It's offiffiffica'ly SUMMER! While weather with the current nation's heat wave and things like Memorial Day or the end of school may seem to have already brought Summer, the summer solstice in 2025 occurred on June 20 at 10:42 p.m. ET, marking the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the official start of summer. It has been great to see the days become longer, but surely few in a northern part of the United States mind trading the days getting shorter while we leave winter's cold behind.
I went looking for a story about this change and found one in Katherine Chandler's In the Reign of Coyote. Chandler tells us she found it in The Pacific Northwest Oregon and
Washington, 2 vols., compiled and published by the Northwest Pacific
History Company, Portland, Oregon, 1889, II. Aside from the frame characters used to present the stories, I strongly suspect she is correct when she says "While the essentials of the stories
have been retained, the narratives have been elaborated and modified." We are not told by Chandler which of the Native Americans started this tale and there are many in the Pacific Northwest. The drawings for each story by J.W. Ferguson Kennedy add to that elaboration. If looking just for that story, it's at https://archive.org/details/inreignofcoyote0000kath/page/104/mode/2up
We're looking at an extra hot start to the days of summer, but even at that it's not enough to scorch a rabbit to pieces! At least the regularity of the length of those days can be counted on to happen.
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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 them.
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.
See the sidebar for other Public Domain story resources I recommend on the page “Public Domain Story Resources."
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