Bild på författaren.

Vance Randolph (1892–1980)

Författare till Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales

53+ verk 820 medlemmar 8 recensioner 1 favoritmärkta

Om författaren

Noted folklorist Vance Randolph was born in Pittsburg, Kansas. After attending college at Kansas State Teachers College, Clark University, and the University of Kansas, he worked as a staff writer for Appeal to Reason, as an assistant instructor in psychology at the University of Kansas, and as a visa mer scenario writer for MGM studios in California before devoting all of his time to freelance writing. Randolph is perhaps one of America's most prolific collectors of folk tales, and he is especially renowned for his study of the Ozarks and that region's ribald folk literature. Because of their bawdy nature, many collectors and compilers have passed over such tales from this region, but Randolph compiled many of them in a work entitled Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folk Tales (1976). His regional specialization has led to a number of other works, including The Ozarks: An American Survival of Primitive Society (1931), From an Ozark Mountain Holler: Stories of Ozark Mountain Folk (1933), Ozark Superstitions (1947), and Sticks in the Knapsack and Other Ozark Folk Tales (1958). Regarding his work on the Ozarks, critics have said that Randolph "gives a sensitive portrayal of a fast-vanishing breed of people . . . [and] insight to a way of life that is rapidly passing" (Choice). (Bowker Author Biography) visa färre
Foto taget av: Vance Randolph (cropped) from photo held at Library of Congress.

Serier

Verk av Vance Randolph

Ozark Magic and Folklore (1947) 224 exemplar
Stiff As a Poker (1955) 37 exemplar
Ozark Folksongs (1982) 16 exemplar
The Bald Knobbers 2 exemplar
An Ozark Anthology 1 exemplar
Wild Stories From the Ozarks (2012) 1 exemplar
The ABC of Biology (1927) 1 exemplar
Our insect enemies 1 exemplar

Associerade verk

Ghosts and Spirits of Many Lands (1970) — Bidragsgivare — 20 exemplar
The bear went over the mountain (1964) — Bidragsgivare — 6 exemplar

Taggad

Allmänna fakta

Medlemmar

Recensioner

This is an odd little book, essentially a collection of bawdy stories collected by folklorist Vance Randolph but never included in the scholarly collections because of the subject matter.

It's all dressed up with serious introductions, footnotes, and references, but at its heart (and elsewhere), it's a collection of naughty tales about traveling salesmen, farmers' daughters, dim-witted farm boys, libertine preachers, sexually frustrated widows, brothels, barrooms, and bedrooms, and the misadventures that occur therein. Some of the stories may be familiar -- in fact, my dad's favorite blue joke is in there -- and the afterwords following most of the tales trace them back in time, some as far as the middle ages.

Indeed, the ultimate moral may be that there's no such thing as a new dirty joke, so if you're in the mood for a retelling of some blue classics, this is an amusing way to spend an evening.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
LyndaInOregon | 4 andra recensioner | Feb 23, 2021 |
Happened upon this little gem in the library while looking through the folk tale section. I figured I'd better check it out since it's so close to home and I love to hear old tales. This is pretty raunchy downhome stories and talk. A quick, easy read and the title story Pissing in the Snow is by far one of the funniest. This book is not for anyone without a nasty sense of humor.
 
Flaggad
bookswithmom | 4 andra recensioner | Dec 18, 2019 |
This could have been a fun little book of bawdy Ozark folktales, assembled by Ozark folklorist Vance Randolph. But someone got hold of it and added comments ("annotations") at the end of each story, explaining the "true" origins of each story, and comparing it to other stories across the ages. It took something amusing and turned it into serious study. I tried to not read the annotations, but I couldn't, and they really detracted from some of the stories.
½
 
Flaggad
tloeffler | 4 andra recensioner | Sep 1, 2012 |
This is a classic study on backwoods folk-magick. It was originally written in the 40s, so the author was able to interview folks who lived in the 1800s. The author lived in the Ozarks (one of the few educated ones) and got to know many of the people he interviewed. He felt it was important that the old lore should be recorded, as most of the practitioners were already elderly or dead -- a dying art. He was able to gain the info because he wasn't an outsider. They would have never spoken a word to him if he hadn't been from the area.

It's a wonderful book, though at times it was a tad tedious as it's packed to the gills with info. Some of the best stuff dealt with stories of the mountain witches or "Power Doctors", as they're called back in the hills. The book is 367 pages of strange customs, rituals, spells, beliefs and superstitions. Most of the early white inhabitants of the Ozarks were English stock, so many of their customs and beliefs can be traced back to old British practices. They often used the bible in rituals. However, since very few of them could read, the bible was used as more of a talisman or "spell book" and not in the standard Christian way. The hill folk were (are) strong believers in astrology/the zodiac and would consult the "signs" for everything they did: planting, marriages,.. even repairing a roof or slaughtering a hog. They had their own interpretations, of course. Naturally there aren't any scorpions in the Ozarks, so the hill-folk assumed that the sign of Scorpio was a Crawfish or crawdad and called it the "sign of the Craw Pappy". The early settlers also adopted many local Indian customs and learned tribal medicine. The Ozark hill-folk of the 18th and 19th centuries were a very isolated group and pretty much out of touch with the rest of the world until well into the 20th century. It's very fortunate that the author was able to record all this information before it vanished.

Many of the spells and methods aren't for the squeamish! The spells and folk remedies are truly hardcore backwoods conjure. One can almost imagine some hag stewing an awful brew in some old shack way back in the hills. Want to know a cure for a teething baby? Rub rabbit brains over the babie’s gums. Want to get rid of fleas? Urinate all over your clothes and then wear them all day (it may have something to do with the ammonia). Some of the cursing/hexing rituals were really elaborate and fascinating. These people didn't mess around. If someone hexed you, you were as good as dead.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
Dead_Dreamer | 2 andra recensioner | Jan 12, 2010 |

Du skulle kanske också gilla

Associerade författare

Statistik

Verk
53
Även av
3
Medlemmar
820
Popularitet
#31,114
Betyg
3.8
Recensioner
8
ISBN
37
Favoritmärkt
1

Tabeller & diagram