Folklore @ MindSay 
fairy tales
There are names and images that many of us grew up with that are, well, fading away ... or so it seems. Names like Davy Crocket, Daniel Boone, Paul Bunyon, Hiawatha & Pocahontus ... names and stories that reflected not just historical information, but also something of our character. Have we "outgrown" these images that once seemed almost larger than life? Become too sophistocated? Or just distracted by Halo and Grande Theft Auto? Or are they just ... passé? Should our kids know these names? Do YOU know them? ;)
Must we rely on Disney animations to make these historical images ... important?
Johnny Appleseed
retold by
S. E. Schlosser
Johnny Appleseed was a hermit and a wanderer who was welcomed wherever he went in the Ohio territory. Everyone loved him, in spite of his unkempt appearance. He always carried a sack full of apple seeds to plant, and walked barefoot all year round. He knew the frontier woods better than anyone. Even the Indians respected Johnny Appleseed for his courage. More ...
Want to read more?
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. - A new pair of hands pulled Punxsutawney Phil from his stump this year, so it was only fitting that the groundhog offered a new prediction.
Phil did not see his shadow on Friday, which, according to German folklore, means folks can expect an early spring instead of six more weeks of winter.
Since 1886, Phil has seen his shadow 96 times, hasn't seen it 15 times and there are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. The last time Phil failed to see his shadow was in 1999.
More than 15,000 revelers milled about in a misty snow waiting for the prediction, as fireworks exploded overhead and the "Pennsylvania Polka" and other music blared in the background.
More details HERE!
Good to know our high tech society can still enjoy traditions and folklore, innit? ;)
~ B
Because the ride from Jaipur to Jaisalmer is incredibly long and the bus leaves at an incredibly inconvenient time, I've elected to go to Jodhpur first. I've decided to look into the role of storytelling and folklore in Raika communities as well as doing an ethnography of the tribe/family I would be staying with. Jodhpur is where the institute for Rajasthani Folklore is located and so I'm going to take a day and see what I can dig up.
Later...
Managed to get a rickshaw in the middle of the night and he, miracle of miracles, actually took me to my hotel while cheating me minimally. The hotel was full of tourists—who I found a bit annoying—but was an amazing Haveli with super-friendly staff and a good all-veg restaurant, located at the foot of the fort. Backtracking a bit, the hotel in Pushkar was a perfectly lovely place, but played this horribly new-agey chanting music that, after about an hour, made me want to tear my eyeballs out and which I did NOT find relaxing. They must wholesale the stuff, because the restaurant at the hotel play the exact same tape non-stop until I wanted to scream. Otherwise, I love the place and will stay there if I ever go back to Jodhpur.
I couldn't find the institute. Nor could I find anyone who knew of the institute—or knew if it would be open on a Sunday—a fact I hadn't even thought of. (I DID find the folklore museum, twice, but it didn't help much.) My ISP advisor, a totally awesome and wonderfully positive woman named Melia, seemed to be out of cell-range and so around 2PM I gave up and decided to do some research online using SITs library system. Then the powercuts started.
Finally, I went back to my room, read a book on Fieldwork (which just happened to be about fieldwork in folklore research and exactly what I needed to read), and did a preliminary outline of my paper. I broke everything down into six or seven five-page sections—and then those down into five or six one-page subsections. I just needed to do the research for each subsection, write a one-page summary, and finish by connecting everything together with introductions and lead-ins. After having this basic structure down, I felt like I was on track and pretty good about the project.
For thousands of years, the Devil has been associated with the left hand in various ways and is normally portrayed as being left-handed in pictures and other images. In the seventeenth century it was thought that the Devil baptised his followers with his left-hand and there are many references in superstitions to the "left-hand side" being associated with evil. As an example, in France it was held that witches greet Satan "avec le bras gauche" or with the left hand. It is also considered that we can only see ghosts if we look over our left shoulder and that the Devil watches us over the left shoulder.
Evil spirits lurk over the left shoulder - throw salt over this shoulder to ward them off. In Roman times, salt was a very valuable commodity, giving rise to the word "salary" and was considered a form of money at the time. If salt was spilled, that was considered very bad luck, that could only be avoided by throwing some of the spilled salt over your left shoulder to placate the devil.
Getting out of bed with the left foot first means that you will have a bad day and be bad tempered . i.e. getting out of bed the wrong side.
Wedding rings worn on the third finger of the left hand originated with the Greeks and Romans, who wore them to fend of evil associated with the left-hand.
The Meru people of Kenya believed that the left-hand of their holy man has such evil power that he had to keep it hidden for the safety of others.
The figurehead on the Cutty Sark is a left-handed witch.
Passing or pouring wine with the left hand leads to bad luck.
A left-handed toast is tantamount to a curse on the victim.
Christianity is strongly biased towards the right hand. The situation is much the same in Judaism and Islam. In Islam, the left hand and everything associated with it is seen as unclean. This stems from the Middle Eastern custom of using the left-hand and water instead of toilet paper.
-Peace Out
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