BiblioVault - Books about Folklore

Ghost of the Ozarks

Murder and Memory in the Upland South

Brooks Blevins

University of Illinois Press, 2012

In 1929, in a remote county of the Arkansas Ozarks, the gruesome murder of harmonica-playing drifter Connie Franklin and the brutal rape of his teenaged fiancée captured the attention of a nation on the cusp of the Great Depression. National press from coast to coast ran stories of the sensational exploits of night-riding moonshiners, powerful "Barons of the Hills," and a world of feudal oppression in the isolation of the rugged Ozarks. The ensuing arrest of five local men for both crimes and the confusion and superstition surrounding the trial and conviction gave Stone County a dubious and short-lived notoriety.

Closely examining how the story and its regional setting were interpreted by the media, Brooks Blevins recounts the gripping events of the murder investigation and trial, where a man claiming to be the murder victim--the "Ghost" of the Ozarks--appeared to testify. Local conditions in Stone County, which had no electricity and only one long-distance telephone line, frustrated the dozen or more reporters who found their way to the rural Ozarks, and the developments following the arrests often prompted reporters' caricatures of the region: accusations of imposture and insanity, revelations of hidden pasts and assumed names, and threats of widespread violence. Locating the past squarely within the major currents of American history, Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Memory in the Upland South paints a convincing backdrop to a story that, more than 80 years later, remains riddled with mystery.

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Ghosts Along Cumberland

Deathlore Kentucky Foothills

William Lynwood Montell

University of Tennessee Press, 1975

A fascinating collection of ghost stories, tales of the supernatural, death beliefs and death sayings that remain as a vestige of the part in south central Kentucky's "Pennyrile" region.

"This unique and extremely valuable book adds considerably to the area of folklore studies in the United States. The material which Montell obtained in his field work is superb."
--Don Yoder.

"This book is to be recommended to both folklorists and those non-folklorists who read folklore for enjoyment alone. It makes an important contribution to the study of deathlore and, it is to be hoped, will draw added attention to this multi-generic subject area."
--David J. Hufford, Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin.

"Professor Montell's book can well be viewed as a standard of excellence: a direct, articulate and cataloged approach for future study and implementation in the fields of folklore and oral history."
--Joan Perkal, Oral History Association Newsletter.

"The book gives fascinating accounts of death beliefs, death omens, folk beliefs associated with the dead, and in the major section, ghosts narratives. A fine combination of scholarship and chilling narration to be relished by firelight in an old deserted house in the hills."
--Book Forum.

"Professor Montell has arranged beliefs and experiences about death of a particular group of people in such a way that a whole new aspect of the people's lives comes to focus."
--Loyal Jones, The Filson Club HIstory Quarterly.

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Ghosts And The Japanese

Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends

Michiko Iwasaka & Barre Toelken

Utah State University Press, 1994

The Japanese have ambivalent attitudes toward death, deeply rooted in pre-Buddhist traditions. In this scholarly but accessible work, authors Iwasaka and Toelken show that everyday beliefs and customs--particularly death traditions--offer special insight into the living culture of Japan.

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Gila Monster

Facts & Folklore Of Americas Aztec Lizard

David E. Brown

University of Utah Press, 1999

The Gila Monster spends 99% of its life underground, making encounters with this lizard extremely rare. Sightings are infrequent even for the biologists who study them. When one does stumble upon a Gila Monster, however, this slow-moving lizard is not easily forgotten. Advertised by orange-and-black coloration and followed by stories of venomous power, the Gila Monster carries a mystique like that of few other animals.

In this volume, authors David Brown and Neil Carmony dig out the tall tales, dispel the myths, and reveal the lizard’s true character. Through a collection of biological and historical facts mixed with entertaining stories, they have created an illuminating account of America’s largest and only poisonous lizard. Written in an engaging style, The Gila Monster is a fun and educational read for all who are intrigued by the Southwest and its most mysterious denizen.

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The Glacier Park Reader

David Stanley

University of Utah Press, 2017

The first and only anthology of key writings about Glacier National Park, this comprehensive collection ranges from Native American myths to early exploration narratives to contemporary journeys, from investigations of the park’s geology and biology to hair-raising encounters with wild animals, fires, and mountain peaks.

Soon after the park was established in 1910, visitors began to arrive, often with pen in hand. They included such well-known authors as mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart, historian Agnes C. Laut, fiction writer Dorothy Johnson, humorist Irvin S. Cobb, poet Vachel Lindsay, and artist Maynard Dixon—all featured in the book. Readers will encounter colorful characters who lived in and around the park in its early days, including railroad magnate and conservationist Louis Hill, renegade ranger and poacher Joe Cosley, bootlegger Josephine Doody, and old-time cowboy guide Jim Whilt. Blackfeet and Kalispel myths, politically charged descriptions by early explorers such as John Muir and George Bird Grinnell, and full-color reproductions of the illustrated letters of cowboy artist and Glacier resident Charles M. Russell are also included.

Copublished with the Glacier National Park Conservancy.
The Glacier National Park Conservancy preserves the Park for generations to come. Learn more about our work at www.glacier.org

Part of the National Park Reader series, edited by Lance Newman and David Stanley

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Globalization and Race

Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness

Kamari Maxine Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas, eds.

Duke University Press, 2006

Kamari Maxine Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas argue that a firm grasp of globalization requires an understanding of how race has constituted, and been constituted by, global transformations. Focusing attention on race as an analytic category, this state-of-the-art collection of essays explores the changing meanings of blackness in the context of globalization. It illuminates the connections between contemporary global processes of racialization and transnational circulations set in motion by imperialism and slavery; between popular culture and global conceptions of blackness; and between the work of anthropologists, policymakers, religious revivalists, and activists and the solidification and globalization of racial categories.

A number of the essays bring to light the formative but not unproblematic influence of African American identity on other populations within the black diaspora. Among these are an examination of the impact of “black America” on racial identity and politics in mid-twentieth-century Liverpool and an inquiry into the distinctive experiences of blacks in Canada. Contributors investigate concepts of race and space in early-twenty-first century Harlem, the experiences of trafficked Nigerian sex workers in Italy, and the persistence of race in the purportedly non-racial language of the “New South Africa.” They highlight how blackness is consumed and expressed in Cuban timba music, in West Indian adolescent girls’ fascination with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and in the incorporation of American rap music into black London culture. Connecting race to ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, and religion, these essays reveal how new class economies, ideologies of belonging, and constructions of social difference are emerging from ongoing global transformations.

Contributors. Robert L. Adams, Lee D. Baker, Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Tina M. Campt, Kamari Maxine Clarke, Raymond Codrington, Grant Farred, Kesha Fikes, Isar Godreau, Ariana Hernandez-Reguant, Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe, John L. Jackson Jr., Oneka LaBennett, Naomi Pabst, Lena Sawyer, Deborah A. Thomas

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Gods and Goddesses in the Garden

Greco-Roman Mythology and the Scientific Names of Plants

Bernhardt, Peter

Rutgers University Press, 2008

Zeus, Medusa, Hercules, Aphrodite. Did you know that these and other dynamic deities, heroes, and monsters of Greek and Roman mythology live on in the names of trees and flowers? Some grow in your local woodlands or right in your own backyard garden.

In this delightful book, botanist Peter Bernhardt reveals the rich history and mythology that underlie the origins of many scientific plant names. Unlike other books about botanical taxonomy that take the form of heavy and intimidating lexicons, Bernhardt's account comes together in a series of interlocking stories. Each chapter opens with a short version of a classical myth, then links the tale to plant names, showing how each plant "resembles" its mythological counterpart with regard to its history, anatomy, life cycle, and conservation. You will learn, for example, that as our garden acanthus wears nasty spines along its leaf margins, it is named for the nymph who scratched the face of Apollo. The shape-shifting god, Proteus, gives his name to a whole family of shrubs and trees that produce colorful flowering branches in an astonishing number of sizes and shapes.

Amateur and professional gardeners, high school teachers and professors of biology, botanists and conservationists alike will appreciate this book's entertaining and informative entry to the otherwise daunting field of botanical names. Engaging, witty, and memorable, Gods and Goddesses in the Garden transcends the genre of natural history and makes taxonomy a topic equally at home in the classroom and at cocktail parties.

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The Grand Teton Reader

Robert W. Righter

University of Utah Press, 2021

Grand Teton National Park draws more than three million visitors annually in search of wildlife, outdoor adventure, solitude, and inspiration. This collection of writings showcases the park’s natural and human histories through stories of drama and beauty, tragedy and triumph.

Editor Robert Righter has selected thirty-five contributors whose work takes readers from the Tetons’ geological origins to the time of Euro-American encroachment and the park’s politically tumultuous creation. Selections range from Laine Thom’s Shoshone legend of the Snake River and Owen Wister’s essay “Great God! I’ve Just Killed a Bear,” to Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson’s humorous yet fearful account of crossing the Snake River, and William Owen’s first attempt to climb the Grand Teton. Conservationists, naturalists, and environmentalists are also represented: Terry Tempest Williams chronicles her multiyear encounter with her “Range of Memory,” and Olaus and Mardy Murie recount the difficulties of “park-making” in an often-hostile human environment.

Anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the park’s wild beauty and controversial past will want to read these stories by people who lived it.

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