Andy Adams' The Log of a Cowboy has long been acknowledged a classic of western American literature. Hoffman Birney, in the New York Times Book Review, once declared, "If there is such a thing as an all-time 'best' Western, that is it." One of the most delightful features of the Log is the inclusion of tales told by the cowboys at night. Adams was a master of the campfire tale, and the fifty-one collected here, each told by an Andy Adams character, touch upon every aspect of range life. Readers will never forget characters like Bull Durham, Uncle Dave Hapfinger, and Aaron Scales, or the tale...

A collection of articles from the Texas Folklore Society. The title comes from J. Frank Dobie's chapter on "The Traveling Anecdote." Also included are Roy Bedichek on "Folklore in Natural History;" "The Names of Western Wild Animals," by George D. Hendricks; "Bonny Barbara Allen," by Joseph W. Hendren; "Aunt Cordie's Ax and Other Motifs in Oil," by Mody C. Boatright; "The Western Ballad and the Russian Ballada," by Robert C. Stephenson; "The Love Tragedy in Texas-Mexican Balladry," by Americo Paredes; "Emerson and the Language of the Folk," by John Q. Anderson; "Tales of Neiman-Marcus," by...

This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society contains fifteen folk tales. The title of this book alludes to two branches of folklore that exist side by side in Texas, the English and the Mexican.

The state of Texas is fortunate in possessing a rich and varied folklore. This volume is composed of materials published originally in the first twenty-five volumes of the Texas Folklore Society.
From the preface by Francis Edward Abernethy: "Those old annuals are filled with real, field-collected folklore. Most of that early collected folklore had never been in print before."

In the 1860s and 1870s, luxury river boats brought U. S. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes; financier Jay Gould; writers Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman; and actor Maurice Barrymore, the father of John, Ethel, and Lionel, to "Queen City of the Cypress"--Jefferson, Texas. Among lesser known visitors was Abe Rothschild and his apparent bride, Bessie, dressed in fashionable clothes and wearing many diamonds. The couple went to an unusual midwinter picnic in the woods, and two weeks later the body of Bessie was found in the woods shot through the head. From the three trials that...

The title of this collection denotes a span from the horse-drawn vehicles with steel tires that had to be shrunk down occasionally, to the cars that accelerate to unbelievable speeds on a drag strip. Society members like to look back at old customs and beliefs but they are quite willing to take into account that urbanization and engineering do not destroy folklife but rather bring about new formations. From tire shrinkers to the folksay of the drag strip; from silver ingots in East Texas to early Irish storytelling; from folklore and the Finnish sauna to mock bidding in Jamaica; from folkways...

Variety and richness are indeed found in this Publication by the Texas Folklore Society. The first folk type to appear in the book is the hunter, in Francis Abernethy's account of the East Texas communal hunt, which he sees in relation to man's ancient hunting habits. Folk medicine is the topic of the second article, in which Doctor Paul W. Schelder tells about his discovery of the cures used by some of his patients in Denton. In all, this volume consists of sixteen folk tales, with topics ranging from traditional ways of doing things to popular entertainment.

This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society has been the standard work on the subject. Included are fascinating folk narratives of buried treasure and lost mines; legends of the supernatural; legends of lovers; pirates and pirate treasure in legend; legendary origins of Texas flowers, names, and streams. Over one hundred legends are included as they were recorded by more than twenty-five folklore collectors from every part of Texas.

This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society is a miscellany of Texas and Southwestern folklore collected and written by ten folklorists in 1925. Included are articles on Mexican popular ballad; Spanish songs of New Mexico; versos of the Texas vaqueros; reptile myths; the cowboy dance of the northwest; superstitions of the Northern Seas; oil field diction; folk tales of the Chibcha nation; the human hand in primitive art; and Indian pictographs near Lange's Mill. It also includes "When the Woods Were Burnt," by L. W. Payne Jr., the first pamphlet of the Texas Folklore Society.

This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society contains a Texas version of "The Frog's Courting"; a Texas border ballad; folklore of reptiles of the South and Southwest; sayings of old time Texans; episodes at ranch community dances; pioneer Christmas customs of Tarrant County; superstitions of Bexar County; buffalo lore and boudin blanc; old time plantation melodies; the African-American as interpreter of his own folk songs; and South Texas African-American work songs. Appended is the first item published by the Society, a pamphlet by Will H. Thomas on African-American folksongs, which...