Tales with a Texas Twist: Original Stories And Enduring Folklore From The Lone Star State

by Donna Ingham, Paul G. Hoffman (Illustrator)

Overview

With this compilation of Texas--and Texanized--favorite myths and legends, award-winning tale teller Donna Ingham applies her own unmistakable voice to traverse her home state through such stories as:
"The Coming of the Bluebonnet"--an oft-collected Commanche myth about love and sacrifice and the origin of the Texas state flower
"The Story Behind the Story"--about two early cattlemen and the basis for an episode in Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove"
"The Life and Times of Pecos Bill"--a selection of tales about this legendary folk hero
"Diamond Bill"--about an east Texas rattlesnake who fought in the Civil War
"Cupid Was a Mama's Boy"--a Texanized classic Greek myth

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493032440
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/06/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	172
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Donna Ingham leads workshops and training sessions on storytelling and has taught storytelling classes at the University of Texas in Austin. Her repertoire includes original stories and tales based on history, folklore, and outrageous lies. She has five audio recordings and is listed as a Texas Touring Artist by the Texas Commission on the Arts and a Heartland Arts Fund Regional Artist through the Mid-America Arts Alliance. As a humorist and folklorist, she takes the ancient art of storytelling and gives it a Texas twist to entertain audiences of all ages. She lives in Spicewood, Texas.

Read an Excerpt

From "Cupid Was a Mama's Boy" Cupid was a mama's boy. He was. If you've read any of the stories about him, you'll remember he was always doing the bidding of his mama, Venus, who just happened to be, of course, the goddess of love. These days we see Cupid as a fat little naked boy-child with a toy bow and arrow who's full of mischief, flying around shooting people and making them fall in love with one another. But he wasn't always that way. No sir. When some Roman fellow—Lucius Apuleius, his name was—wrote about Cupid back in century ought-two A.D., he made him a perfectly handsome young man. But he was still a mama's boy. One day, you see, his mama called him in and said, "Son, I've got a job for you." "Yes ma'am," Cupid said. You would go far to find a boy that was any more agreeable. "There's this girl named Psyche," Venus said, "the king over yonder's youngest daughter. They say she's pretty enough to make a man plow through a stump, and I just can't take the competition. Why, folks have stopped coming to my temples and lighting fires in the altars. They're all over at the king's place fairly worshipping this mere mortal of a girl-destined to get old and ugly and die some day, but I can't wait. So here's what I want you to do. . ." From "The Life and Times of Pecos Bill" Way back, when little Bill was just a baby, his ma and his pa decided it was getting a might too crowded where they were because some new neighbors had moved in just a mere hundred miles away. So they loaded everything they owned into one of those Conestoga wagons—one of those covered wagons—and headed west with little Bill and his sixteen brothers and sisters in the back. Some folks say little Bill was having a fine time bouncing along in the back of that wagon when he just bounced right out as the wagon was crossing the Pecos River. Others say no, that's not right. What happened was that Bill decided as long as they were crossing a river, he'd just throw him a fishing line in and see if he couldn't catch something. Sure enough, one of those big old Texas catfish came along, grabbed Bill's line, and jerked him into the river. Well, whichever way it happened, there he sat on the banks of the Pecos River watching his whole family still moving west. They didn't even miss him for several weeks until they finally took a head count. Meanwhile, Bill was about lower than a gopher hole, and his prospects didn't look too good.. . .

Table of Contents

Lone Star Storytelling vii

The Myth of Cora Persephone 1

Cupid Was a Mama's Boy 6

The Coming of the Bluebonnet 13

The Ghost at Hornsby'S Bend 18

The Legend of El Muerto 24

The Lobo-Girl of Devil's River 29

The Ghost Light on Bailey'S Prairie 33

The Babe of the Alamo 38

The Yellow Rose of Texas 42

The White Comanche of the Plains 48

Sam Bass, the Texas Robin Hood 56

The Story Behind the Story 59

Old Blue 64

Mollie Bailey Was a Spy 71

Arizona Bill 75

Diamond Bill 79

Bigfoot Wallace and the Hickory Nuts 86

The Life and Times of Pecos Bill 93

The Meandering Melon 101

One Turkey-Power 106

See You Later, Alligator 111

The Texan and the Blue Lambs 115

The Texan and the Grass Hut 118

The Three Bubbas 122

Teeny Tangerine Twirling Rope 125

Pedro Y El Diablo 129

The Old Woman and the Robbers 134

Pretty Polly and Mr. Fox 139

Br'er Rabbit's Sharecropping 147

Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Coon, and the Frogs 152

Bibliography 157

About The Author 161