
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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.
There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I recommended it earlier and want to continue to do so. Have fun discovering even more stories!
1 comment:
I want to respond to this comment about Richard Chase: "I was always told he vigorously defended his copyright of the many Appalachian stories and songs." I never met Richard Chase and don't know what he might have said about this, but I do know members of his family and people who worked with him. His tales were published by Houghton Mifflin and it had much of the control over who used them. My colleague Rex Stephenson, who is in the photo with Chase that someone in Knoxville took from our web sites, got interested in Chase's Jack Tales in 1975 but then he couldn't afford to pay what the publisher would charge to dramatize the tales from the books for school audiences. So Stephenson sought out archive copies of Jack Tales that he could use.
Later Chase visited Ferrum College a couple times (as that photo and others show) to consult with Stephenson on his dramatization of Jack Tales. "Wicked John" is one of the most successful adaptations that Stephenson's Jack Tale Players performed for about 35 years. One incident I've heard many times is that Chase wanted Stephenson to dramatize "Wicked John" so Chase sat down and told him a version orally, so that Stephenson could use it without paying the publisher's fee. I told this incident to one of the nation's top folklorists at a workshop he led, and he said it was the most positive story he's ever heard about Chase. This story is important because I heard just recently from an acquaintance who talked to a storyteller friend that the impression is still around, several decades after his death, that Chase took unfair advantage of the storytellers from whom he collected the tales. Chase never became wealthy from his books and his heirs aren't rich, although his main folktale books are still in print and influential 75 years later. He did much of that collecting during and after the Depression and I know from archive research that he took gifts of food to storytellers he visited, etc. I have talked to members of the Hicks-Harmon-Ward family in NC and to people who know them well, and essentially I've heard that they argue among themselves about this. Marshall Ward made Chase award of Jack Tales in 1935 and was glad he later published them in books so they could be more widely known.
Chase was eccentric and hard to get along with at times, and I also know storytellers who say he was the best storyteller they ever saw. Folklorists have criticized him for changing the tales and remaking Jack in his own image, but don't most storytellers and dramatists and filmmakers do that at times (as the Grimm Brothers did)? Chase did publish notes on the sources of his tales, including the storytellers' names, and he included some notes on details he made up himself. Even more recent books don't always acknowledge their sources as thoroughly. In my web site I have archive copies, reprinted with permission, of some of the same tales that Chase published, but I would never copy materials from published books without permission and I won't link to at least one web site I know of that appears to copy Chase's tales with no acknowledgement of the source or permission. Thanks for your shout out to my web sites. Rex Stephenson and I are talking about the tales discussed in this blog post because I ran across it just recently.
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