Tell me if you have a topic you'd like to see. (Contact: LoiS-sez@LoiS-sez.com .)
Please also let others know about this site.

Friday, December 29, 2023

New Year's Eve is Waltz Day!

I love to tell stories that dance.  
 
When the Detroit Institute of Arts had a special Degas exhibit I gathered quite a few and told them there.
 
The Cherokee have two very similar stories where dance is used to escape hungry wolves.  Stories have a way of traveling and changing slightly.  I like the Rabbit version, but you may prefer the Groundhog version.  You can find it, along with this story on Project Gutenberg's sharing of James Mooney's Myths of the Cherokee.  After the story I want to share a bit more that fits both this and the Groundhog version.

THE RABBIT ESCAPES FROM THE WOLVES

Some Wolves once caught the Rabbit and were going to eat him when he asked leave to show them a new dance he was practicing. They knew that the Rabbit was a great song leader, and they wanted to learn the latest dance, so they agreed and made a ring about him while he got ready. He patted his feet and began to dance around in a circle, singing:

Tlâge′sitûñ′ găli′sgi′sidâ′hă—

Ha′nia lĭl! lĭl! Ha′nia lĭl! lĭl!

On the edge of the field I dance about—

Ha′nia lĭl! lĭl! Ha′nia lĭl! lĭl!

“Now,” said the Rabbit, “when I sing ‘on the edge of the field,’ I dance that way”—and he danced over in that direction—“and when I sing ‘lĭl! lĭl!’ you must all stamp your feet hard.” The Wolves thought it fine. He began another round singing the same song, and danced a little nearer to the field, while the Wolves all stamped their feet. He sang louder and louder and danced nearer and nearer to the field until at the fourth song, when the Wolves were stamping as hard as they could and thinking only of the song, he made one jump and was off through the long grass. They were after him at once, but he ran for a hollow stump and climbed up on the inside. When the the Wolves got there one of them put his head inside to look up, but the Rabbit spit into his eye, so that he had to pull his head out again. The others were afraid to try, and they went away, with the Rabbit still in the stump.

***

I mentioned the Groundhog version, which comes a few pages later in Mooney's book.  Margaret Read MacDonald in her excellent Twenty Tellable Tales uses the "Groundhog Dance.  I recommend looking up what she says afterwards.  Her "Notes on Telling" are definitely worth reading.  Beyond that her folklore-related "Comparative Notes" talks about this fitting the Thompson Motif K606 and says variants can be found in Africa, India, Indonesia, plus similar ones in Iceland and Ireland where the watchmen are sung to sleep.  

Stay up late to dance the New Year in, but maybe look up those other versions if all that dancing leaves you too wound up to sleep.  Any way you work it, may stories be with you now and in the New Year.

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

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

         - 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.

       - 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

Friday, December 22, 2023

Marzials - Holly - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I have a new resource I am delighted to find and share:  https://www.venetiajane.co.uk/  (and https://twitter.com/VenetiaJane where I first found her and today's illustration.)  Like VenetiaJane, it will always be Twitter to me.  X can mean too many things and is so impersonal.  She shares the wonders of flowers and nature, gardening, plant history, folklore, art, and poetry accompanied by her photography.  Her photographs are available on note cards,Christmas cards, prints and calendars.  That photography also supports  a few related charities in the United Kingdom. 

Her December 1 "tweet" about holly had this photograph which almost looks like a painting.

Going to her website for the Holly notecard, be sure to scroll down to the "Floral Notes."  It will give you additional folklore and yet another legend about this plant seen at this time of year.

Today's story comes from yet another of the Skinner sisters' books of seasonal stories with a jewel name, The Pearl Story Book; Stories and Legends of Winter, Christmas, and New Year's Day.  There are two stories of "Holly."  This is the second, found in the section of "Christmas Everywhere." The earlier one by Janet Harvey Kelman in the "Winter Woods" section is more factual, but this blog is all about the stories. It's a story not only about Christmas, but also about peace and war and is most appropriate this year.

HOLLY

Ada M. Marzials

Highty-tighty, Paradighty, Clothèd all in green. The King could not read it No more could the Queen. They sent for a Wise Man out of the East, Who said it had horns but was not a beast. (Old Riddle.)

There was once upon a time a very war-like kingdom where they had never heard of Christmas. The men spent all their days fighting, and the women spent their days in urging the warriors to further deeds of valour.

This had gone on for a very long time, and no one had ever yet said that he was tired of it. There was but one person in the whole kingdom who had openly declared that war was hateful, but as she was only the Youngest Princess nobody paid any heed to her.

Then came a time, just before our Christmas Day, when the King was preparing a great campaign against a far-off country. He called together his Council of War—grave old warriors, dressed completely in armour.

“My friends,” said he, “we are about to wage war on the distant kingdoms of Zowega. Up till this time the people of that country have been our very good friends, but as we have now conquered all our enemies, there seems no one but our friends left to fight, and of these the King of the Zowegians is chief.

“You will remember that his youngest son, Prince Moldo, spent some of his boyhood at our court in order to gain instruction in feats of arms, and that the Prince left us to travel over the world. A few months ago his father sent word to me that the Prince had returned home, bringing with him the news of a Pearl of Great Price, which contained the Secret of Happiness. It is this Pearl which I have made the excuse for war, for I have demanded it in payment for the services that we rendered to Prince Moldo. In my message I have said that if the Pearl, and the Secret which it contains, are not brought and revealed to us here within the next five days, our troops will descend upon the kingdom of Zowega and wipe it off the face of the earth.”

Loud and long cheered the Council at the speech of their King, as, indeed, was their duty, though in their hearts of hearts they had no wish to fight against the King of the Zowegians, who was their very good friend. The Queen and the Princesses smiled graciously upon them, all save the Youngest Princess, who had been Prince Moldo’s playfellow. She disgraced herself by bursting into passionate tears, and was forthwith ordered out of the Council Hall.

At the end of five days the Council once more assembled to await the arrival of the messenger with the answer from the King of Zowega.

The day was bright and cold, and there was snow on the ground. The King and Queen were wrapped in thick fur cloaks. The Princesses were all assembled, too, even the Youngest, who was dressed in ermine and looked as pale as death.

It was Christmas Eve, but there were no Christmas trees preparing and no presents. No one was thinking of hanging his stockings up. The Hall was not decorated, neither were the churches; indeed, there were no churches to decorate, for, as you remember, the people in this kingdom knew nothing about Christmas.

The Council sat and waited in the big bare Hall.

At last the great doors were flung open, there was a blast of trumpets, and the messenger appeared.

He was tall and fair, and held himself proudly. His eyes were bright and shining and there was a smile upon his face. He was completely dressed in bright green and the Council noted with astonishment that he was without armour of any kind. He wore neither breastplate, shield nor helmet; he had neither sword by his side, nor spurs on his feet. He was bare-headed, and in his right hand he carried something green, horny and prickly, with little red dots on it.

Looking neither to the right nor to the left, he walked with firm and steady step up the long Hall between the rows of armed warriors.

As he passed the Youngest Princess she blushed deeply, but he did not seem to notice her.

When he reached the throne he bowed low before the King and Queen, and laid the prickly object on the table before them.

“Your Majesty,” said he in a clear, ringing voice. “From the King of Zowega, greeting! He sends you this token. It is the symbol of the Secret of Happiness.”

The King stared, so did the Queen.

They had expected a Pearl of Great Price, accompanied by a scroll on which was written the Secret of Happiness, and the King of Zowega had sent them this!

Amid dead silence the King took the token up in his hands in order to examine it more carefully.

He dropped it hastily, for it pricked him, and little drops of blood were seen starting from his hand.

“Highty-tighty!” said he. “’Tis surely some kind of beast and a symbol of war, for it pricked me right smartly. Truly the King of Zowega deals in riddles which I for one cannot read! Take it, my dear,” added he to the Queen and pointing to the token; “perchance your quick wits may be able to understand this mystery.”

She picked up the token and examined it carefully.

It rather resembled the branch of a tree, but the leaves were thick and resisting and edged with very sharp spikes, and there was on it a cluster of round, bright red objects like tiny balls. But even as it had pricked the King so did it prick her, and she dropped it hastily into the lap of the Eldest Princess, who was sitting beside her.

“Paradighty!” exclaimed the Queen in her own language. “It is certainly a beast. See, it has horns!” and she pointed to the spikes.

“But I certainly cannot read the riddle—if riddle it be.”

Then it was passed to all the Princesses in turn, but they could not read the token any more than could the King and Queen. At last it reached the Youngest Princess, and, though it pricked her little hands sorely, she took it up tenderly and kissed it.

“’Tis a token of love,” said she.

The messenger turned his shining eyes full upon her.

“The Princess has read the riddle of the token aright,” said he, and he stepped forward as though to kiss her hand.

“Stay!” said the King imperiously springing to his feet. “A token of love, forsooth! But I sent the King of Zowega a Declaration of War! What does he mean by sending me a token of love? The Princess must certainly be mistaken—and as for you,” he continued, turning fiercely to the messenger, “you shall be marched off to prison until we have had time to consult with our Wise Men as to the real meaning of this extraordinary token.”

So there and then the messenger was marched off to spend the night in prison, and all the Wise Men in the kingdom were bidden to appear in the Council Chamber the very next day, especially one very old Wise Man from the East who was reputed to be wiser than all the others put together.

The next day, of course, was Christmas Day, but, as these people had never heard of Christmas, there were no bells ringing, no carols were sung, and there was neither holly, ivy nor mistletoe upon the walls.

Slowly and painfully the Wise Men began to arrive.

They were all dressed alike, in black flowing robes, and on their heads they wore long pointed black caps covered with weird devices.

The very old Wise Man from the East wore a red pointed cap, but in all other respects was dressed just like the others.

They assembled round a large circular table at one end of the Hall. In the middle of the table was placed the token.

At the other end of the Hall were gathered the warriors, and above them on a double throne sat the King and Queen with the Princesses grouped on either side of the dais.

The Wise Men examined the token in silence.

“’Tis a curious beast,” said one of them at last.

“Of a new and quite unheard-of species,” said another.

“It has neither legs nor tail,” said a third.

“Yet it has a number of globular red eyes,” said a fourth.

“And it certainly has horns,” said a fifth.

And so said they all, until it came to the turn of the very old Wise Man from the East.

He looked long at the token.

“It has horns,” said he at last, “but it is not a beast.”

“Not a beast!” said they, one to the other.

“But what is it then?”

“It is a token of love,” said he.

“Highty-tighty,” interrupted the King. “Read us then the full meaning of the token.”

“I cannot,” said the very old Wise Man; “but let the youth be brought hither who carried it. He will be able to explain it more fully than I.”

“Paradighty!” said the Queen in her own language. “Why did we not think of that before! Fetch him back again at once!”

So two of the warriors fetched the youth from prison, and he was soon standing before the Assembly, with his head held as high and his eyes as bright and shining as before.

“Read us the token!” commanded the King.

The youth bowed low. “The Princess read it aright yesterday. It is a token of love.”

“Explain yourself!” said the King. “How can a beast with horns be a token of love?”

The youth drew himself up to his full height.

“It is not a beast,” said he. “It is the branch of a holly-tree. On this day of the year, which in my country we call Christmas Day, our people decorate their houses with branches of this holly or holy tree as a token of love and peace and good-will. This is the message that I have brought to you—a message that we in our country know very well, but which you have never heard before.”

The King and the Warriors, the Wise Men, the Queen and Princesses all listened to his words in silence.

When he had ended there was a long pause.

“And in what particular way does your message affect us?” said the King at last.

“Thus, your Majesty,” answered the youth, approaching the Youngest Princess and taking both her hands in his, “on this day I, Prince Moldo, would have peace and good-will between my kingdom and your kingdom; and I would seal it for ever by taking the Youngest Princess home with me as my bride. You, O King, recognized me not, for I have much changed since I lived here with her for playfellow, but in all my wanderings I found a Pearl of no greater price than this, and I would proclaim to all the world that the Secret of Happiness is Love.”

So on that very Christmas Day they were married, amid great rejoicings, and war ceased throughout the kingdom. And on every Christmas Day for ever after, the people of that country decorated their houses with holly, the symbol of love and peace and good-will, and wished each other a Merry Christmas, even as I do now to you.

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

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

         - 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.

       - 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

 

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Hachette v. Internet Archive

This site relies upon resources like Project Gutenberg which scans and posts books that are out of copyright and the Internet Archive which includes ebooks and the Wayback Machine.

I suggest we all support these resources, including the Internet Archive's battle for libraries to own and preserve ebooks.

I join the Internet Archive, with is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more in their legal fight against the publishing giants in  Hachette v. Internet Archive, reaffirming their commitment to preserving knowledge for future generations. 

 

Please spread the word and say online: Hey #Hachette, #HarperCollins, #PenguinRandomHouse & #Wiley: Instead of suing libraries like #InternetArchive, just sell them ebooks they can own & preserve for the public. #SellDontSue

Friday, December 15, 2023

Eggleston - Washington's Christmas Gift - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Saturday, December 16 marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  Of course there is plenty being written about it.  Just search: Boston tea party 250th anniversary.  Since that was the opening salvo in the American Revolution, I wondered what that meant for battle commander, George Washington, at Christmas.  Valley Forge came to mind, but that was later.  In 1776 it was all about the Battle of Trenton.  Much has been written about it, but that Wikipedia link gives the basic facts.

Searching my books I found a dirty, worn little textbook from 1895, Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston.  It was discarded from Pulaski School in Hamtramck Public Schools and has the name of Dianne Miller written on the inside front cover.  She's long gone, but this story was part of her upbringing and deserves being brought to her descendants and the rest of us today.

Two quick notes before the story: Eggleston hyphenated some words, I presume because they were long and unfamiliar to "Little Americans." This came from Project Gutenberg.  It lets me preserve my own aging book.  Unfortunately their copier didn't include the pictures from the unnamed illustrator (although I see a signature of "Ogden.")  I will insert it from my own book.  I also strongly recommend donating to Project Gutenberg (yes, I donate) whatever you can to keep this resource going as it does an exceptional job of "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" currently with over 70,000 free books. 

Also everybody thinks of the famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware.  I'm adding it although I have my doubts about Washington standing during it even though it wasn't a wide crossing.  For more information go to 10 facts about Washington's crossing of the Delaware River.


WASHINGTON’S CHRISTMAS GIFT.

Washington was fighting to set this country free. But the army that the King of England sent to fight him was stronger than Washington’s army. Washington was beaten and driven out of Brook-lyn. Then he had to leave New York. After that, he marched away into New Jersey to save his army from being taken. At last he crossed the Del-a-ware River. Here he was safe for a while.

Some of the Hes-sian soldiers that the king had hired to fight against the Americans came to Trenton. Trenton is on the Del-a-ware River.

Washington and his men were on the other side of the Del-a-ware River from the Hes-sians. Washington’s men were dis-cour-aged. They had been driven back all the way from Brook-lyn. It was winter, and they had no warm houses to stay in. They had not even warm clothes. They were dressed in old clothes that people had given them. Some of them were bare-footed in this cold weather.

The Hes-sians and other soldiers of the king were waiting for the river to freeze over. Then they would march across on the ice. They meant to fight Washington once more, and break up his army. But Washington was thinking about something too.

He was waiting for Christmas. He knew that the Hessian soldiers on the other side of the river would eat and drink a great deal on Christmas Day.

[Illustration: Marching to Trenton.]


The afternoon of Christmas came. The Hessians were singing and drinking in Trenton. But Washington was marching up the river bank. Some of his bare-foot men left blood marks on the snow as they marched.

The men and cannons were put into flat boats. These boats were pushed across the river with poles. There were many great pieces of ice in the river. But all night long the flat boats were pushed across and then back again for more men. It was three o’clock on the morning after Christmas when the last Americans crossed the river. It was hailing and snowing, and it was very cold. Two or three of the soldiers were frozen to death.

It was eight o’clock in the morning when Washington got to Trenton. The Hessians were sleeping soundly. The sound of the American drums waked them. They jumped out of their beds. They ran into the streets. They tried to fight the Americans.

But it was too late. Washington had already taken their cannons. His men were firing these at the Hessians. The Hessians ran into the fields to get away. But the Americans caught them.

The battle was soon over. Washington had taken nine hundred prisoners.

This was called the battle of Trenton. It gave great joy to all the Americans. It was Washington’s Christmas gift to the country. 

LoiS: Since that story is so short, here's "the rest of the story."

HOW WASHINGTON GOT OUT OF A TRAP.

After the battle of Trenton, Washington went back across the Delaware River. He had not men enough to fight the whole British army.

But the Americans were glad when they heard that he had beaten the Hessians. They sent him more soldiers. Then he went back across the river to Trenton again.

There was a British general named Corn-wal-lis. He marched to Trenton. He fought against Washington. Corn-wal-lis had more men than Washington had. Night came, and they could not see to fight. There was a little creek between the two armies.

Washington had not boats enough to carry his men across the river. Corn-wal-lis was sure to beat him if they should fight a battle the next morning.

Cornwallis said, “I will catch the fox in the morning.”

He called Washington a fox. He thought he had him in a trap. Cornwallis sent for some more soldiers to come from Prince-ton in the morning. He wanted them to help him catch the fox.

But foxes sometimes get out of traps.

When it was dark, Washington had all his camp fires lighted. He put men to digging where the British could hear them. He made Cornwallis think that he was throwing up banks of earth and getting ready to fight in the morning.

But Washington did not stay in Trenton. He did not wish to be caught like a fox in a trap. He could not get across the river. But he knew a road that went round the place where Cornwallis and his army were. He took that road and got behind the British army.

It was just like John waiting to catch James. James is in the house. John is waiting at the front door to catch James when he comes out. But James slips out by the back way. John hears him call “Hello!” James has gone round behind him and got away.

Washington went out of Trenton in the darkness. You might say that he marched out by the back door. He left Cornwallis watching the front door. The Americans went away quietly. They left a few men to keep up the fires, and make a noise like digging. Before morning these slipped away too.

When morning came, Cornwallis went to catch his fox. But the fox was not there. He looked for the Americans. There was the place where they had been digging. Their camp fires were still burning. But where had they gone?

Cornwallis thought that Washington had crossed the river by some means. But soon he heard guns firing away back toward Princeton. He thought that it must be thunder. But he found that it was a battle. Then he knew that Washington had gone to Princeton.

Washington had marched all night. When he got to Princeton, he met the British coming out to go to Trenton. They were going to help Cornwallis to catch Washington. But Washington had come to Princeton to catch them. He had a hard fight with the British at Princeton. But at last he beat them.

When Cornwallis knew that the Americans had gone to Princeton, he hurried there to help his men. But it was too late. Washington had beaten the British at Princeton, and had gone on into the hills, where he was safe.

The fox had got out of the trap. 

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

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

         - 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.

       - 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

 

Friday, December 8, 2023

The 30th Anniversary of the Christmas Menorahs in Billings, Montana

With the tensions following the Israel-Hamas War and the growing antisemitism that had begun even before it, my mind went back to an award winning book, The Christmas Menorahs, that came out in 1995.  I went looking to find more about this true story from Billings, Montana telling how that town in 1993 fought back when a rock was thrown through the bedroom window of a boy who had a menorah there.  

To my surprise, I find there is now an expanded 30th Anniversary Edition of the book.  I may mention sites here worth visiting, but try not to become a "commercial."  In this case I'm going to recommend it.


Both the Amazon ad (which only sells the paperback edition) and the Barnes and Noble ad (selling both hardback and paperback) tell about the expansion:

This expanded 30th anniversary edition includes additional material on the events in Billings, including interviews and a discussion guide, and invites us all to be upstanders in the face of injustice. At a time of division and incivility in our country, with the alarming rise of antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, true stories like The Christmas Menorahs are needed more than ever to show children and adults alike what our "better angels" can achieve.

Librarian that I still am, I had to look at reviews included.  Barnes and Noble includes  a 12 year old review from a teacher of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and how the original book influenced those students.  Amazon reprints the original book's publisher reviews, but drop down to the customer reviews.  Right now at the start of all of them is one from 2016 titled "This one's close to home" by a reader who has a close tie saying "The boy in this book, Isaac, is the son of my pediatrician. Our families knew each other and only became closer after this incident. My grandparents sat on the human rights committee which convinced the Billings Gazette to print the page in question..."  The reviewer gives the book to someone every year and also said "This season, I think it's more important than ever."  Today's news only expands that 2016 opinion!  The reviewer goes on to tell how the incident was "instrumental in my choosing a career as a social worker."

In trying to find the publisher, Lechambon Press, I learned the name relates to "Le Chambon, the French Village That Saved Thousands of Jews" during Nazi occupation.

My own history goes back to growing up in suburban Saint Louis, Missouri's University City.  I well remember Rosie, who had a cafe next to my father's store.  Her tattooed arm was my first, but not my last encounter with the Holocaust.  How can anyone doubt it?  A more pleasant memory was Christmas caroling which meant checking windows first to see if there was a menorah

Yes, there are entirely too many innocent people on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the current war.  For those of us outside Israel, we watch increasing incidents of hatred create a spiral of hatred.  While the stated military response is to remove the terrorists, it is surely creating new people turning to terrorism.  I find it frightening looking back to a time not that long before I was born, as well as long before that the "holy war" era.  Such frightening hatred now appears to be growing again.

May the stories you tell help to bring peace -- around you and hopefully beyond!

Friday, December 1, 2023

Lang - The Snow-Daughter and the Fire-Son - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

We had our first experience of this winter's snow this past week.  It probably delighted children.  Me?  Not so much.  Aside from not being a fan of cold and snow, our new dog needs tons of training to be safe walking him.  I've walked huskies and malamutes, at one time walking three huskies at a time.  He's stronger and more stubborn than all of them combined!  Various walking accessories and further training are going to have to change this or I may decide it's not safe to walk him until I'm unlikely to slip and fall.  We'll see.

In the meantime you just know I had to go looking for a story related to snow and winter.  There are tons of versions about a little old childless couple (usually Slavic or Asian) wishing for a child and getting a Snow Maiden (they tend to grow fast, avoid heat, and love winter cold).  I managed to find a story that may start that way, but is very different.  "The Snow-Daughter and the Fire-Son" can be found in Andrew Lang's The Yellow Fairy Book.  Lang doesn't tell us where it originated so, of course, I went searching.  Found it in the blog, Writing in Margins.

It's an interesting blog and I think many who read here may want to explore it further.  The story itself isn't given there, merely discussed.  As I mentioned the Snow Maiden is a common type of tale, Aarne-Thompson type 703 (where it is also reprinted).   Professor Ashliman cuts to the source as being Bukovina, but if you've never heard of them, this introduction to the story at Writing in Margins explains:

This is a weird and obscure tale, and one of my favorites. It appeared in Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book in 1889, adapted from a tale of the Armenian people living in Transylvania and Bukovina. (Bukovina is a Central European region, which was once part of Moldavia and is now divided between Romania and Ukraine.)

While I'm giving this story a label of Armenian folklore, it's clearly a product of the eastern European area where Armenian emigres lived.  May this "weird and obscure tale" become one of your favorites or at least come to mind at times. 

THE SNOW-DAUGHTER AND THE FIRE-SON

There was once upon a time a man and his wife, and they had no children, which was a great grief to them. One winter’s day, when the sun was shining brightly, the couple were standing outside their cottage, and the woman was looking at all the little icicles which hung from the roof. She sighed, and turning to her husband said, ‘I wish I had as many children as there are icicles hanging there.’ ‘Nothing would please me more either,’ replied her husband. Then a tiny icicle detached itself from the roof, and dropped into the woman’s mouth, who swallowed it with a smile, and said, ‘Perhaps I shall give birth to a snow child now!’ Her husband laughed at his wife’s strange idea, and they went back into the house.

But after a short time the woman gave birth to a little girl, who was as white as snow and as cold as ice. If they brought the child anywhere near the fire, it screamed loudly till they put it back into some cool place. The little maid throve wonderfully, and in a few months she could run about and speak. But she was not altogether easy to bring up, and gave her parents much trouble and anxiety, for all summer she insisted on spending in the cellar, and in the winter she would sleep outside in the snow, and the colder it was the happier she seemed to be. Her father and mother called her simply ‘Our Snow-daughter,’ and this name stuck to her all her life.

One day her parents sat by the fire, talking over the extraordinary behaviour of their daughter, who was disporting herself in the snowstorm that raged outside. The woman sighed deeply and said, ‘I wish I had given birth to a Fire-son!’ As she said these words, a spark from the big wood fire flew into the woman’s lap, and she said with a laugh, ‘Now perhaps I shall give birth to a Fire-son!’ The man laughed at his wife’s words, and thought it was a good joke. But he ceased to think it a joke when his wife shortly afterwards gave birth to a boy, who screamed lustily till he was put quite close to the fire, and who nearly yelled himself into a fit if the Snow-daughter came anywhere near him. The Snow-daughter herself avoided him as much as she could, and always crept into a corner as far away from him as possible. The parents called the boy simply ‘Our Fire-son,’ a name which stuck to him all his life. They had a great deal of trouble and worry with him too; but he throve and grew very quickly, and before he was a year old he could run about and talk. He was as red as fire, and as hot to touch, and he always sat on the hearth quite close to the fire, and complained of the cold; if his sister were in the room he almost crept into the flames, while the girl on her part always complained of the great heat if her brother were anywhere near. In summer the boy always lay out in the sun, while the girl hid herself in the cellar: so it happened that the brother and sister came very little into contact with each other—in fact, they carefully avoided it.


(ILLUSTRATION BY H. J. FORD)

Just as the girl grew up into a beautiful woman, her father and mother both died one after the other. Then the Fire-son, who had grown up in the meantime into a fine, strong young man, said to his sister, ‘I am going out into the world, for what is the use of remaining on here?’

‘I shall go with you,’ she answered, ‘for, except you, I have no one in the world, and I have a feeling that if we set out together we shall be lucky.’

The Fire-son said, ‘I love you with all my heart, but at the same time I always freeze if you are near me, and you nearly die of heat if I approach you! How shall we travel about together without being odious the one to the other?’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ replied the girl, ‘for I’ve thought it all over, and have settled on a plan which will make us each able to bear with the other! See, I have had a fur cloak made for each of us, and if we put them on I shall not feel the heat so much nor you the cold.’ So they put on the fur cloaks, and set out cheerfully on their way, and for the first time in their lives quite happy in each other’s company.

For a long time the Fire-son and the Snow-daughter wandered through the world, and when at the beginning of winter they came to a big wood they determined to stay there till spring. The Fire-son built himself a hut where he always kept up a huge fire, while his sister with very few clothes on stayed outside night and day. Now it happened one day that the King of the land held a hunt in this wood, and saw the Snow-daughter wandering about in the open air. He wondered very much who the beautiful girl clad in such garments could be, and he stopped and spoke to her. He soon learnt that she could not stand heat, and that her brother could not endure cold. The King was so charmed by the Snow-daughter, that he asked her to be his wife. The girl consented, and the wedding was held with much state. The King had a huge house of ice made for his wife underground, so that even in summer it did not melt. But for his brother-in-law he had a house built with huge ovens all round it, that were kept heated all day and night. The Fire-son was delighted, but the perpetual heat in which he lived made his body so hot, that it was dangerous to go too close to him.

One day the King gave a great feast, and asked his brother-in-law among the other guests. The Fire-son did not appear till everyone had assembled, and when he did, everyone fled outside to the open air, so intense was the heat he gave forth. Then the King was very angry and said, ‘If I had known what a lot of trouble you would have been, I would never have taken you into my house.’ Then the Fire-son replied with a laugh, ‘Don’t be angry, dear brother! I love heat and my sister loves cold—come here and let me embrace you, and then I’ll go home at once.’ And before the King had time to reply, the Fire-son seized him in a tight embrace. The King screamed aloud in agony, and when his wife, the Snow-daughter, who had taken refuge from her brother in the next room, hurried to him, the King lay dead on the ground burnt to a cinder. When the Snow-daughter saw this she turned on her brother and flew at him. Then a fight began, the like of which had never been seen on earth. When the people, attracted by the noise, hurried to the spot, they saw the Snow-daughter melting into water and the Fire-son burn to a cinder. And so ended the unhappy brother and sister.

**********

An unhappy ending to a story easily retold, possibly only changing "throve" to the more modern "thrived."

***********

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

         - 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.

       - 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

Friday, November 24, 2023

Munkittrick - Wishbone Valley - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

By now the Thanksgiving leftovers have taken the place of any feasting on Thursday.  Among the turkey bones one thing seems to always capture attention . . . the wishbone!  There are various blog articles about how the wishbone came to be valued for granting wishes and others on how to win when snapping it.  Country Living has an article giving both along with plans for Thanksgiving since it was written back in August of this year.  If you're not too stuffed or worn out, it might be a time to think back to see what worked and what didn't for next year's plans.

Certainly a story focused on that wishbone, or another Thanksgiving aspect might be reasonable.  Project Gutenberg has The Children's Book of Thanksgiving Stories edited by Asa Don Dickinson.  The book's only illustration is the frontispiece, but following it leads to a most unusual "ghost story", "Wishbone Valley."  The story comes from Harper's Young People, November 21, 1893 -- pages 48-50 and contains another illustration which I will insert in the story even though Dickinson didn't include it.  Both will be as close as I can come to where both the colored frontispiece and the humbler illustration from "Harper's" occur in the story.  Neither give a clue as to their illustrators.

WISHBONE VALLEY

A Thanksgiving ghost story about a boy who dined not wisely but too well.

THE Thanksgiving feast had just ended, and only Donald and his little sister Grace remained at the table, looking drowsily at the plum pudding that they couldn't finish, but which they disliked to leave on their plates.

When the plates had been removed, and the plum-pudding taken to the kitchen and placed beside the well-carved gobbler, Donald and Grace were too tired to rise from their chairs to have their faces washed. They seemed lost in a roseate repose, until Grace finally thought of the wishbone that they intended to break after dinner.

"Come, now, Donald," she said, "let's break the old gobbler's wishbone."

"All right," replied Donald, opening his eyes slowly, and unwrapping the draperies of his sweet plum-pudding dreams from about him, "let's do it now." So he held up the wishbone, and Grace took hold of the other end of it with a merry laugh.

"Here, you must not take hold so far from the end, because I have a fine wish to make, and want to get the big half if possible."

"So have I a nice wish to make," replied Grace, with a sigh, "and I also want the big end."

And so they argued for a few minutes, until their mother entered the room and told them that if they could not stop quarrelling over the wishbone she would take it from them and throw it into the fire. So they lost no time in taking it by the ends and snapping it asunder.

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Donald, observing Grace's expression of disappointment. "I've got it!"

"Well, I've made a wish, too," said Grace.

"But it won't come true," replied Donald, "because you have the little end."

And then Donald thought he would go out in the air and play, because his great dinner made him feel very uncomfortable. When he was out in the barnyard it was just growing dusk, and Donald, through his half-closed eyes, observed a gobbler strutting about. To his great surprise the gobbler approached him instead of running away.

"I thought we had you for dinner to-day," said Donald.

"You did," replied the gobbler coldly, "and you had a fine old time, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Donald, "you made a splendid dinner, and you ought to be pleased to think you made us all so happy. Your second joints were very sweet and juicy, and your drumsticks were like sticks of candy."

"And you broke my poor old wishbone with your little sister, didn't you?"

"I did."

"And what did you wish?" asked the gobbler.

"You mustn't ask me that," replied Donald, "because, you know, if I tell you the wish I made it would not come true."

"But it was my wishbone," persisted the gobbler, "and I think I ought to know something about it."

"You have rights, I suppose, and your argument is not without force," replied Donald, with calm dignity.

The gobbler was puzzled at so lofty a reply, and not understanding it, said:

"I am only the ghost, or spirit, of the gobbler you ate to-day, but still I remember how one day last summer you threw a pan of water on me, and alluded to my wattles as a red necktie, and called me 'Old Harvard.' Now, come along!"

"Where?" asked Donald.

"To Wishbone Valley, where you will see the spirits of my ancestors eaten by your family."

It was now dusk, and Donald didn't like the idea of going to such a place. He was a brave, courageous boy, on most occasions, but the idea of going to Wishbone Valley when the stars were appearing filled him with a dread that he didn't like to acknowledge even to the ghost of a gobbler.

"I can't go with you now, Mr. Gobbler," he said, "because I have a lot of lessons to study for next Monday; wait until to-morrow, and I will gladly go with you."

"Come along," replied the gobbler, with a provoked air, "and let your lessons go until to-morrow, when you will have plenty of light."

Thereupon the gobbler extended his wing and took Donald by the hand, and started on a trot.

"Not so fast," protested Donald.

"Why not?" demanded the gobbler in surprise.

"Because," replied Donald, with a groan, "I have just had my dinner, and I'm too full of you to run."

So the gobbler kindly and considerately slackened his pace to a walk, and the two proceeded out of the barnyard and across a wide meadow to a little valley surrounded by a dense thicket. The moon was just rising and the thicket was silvered by its light, while the dry leaves rustled weirdly in the cold crisp air.

"This," said the gobbler, "is Wishbone Valley. Look and see."

Donald strained his eyes, and, sure enough, there were wishbones sticking out of the ground in every direction. He thought they looked like little croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in an offhand way:

"Let's break one and make a wish."

The ghost of the old gobbler frowned, drew himself up, and uttered a ghostly whistle that seemed to cut the air. As he did so, the ghosts of the other turkeys long since eaten popped out of the thickets with a great flapping of wings, and each one perched upon a wishbone and gazed upon poor Donald, who was so frightened that his collar flew into a standing position, while he stood upon his toes, with his knees knocking together at a great rate.

Every turkey fixed its eyes upon the trembling boy, who was beside himself with fear.

"What shall we do with him, grandpapa?" asked the gobbler of an ancient bird that could scarcely contain itself and remain on its wishbone.

"I cannot think of anything terrible enough, Willie," replied the grandparent. "It almost makes my ghostship boil when I think of the way in which he used to amuse himself by making me a target for his bean shooter. Often when I was asleep in the button-ball he would fetch me one on the side of the head that would give me an earache for a week. But now it is our turn."

Here the other turkeys broke into a wild chorus of approval.

"Take his bean shooter from his pocket," suggested another bird, "and let's have a shot at him."

Donald was compelled to hand out his bean shooter, and the grandparent took it, lay on his back, and with the handle of the bean shooter in one claw and the missile end in the other began to send pebbles at Donald at a great rate. He could hear them whistling past his ears, but could not see them to dodge. Fortunately none struck him, and when the turkeys felt that they had had fun enough of that kind at his expense the bean shooter was returned to him.

"Now, then," said the gobbler's Aunt Fanny, "he once gave me a string of yellow beads for corn."

"What shall we do to him for that?" asked the gobbler.

"Make him eat a lot of yellow beads," said the chorus.

"But we have no beads," said the gobbler sadly.

"Then let's poke him with a stick," suggested the gobbler's Granduncle Sylvester; "he used to do that to us."

So they all took up their wishbones and poked Donald until he was sore. Sometimes they would hit him in a ticklish spot, and throw him into such a fit of laughter that they thought he was enjoying it all and chaffing them. So they stuck their wishbones into the ground, and took their positions on them once more, to take a needed rest, for the poor ghosts were greatly exhausted.

There was one quiet turkey who had taken no part in the proceedings.

"Why don't you suggest something?" demanded Uncle Sylvester.

"Because," replied the quiet turkey, "Donald never did anything to me, and I must treat him accordingly. I was raised and killed a long way from here, and canned. Donald's father bought me at a store. To be a ghost in good standing I should be on the farm where I was killed, and really I don't know why I should be here."

"Then you should be an impartial judge," said Aunt Fanny. "Now what shall we do with him?"

"Tell them to let me go home," protested Donald, "and I'll agree never to molest or eat turkey again; I will give them all the angleworms I can dig every day, and on Thanksgiving Day I'll ask my father to have roast beef."

"I think," replied the impartial canned ghost, "that as all boys delight in chasing turkeys with sticks, it would be eminently just and proper for us, with the exception of myself, to chase this boy and beat him with our wishbones, to let him learn by experience that which he could scarcely learn by observation."

"What could I do but eat turkey when it was put on the table?" protested Donald.

"But you could help chasing us around with sticks," sang the chorus.

They thereupon descended from the wishbones upon which they had been perching, and flying after him, they darted the wishbones, which they held in their beaks, into his back and neck as hard as they could. Donald ran up and down Wishbone Valley, calling upon them to stop, and declaring that if turkey should ever be put upon the table again he would eat nothing but the stuffing. When Donald found that the wishbones were sticking into his neck like so many hornet stings, he made up his mind that he would run for the house. Finally the wishbone tattoo stopped, and when he looked around, the gobbler, who was twenty feet away, said: "When a Thanksgiving turkey dies, his ghost comes down here to Wishbone Valley to join his ancestors, and it never after leaves the valley. You will now know why every spring the turkeys steal down here to hatch their little ones. As you are now over the boundary line you are safe."

"Thank you," said Donald gratefully.

"Good-bye," sang all the ghosts in chorus.

There was then a great ghostly flapping and whistling, and the turkeys and wishbones all vanished from sight.

Donald ran home as fast as his trembling legs could carry him, and he fancied that the surviving turkeys on the place made fun of him as he passed on his way.

When he reached the house he was very happy, but made no allusion to his experience in Wishbone Valley, for fear of being laughed at.

"Come, Donald," said his mother, shortly after his arrival, "it is almost bedtime; you had better eat that drumstick and retire."

"I think I have had turkey enough for to-day," replied Donald, with a shudder, "and if it is just the same, I would rather have a nice thick piece of pumpkin pie."

So the girl placed a large piece of pie before him; and while he was eating with the keen appetite given him by the crisp air of Wishbone Valley, he heard a great clattering of hoofs coming down the road. These sounds did not stop until the express wagon drew up in front of the house, and the driver brought in a large package for Donald.

"Hurrah!" shouted Donald, in boundless glee. "Uncle Arthur has sent me a nice bicycle! Wasn't it good of him?"

"Didn't you wish for a bicycle to-day, when you got the big end of the wishbone?" asked his little sister Grace.

"What makes you think so?" asked Donald, with a laugh.

"Oh, I knew it all the time; and my wish came true, too."

"How could your wish come true?" asked Donald, with a puzzled look, "when you got the little half of the wishbone?"

"I don't know," replied Grace, "but my wish did come true."

"And what did you wish?"

"Why," said Grace, running up and kissing her little brother affectionately, "I wished your wish would come true, of course."


Whether you get the long or the short end of the wishbone or skip it altogether, may you enjoy the many stories in Public Domain!

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

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

         - 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.

       - 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