Aesop - Three Tradesmen - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

 

from imgflip.com

The meme gives a bit of a warning as does the source of today's very short story. 
This isn't the best known of Aesop's fables and I'm going to put it together from three sources.  This story needs an introduction found in Aesop's Fables with Illustrations by John Tenniel.  (He didn't illustrate this fable.)

The Three Tradesmen

There was a city in expectation of being besieged, and a council was called accordingly to discuss the best means of fortifying it.

(The rest of the story:)

The citizens of a certain city were debating about the best material to use in the fortifications which were about to be erected for the greater security of the town. A Carpenter got up and advised the use of wood, which he said was readily procurable and easily worked. A Stone-mason objected to wood on the ground that it was so inflammable, and recommended stones instead. Then a Tanner got on his legs and said, "In my opinion there's nothing like leather."

Every man for himself.

****

That was from the 1912 volume and again a famous illustrator (Arthur Rackham) didn't illustrate it, letting you picture it in your mind. 

The text by V. S. Vernon Jones includes his idea of the moral.  Aesop's Fables with Drawings by Fritz Kredel is still under copyright, but I prefer his moral and believe just stating that little bit is Fair Use.

Application: It is difficult to see beyond one's own nose.

****

So what am I combining three versions of the great teacher, Aesop, to say on my soapbox?

Covid has been ridiculously politicized and it has become a case of "Every man for himself."  It would be all fine if we weren't dealing with both a highly contagious situation and helpless children unable to be vaccinated and dependent upon the safety and responsibility of adults around them.

Whether masked or unmasked (pull it over your nose, PLEASE!) consider how you may be sickening or even killing children.  I repeat: Application: It is difficult to see beyond one's own nose.

I'll step off my soapbox now, but please, if you go to hug me, first warn me if you're unvaccinated.

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

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 October 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!

Anonymous? - The Red Boat

How often do we stop and express our gratitude?  However often, it's surely never enough.  At the start of this year I was grateful to look at a calendar filling up my schedule with programs.  I also was cast in a local community theater production of Godspell, while finishing up another group's production of Grease.  About that time Chinese New Year arrived and I mentioned the reason for the practice of giving pretend money then was because the belief was that whatever you were doing at the start of the Lunar New Year, you would keep doing it all year.  

There's a comparable European folk tradition.  I've posted one well done version of it in Howard Pyle's "How the good gifts were used by two" in his book, The Wonder Clock or four and twenty marvelous Tales, being one for each hour of the day.  That link takes you to the entire book at Archive.org and it is worthwhile reading, whether over 24 hours or days.  Even my own posting of the story skips to the actual part about giving and in turn being given the gift of doing all day however you start it. 

Little did we know the folk belief literally would come true.  The Lunar New Year brought us the Coronavirus and we've been coping with it ever since!

So what does that have to do with today's story?  Go looking at 8 Proverbs About Gratitude and you will see yet another story you may recognize: It Could Always Be Worse.  The proverb declares "Count your blessings, things could always be worse."  Experienced story lovers should recognize the Eastern European, usually Russian or Jewish, tale which even has a 1972 picture book version by Eleanor Chroman.

Just this past week I did a program streamed locally in Lakeview, Michigan about the Hello Girls.  Because the library had a grant, they were eager to bring it even if it only drew a few audience members spaced safely apart.  It originally was scheduled earlier this year except an Executive Order closed Michigan libraries.  Last month I did my Prohibition program for a local library, who streamed it for a few weeks to open their virtual programming.  In return I now have a Prohibition program other venues may contract with me to use if unable to offer it outdoors or safely spaced in a large area.  Next month I'll do my One-Room Schoolteacher program for a Michigan museum.  It, too, will be live streamed.  I'm grateful to be working.  I'm also grateful freelance workers were in the recent Pandemic Unemployment Assistance coverage under the federal CARES Act because my subbing in libraries and storytelling has indeed been severely cut back or eliminated in these uncertain times.  I expect, if I'm storytelling when the weather turns cold, it will be online or not at all.  As for subbing in libraries or residencies in schools -- "Forgeddaboutit!" 

I know eventually it will be possible for festival and theaters to reopen, but they're hurting.  So are your local businesses.  As for schools, libraries, and museums, it sometimes seems like the line "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get" as plans and openings change when a case crops up among staff or students.

We all will muddle through this one way or another eventually.  I had a friend ask if anybody knew somebody who died from Covid.  I'm not certain.  One dear friend, Jackie Baldwin, (who is listed below for her wonderful Story-Lovers website found now only through the Wayback Machine) was in senior assisted living in Belleview, Washington, a suburb of Seattle where so many elderly victims started.  She and another storytelling friend are simply said to have died.  In her case, her health was already in poor condition.  As for the other colleague and online friend, I don't know about any existing health concerns for Thomas Doty, an active storyteller in nearby Oregon.  His website is more specialized with many stories about the trickster, Coyote, and other Native American resources.

The fact is we do indeed need to take this seriously.  I posted on Facebook the article by Franklin Veaux on Quora.com about why Coronavirus has shut down the U.S. even if actual mortality is quite small.  You are welcome to read the responses there and also an analysis at Bored Panda by Jonas Grinevicius and Denis Tymulis.  The point they made was "However, even if the fatality percentage is low, as Veaux points out, the actual number of people that the virus kills, damages, and affects is still huge."

I will indeed be grateful when a vaccine is available and, yes, I will get it.  I am grateful neither I nor anybody in my extended family has been physically affected other than having the "Shelter in Place" Executive Orders shut down businesses, churches, schools, libraries, museums, theaters and other groups where I am a member and otherwise change life and work.  Yet it brings concern for the present and foreseeable future.  I hope the same is true for you and all you love and you, too, take the time to be grateful for your present safety even if it's not free of the current covid chaos.

That brings us to today's story which was listed as being by that prolific author, Anonymous.  In literature and music we are sometimes cynically informed that "Anonymous was a woman."  I believe in honoring the copyright of creators, but was only partly successful attempting to trace the authorship, and any permission that might be necessary.  I found a site called KindSpring.org and the story is listed there by BlissForgive, who it seems wrote it August 10, 2017 for that site only.  I hope Creative Commons applies here, but, if either the site or the author request it, I will remove the story.  In the meantime I think it is a perfect story for this uncertain time and a reminder of the need for gratitude.

(Carol McCormick posted this on the Facebook group, Storytellers.)
The Red Boat

A man was asked to paint a boat. He brought his paint and brushes and began to paint the boat a bright red, as the owner asked him.

While painting, he noticed a small hole in the hull, and quietly repaired it.

When he finished painting, he received his money and left.

The next day, the owner of the boat came to the painter and presented him with a nice check, much higher than the payment for painting.

The painter was surprised and said “You've already paid me for painting the boat Sir!”

“But this is not for the paint job. It's for repairing the hole in the boat.”

“Ah! But it was such a small service... certainly it's not worth paying me such a high amount for something so insignificant.”

“My dear friend, you do not understand. Let me tell you what happened:

“When I asked you to paint the boat, I forgot to mention the hole.

“When the boat dried, my kids took the boat and went on a fishing trip.

“They did not know that there was a hole. I was not at home at that time.

“When I returned and noticed they had taken the boat, I was desperate because I remembered that the boat had a hole.

“Imagine my relief and joy when I saw them returning from fishing.

“Then, I examined the boat and found that you had repaired the hole!

“You see, now, what you did? You saved the life of my children! I do not have enough money to pay your 'small' good deed.”

So no matter who, when or how, continue to help, sustain, wipe tears, listen attentively, and carefully repair all the 'leaks' you find. You never know when one is in need of us, or when God holds a pleasant surprise for us to be helpful and important to someone.

Along the way, you may have repaired numerous 'boat holes' for several people without realizing how many lives you've saved.

~Author Unknown

It all sounds rather reminiscent of George Bailey in the old classic movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."  If you are looking to make a difference, the KindSpring site has a page loaded with Ideas for acts of kindness. Currently there are 434 ideas for such areas as Friends and Family, Environment, Elderly, Animals, At Home, At Work, At School and University, Just for Teens, Resources for Teachers, Resources for Groups, for Parents and Grandparents, and others, but the largest category is Public Places.  Think about how Public Places of late have become a site for anything BUT kindness.  KindSpring's About Us statement says:

KindSpring is a place to practice small acts of kindness. For over a decade the KindSpring user community has focused on inner transformation, while collectively changing the world with generosity, gratitude, and trust. The site is 100% volunteer-run and totally non-commercial. It is a shared labor of love.

There's always a need to change the world with generosity, gratitude, and trust.  Maybe you, too, can repair some "boat holes."

The "Spanish Lady"

This month telling my World War I "Hello Girls" program and next month as the "One-Room School Teacher" I  will have the opportunity to include some information about how nearly 100 years ago we went through the chaos of a pandemic before.  A recent controversial photo shows an average family from then. Why is it controversial?  As fact checker, Snopes.com, points out it's hard to be sure if the cat in the photo is masked or merely happens to have facial markings in that area looking like it is wearing a mask.  The museum with the photo said it is small and old and impossible to verify.

Still Snopes agrees some people did mask their cats.  They show a dog, but I prefer this bit of sports history featuring a canine mascot.

Just as current pandemic information has taken time to shake out the facts, this Axios article is primarily about the sports of Baseball, Football, and Hockey.  Beyond sports, it shows back then it was even more difficult to spread the news.  This was due to a fear it might violate a federal Sedition Act because we had entered World War I.  Especially interesting here is Babe Ruth was treated with "medicine" that nearly killed him, rather like current criticism of using an inappropriate malaria medicine.

Similarly here's another sports focused article.  The sport is soccer and it comes from Philadelphia, with lots of good cartoons about the cancellation of sports.  It shows even in the early 20th century, when sports were not the big business they are today, people were desperate to have their "sports fix."

 More seriously the National Library of Medicine shows national guidance from then now looks both familiar and simplistic. 

 Now we would say gauze is insufficient, but even then people were making them.

Today masks are both homemade and a fashion item, but here's one I've yet to see for smokers.

 

That mentions a San Francisco ordinance: 

which leads into the problems mask laws currently face

 


















Just like today, you will find people saying it's no worse than the flu we normally see.

Homemade cures and patent medicines were suggested.

 and this one which might at least keep people "socially distant."

I wonder if onions were in this Cleveland soup kitchen offering to children.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/10/17/city-suffered-through-deadly-1918-flu-pandemic/1669793002/

While looking at the state to the south of Michigan, this graduate of the University of Michigan for my degree in library (and now also information) science enjoyed this look at how U. of M. defeated the Buckeyes during that pandemic for a bit of history in that long rivalry.

Still closures happened either at first or eventually.

That was from Pullman, Washington, but the tiny town of Pullman, Michigan and other Michigan towns of all size were affected. 

Mlive.com's display of Flint mask order and other orders

I particularly found useful See-how-1918-flu-pandemic-impacted your Michigan county.  It's interesting to see how each county hit a spike, whether from the holidays or otherwise.  A 2018-19 look at the state as a whole called it our deadliest year.

Of course metro Detroit was a major hotspot, too, as their timeline shows.

Right now the big debate in Michigan and nationally has to do with the safety of reopening schools.  Back then virtual learning wasn't an option, but when cases became so numerous tracking was impossible, most schools closed down for a time.

Stepping back from our state and returning to a broader look, History.com offers an audio presentation with graphics from 2010, then updated this year.

As always, Wikipedia has a fascinating article worth getting for its thorough overview.  What I found interesting was its explanation of how the virus kept mutating until it killed off the people meant to die, then it stopped being a problem.  Still it was an H1N1 virus, so it could be said to be related to later 20th century influenzas.

I titled this "the Spanish Lady" which was one of its names, but the only reason Spain was named was because it was neutral in World War I, so it was willing to announce the problem of the virus when the warring parties hesitated to let what was happening be known.  To add to the Spanish connection, Spain's King Alfonso XIII did become gravely ill (but lived until 1941 after abdicating).

Often the high death rate of Philadelphia, who refused to cancel a city parade, is contrasted with St. Louis, where I grew up.  St. Louis "flattened the curve" and it supposedly paid off.  The Wikipedia article still lists them as hit by the "third wave."  I just remember as a child seeing a plaque to those lost in the Spanish Influenza in a church on the campus of St. Louis University.  As a child I didn't know much about that almost forgotten pandemic.

Shelter in Place - week 4 / Miller - Trapping the Plague - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Plagues and pestilences have happened throughout history.  The quote “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it” is attributed to the American philosopher George Santayana and it can be accurately quoted as “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” as stated in his work, The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense.  I went looking for stories and, other than the very dark "Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allen Poe, it was interesting how little I could find and, of course, even less that was Public Domain.

I was able to find an interesting story from an area that fits the title of the Undiscovered Scotland website.  Cromarty has a landlocked harbor that had industrial factories for brewing, iron, lace, cloth, and rope until road and rail routes passed it by, leaving a conservation site and what Encyclopedia Britannica describes as "perhaps the best preserved 18th-century town in the Highlands."  Cromarty remembers its most famous citizen, Hugh Miller, with two buildings.  The National Trust for Scotland operates his birthplace, the only thatched cottage in the town, as a museum and there's also the Hugh Miller Institute which Undiscovered Scotland calls "a grand, if a little out of place, library presented to the town by the Carnegie Institute in 1903."

Hugh Miller is described by Wikipedia as "a self-taught Scottish geologist and writer, folklorist^[1] and an evangelical Christian.^[2]"   Let's leave his geological writings to the scientist and look at the first book he ever wrote, Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, or The Traditional History of Cromarty.  It's easy to picture his tale of the central part of the church-yard of the little Scottish Highland town of Nigg (current population said to be 156).  The town is small, but the Wikipedia article about it opens with:

Nigg (from the Scottish Gaelic: An Neag meaning "the notch", referring to a feature of the hills above the parish church) is a village and parish in Easter Ross, administered by The Highland Council. It lies on the north shore of the entrance to the Cromarty Firth.

This is 2d attempt at posting Wikimedia Commons photo

Nigg Old Church and churchyard.

Rosskmaxwell - Own work

 Nigg Old Church

The present parish church is an 18th-century building on an early Christian site dating back to at least the 8th century. The Nigg Stone, one of the most elaborate stone monuments of early medieval western Europe,^[1] is preserved in a room at the west end of the church. This late 8th century Pictish cross-slab formerly stood in the churchyard, but was moved indoors for preservation in recent years.
The nearby manse is one of the oldest to survive in Scotland, dating back to the first half of the 17th century. It is now privately owned and no longer used as the parish minister's residence.
Nigg Old has its odd and curious features. In the churchyard is the Cholera Stone, dating from the cholera epidemic of 1832. One of the elders, on coming out of the church, saw a cloud of vapour hovering above the ground. He believed it to be a cloud of cholera, threw a blanket or cloth over it and placed this large stone on top to keep it from escaping. And inside the church, according to one tradition, the beadle (church officer) allowed an illicit still to be kept in the space under the pulpit.^[2]

Aye, that's the Scottish tradition or folklore for you.  But Nigg is right across the bay from Miller's larger hometown of Cromarty (population 719 to 730 depending on your source) on an area called "the Black Isle."   Wikipedia's Nigg article also says:

The Nigg to Cromarty ferry route is often called The King’s Ferry – the route taken by King James IV of Scotland when on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Duthac at Tain, doing so at least 18 times in the years between 1493 to 1513.^[3]
It is the only ferry service from the Black Isle. The ferry crosses the entrance to the Cromarty Firth, one of the finest natural harbours in Europe and also an area rich in wildlife and world-famous for its dolphin population.^[4]

Hugh Miller was both interested in science and folklore so his book gives you a larger picture of how the protected harbor played a role in the early 19th century Cholera epidemic from quarantine to its spread, with that interesting tale of its capture in Nigg on the third page.  There's more, though and it provides some interesting incidents -- especially if you "read between the lines", so don't just skim to that third page.

It's interesting that Persia, now called Iran, and Russia are mentioned.  This time Iran was heavily hit early because a trader apparently carried Coronavirus, Covid-19 back from China, while Russia has sealed its country off as best it could.

Would that we could somehow trap the current plague in a bag.  Until then I hope you take this bit of advice from the authors site, promo.authorsxp.com :

Readers...Self-Quarantining Since 750 B.C.

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

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 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 October 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!

Shelter in Place - week 2: Cornplanter/Canfield - The Origin of the Violet - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Last week I showed my "Beast" a.k.a. "Malamutt", but, now that grass is again started to grow, he's also a "Malamoot" enjoying the pleasure of something fresh and growing.  Similarly, since walking him is allowed under Shelter in Place, I've seen something else that is wild, starting to grow, and that people can eat . . . violets.  What you didn't know that?  Grab a copy of Stalking the Wild Asparagus by that long ago forager, Euell Gibbons.  That was the first of his efforts towards showing the bounty of wild plants that grow without people doing anything more than knowing what is edible.  I learned long ago that violets taste like the sweetest of lettuce.  Can't say I ever went to the bother of harvesting those flowers and making jam from it, but was delighted to see them popping up at the edge of wooded areas.  If you decide to try them, be sure you don't take them roots and all so they can recover.

Just as those dog walks and food are needed, stories are, too.  Earlier this year on February 1, 2020 a story, "The First Winter", from The Legends of the Iroquois, officially listed as being written by William W. Canfield, but he attributes the source to "The Cornplanter", a Seneca chief who died in 1836.  We certainly hope Winter (and our reason for Shelter in Place) is going to end as soon as possible.  From that same book comes today's story about "The Origin of the Violet."

The story includes a young Iroquois warrior falling in love with a maiden from an enemy tribe.  Right about there I can just picture the story being told backed by the Native American flute.  Back in December of 2016 I devoted three weeks to the Native American flute.  It traditionally is believed to have originated as a means of courting, so I can picture it for part of this story, but the story is filled with adventure and so much more.  The Native American flute may have started with courting, but what it can play is limited only by the person playing it, so the other parts can give the animals, battles, and elements I don't want to give away.  Let the story form a soundtrack in your mind, changing as the story changes.

For a graphic to open the story, I want to add this page from a 1906 dictionary owned by Julie J. who offers many wonderful Public Domain images on her website.  This graphic from her https://olddesignshop.com gives flowers for every month.  March is the violet and I did indeed start seeing it on March 30th and April's showers will help them grow.

I'm sure you always wash your produce, but doing it in vinegar is both cleansing and a bit of salad dressing.  Now may this bit of spring brighten your own time to Shelter in Place.

Also from https://olddesignshop.com

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

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 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 October 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!

Shelter in Place - week 1

It's been a strange week at Lake Wobegon.  Woops!  Wrong lake, Michigan's a pair of peninsulas surrounded by Lakes  Huron, Michigan, Erie, and, above our Upper Peninsula, Lake Superior, but it has been a most unsuala week.  On March 23 I posted this on my Facebook page (which is public and open to all to see)
Michigan's governor cancelled as of midnight tonight all activities not necessary to sustain or protect life. https://Michigan.gov/coronavirus .  This, combined with all the other uncertainty, has made 3 (so far) programs rescheduled. I never put a cancellation clause in my Letter of Agreement. My flexibility is something I offer. (One of those cancellations would have had me drive up to Lakeview for live streaming. They have a grant and we'll reschedule, but this made the trip impossible.) I also value the flexibility storytelling allows in how it can be presented. We'll work together yet to have some High Times once we get past these current crazy Dry Times, just trust this Prohibition doesn't last as long as Prohibition did.
LoiS(urely we can all drink to that...with mocktails or otherwise!)

In the meantime I've been doing as much as I can related to our local area trying out the same idea we've seen coming from Italy with people singing.  We have a local site called NextDoor that covers a lot of territory.  A topic popped up called "Play music each night at 6pm."  I said: I'd love to do this, but we're high up on a bunny slope of a hill in a neighborhood where none of us are near enough to hear.
 

https://wwjnewsradio.radio.com/articles/play-music-on-the-porch-to-combat-coronavirus-fears

A member, Angela, suggested: 
Since we all have acreage and the houses are not near each other, we gather at my moms house (5 houses away from mine). My mom stays on her porch, some stand in the yard, some in the driveway. (social distancing). We sing the song on the day, chat/catch up for 5 minutes, tell everyone we love and miss them and then we all go back home.❤️

O.k. I wish I had seen it in time to do "Amazing  Grace" since my favorite musical instrument is the mountain dulcimer, but I started the next day when the song was "Sweet Caroline."  My reply was:
Guess the end of our driveway works. Need to find lyrics & possible chords &/or dulcimer tab as I'd like that, but a capella would probably be easier than guitar or dulcimer standing there. UPDATE: Fairly complicated song. Only guitar tab available, but folks might find a search worthwhile including that there are 2 stories about how it came to be. As a storytelling friend of mine, Loretta Vitek, uses as a signature at the end of her emails: There's always a story; it'd be a shame not to tell it!

Here's what happened:
No other driveways had singers, but I started anyway. Along came a jogging couple. She smiled & waved & I did, too. They kept jogging (not necessarily a review on my playing & singing, but confess I came darned near tears & became slightly choked up -- hey, I'm a storyteller, not a musician!)

Side comment here, that's always my standard excuse since I sometimes say I play like an Oriental Rug where there's always a flaw in it.  (The idea, I'm told, is the same as with the Amish -- proving the maker isn't claiming deity.)  

The next day the song was Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" which let me use my preferred instrument, the mountain dulcimer.  Two teenage boys came by, with one carrying a fishing pole from the nearby pond.  Can't say they were 6 feet apart, but maybe they were from the same family.  At any rate they did what teenagers do when they think grown-ups are crazy, irrelevant, or whatever. . . they ignored me.  Sang anyway and figured it was as much for me as for a possible eventual neighborhood event.

Thursday the song was Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."  As with "Sweet Caroline", the only online information was for guitar, so that's what I prepared with what time I had between Zoom conferences and other things that needed doing.  Again YouTube let me know the song a bit better.  I'm a classical music lover, know lots of show tunes, and my musical playing these days is mainly folk music.  Got all ready only to come to the door with guitar and music in hand and stop!  It was raining!!!  No way was I going to take my precious instrument and play outside in the rain.  At least with my mountain dulcimer I could play it inside my car with the windows down or at least cracked open.  Once again I figured the playing or at least the preparation was for me.  I can understand the words offer encouragement.  (Muttering to myself: just wish it would stick with folk music.)  At least people in locations with porches could still play, just not my neighborhood. 

By the way WWJ radio, which posted that idea of Play Music on the Porch to Combat Coronavirus Fears said:

Play a song. That's it. Tonight's song will be posted at 8 a.m. every morning on our social media.
Play it loud and proud to spread the message. This isn't the end. We're together in this and we'll get through it.
Have a guitar? Play it. Can you wail? Let's hear it. Break out your high school band clarinet.
Hell, just step on your porch and wave at the neighbors so you feel like part of a community again.
Not a musical bone in your body? Hold up your phone with the song playing on itunes or You Tube.

Somehow I think it has all been worth it, just wish I had a longer time to prepare and the songs were less pop music, but then what do I expect, Beethoven's Fifth?  That would be what I hear on my radio.

Right now I'm sure we all would like  reason to smile and here's my favorite Beethoven story.

While strolling through the Währing cemetery in Vienna a tourist noticed a large hole in the ground.  Looking closer he saw steps leading down into the earth.  He decided to see where they went.  Down, down he went until he saw a bit of candlelight ahead.  Going to it he was surprised to see Beethoven himself, surrounded by papers, and scratching away on them.  The tourist asked, "What are you doing?"  To which a grumpy Beethoven replied "Decomposing of course!"

Stop that groaning!  Let's take our humor however we can find it.

On Friday I felt as grumpy as old Ludwig himself.  The song was our national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner."  All right there are lots of good stories about that song, but I knew I'd be singing it a capella.  Then when 6 rolled around the national briefing was just beginning.  I hate settling for a selection of what was said, rather than seeing the whole thing and making my own decisions about it.  Instead I sent a grumpy comment to the radio station.  No, I didn't state my preference for type of music, just how it went out in the "boonies" where I live and that the timing might be the reason there haven't been more people out at 6.  

I know one size never fits all and this week's "Shelter in place" is bound to be different in all types of locations.  For my family I phoned some special girls and told them two stories to match their requests.  My favorite mermaid tale was posted way back on March 12, 2014, the first of three stories presented here and collected by Thomas Crofton Croker of Irish stories.  The other story was requested to be spooky.  Again I chose my favorite and it, too, is Irish.  I'm still searching for a Public Domain version to give here, but so far I've only been able to find "Mary Culhane and the Dead Man" in the 1973 book by Molly Bang with the fairly innocuous sounding title of The Goblins Giggle and Other Stories.  The title is misleading.  Finally I guided them in making a story using bits they contributed.  An appointment was made for next Friday and I suggested they help their mother with their school work since "she's been out of school a long time!"  Then I gave them all a bit of an extra assignment in Government, saying we've been hearing their working on school from home might not help them move to the next grade and/or they might have to go to school in the summer to make it up!  Suggested they look up their Michigan State Senator and State Representative (not their U.S. Senators and Representative) and request something be done to avoid these problems, possibly by testing out of their grade.  Of course I also mentioned the many stories to be found here!

Beyond all of this, I'm grateful for that Executive Order allowing me to walk my Beast, a "Malamutt" who's got the best of the genetic background for a Malamute and a Siberian Husky.  The other day we were still able to hike that golf course I mentioned last week at the introduction to the story of "The Coming of Spring."  We were parallel to the nearby road with the leafless trees & bushes forming a separation.  Two women walking apart were picking up trash on the road.  Saw my boy and shouted across how gorgeous he is.  He always gets those comments from "his fans" when he's seen.

Even with "Shelter in place" it's amazing how many cars passed us on the dirt roads Friday.  (The traffic is precisely why that golf course is so appreciated.)

And now to close with these words of wisdom found on the internet:
"If you self-quarantine for your family's safety, please be smart. I can't afford to buy fifteen baby shower presents in December."