Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

French traditions in America do not live solely in Louisiana. Franco-American Identity, Community, and La Guiannee travels to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, to mark the Franco-American traditions still practiced in both these Midwestern towns. This Franco-American cultural identity has continued for over 250 years, surviving language loss, extreme sociopolitical pressures, and the American Midwest's demands for conformity. Ethnic identity presents itself in many forms, including festivals and traditional celebrations, which take on an even more profound and visible role when language loss occurs. On New Year's Eve, the guionneurs, revelers who participate in the celebration, disguise themselves in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century costume and travel throughout their town, singing and wishing New Year's greetings to other members of the community. This celebration, like such others as Cajun Mardi Gras in Louisiana, Mumming in Ireland and Newfoundland, as well as the Carnaval de Binche, belongs to a category of begging quest festivals that have endured since the Medieval Age. These festivals may have also adapted or evolved from pre-Christian pagan rituals. Anna Servaes produces a historical context for both the development of French American culture as well as La Guiannee in order to understand contemporary identity. She analyzes the celebration, which affirms ethnic community, drawing upon theories by influential anthropologist Victor Turner. In addition, Servaes discusses cultural continuity and its relationship to language, revealing contemporary expressions of Franco-American identity.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

SEE SHORT BLURB FOR ALTERNATE COPY... A complex, intriguing, and important verbal entity, the proverb has been the subject of a vast number of opinions, studies, and analyses. To accommodate the assorted possible audiences, this volume outlines seven views of the proverb -- personal, formal, religious, literary, practical, cultural, and cognitive. Because the author's goal is to provide a scientific understanding of proverb comprehension and production, he draws largely on scholarship stemming from the formal, cultural, and cognitive views.
The only book about proverbs that is written from the standpoint of cognitive science, cognitive psychology, and experimentalism, this text provides a larger, more interdisciplinary perspective on the proverb. It also gives a theoretically more integrated approach to proverb cognition. The conceptual base theory of proverb comprehension is extended via the "cognitive ideals hypothesis" so that the theory now addresses issues regarding the creation, production, and pragmatics of proverbs. This hypothesis also has strong implications for a taxonomy of proverbs, proverb comprehension, universal vs. culture-specific aspects of proverbs, and some structural aspects of proverbs.
In general, the book extends the challenge of proverb cognition by using much of what cognitive science has to offer. In so doing, the proverb is compared to other forms of figurative language, which is then discussed within the larger rubric of intelligence and the inclination for using indirect modes of communication. Child developmental and brain substrates are also discussed.

What historical tragedy could possibly make a young Wallingford girl daub a wall with her own tears? What really happened to the family who encountered a UFO in Stanford-in-the-Vale?What made a Highworth Squire's ghost choose to be banished to a barrel of cider?And what does the Uffington White Horse get up to once every hundred years?The Vale of the White Horse and the beautiful countryside of South Oxfordshire is a landscape steeped in thousands of years of legends, history and mystery. Here are witches, monsters and ghosts; old legends and modern-day tales of strange encounters with the unknown. From the mildly curious to the frighteningly inexplicable, The Veiled Vale is a treasure trove of fabulous folklore and modern mysteries.

Before there was a death care industry where professional funeral directors offered embalming and other services, residents of the Arkansas Ozarks--and, for that matter, people throughout the South--buried their own dead. Every part of the complicated, labor-intensive process was handled within the deceased's community. This process included preparation of the body for burial, making a wooden coffin, digging the grave, and overseeing the burial ceremony, as well as observing a wide variety of customs and superstitions.

These traditions, especially in rural communities, remained the norm up through the end of World War II, after which a variety of factors, primarily the loss of manpower and the rise of the funeral industry, brought about the end of most customs.

"Gone to the Grave," a meticulous autopsy of this now vanished way of life and death, documents mourning and practical rituals through interviews, diaries and reminiscences, obituaries, and a wide variety of other sources. Abby Burnett covers attempts to stave off death; passings that, for various reasons, could not be mourned according to tradition; factors contributing to high maternal and infant mortality; and the ways in which loss was expressed though obituaries and epitaphs. A concluding chapter examines early undertaking practices and the many angles funeral industry professionals worked to convince the public of the need for their services.

This stimulating anthology, prepared by the great folklorist, B.A. Botkin, is comprised of the traditional songs, stories, customs, and beliefs which have been handed down, by word of mouth, for so long that they seem to have a life of their own. For Botkin, they are at the core of peoplehood.

When one thinks of American folklore one thinks not only of the folklore of American life, the traditions that have sprung up on American soil, but also of the literature of folklore, the migratory traditions that have found a home in the New World. Here are the pioneer heroes, legendary and real: the boasters, liars, bad men, good people, and strong people. There are anecdotes, tall tales, cross talk, and jests, full of vigorous good humor. There is a selection of the classic ballads of sailors, miners, cowboys, lumberjacks, and hoboes. Relations between men and women, slave songs of the black people, work songs connected with union struggles, are all herein covered. In The American People, the people speak and are allowed to tell their own story in their own way.

The volume is graced by a personal memoir by Louis Filler. The reader learns the background that made Botkin an integral voice in the reconstruction of American folklore. Here, one can read the actual tales of Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill, Casey Jones, Johnny Appleseed, The Arkansas Traveler, Paul Bunyan, and countless other figures from the past- real and mythic.

Sally Castle's beautifully hand-lettered and illustrated edition of Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince sets the story among Reading's parks, squares, rooflines and churches - the town that's shaped her and her artwork and where Oscar spent an unhappy period in gaol. This enchanting combination of fairy story with concrete urban reality, a tale of sacrificial love written with a flourish and swirl, turns a simple book into a gem as precious as the large red ruby that glowed on the Prince's sword-hilt. With an introduction by Michael Seeney, author and collector of Wilde's work.

Soon after 9/11, wild rumors began to spread: that Arab-Americans were celebrating publicly, that some people had been warned, that politicians knew all along.
The Global Grapevine reveals how--through our everyday thoughts and conversations, and the rumors we spread--we grapple with the new global world. Drawn from diverse sources, the book illuminates urban legends like the claim that a certain t-shirt with a Chinese pictogram brands the wearer as a prostitute, conspiracy theories such as the "9/11 Truth Movement," or stories of tourists infected with AIDS by locals. These rumors, the authors argue, reflect our anxieties and fears about contact with foreign cultures--how we believe foreign competition to be poisoning the domestic economy and foreign immigration to be eroding American values. Focusing on the threat posed by terrorism, the impact of immigration, the risks involved in international trade, and the dangers faced by naive tourism, the book provides a broad survey of the most widely circulated rumors and examines what these tales reveal about contemporary society.

A wide-ranging and detailed investigation of folk heroes, both fictional and historical, from the earliest times to the present, taken from societies throughout the world as they exist in folktales, folksongs, customs, speech, and other folklore genres. From Paul Bunyan to Stagolee, from Queen Mab to the Tooth Fairy, every culture has created folk heroes. But as often as not, these "heroes of the people" accomplish their goals with methods that are anything but heroic-like the American liar hero Davy Crockett, or Galloping Jones, the Australian drinker and bank robber. Then there's the Irishman Finn Mac Cumhal, whose heroism, like that of Rip Van Winkle, was based on oversleeping. In this new collection, readers will enjoy a wildly colorful parade of nearly 400 thieves, tricksters, simpletons, and dragon slayers from around the world. Despite appearances, these "heroes" perform a crucial social function: they allow us to question what is right and what is wrong, to challenge what is legal and what is illegal, to deal with who has power and who does not, and to manage the contradictions and conflicts inherent in all cultures. Spotlights 366 folk heroes, from old acquaintances like Bluebeard and Casey Jones to new friends like Bunuwas and Chokanamma Includes 51 illustrations-paintings, drawings, and photographs A timeline documents the earliest known appearance of each hero A general index combined with indexes by heroic type and by country/culture make research easy

The old kingdom of Gwynedd - the mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia), Ynys (Anglesey) and the Llyn Peninsula - may be the most mythic landscape in Britain. The ancient Druids and from it sprang the tales of Blessed Bran who protected the land, wizards who made a Woman of Flowers, and Merlin the dragon whisperer whose prophecy echoes still. The poet Taliesin walked these hills, Welsh bards told stories of Arthur by these hearths and saints made pilgrimages along these paths. From these hidden nooks the Tylwyth Teg (Fair Folk) emerged to tease the people, and through these mountain passes rode Llywelyn the Great and Owain Glyndw r, living lives that would be spun into legend. Storyteller and singer Eric Maddern has gathered these old tales here and breathed fresh life into them.

Eclectic British scholar SABINE BARING-GOULD (1834-1924) inspired My Fair Lady, wrote the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers," and published more than five hundred literary works. Among his foremost folkloric studies is 1865's The Book of Werewolves, the first serious academic study of the shape-shifters of mythological lore. "This work is the most frequently cited early study of lycanthropy and is regarded by most scholars as the foundation work in the field," says cryptozoologist Loren Coleman in his new introduction. "The Book of Werewolves was so visionary that it foresaw that future discussions within werewolf studies would necessarily travel down many side paths. Indeed, midway through The Book of Werewolves, Baring-Gould treks into the shadowy world of crimes vaguely connected to werewolves, including serial murders, grave desecration, and cannibalism." This new edition, complete with the original illustrations, is part of Cosimo's Loren Coleman Presents series. LOREN COLEMAN is author of numerous books of cryptozoology, including Bigfoot : The True Story of Apes in America and Mothman and Other Curious Encounters.