By Daniel W. Patterson (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) On a wintry night in 1831, a man named Charlie Silver was murdered with an axe and his body burned in a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. His young wife, Frankie Silver, was tried and hanged for the crime. In later years people claimed that a … Continued
By Linda Dégh (NHC Fellow, 1990–91)
By Richard M. Dorson (NHC Fellow, 1978–79) Most of Richard Dorson’s thirty years as folklorist have been spent collecting tales and legends in the remote backcountry, far from the centers of population. For this book he extended his search for folk traditions to one of the most heavily industrialized sections of the United States. Can folklore … Continued
By Linda Dégh (NHC Fellow, 1990–91) Legend and Belief is a descriptive and analytical study of the legend, the most prolific and characteristic form of folklore in contemporary Western civilization. Not that the legend does not have ancient roots; like the tale, the joke, the ballad, the proverb, and mummery, it was also a part … Continued
By Richard M. Dorson (NHC Fellow, 1978–79)
Edited by Linda Dégh (NHC Fellow, 1990–91) Narratives in Society represents three decades of scholarship by distinguished folklorist Linda Dégh. The twenty essays—some new, the rest newly revised—present Dégh’s ideas, theories, and approaches to folktales: the people who tell them, listen to them, pass them on, and the communities that support them.