Skinner - Naming the Winds - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

No matter what the calendar says, today is WINDSday!

The Skinner sisters, Ada and Eleanor, have often appeared here. I love their seasonal books with a jewel name. Today's story is from The Pearl Story Book; Stories and Legends of Winter, Christmas and New Year's Day. While winter is a long way from the time called "When Winter and Spring Met", This story retold by Ada Skinner seems to fit our weather. 

The book in its Table of Contents lists this story as being retold by Ada Skinner. A bit of searching using the names to track the origin of the story led me to find it is an Iroquois tale. I also found a second telling of it at Warpaths2peacepipes.com also calling it an Iroquois story. They cite the Frances Jenkins Olcott version titled "How the Four Winds Were Named" from her The Red Indian Fairy Book. The Warpaths2PeacePipes home page gives a wide variety of information about the various Native American tribes, but nothing about the origin of the site, only that the site's author is Linda Alchin. Between the two versions may the wind blow gently on your own re-telling.

by Rubaiat Habib on Pinterest

NAMING THE WINDS

(Indian Legend)

Ga-oh the great master of the winds decided to choose his helpers from the animals of the earth. He blew a strong blast that shook the rocks and hills and when his reverberating call had ceased its thunderous echoes he opened the north gate wide across the sky and called Ya-o-gah, the Bear.

Lumbering over the mountains as he pushed them from his path, Ya-o-gah, the bulky bear, who had battled the boisterous winds as he came, took his place at Ga-oh’s gate and waited the mission of his call. Said Ga-oh, “Ya-o-gah, you are strong; you can freeze the waters with your cold breath; in your broad arms you can carry the wild tempests, and clasp the whole earth when I bid you destroy. I will place you in my far North, there to watch the herd of my winter winds when I loose them in the sky. You shall be North Wind. Enter your home.” And the bear lowered his head for the leash with which Ga-oh bound him, and submissively took his place in the north sky.

In a gentler voice Ga-oh called Ne-o-ga, the Fawn, and a soft breeze as of the summer crept over the sky; the air grew fragrant with the odour of flowers, and there were voices as of babbling brooks telling the secrets of the summer to the tune of birds, as Ne-o-ga came proudly lifting her head.

Said Ga-oh, “You walk with the summer sun, and know all its paths; you are gentle, and kind as the sunbeam, and will rule my flock of the summer winds in peace. You shall be the South Wind. Bend your head while I leash you to the sky, for you are swift, and might return from me to the earth.” And the gentle Fawn followed Ga-oh to his great gate which opens the south sky.

Again Ga-oh trumpeted a shrill blast, and all the sky seemed threatening; an ugly darkness crept into the clouds that sent them whirling in circles of confusion. A quarrelsome, shrieking voice snarled through the air, and with a sound as of great claws tearing the heavens into rifts, Da-jo-ji, the Panther, sprang to the gate.

Said Ga-oh, “You are ugly, and fierce, and can fight the strong storms; you can climb the high mountains, and tear down the forests; you can carry the whirlwind on your strong back, and toss the great sea waves high in the air, and snarl at the tempests if they stray from my gate. You shall be the West Wind. Go to the west sky, where even the Sun will hurry to hide when you howl your warning to the night.” And Da-jo-ji, dragging his leash as he stealthily crept along, followed Ga-oh to the furthermost west sky.

Yet Ga-oh rested not. The earth was flat, and in each of its four corners he must have an assistant. One corner yet remained, and again Ga-oh’s strong blast shook the earth. And there arose a moan like the calling of a lost mate; the sky shivered in a cold rain; the whole earth clouded in mist; a crackling sound as of great horns crashing through the forest trees dinned the air, and O-yan-do-ne, the Moose, stood stamping his hoofs at the gate.

Said Ga-oh, as he strung a strong leash around his neck, “Your breath blows the mist, and can lead the cold rains; your horns spread wide, and can push back the forests to widen the path for my storms as with your swift hoofs you race with my winds. You shall be the East Wind, and blow your breath to chill the young clouds as they float through the sky.” Said Ga-oh as he led him to the east sky, “Here you shall dwell forevermore.”

Thus, with his assistants, does Ga-oh control his storms. And although he must ever remain in his sky lodge, his will is supreme, and his faithful assistants will obey!

*** 

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 20^th 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 “PublicDomain Story Resources."

Lindsay - How to See a Wind - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Weather all over the United States and much of Europe has been atrocious.  I recall reading earlier this past week every state had a Watch, Warning, or Advisory.  The saying "Everybody talks about the weather..." certainly has come true.  Here on my "bunny slope" of a hill the snow keeps adding another inch or three to the 8.5" dumping from last week.  The cold has definitely been below normal, but the real killer with extra frostbite warnings, has been the Wind Chill.  Brrrrrr!  That wind makes even the simplest time outdoors awful, including causing power failures.

I went looking for wind stories in the newest (1928) Public Domain books I have.  Today's story is from an author, Maud Lindsay, whose stories have appeared here many times before this, but The Choosing Book has just appeared in Public Domain.  Wikipedia gives far less information than the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame and the Encyclopedia of Alabama, but it does say she published over 18 children's book.  Project Gutenberg has four of them so far and others, including The Choosing Book, are available through the Internet Archive.  In looking back here at earlier information and stories by Lindsay I see her photograph was removed.  It's on both of the Alabama sites and I presume they hold the copyright.  

If you're wondering why it's called The Choosing Book, it's perfect for the week when voting first begins for the coming presidential campaign.  Lindsay presents two storytellers, the wandering Tintil and the stay-at-home Dicomill. Their stories alternate throughout the book and the reader is asked to vote on which storyteller you prefer.  The reader can then tell it to everybody or write their vote "on a bit of paper and give it to the wind.  Yes, the wind is the only postman you can trust in such an important matter."

How appropriate for this story.

Be careful with that suggestion in the current temperatures...your eyes could get frozen shut!

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

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

Holbrook - Why All Men Love the Moon - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

There's so much going on this weekend, Father's Day and the first nationally celebrated Juneteenth, but it all is affected by the weather.  The south of North and Central America is about to be hit by the first tropical storm, possibly hurricane, of the season.  A large part of the United States is being hit by record heat and drought.  Even places like Michigan has seen record heat this June even though it's nothing like weather west of us and our drought is also there, but not as devastating.  Climate refugees might want to remember Michigan's motto of "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you."

Today's story also goes by the name of "How the sun, moon, and wind went out to dinner" or a form of that.  I will give links to other versions after it.  

John D. Batten in Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

WHY ALL MEN LOVE THE MOON.

Thunder and Lightning were going to give a feast. It was to be a most delightful banquet, for all the good things that could be imagined were to be brought from every corner of the world.

For many days before the feast these good things were coming. The birds flew up with what they could find in the cold air of the north and the warm air of the south. The fishes came from the east and from the west with what they could find in the cold water or in the warm water. As for what grew on the earth, there was no end to the luxuries that came every morning and every evening. Squirrels brought nuts, crows brought corn, the ants brought sweet things of many kinds. Food that was rich and rare came from India and Japan. The butterflies and the humming-birds were to arrange the flowers, the peacocks and the orioles promised to help make the place beautiful, and the waves and the brooks agreed to make their most charming music.

Thunder and Lightning were talking about whom to invite, and they questioned whether to ask the sun, the moon, and the wind. These three were children of the star mother.

"The star mother has been so kind to us that I suppose we ought to invite her children," said Thunder.

"The moon is charming, but the sun and the wind are rough and wild. If I were the star mother, I would keep them in a corner all day, and they should stay there all night, too, if they did not promise to be gentle," said Lightning.

"We must invite them," replied Thunder, with what sounded much like a little growl, "but it would be delightful if they would agree to stay away, all but the moon."

That is why the sun and wind were invited as well as the moon. When the invitation came, the two brothers said to their little sister, "You are too small to go to a feast, but perhaps they asked you because they were going to ask us."

"Star mother, I think I will stay at home," said the moon tearfully.

"No, little moon," replied the star mother; "go to the feast with the other children."

So the three children went to the feast, and the star mother waited for them to come home.

When they came, she asked, "What did you bring for me?" The hands of the sun were full of good things, but he said, "I brought only what I am going to eat myself," and he sat down in a corner with his back to the others, and went on eating.

"Did you bring anything for me?" she asked the wind.

"I brought some good things halfway home, and then I was weary of carrying them," answered the wind, "so I have eaten them."

"I should never have imagined that you would be so selfish," said the star mother sadly, and she asked the little moon, "My daughter, did you bring anything for me?"

"Yes, star mother," answered the little moon, and she gave her mother more good things than any one had ever seen in their home before. There were rare luxuries that the fishes and the birds had brought. There were rich colors that the peacocks and orioles had promised, and there was even some of the charming music that the waves and brooks had agreed to make.

The star mother praised the little maiden. Then she looked at her two boys. She was sad, for she knew that they must be punished for their selfishness. "Sun," said she, "you wish to turn your back on all, and your punishment shall be that when the warm days of summer have come, all men will turn their backs on you." To the wind she said, "Wind, you thought of no one but yourself. When the storm is coming and you are afraid and fly before it, no one shall think of you. All men shall close their doors against you and fasten them." Then to her little daughter she said, "My little moon, you were unselfish and thoughtful. You shall always be bright and beautiful, and men shall love you and praise you whenever they look upon your gentle, kindly face."

This is why men hide from the sun and the wind, but never from the moon.

Those illustrations come from the classic Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs and it is worth checking.  It does a nice simple job of telling the story.  I chose Florence Holbrook's version because I like the way she expands this simple story with the contributions of birds, fish, and animals.  Jacobs, in his notes says his source is the pioneering work by Miss Frere roughly a quarter of a century before in Old Deccan Days, or, Indian Fairy Legends current in Southern India, collected from oral tradition by M. Frere.  Initially I went to Kate Douglas Wiggin's Tales of Laughter, but was surprised and disappointed.  Not only does that anthology promise humor, Wiggin deserves being considered a standard author and editor.  I found her version felt preachy over the greed and its consequences.  Maybe after reading other versions, it wasn't any worse.  I do think it's worth pointing out our actions have consequences, including how people view us.  She does possibly a better job of pointing out the "pourquois" elements of why the sun and wind are as disliked as they are.  This is especially true as our current weather makes so many suffer.

If you want still other versions, William Patten in the first of his nine volume Junior Classics repeats Frere's telling.  It was also in two major early Twentieth Century readers, Blaisdell's Child Life, 2d Reader and Coe's Second Book of Stories.  I have each and use the books in my One Room School Teacher program as they were examples of some of the books that shaped our recent ancestors.  

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

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!

Shelter in Place - Week 7 / Poulsson - How the West Wind Helped Dandelion - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

In the midst of all the current chaos, isn't it wonderful to see plants waking up for the spring?

Try this riddle on somebody.

When she's young she's tall and slender,
Any faint young breeze could bend her.
She grows stout as she grows old,
And her hair is sunny gold.
As the days pass out of sight,
Lo! her hair turns snowy white.
Then the children in their play
Wish--and blow her quite away.
Guess her name.--You're "tired trying;"?
Why, her name is--Dandelion.

That's a poem by Julie M. Lippmann from an early book aimed at teachers called The Primary Plan Book, Volume 3 by Marian Minnie George.  Right now my lawn has dandelions popping up and it reminds me of something my mother would always say with delight: The old man spilled his bag of gold!

Photo by photokip.com from Pexels

I've hunted as thoroughly as possible and can't find what story or poem where that might originate.  Possibly an early 20th century reader?  If anybody can help me find it, please let me know!

A site called Dandelion Delight has many stories, folklore, recipes, health benefits, facts, videos, poetry, and so much more.  I'd love to find a way to contact the owner of the site, but it doesn't make contact available.  Possibly whomever it is could track down the source of Mom's saying.  The truly comprehensive site reminds us "Some see a weed, others see a wish."  Among the stories there, I found a story from another book perfect for teachers and parents, especially in the time when homeschooling is the only form of education going on everywhere!  In the Child's World; Morning Talks and Stories by Emilie Poulsson, a pioneer in early childhood work, who achieved phenomenal success as a writer and educator while blind from childhood.  She was especially noted for her poetry, including finger plays, since her focus was firmly fixed upon young children.

Beyond just today's story, it's part of the unit in In the Child's World about Wind and that, too, is something in the spring beyond when "the March winds doth blow."  This is why I am giving a bit more from that unit than just the story, but you might want to read more online at Internet Archive or download it or other Poulsson books at their Open Library.

Photo by Sharefaith from Pexels

 

That's only some of the material about the wind before today's story.  When scanning the story I also decided not to cut out bibliography, called "Teacher's Reading" in case you care to find some classic poetry, all are available on the internet.  The final item, "Earth and Man" by Arnold Henry Guyot is not poetry, but part of a series of lectures on physical geography.

I included her poem, "The Dandelion Cycle."  After that she gives a version of the story of "Odysseus and the Bag of Winds" from the Odyssey and a German tale of "The North Wind at Play."  If you're wondering why she doesn't include the famous Aesop fable of "The Wind and the Sun", she does, but it's in a section on Sunshine.  The book really does an admirable job of covering the topics suited to the curiosity of young children.  I'm pleased to own my own copy of it.

While I'm still thinking about stories and facts for young children, Dandelion Delight's poems include this which is obviously meant as a finger play.

Ten happy dandelions growing in a line
One turned to fluff and then there were nine
Nine happy dandelions growing by the gate
one turned to fluff and then there were eight
eight happy dandelions growing toward heaven one turned to fluff and then there were seven
seven happy dandelions growing to be picked one turned to fluff and then there were six
six happy dandelions growing close to a hive one turned to fluff and then there were five
Five happy dandelions growing more and more
One turned to fluff and then there were four
four happy dandelions growing wild and free
one turned to fluff and then there were three
three happy dandelions growing just for you
one turned to fluff and then there were two
tow happy dandelions growing in the sun
one turned to fluff and then there was one
one happy dandelion
having lots of fun it turned to fluff and then there were none

It was written by Kathy KJ Nanny.  I've no idea who she was, but Poulsson would have enjoyed it. 

How I wish libraries would re-open as the perfect picture book to go with all of this is the classic tale by Don Freeman, Dandelion.

Here in Michigan people can mow their own lawns or hire landscaping as long as "social distancing" is maintained.  Personally I share the opinion of the Dandelion Delight site and hate lawns treated to remove "weeds."  Still I have always said Spring is the time when a little hard work pays off in a lot of hard work later!

We've had the wind blow in a cold spell promising possible frost this weekend, but it won't hurt the dandelions.  Soon (I hope!) it will be warm enough to put the hammock back up.  If we're still worried about Sheltering in Place, I plan to follow the advice from an author I enjoy, Renee Pawlish, whose magnet gives this diagnosis I approve.

Until next week, may you "self-quarantine" by reading!
*******************

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!

Stories and more about the Wind - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

It's commonly said "Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does a thing about it."  There's been plenty to talk about as the weather seems to have rushed the end of autumn and the start of winter.  Winds bringing colder than normal weather began even before Halloween and it promises to stay until at least November 20 and possibly to Thanksgiving.  They're even mentioning the "S" word to accumulate!  Summer is NOT the word anymore.

Thinking about this started me looking for stories about . . .

The WIND! 

Our winter weather comes down out of Canada, so it seems reasonable that today's story should come from there.  The tale comes from southern British Columbia's Thompson River people (as they were called at the time the story was recorded by the American Folklore Society in 1898) now called the Nlaka'pamux. The simplest form -- and most re-tellable form -- of it comes in Caroline Cunningham's The Talking Stone.

Like I said it's re-tellable and we all probably are wishing the Wind was so easily controlled.  (Well maybe not people wanting wind turbines to produce power.)

A later book by the same title was edited and the story retold by Dorothy deWit.  She called her story "The-Boy-Who-Snared-the-Wind and the Shaman's Daughter."  Her book is still in copyright, but she gave her source as "Traditions of the Thompson River Indians" in the Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, 1898.  Of course this made me want to see the original.  I'll give it here, but maybe you don't care to follow that academic route and just wanted an enjoyable tale of the wind.  If so, you may enjoy this bit of nursery verse:

(Found in various editions of My Book House, vol. 1 edited by Olive Beaupre Miller)

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Now for those wanting the "rest of the story", it includes that mythic folk hero, Coyote, and a bit of explanation about an unusual word, the stsuq, follows after it.

  

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If you're like me, you probably wondered "What the heck is a stsuq?" This is answered at the back of the book in the Notes section.

The Coyote version I just gave is considerably different from the version deWitt admits she retold.  To justify her version she cites yet another story which she blended with it.  Unfortunately copyright prevents me from giving it here.  Go to a library to borrow a copy if you're that curious.  Personally, knowing what a trickster Coyote traditionally is, I'm sure he would be amused.

Image by ArtTower from Pixabay

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

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

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!