Gunterman - Ballads and Boots - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Public Domain has released 1928's works, including Wanda Gág, Millions of Cats (the oldest American picture book still in print).  While much attention has been paid to Disney's mouse starting to become available, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain has an excellent article not only showing highlights of the newest released literature, films and music, but also the implications of delaying Public Domain.  

It is worth pointing out this from the article (I further highlight part of it):

The Tip of the (Melting) Iceberg

Many of the works featured above are famous; that is why we included them. Their copyright holders benefitted from 20 more years of copyright because the works had enduring popularity and were still earning royalties. But when Congress extended the copyright term for works like Steamboat Willie, it also did so for all of the works whose commercial viability had long subsided. For the vast majority—probably 99%—of works from 1928, no copyright holder financially benefited from continued copyright. Yet they remained off limits, for no good reason. A Congressional Research Service report indicated that only around 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value. After 75 years, that percentage is even lower. Most older works are “orphan works,” where the copyright owner cannot be found at all.

Now that these works are in the public domain, anyone can make them available to the public. This enables access to our cultural heritage—access to materials that might otherwise be forgotten. 1928 was a long time ago. The majority of works from that year are out of circulation. When they enter the public domain in 2024, anyone can republish or post them online. (Empirical studies have shown that public domain books are less expensive, available in more editions and formats, and more likely to be in print—see here, here, and here.) The works listed above are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more works are waiting to be rediscovered.

from Center for the Study of the Public Domain's Public Domain Day blog

I know this is an old rant of mine -- why this blog mainly offers Keeping the Public in Public Domain stories.  I take sunny yellow post-it notes and flag my Public Domain books.  I'm happy there's a lot of that sunshine on my shelves.  I have two stacks of books from my personal library that now are available. Unfortunately many of them are not available online yet so I can bring good copies here without damaging their older bindings.  As the Pubic Domain article mentions, "Online repositories such as the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, Google Books, and the New York Public Library can make works fully available online. This helps enable access to cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history. 1928 was a long time ago and the vast majority of works from 1928 are not commercially available. You couldn’t buy them, or even find them, if you wanted."  Fortunately I was able to find Bertha L. Gunterman's Castles in Spain at the Internet Archive.  That Gunterman article mentions her work as a publisher, but she only produced three books as her own.  How it was done is worth knowing: 

Gunterson (sic) had long been interested in Spanish fantasy, and though she spoke no Spanish, she would take a friend with her to the New York Public Library to translate stories as she worked her way through some Spanish originals. The book contains some sixteen folktales.

I chose a story of music and keeping a culture alive as particularly related to the Public Domain.

There's nothing wrong with keeping music or stories alive, but they do deserve respect.  

At the same time those repositories of such culture are most vital, a court case, Hachette v. Internet Archive, threatens online works and ebook lending by libraries.  An appeal supported by the American Library Association and Association of Research Libraries, Authors Alliance, Copyright Scholars, and many more can be found in "Friend of the court briefs filed in internet archives appeal."  How appropriate that today's story, now in Public Domain, was so far only available there.

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

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

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

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories

Caballero - A Girl Who Wanted Three Husbands -Keeping the Public in Public Domain

September 15 - October 15 is Latinx & Hispanic Heritage Month

That reminder has been on my calendar for over a month.  I'm still trying to find something from the Latinx tradition that is Public Domain.  I have a Hispanic book, however, The Bird of Truth and Other Fairy Tales, by Fernan Caballero, translated by J.H. Ingram as part of the Illustrated Library of Fairy Tales according to the copy reproduced by Google Books - The bird of truth and other fairy tales.  That copy (and others in the Illustrated Library) was published in London by W. Swan Sonnenschein & Company.  I was delighted to find it.  My copy is exactly the same once you get past the title page, but was published here in the U.S. by J.B. Lippincott & Company.  Neither edition gives a date of publication, but the Google Book version is from the Bodleian Library.  (That Wikipedia link tells you a bit more about the truly famous library at Oxford.)  Their stamp says it was added "29 May 83" and I presume was 1883, since J.B. Lippincott & Company incorporated in 1885.  The British book has a bright beautiful cover that mine may have once had (minus the series note about the Illustrated Library) and is probably with a better binding as mine has an extremely loose binding!  For those curious about the illustrations and who was the illustrator . . . it was by that prolific artist: Anonymous!

UPDATE: The name Harrison appears on the story's illustration and other illustrations.  Not quite anonymous.

I'm mentioning this because Google Books, Project Gutenberg , the Internet Archive, and the Online Books Page all have had their share of controversy, especially dealing with copyright.  The Wikipedia links can tell you more about those organizations and take you to their sites to read Public Domain works (and save the binding of those books!).  Right now the Internet Archive as Archive.org even loans for a very brief time books not yet in Public Domain.  Whether this will continue is still a matter of legal dispute with four major book publishers - Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House in June 2020, challenging the copyright validity of the controlled digital lending program.  Later this year that case may finally be settled, but I expect it to go all the way to the Supreme Court.  Internet Archive also is frequently cited here for its Wayback Machine which lets you visit a digital library of internet sites as they happen to be scanned over time.  The standard information at the end of "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" articles mentions, for example, the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site, http://www.story-lovers.com/ , and takes you to October 22, 2016.  With the exception of Google Books, all three of these are non-profit organizations that always need your donations.

Today's story is a classic tale with much found all over the world, but handles it in a distinctively Spanish way.  The interpreter, Ingram, notes  many of the stories are "evidently transplanted from a foreign soil", but says:

Whatever their parentage, however, the tales which form the present collection have been so thoroughly naturalized that they may now be fairly deemed typical Spanish...

You may be sure those naturalized tales traveled throughout Latin America and our own southwest.  I probably could have saved today's story until June and its talk of weddings, but it is shouting out to me that it must be shared NOW!

The Google version had a quirk on the initial and ending pages reproducing only the illustrations.  I was able to do the opening text separately, but it changes the size.  I had to type the ending.

 

Enough background -- Enjoy!

 

                                                from her coffin, and turning to her father said, --

                                                    "You see, father, that I must marry all three of them!"

So our title gives us a hint of how this story differs from the usual ending where a decision must be made.  I've no idea how things went from that point on, but sometimes that's a great place to leave an audience puzzling it over and making their own conclusions!

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

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

Eells - The Princess Who Was Dumb - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Illustration by the Petershams

Words change!  Sometimes before telling a story, a bit of explanation is needed.  A perfect example is the way the word "lame" is now commonly used to mean "weak, unconvincing, or inadequate", but it originally meant a physical disability causing a limp or difficulty walking.  Today's story calls a princess "dumb."  Assuredly her mother-in-law would not only mean the princess is unable to speak -- the original meaning -- but also would consider the current use of it to mean "stupid."  

 Personally the older use of "dumb" bothers me because it has often been applied to the deaf who have difficulty speaking.  "Mute" might be slightly more accurate, but the difficulties involved in speech usually has nothing to do with creating sound.  Rather it's hearing and then reproducing the sound.  With American Sign Language as the third most used language in the United States, such terminology tends to get me started pulling out my soapbox for a rant.

Instead I've pulled out a delightful story from Tales of Enchantment from Spain by Elsie Eells.  As an adult I think the strained relationship with the mother-in-law adds to the enjoyment of this story beyond what a younger audience might miss.  It's rather like Queen Aggravain's dissatisfaction with Princess Dauntless in the musical, "Once Upon a Mattress."  The princess is certainly dauntless in this story, bringing it to a sly end.

Speaking as a storyteller, I daresay there are times my own husband might feel that way!

The last time I posted a story by Eells was in August of 2016.  There's more known about her now.  She's best known for her collections of South American, especially Brazilian folklore.  This book was her final book of half a dozen and the only reason I can safely post it from 1950 is she didn't renew it when the copyright law required.  According to Find A Grave, she died in 1963 at age 82, with her husband, Burr, dying two years later.  No children are listed, so we are able to enjoy her final three books before they might otherwise have been still under copyright.  Wikipedia mentions her travels as a researcher in the 1920s and 1930s  to various countries as a researcher at The Hispanic Society of America in New York, which was unusual then.  

¡Gracias!

Find a Grave mentions her Daughters of the American Revolution lineage and then goes on to give her passport application for those travels.  It's actually a wonderful look back at the then 40 year old writer and her husband.  I enjoyed it so much I'm going to give most of it.

Found a US Passport application for Elsie Spicer Eells giving her birth as Sept 21, 1880 in West Winfield NY, aage 40 on Nov 1, 1920 when they filed for this passport. Husband is Burr Gould Eells who was born in Walton, NY. They were living in Babylon, NY. She is listed as a writer.

She will be away for 6 month to do research in the following places:Portugal, Azores, Spain, Cuba in each of these places she wants to research Spanish _____ (can't read the last word). Aboard the Brittania, having never had a passport before. She is40, 5 foot 6 inches, medium forehead, green eyes, short nose, medium mouth, round chin, brown hair, fair complexion and oval face. Then Burr Gould Eells swears that they live in Babylon, NY and that he has known Elsie for 22 years. He is a teacher for what looks like Commerical High School, Brooklyn, NY. There address is Box 536 Babylon, NY. The picture is from her application. Then is attached a letter who wrote that her research is for literary work for which she has undertaken on behalf of the Hispanic Societyand that she should be granted the passport.

With the chaos of the Covid pandemic, passports are said to take 18 weeks currently (or "only" 12 weeks for a higher priced expedited application).  What storytelling and sharing of folklore might be currently waiting?

In the meantime, travel online through stories.

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!

 

 

Another Story (or Two) to Build a Better World

On June 17 I did an article about why I believe stories can make a difference.  Today I have another, but first look ahead to this Wednesday, July 12.

I hope you, too, realize the importance of supporting the laws for net neutrality passed in 2015 and now under attack.  I try to avoid controversy here.  It's not my purpose, so here's a Wikipedia article on Net Neutrality that's both international and gives both sides of the topic.  I'm sure you can easily find more by searching, using the term.  Some will date back to right before its passage when it was first explained, like this Business Insider/Tech Insider article about Net Neutrality for Dummies and How It Effects You.  We stuck together then like another famous story, David and Goliath, and surprised everyone by winning.  Goliath, in this case the big cable and cell phone companies, is trying to get back up.  LET'S WORK TOGETHER AGAIN!

The internet, with all it's flaws, still can help us Build a Better World and today I want to feature a story from Toledo...no, not the Toledo right below the Michigan mitten, but its namesake in Toledo, Spain.  It's a legend many discover as they enter this famous old city.  I've found photos and another retelling on the internet, but want to give you the story as I first discovered it told by Richard Marsh.  He's a former Michigander, now living in Ireland, who loves to winter in Spain, but wherever he goes he's always a Storyteller.  I've enjoyed hearing him -- never enough times! -- and he also writes books you can still obtain.  This is from Spanish and Basque Legends (that link also lets you click on a 15 minute Talk Radio Europe interview about the book.

The story comes with Richard's permission (but please remember it is his copyrighted version and contact him first if you wish to use it).  You may do that using this email address: Richard at RichardMarsh dot ie -- that address omits the @ symbol and the final ".ie" for Ireland to end his address.  You certainly may use that also to buy his books or CDs. Here's his website: http://www.richardmarsh.ie/ .

The Bridge of San Martín

(Toledo)

The figure of a woman can be seen carved in stone in a niche over the keystone of the central arch of the Bridge of San Martín at Toledo. This story tells why she is so honoured.

A bridge near this spot was destroyed by flood in 1203 and immediately replaced. That bridge in turn was deliberately destroyed in the 1360s for strategic reasons during a battle for the kingship between the half-brothers Pedro I the Cruel and Don Enrique de Trastámara. The present bridge, a jewel of medieval architecture restored in the 17th and 18th centuries, was built in 1390 at the order of the Archbishop of Toledo, Don Pedro Tenorio.

The archbishop hired one of the most renowned architect-engineers of that time, whose name is not recorded. The work commenced, and the people of Toledo and the archbishop watched the progress of the bridge with satisfaction. Soon, the magnificent central arch, rising to 27 metres with a 40-metre span, was completed, and it was obvious that it would be only a matter of days before the scaffolding that supported the stonework could be removed.

One night, however, the engineer seemed unusually quiet and preoccupied when he came home from the day’s work. He refused to answer his wife’s questions, and after his supper he left the house without telling her where he was going. He went to the bridge, where he descended a ladder and inspected the foundations of the central arch. He arrived back home pale and disturbed. His wife pressed him again for an explanation, and he hesitantly told her what the problem was.

He had unaccountably made a serious error in his calculations. He could see now that as soon as the scaffolding was taken down, the central arch would collapse, killing any workmen in the vicinity. He would be responsible for the deaths of the workers if he said nothing. If he admitted his error and dismantled the bridge, his reputation would be destroyed, and no one would ever employ him as an engineer again.

What was he to do? Of course, he couldn’t let the men die, but what would he say to the archbishop? How could he explain why the bridge had to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, when the archbishop had been impatiently urging him to complete the work as soon as possible? No matter what he did he would be ruined. He covered his face with his hands and wept bitterly.

His wife was a brave and clever woman, and she immediately saw that there was only one solution. She also knew that she had little time to do what had to be done. She waited only a moment until she could see that her husband had fallen into a troubled sleep, exhausted by his worries. Then she took a torch and went out.

The night was dark and stormy, and she passed through the deserted streets unnoticed. As the rain began to fall more heavily, she was afraid that her torch might be extinguished, and that would be fatal to her plans. She arrived at the bridge and walked trembling to the central arch, then she threw the burning torch into the complex arrangement of wooden posts and poles and ropes that made up the scaffolding. The torch sputtered briefly in the rain, but soon the flames took hold and, fanned by the wind, rose quickly. Her task accomplished, the engineer’s wife ran home.

As the engineer had rightly calculated, as soon as the scaffolding burned away there was a tremendous crash of what the Toledans naturally took to be thunder. But it was the falling of the central arch of the bridge. The following morning, the archbishop and the people of Toledo surveyed the damage. Seeing the burnt scaffolding, they quite understandably attributed the disaster to a bolt of lightning during the storm. The archbishop ordered the engineer to recommence the construction of the bridge, which he did with a contented mind and a heart full of gratitude to his wife.

However, the woman was troubled with feelings of guilt. On the day the bridge was dedicated and officially opened, she requested an audience with the archbishop. Fully expecting to be punished or at least scolded, she admitted that she had destroyed the bridge and explained her reason. But the archbishop, instead of castigating her, praised her cleverness and courage in saving countless lives and the reputation of her husband. And he ordered a stone carved with the figure of a woman to be placed on the bridge to commemorate her deed.

*** 

Richard years ago, when discussing the story among fellow storytellers said:

You can't see the carving from the bridge itself, and from a distance it appears very worn and indistinct. Some skeptics say it is not of a woman at all, but of the archbishop who commissioned the bridge.

If you think about it, this story fits the idea perfectly about Building a Better World in thinking about Character Education or Values through storytelling.  Yes, it's a legend, but it makes the ideas of Honesty, Responsibility, Respect, and Courage memorable.  I consider it among three tales covering the basics to Build A Better World.  It not only covers the idea of building, it goes well with the story of "The Gift of Insults" given in my June 17 article (and correctly attributed as a gift of story by Brazilian novelist, Paulo Coelho, and so it should never be given anonymously).  I like to follow "The Gift of Insults" with an interesting practice followed by the Babemba tribe in Africa to reestablish within their community someone who has acted irresponsibly or unjustly.  In the case of the bridge builder for San Martín the legend finds an unusual way of coping with the need for Honesty, Responsibility, Respect, and Courage, but doesn't escape its need to act with those attributes.

Going back to his book, Spanish and Basque Legends, Richard includes 16 pages of color inserts to accompany the many stories, but admits he still didn't have enough space for all the pictures he wanted to include.  In a "Rest of the Story", I want to say the bridge crosses the Tagus River, is definitely medieval -- some say the 14th century, while others attribute it to the reign of Alfonso X the Wise (the towers at each end came later were part of later renovations), and in 1921 was declared a National Monument.

Here are some pictures of the bridge you may enjoy.

When Richard was contemplating how he wanted to tell the story he tried to stay faithful to the legendary sources.  While I was looking further, I found on Tony and Helen Page's TravelSignposts she fleshed out the story.  Helen adds a wonderful and appropriate subtitle "The Legend of Puente de San Martin – How One Woman Saved Her Husband from Disgrace."

She points out precisely the miscalculation the engineer realized...
Once all the scaffolding were removed, the central arch of the bridge would not be strong enough to support the weight of the cartloads of stone being brought in for the construction of the Toledo Cathedral.

Wikipedia omits the legend, but does mention its five arches, with the largest in the middle reaching an impressive span length of 40 meters -- that's slightly over 131 feet for those of us who are metrically impaired -- and very few bridges in the world had reached that mark until then.

Yes, I know that's only two of the three stories I mentioned earlier are the foundation for my program to Build a Better World.  I like to involve the audience and, since many of my audiences are mixed ages, I often tell in voice and sign, especially to open a program, teaching some signs along the way.  A Haitian tale about a girl with the melodious name of Tippingee (I mention the concept of Name Signs as there's no time to fingerspell such a name) is perfect and one of many exceptional stories found in the book, The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales.  I stay true to the story's folk roots, but YouTube has a delightful video of the late folklorist and author of the book, Diane Wolkstein, telling the story to fifth graders at PS242 in Harlem along with a mention of her website, DianeWolkstein.com still maintained by her sister, Megan.  The story brings in the "building blocks" of Cooperation, Creative Thinking, and yet again Courage.

Whether you are able to cross that bridge in Toledo, Spain, or one in Toledo, Ohio, or some other bridge near you, may it be safe and help you Build a Better World.
 

Caballero - A Girl Who Wanted Three Husbands - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

The title of today's story, "A Girl Who Wanted Three Husbands", trumped for me the title story from its book, The Bird of Truth and Other Fairy Tales.  This was even though Andrew Lang included "Bird..." in his The Orange Fairy Book and another tale, "The Knights of the Fish" is in the also respected Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith.  Here's the story about that girl.  I'll add a bit more about the book and its author after the story.

 

O.k. it's not the shortest story in the book, but I just had to read it.  Yes, it includes a few common themes, but it does still end (maybe a bit abruptly) with her still wanting three husbands.  What a refreshing change from all those kings (and others) who gave away their daughters without letting the girls decide.

Now a bit about the book, it can be found at Luna, an online archive of Public Domain books from University of Colorado - Boulder.  It's under its alternate title, found on the title page as Spanish Fairy Tales which is the translation by J.H. Ingram.  The author is listed as Fernán Caballero, but the translator tells us that's the pseudonym of a lady without naming the Spanish novelist, Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl de Faber.  Ingram's edition doesn't name the illustrator either.  There's a Wikipedia article about Caballero, but it doesn't mention this book, considering her only as a novelist.  The title story, The Bird of Truth, however, earns a very thorough synopsis of the complex story and also says: The Bird of Truth is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Cecilia Böhl de Faber in her Cuentos de Encantamiento.

As if all of that isn't confusing enough, the Luna site also gives yet another alternate title, Caballero's Fairy Tales.  Since "Caballero" died in 1877, we know it's Public Domain and it is also included in Index to Fairy Tales, which was published in 1915.  J.H. Ingram says many of the stories are from Andalusia, as well as noting many stories "are evidently transplanted from a foreign soil."  Yes, but we know how folklore travels, so that's no problem.  For anyone able able to read the original Spanish, Cuentos de Encantamiento, has 23 of the original 33 stories including this "La niña de los tres maridos."  ¡Qué maravilloso!
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This is part of a series of bi-weekly posting 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.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

Currently I'm involved in projects taking me out of my usual work of sharing stories with an audience.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  This fall I expect to return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Depending on response, I will decide at that time if "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings.