Tales from the Cloud Walking Country

by Marie Campbell, Clare Leighton (Illustrator)

Overview

Assembled here are seventy-eight stories from six of the "ballad-singingest, tale-tellingest" residents of the eastern Kentucky mountain country. Based on stories rooted in European traditions from German fairy tales to Irish hero stories to Greek myths, the tales had been handed down through generations of telling before Marie Campbell collected them in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Readers will recognize the story of Snow White in "A Stepchild That Was Treated Mighty Bad," while "Three Shirts and a Golden Finger Ring" recalls the fairy tale of the Seven Swans. "The Fellow That Married A Dozen Times" is a lively rendition of "Bluebeard." As the narrators cautioned Marie Campbell again and again, "Tale-telling is nigh about faded out in the mountain country," but Tales from the Cloud Walking Country offers a lasting record of history, cultural heritage, language, and good old-fashioned fun.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820321868
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	03/23/2000
Series:	Brown Thrasher Books Series
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

MARIE CAMPBELL was a teacher and folklorist who, between 1926 and 1934, lived, worked, and traveled the eastern Kentucky mountains. She is also the author of Folks Do Get Born.

MARIE CAMPBELL was a teacher and folklorist who, between 1926 and 1934, lived, worked, and traveled the eastern Kentucky mountains. She is also the author of Folks Do Get Born.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	9
I.	Tales With All Manner of Things Golden	19
	Aunt Lizbeth Fields	21
	The Flower of Dew	25
	The Spindle, the Shuttle, and the Needle-All Golden	27
	The Queen with Golden Hair	30
	The Golden Rain	32
	Three Shirts and a Golden Finger Ring	34
	The Golden Children	36
	The Golden Princess	38
	The Golden Comb	40
	A Silver Tree with Golden Apples	43
	The Golden Bracelet	45
	The Girl with the Golden Finger	47
	Golden Apple	50
	Stockings of Buttermilk	52
	A Stepchild That Was Treated Mighty Bad	53
	The Little Old Rusty Cook Stove in the Woods	59
II.	A Fine Mort of Olden Tales	63
	Big Nelt	65
	The King's Golden Apple Tree	70
	The Bird of the Golden Land	78
	Little Cat Skin	82
	Ash Cakes and Water	83
	The Weaver's Boy	85
	The Terrible Valley	89
	The Fisherman's Son	92
	Heart, Liver, and Lights	94
	Old Shake-Your-Head	98
	Gilly and His Goatskin Clothes	100
	The King of Spain's Magic Cow	103
	Folks That Growed Fur to Keep Warm	104
	Cold Feet and the Lonesome Queen	106
	A Curious Law About Asking in Marriage	109
	When Finn Was a Boy	111
	Finn's Seven Hired Men	114
	Old Wooly Back	116
	Three Men Named Three Different Colors	118
	Connie's Thumb Ring	120
	A Tale Too Sad for Telling	122
III.	Tales Where Things Go in Threes	127
	Uncle Tom Dixon	129
	The Jay Bird That Had a Fight With a Rattlesnake	132
	The Three Girls with the Journey-Cakes	140
	The Three Boys with the Journey-Cakes	143
	The Girl That Married a Flop-Eared Hound-Dog	147
	The Snake Princess	151
	The Cabbage Heads That Worked Magic	156
	The Donkey That Was a Boy	158
	The Princess That Wore a Rabbit-Skin Dress	161
	The Girl Without Any Hands	163
	The Boy That Was Foolish-Wise	165
	The Farmer's Boy That Got Educated	168
	The Boy That Was Trained to Be a Thief	170
	The Devil for a Husband	172
	The Golden Arm	175
IV.	Tales Picked Up Along With Doctoring	177
	Doc Roark	179
	The Water of Life	183
	The Doctor That Acted a Partner with Death	185
	Doctors Ain't Smart as They Think They Be	187
	The Snake Doctor	188
	The Boy That Had a Bear for a Daddy	190
	The Blacksmith That Tried Doctoring	191
	The Man That Never Washed for Seven Years	193
	The Bird Liver	195
	The Golden Filly Chest	196
	The Farmer's Daughter	198
	The Beggar with the Baskets	200
	The Contrarious Pig	202
V.	Tales Old Men Followed Telling	207
	Uncle Blessing	209
	The June Apple Tree	212
	The Witch from the Ocean Waters	216
	The Girl That Wouldn't Do a Hand's Turn	220
	A Queen That Got Her Just Deserts	221
	The Women That Turned to Niggers	222
	The Jew That Danced Amongst the Thorn Bushes	224
	The Cat That Went A-Traveling	226
	A Bunch of Laurel Blooms for a Present	228
	My Favoritest Olden Tale	230
VI.	Tales for Idle Telling	235
	Sam Caudill	237
	The Girl That Weren't Ashamed to Own Her Kin	241
	The Girl That Could Do Any Job of Work	242
	The Changeable Man	243
	Old Bushy Beard	244
	The Fellow That Married a Dozen Times	246
	The Devil and His Grandmother	246
	The Girl That Changed to a Flower Bloom	247
	The Shining, Beautiful Lady	249
	Notes for Folktales in This Collection	251
	Bibliography	265

Editorial Reviews

One needs to look no further than the titles . . . of many of these stories for a glimmer of the pleasure they provide. [The] tales . . . sparkle with what we might call 'native wisdom.'

Austin Chronicle

She succeeds in integrating tales, tellers, and audience into a cultural pattern rare in books of this kind. The native background and language, rich in poetic idiom and imagery of mountain speech uncluttered by dialect spelling—add a whole new dimension and a local or modern twist to the Old World originals. . . . Books like [this] will be the chief repositories of the old ways and the olden, golden, and silver tales that once made the 'main figure of the pattern.'

New York Times Book Review

Delightful reading for both specialists and common folk.

Saturday Review of Literature

"Delightful reading for both specialists and common folk."—Saturday Review of Literature

"She succeeds in integrating tales, tellers, and audience into a cultural pattern rare in books of this kind. The native background and language, rich in poetic idiom and imagery of mountain speech uncluttered by dialect spelling—add a whole new dimension and a local or modern twist to the Old World originals. . . . Books like [this] will be the chief repositories of the old ways and the olden, golden, and silver tales that once made the 'main figure of the pattern.'"—New York Times Book Review

"One needs to look no further than the titles . . . of many of these stories for a glimmer of the pleasure they provide. [The] tales . . . sparkle with what we might call "native wisdom."—Austin Chronicle

From the Publisher