I never have liked the title Publications; it connotes nothing but dry-as-dustness. Yet an organization that issues volumes at more or less regular intervals needs some such general title. As editor, I decided years ago to retain Publications as a sub-title and to give each year-book issued by the Texas Folk-Lore Society an individual name. Now that the first volume under my editorship--a very modest volume that will never set the world on fire--is being reprinted, I seize the chance to give it a Christian name, at the same time allowing it to retain its honorable, but entirely undistinctive, family name. There were only five hundred copies in the original edition; I expect the twelve hundred copies in this edition to be unexhausted when, as must be, I shall some day cease to be editor.

Those who have danced the old square dances will remember the call,

Ducks in the river, going to the ford,
Coffee in a little rag, sugar in a gourd.

The rhyme is quoted by John Craddock in his article on “The Cowboy Dance” in this volume. I think I have heard, as a variant, “coffee in the gourd.” Anyhow, since we are no longer six, coffee is any day better in a gourd than sugar. I keep a gourd to drink out of, and any liquid from it tastes better than from any other receptacle--except a horn.

I would give a good deal if John Craddock could know that he is responsible for the name. As long as he was able to write he kept on contributing to the Texas Folk-Lore Society. Although he never mastered the technique of writing, for he was stricken too young, he had the most original imagination I have ever met. Will Thomas, another contributor in this volume, is gone, too; genial, natural, a representative Texan, and a “man-thinking” he was.

While the plates for reprinting Coffee in the Gourd are being produced through photo-lithography, the use of black India ink, of white China ink, and of paste to insert a few reset lines has eliminated some of the glaring errors in the original edition. I wish I had lived in Shakespeare’s time, when typographical errors were not regarded as a sin.

J. FRANK DOBIE

Austin, Texas
June, 1935

The Texas Folk-Lore Society Since 1916

In 1916, under the able editorship of Dr. Stith Thompson, University of Texas, then secretary of the Texas Folk-Lore Society, the Society issued Number I of its Publications. In that volume was a history of the Society from its organization, December 29, 1909, up to 1916. The activities of the Society since then may be briefly sketched.

Number I was an interesting and representative volume, as a review of its contents, which follows, will show: Preface, George Lyman Kittredge; History of the Folk-Lore Society of Texas, Robert Adger Law; Texas Play-Party Songs and Games, R. E. Dudley and L. W. Payne, Jr.; Finding List for Texas Play-Party Songs, L. W. Payne, Jr.; Religious Beliefs of the Tejas or Hasanias Indians, Adina De Zavala; The State Industrial School Boys’ Slang, A. W. Eddins; How Sandy Got His Meat: A Negro Tale, A. W. Eddins; Traditions of the Waco Indians, Dorothy Scarborough; A Mexican Border Ballad, Ben D. Wood; Wild Horse Stories of Southwest Texas, W. Prescott Webb; Folk-Lore and its Influence in Determining Institutions, J. E. Pearce; The Hell Hounds: A Negro Tradition, W. S. Hendrix; The Prehistoric Development of Satire, Stith Thompson; Unexplored Treasures of Texas Folk-Lore, John A. Lomax.

In April, 1916, the Society met at Austin; the next year it met at San Marcos. Then came the World War, a scattering of the folk-lorists, a dissipation of all interests in such past or receding things as folk-lore. For almost five years the Texas Folk-Lore Society was quiescent. However, in the spring of 1922 some of the old members got together and decided to resurrect it. They did. The eighth annual meeting was held in Austin, with an exceedingly interesting program, before well attended and enthusiastic audiences.

Financially, the Society is in good condition. After he had made the “annual public address” in 1916, Professor Barrett Wendell of Harvard University made the Society a gift of $100.00. Of course, during the years of its dormancy, no dues were collected from the members, and many have been lost track of or have themselves lost track of the Society. However, during the past year something like seventy names have been added to the membership. The issuing of the present volume will add many more members, and, with an annual publication, the membership will no doubt increase.

The present publication is made possible only by the generosity and interest of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas. Realizing the educational importance of an interest in Texas folklore and the collection and publication thereof, at their meeting last July, they granted the Society a subsidy of $100.00 to be used in publishing folk-lore collected. This aid in no way makes the Society a University of Texas institution; the Society maintains its original status. The Regents simply recognized the oneness of the ultimate aims of the Society with the ultimate aims of the University of Texas, or with the ultimate aims of any educational institution, for that matter.

Texas Legends Number For 1924

The Texas Folk-Lore Society has decided to issue next year a volume made up altogether of Texas Legends. Already dozens of Texas legends are in hand. But there are hundreds untouched. There is no reader of this page that could not dig up one legend. Therefore, ye Texas folk-lorists, dig! We are bound to have one of the most interesting volumes ever conceived of--to borrow Bully Bottom’s eloquence--by the tongue of a Texas man.

Of buried treasure stories alone there must be as many as there ever were Mexican inhabitants in Texas. Apparently, wherever Santa Anna marched, he buried wagon loads of silver; wherever burros trod, they staggered under aparejos of silver bullion destined to be buried in flight from Indians. There are more “lost mines” in Texas by far than there are known ones. Men have gone broke and committed suicide following the legendary directions to buried treasure. There are legends of cunning lobos, of wily and beautiful mustangs like the famous “Pacing White Stallion” or like some “man killer” horse such as Philip Ashton Rollins tells of in his excellent book, The Cowboy. There are legends of daring mavericks, glimpsed only by moonlight, that lived without water, of snow white deer with “mad stones” in their stomachs, of the

“sly coyote trotting here and there
And the little grey hawk hanging aloof in the air.”

There are legends of “lovers’ leaps,” of old fords, of caves, of springs, of trees and plants. There are legends of hermits and of haunted houses. The negroes still have their legendary stories and the Mexicans have theirs. Connected with the names of places and streams, many legends yet linger no doubt, as the astounding legend of the River Brazos, for instance. Surely there will be no dearth of material.

Scattered here and there through Texasana are legends. The Texas Legends number should gather these stray publishings together as well as legends that have never been written down. Whoever comes across a reference to a legend can materially contribute by sending it in. Follow three such references that may serve as models: Legend of the Brazos River, Davis, M.E.M., Under the Man-Fig, pp. 1-3; Mysterious Gold Mine of El Paso County, Hunter’s Frontier Magazine, Vol. I, No. 6, pp. 177-179; Legend of Eagle Lake, Texas Pioneer Magazine (The American Sketch Book), Vol. VII, No. 2, pp. 99-102. It is likely that a great many legends have been printed from time to time in the country and city newspapers. Consult editors, question old-timers.

It is quite likely that there will never be another organized effort to gather into one place the legends of Texas. Now is the time to go folk-loring. One restriction, though, should be remembered: that no legend should be adorned, “doctored,” or changed from its usual form. It should be written as it is usually told.

L. W. Payne, Jr., Professor of English in the University of Texas, was the first president of the Texas Folk-Lore Society and the chief contributor to the first Publications of the Society. He has lectured on “Texas Folk-Lore” over the state and thus has become widely known aside from his authorship of various textbooks.

Max Sylvius Handman is a native of Rumania, though he has been in America twenty years. He has studied in Germany and Chicago, where he later taught. He is at present Professor of Sociology in the University of Texas, having been here since 1917. During the War he was a member of the Staff of Experts of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace and also on the Committee on Public Information.

W. H. Thomas, a native of Texas, was one of the charter members of the Texas Folk-Lore Society, and is now serving his second term as President of the Society. In 1912 the Society published a monograph of his entitled “Some Current Folk-Songs, of the Negro.” Mr. Thomas is Professor of English at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.

Victor J. Smith, a Texan also, while teaching in the Sul Ross State Normal College at Alpine, explored at large the Big Bend Country for Indian remains. At present he is doing graduate work in the University of Chicago.

J. R. Craddock is a son of a pioneer Texas cowman and was born to the cow country. What he writes is not hearsay. He is a good folk-lorist because he is a better cow puncher. His home is in the Spur country, on the Plains. At present he is attending the University of Texas.

W. P. Webb, another Texan, has long been an active worker in Texas folk-lore. He is Adjunct Professor of History in the University of Texas, his “field” being the Texas Rangers in particular and the West in general. For the present year he is on leave of absence doing graduate work in the University of Chicago.

A. W. Eddins contributed to the first number of the Publications of the Texas Folk-Lore society. He is teaching in the city schools of San Antonio and is now gathering Mexican folk-lore.

Dorothy Scarborough, though she is now instructing in English at Columbia University, is a native Texan. For a time she was Assistant Professor of English at Baylor University and has served as President of the Texas Folk-Lore Society. She is the author of three books, The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction, From a Southern Porch, and Humorous Ghost Stories. She is at present working on a book to be entitled Negro Folk-Songs From the South, one chapter of which is to be largely made up of the material used in her article herein printed.

Florence Johnson Scott, Vice-President of the Texas Folk-Lore Society, is interested in journalistic work. She lives at Rio Grande City, where she is collecting folk-lore at first hand.

Mary A. Sutherland, one of the pioneer women of Texas, is the author of The Story of Corpus Christi, a fascinating little book of local history, interspersed with legend and other local lore. Recently she contributed to the library of the Society a rather rare old volume entitled San Antonio de Bexar by William Corner. She is a prominent member of the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Julia Estill, though not of German descent, is a native of the Fredericksburg country about which she writes so intimately. She is a graduate of the University of Texas and is principal of the high school of Fredericksburg.

J. Frank Dobie, editor of the present volume, was born and reared on a ranch in the Texas border country, and although he is now an instructor in the University of Texas, he will always belong to the range.

One Evening As I Sat Courting

BY L.W. PAYNE. JR.

The following ballad was given to me by Mr. Preston Churchill, a freshman student of mine from Fort Worth. He states that he learned the ballad at Fort Worth when he was seven or eight years old (about 1910 or 1911) from a migratory family coming from the vicinity of Amarillo, Texas. They were poor and illiterate, and their chief method of earning a livelihood was picking cotton in the late summer and throughout the autumn. Their custom was to leave in August or early September and go as an entire family to the farmers living from twenty-five to one hundred miles from Fort Worth, remaining away from Fort Worth until the cotton-picking season was over. The ballad was brought back by the family when they returned one winter from their cotton-picking expedition. It was the favorite song among a number that the family sang, and Mr. Churchill was so impressed with it as a child that he memorized it accurately. “I again heard this song,” says Mr. Churchill, “in the summer of 1922 at Tucumcari, New Mexico. A sheep-herder--at least I was told that he was a sheep-herder--sang it. He gave about three more verses of the song, but I do not remember them.” The last part of the ballad relates the manner of death of the heroine, but Mr. Preston cannot recall any of the details of these additional stanzas, though he thinks the girl grieved herself to death.

The composition has all the earmarks of a late ballad. A few old words seem to indicate that there was an earlier original. In the fifth stanza “rush and cruel” may be a corruption for “rash and cruel” or perhaps “harsh and cruel.” The old or obsolete form “gare” for “gore” seems to be a survival of older ballad diction. In the sixth stanza the word “muvven” is entirely new to me. I do not find it recorded in Wright’s Dialect Dictionary nor in The Oxford Dictionary. It may be a corruption of “heaven.” Mr. Preston is certain that he has reproduced the word exactly as he learned it. In the last stanza, “o’er-casting” is probably a corruption for “o’er-cast them.”

One evening as I sat courting,
My brothers seemed to interfere,
Saying, “This courtship must soon be ended,
Or we’ll force him a long ways to his grave.”

The next morning they rose early
For a game of hunting for to go;
Upon this young man they both insisted
To come along and with them go.

They rode o’er hills and over mountains
And over lands that were unknown,
Till they came to a place in a lonesome valley
And there they killed and left him alone.

They got up, and on returning,
Their sister asked where he might be.
They said, “We lost him in our game of hunting;
No more of him you will ever see.”

She went to bed all heavy-hearted,
And in her dreams her true love came,
Saying, “Your brothers killed me rush and cruel,
And in a gare of blood I’ve lain.”

The next morning she rose early,
She dressed herself, put on her gloves,
Saying, “I’ll ride all day to the end of muvven,
Or find the object of my love.”

She rode o’er hills and over mountains
And over lands she did not know,
Till she came to the place in the lonesome valley,
And there she found him dead and cold.

His dark blue eyes were forever faded,
His lips were salty as the brine,
But she kissed him o’er and over, weeping,
“He was a darling friend of mine.”

She got up, and on returning,
Her brothers asked where she had been.
She said, “Hold your tongues, you deceitful villains;
Far across the sea you both will land.”

The next morning they rose early
For a trip across the sea to roam,
But the ship was sunk, and the waves o’er-casting,
And they were buried in the foam.

Human Foundation Sacrifices In Balkan Ballads

BY MAX SYLVIUS HANDMAN

“London bridge is falling down” would hardly suggest the lurid and bloody custom of burying a human being under bridges and churches in order to secure their foundations. Yet quite likely this innocent old nursery rhyme harks back to such a custom, and no doubt the belief in the efficacy of such sacrifices survives to this day, and not alone among primitive or barbarian societies. The building of the Brooklyn Bridge brought out a crop of stories of human beings who had disappeared without a trace, and raised many fears in the hearts of easy believers. Fifty years ago Lord Leigh was accused of having sacrificed a human being in order to ensure the security of Stoneleigh Bridge. In 1865, while the Turks were building a block house at Ragusa, they captured two Christian children for the purpose of burying them in the foundation. In 1867, when taking down Blackfriars Bridge in London, the bridge having been built a hundred years before, the architects found in the foundations an assortment of human and animal bones. The foundation of many churches in England when opened up will disclose skeletons built into them. The custom so highly esteemed in Medieval Europe of burying great men in the churches, the remnant of which is still seen in the burials in Westminster Abbey, will be illuminated by the information collected about foundation sacrifices.

By means of the substitution familiar to students of folklore, we find the use of human beings as guardians of the new structure given up for the use of animals. In certain parts of France (Anjou and Maine) the custom survived until recently of burying a frog or another small living animal when erecting a new structure. In parts of England and Scotland it is the custom to bury a man’s nails, a cow’s hoofs, a cat’s claws, or a piece of silver under the door post. In other parts a chicken is struck until its blood covers the stone behind the fire-place. In others again an animal heart is stuck full of pins and buried in the foundation. One is reminded of the burying of statues in the foundations of buildings in Medieval Rome. The Maoris in New Zealand carve on the ground-plates which support the house the figures of prostrate slaves, and so manage to pass off a colorless imitation before these latter-day evil spirits, so fallen from their high state. In fact, the custom of foundation sacrifices is found to exist or to have existed throughout Europe, India, Western Asia, North Africa,--and in due time evidences of its having existed everywhere will be discovered.

In the course of time there appeared a further substitution in the use of blood instead of the whole animal, blood being considered as the place wherein the spirit of the departed is most at home. Hence the killing of a hen in Ireland or the custom of covering the hearthstone with blood referred to above. The besmearing of the doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb referred to in Exodus XII (“And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses.”), which should serve the purpose of “a token upon the houses” so that the plague might not smite the inhabitants therein, may have some connection with the custom under discussion.

The growing skepticism and refinement of the present age make even the use of blood impossible, and we find the Rumanian peasant using water in a red jar, while for the christening of ships wine has been thought more appropriate,--probably red wine at first, and champagne for a battleship, befitting its high and noble purpose.

The explanation of a good deal of this strange and weird custom is furnished us by the Arab who consecrates the ground on which he is to raise his tent by slaying a sheep on it with the words “Permission, O possessor of this place.” It is consistent with the primitive and barbaric man’s notion (the barbarian is our next door neighbour) that every place is the abode of a spirit, and to presume to occupy or in any way lay claim to such a place is to infringe on his prerogatives and do violence to his possessions. But to do violence to a spirit cannot pass with impunity. The spirit will sooner or later take his revenge, and the ways in which spirits can torment are many, dark, devious, and dangerous. The best thing to do is to take out a sort of insurance against spiritual molestation by means of some sort of sacrifice. This sacrifice must be in keeping with the importance of the building to be erected. An ordinary tent or house can be bought off with an animal, or a rich man’s house with a slave; but a sacred structure such as a temple or a bridge needs a sacrifice of special worth and importance, one perhaps involving serious pain or discomfort to the one making it.

This primitive or semi-primitive conception of a propitiated spirit willing to allow an invasion of his preserves has its counterpart in another conception. One need not necessarily appease the spirit; one can call upon the good offices of a counter-spirit. Instead of making it amatter between the human being and the spirit, let the two spirits fight it out, provided that one can assure himself of a spirit strong enough. Now nothing can be stronger, according to primitive man, than the spirit of a human being who has been murdered on a certain spot. On that spot the spirit of the massacred human being reigns supreme, and he is indeed too much enrages and revengeful to be an easy one to deal with. And so chapels and temples and churches are placed on the spots where saints have been martyred. The transition from the belief that the spirit of the deceased would protect the spot of his decease to the utilization of his protecting mania for purposes foreign to him, is not at all difficult to make, given sufficient time and the underestimated power of logical reasoning of the primitive mind. In short, from the belief that a murdered man will out of vindictiveness protect the spot of his demise we come to the belief that in order to protect a certain spot against the invasion of a hostile spirit or alien man, it is only necessary to secure the body of some one who shall be buried under the foundations or within the walls of the building to be erected.

A bridge and a church were naturally the first structures to need such a protection. Bridges have always been sacred. The Roman High Priest was called Pontifex Maximus, the Great Bridge Builder. In the Middle Ages bridges were built and cared for by the monks (Blackfriars Bridge). As to temples and churches, the implication is plain enough. It was not until later that the protection of the dead body was extended to fortresses or the building of special cities.

III

Balkan ballads have preserved these beliefs to this day, by embodying them in artistically constructed productions. The Serbs have invested the building of the city of Skodra (Scutari) with the legend that the foundations could not be laid until the builders interred the wife of one of the three leaders of the undertaking. The Magyars give a similar legendary account of the building of the city of Deva, where the goodwill of the landowning spirit was obtained by means of the sacrifice of the wife of one of the builders. Among the Bulgars the ballad tells how the masterbuilder when he saw approaching a certain young woman, fell from the scaffolding and was killed. His dying injunction was that the foundations of the city of Solun (Saloniki) could never be raised until the young woman in question should be interred. (Overcoming of one spirit by another.) Among the Greeks the ballad centers around the building of the bridge over the river Arta, which required the sacrifice of the wife of the masterbuilder. Among the Albanians, it is the Fox’s bridge over the river Dibra which carries a similar tale.

The Rumanian ballad is the only one dealing with the building of a Christian Church. It is the most complete artistically, and at the same time it is most familiar to the present writer.

The church around which the ballad centers is the Cathedral of Curtea de Arges, the mausoleum of the reigning Rumanian dynasty. The king who is spoken of in this ballad, lived in the sixteenth century. It is probable that this Rumanian ballad was taken over from other Balkan sources, probably Bulgarian (as indicated by the similarity of the name of the hero in the two ballads, Manole in Rumanian and Mano in Bulgarian) and applied to the building of this famous cathedral. I venture this as a probability not because the sixteenth century is too late a period for foundation sacrifices, but because of the greater likelihood of borrowing, in the light of the history of the Balkan Peninsula. The ballad runs as follows:

The Black King is looking for a spot fit to have raised on it a great and noble church, a monument to himself and a place of worship. He meets a shepherd on the road and asks him if in his wanderings he has come across the ruins of an old structure. The shepherd offers to lead him to that spot, and there he decides to erect his sacred edifice. His staff of workmen is made up of nine famous builders headed by Manole (Emanoil), the great masterbuilder. The building begins, but what is raised during the day crumbles during the night, and this goes on for a week. Then Manole thinks and meditates and while doing so he falls asleep. In his sleep he has a dream which tells him that they are laboring in vain until they shall immure within the rising walls a beautiful young wife. Manole tells his dream to his fellow-workers and they all swear to immure the first wife from among those of the workmen who shall appear bringing her husband his daily food. All the other builders warn their wives of the approaching peril and they stay away. Honest and heroic Manole alone abides by the understanding and says nothing. With a trembling heart be raises his eyes in the morning and observes from afar the faithful and devoted wife bringing his food to him. With an agonized spirit he prays to the Lord to send a fearful rain so that all the rivers will rise and all the streams will swell and so prevent the faithful woman from coming to her death. But though the rain floods and the streams swell, she is not prevented in her coming. Then Manole prays that a wind may blow, strong and terrifying, that will tear out trees by their roots, and so frighten his wife that she will tarry long enough for someone else to come before her. Then the winds blow, but no more than the waters can they deter her. In despair he prays that the Lord send a deep and dense darkness to make her stumble and scatter the food so that she will have to go back home and prepare more. The darkness comes; she stumbles, scatters the food, but faithfully returns home and prepares more, and at last bravely arrives at the place of work. Broken hearted, but hiding his emotions, Manole takes her by the hand and leads her playfully to the wall, and playfully he and the other builders begin to put brick on brick around her. She smiles at first, but on seeing that the work proceeds rapidly and in earnest, she becomes frightened. She begs her husband to desist from his play as the wall is hurting her. With a sigh he begs her quietly to bear her burden and be sacrificed in order that the cathedral may at last be raised. She has no other thought now but that of the child left at home motherless. Who will nurse it? she begs. The fairies will see it and they will nurse it, replies Manole. Who will bathe it? The rain will fall and will bathe it. Who will sway its cradle until it falls asleep? The wind will blow gently and will sway it to sleep.

I have given only that part of the ballad which bears directly on the subject of foundation sacrifices. In its present forms with its numerous variants it contains other matters dealing in some way with the same cathedral or with the mythical master-builder Manole. These have been incorporated into the ballad In a manner familiar to students of folklore. That the evident purpose of the ballad is to glorify wifely duty and praise honesty in abiding by a contract does not invalidate the fundamental character of it as a literary survival of the old custom of foundation sacrifices.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The general subject of Foundation Sacrifices will be found treated of by A. C. Haddon in The Study of Man, London, 1898; E. B. Tylor in Primitive Culture, Vol. I, p 104, sqq.; E. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, Vol. I, pp. 461-66 (bibliography) ; and the article entitled, “Foundation and Foundation Rites” in Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 6.

The Balkan Ballads are collected and discussed by Lazar Saineanu in Studii Folklorice, Bucuresti, 1896, pp. 47-66.

The Serbian ballad in a German translation by Jacob Grimm is in a collection entitled Serbische Volkslieder published by the Insel-Verlag, Leipzig; in a French translation it will be found in Chants de Guerre de la Serbie by Leo D’Orfer, Paris, 1916, pp. 177-184; and in an English translation in Servian Popular Poetry, translated by John Bowring, London, 1827, pp. 64-75.

The Bulgarian version I take from Saineanu; although Prof. R. Tsanoff informs me that he has published an account of the Bulgarian ballad in English, I have not been able to find it.

The Greek version will be found in English in Vol. I, pp. 70-73, of Greek Folk Poesy by Lucy M. J. Garnett, London, 1896.

The Rumanian version has many variants. The most familiar one is that given by the poet Vasile Alexandri, although it is abridged and polished; see Poeziile Populare ale Romanilor, Ed. Minerva, pp. 122-126. The accepted scientific version is that given by G. Dem. Theodorescu in Poesii Populare Romane, Bucuresti,. 1885, although the spelling, fashionable among academic circles at that time and employed by Theodorescu, makes it a little difficult reading; a more recent collection published by the Rumanian Academy and edited by Gr. G. Tocilescu entitled Mat erialuri Foictori stice, Bucuresti, 1900, gives, three variants on pp. 18-28; while another variant will be found in Cantece de Tara by Tudor Pamfile, Bucuresti, 1913, pp. 19-24. Finally, a collection of folklore from among the Rumanians living in Serbia, Dela Romanii din Serbia, by G. Giuglea and G. Valsan, Bucuresti, 1913, gives two variants on pp. 177-183.

The Decline And Decadence Of Folk Metaphor

BY W. H. THOMAS

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the literature of folklore falls into two sharply defined classes, viz., synthetic works and collections. Correspondingly, folklorists may be placed in two classes, those that merely collect, and those that interpret and compare. Still a third class might be made-those that enjoy. I feel that if such a division is not recognized, and the pursuit of folklore made to conform thereto, we folklorists are in danger of sinking to the level of philatelists, numismatists, and others of that ilk. I also feel that chief stress should be laid on the interpreting and comparing of folklore, and not on the collecting. The latter requires no great mental effort. Those that can do this best have to thank geographical situation or temporal juncture. Of course we must collect and enjoy, but it is, perhaps, not amiss for me to urge upon the members of this society, thus early in its career, to try to see folklore in its largest significance. To be brief, if art has always been the handmaid of religion, what Is folklore to be the handmaid of? To me the pursuit of folklore shall always be worth while for the light it throws on the evolution of society and its institutions. For instance, as I was collecting these metaphors I was very much interested in seeing bow far they chime in with that relatively recent theory that is attracting so much attention these days, viz., economic determinism--or the theory that art, both in content and in form, has it roots deep down in the economic life of a folk.

I have used the word “metaphor” advisedly but somewhat loosely. Some of the things I have in mind are metaphors, some similes, some comparisons, and some merely pieces of imagery. It is simply this. Unlettered folk seem to be fond of making comparisons to natural objects to express their ideas and feelings. Vividness and freshness are qualities always present. I will not venture to say what I mean by a folk, further than that the term seems to me to include anybody that is not a folklorist.

The assertion that folk metaphor has declined and decayed implies that folks have declined and decayed. This is true: and an exposition of this fact would have been only the converse of my thesis,--and more tangible; but then it would have been an essay in sociology and not in folklore.

I have made a simple classification of all the folk metaphors, similes, and comparisons that have chanced to get embedded in my memory. We have (1) those that have’ been inherited, and (2) those that have been created by the present generation. Of course, both kinds are employed by the present generation. But their employment is now less frequent and their creation seems to have almost ceased. I have further divided the first class into (1) those that have lost absolutely their appositeness and (2) those that are, I might say, illegal. I shall set down here for you only a few that are typical. The inapposite class, I am sure, will appeal to those of you who have at some time caught yourself asking, “Well, I wonder how that could have originated?” There is now and has always been current in my community the saying, with reference to a man that is financially very able, “He’s got more money than Carter had oats.” Yet there never has been a man in this community by the name of Carter and the acreage devoted to oats has always been insignificant. Hence you can see that the phrase has lost every particle of its force. Another of this kind is “as tight as Dick’s hatband.” Just who Dick was and how tight the hat band was that he wore will probably never be known. The following similes, metaphors, and comparisons I have classed, generally, as illegal: “as hungry as a wolf,” “as strong as an ox,” as mad as a setting hen,” “as cold as a cart wheel,” “as limber as a dish rag,” “as happy as a lark,” “as proud as a peacock,” “as meek as a lamb,” “as crazy as a bat,” “as drunk as a fool,” “hot as blue blazes,” “quick as lightning.”

A good example of pure metaphor is: “If you don’t mind, you will go through the forest, and take a crooked stick after all,” said of a young lady who has failed to gather her rosebuds while she might have gathered them.

I call these illegal because they are the property of a dead generation. For instance, how meaningless is it for a present-day person to say, “I am as hungry as a wolf,” when he has never seen a wolf except at a circus. What sense is there in saying, “as mad as a settin’ hen,” when an incubator is on almost every farm? “As strong as an ox” was once expressive when that animal was used for draft purposes, but one rarely finds an ox-team to-day. Take the metaphor of the crooked stick referred to above. I once heard a young lady use that metaphor as she sat with her feet on a steam radiator. However, there are a few figures in this list that, like Shakespeare, are not for an age but for all time. For instance, “as quick as lightning.” The age cannot be imagined when that will not be apropos.

Life has been said to be a complete correspondence to environment. The same may be said of successful figurative language. This is why I say that folk metaphor has decayed. It no longer reflects its environment but that of a past age. And there seems to be nothing in our present age that stimulates metaphor. However, the various technical slangs of today come pretty near to corresponding to the metaphors of folks when all communities were mostly agricultural and domestic. I believe I can, by using a single illustration, make you realize that folk metaphor has decayed. A man of two generations ago, when he desired to express the intensity of the cold of a morning of low temperature, generally said, “It’s as cold as a cart wheel this morning.” This same man’s grandson always says, “Gee, it’s cold as hell this morning, ain’t it?”

Right here a pertinent inquiry is, Why has folk metaphor decayed and declined? Without expatiating, I contend that the decline is due to the overshadowing of the country by the towns, the spread of book education, and the worship of something we call Efficiency, physical exhaustion, and the almost universal desire in America to become something other than what we are. I don’t believe that metaphor will ever revive as long as so many of us are divorced from reality. A quiescent stage of social evolution, too, is, I think, its most favorable medium.

The task I have set myself is to collect all these folk metaphors, similes, and comparisons that I feel sure have come into existence within the last few years. I regret that I haven’t a larger collection of these newly coined comparisons, but I have been collecting only a few months and this is a task that cannot be hurried. I here set down a few that 1 know to be of recent origin. Within the past year this simile has gained currency in my neighborhood. A negro from the day-laboring class meets another who has a more stable means of livelihood. The latter says, “Hello, Bill, how you gettin’ ‘long these days?” The reply is: “I don’t know--living like a wild cat--don’t catch nothing, don’t eat nothing.” I once rode up to an old negro that was “chopping cotton” with several assistants. I asked him how many men he was working. When he replied “five,” I counted them, and then pointing to his ten-year-old boy, I asked if he called him a man. He said, “Boss, he’s a man at the table.” I was once present at the birth of a metaphor. One little negro was busy mending a plow, while a smaller negro was pestering him. The larger one then said to the smaller one, “If you don’t stop, I’ll make you rabbit away from here.” That was the first time I ever heard “rabbit” used as a verb. But it is now more or less common. And any one that has ever seen a Molly Cottontail get up and seek safety in flight knows that this metaphor is almost the perfection of language. One of the most picturesque expressions to denote loyalty I ever heard is this: “I likes you; I’ll go to the bluff and look over with you,” implying that the one would succor the other almost to self-sacrifice. The last one I shall exhibit I know, by applying the method of the higher criticism, to be, in origin, synchronous with the high cost of living. Two old cronies meet, not having seen each other in several years. One says, “Bill, how much family have you got now?” Bill replies with a smile of good fortune, “Pshaw, fellow, there’s nothing running around my house but the fence.”

The Cowboy Dance

BY J. R. CRADDOCK

Turning back to the west of some ten years ago, before the automobiles and phonographs became numerous, before the country became too thickly populated, we find an honest, hospitable people who worked with a will and played with a zest. It was then truly the land of the open door, where the stranger was always welcome and a man’s word was his bond. Here people lived a simple life of contentment, untroubled by driving ambition and free from all convention. Their “gatherings” were few, and at them the individuals felt themselves under no obligation to conform. Hence, the picnics, the “meetings,” the “sociables,” the dances, were all highly flavored with the individuality of the locality,--but none more than the cowboy dance.

An old-time cowboy dance was not announced in any specified manner. The news was given out and scattered by means of the “grapevine telegraph.” At the beginning, several weeks before the dance was to “come off,” several men were deputized to “ride it up.” These men made a tour of the country and invited every person they happened to meet, regardless of who it might be. The invitation usually contained the phrase, “Everybody invited and nobody slighted.”

Following the invitation to the dance, there was always a noticeable bustle about the community. Even the steadiest working ranch-hands “knocked off” early, dressed in their “Sunday go-to-meeting” clothes, and rode away in a mysterious manner. A cowboy often put himself to a great deal of trouble to take his girl to a dance. Buggies were always scarce in the ranching country, and sometimes it was necessary for the “puncher” who contemplated taking his “lady friend” to a dance to hire a buggy from a livery stable at the nearest town. A typical case of the trouble a cowboy will put himself to on an occasion like this is that of Bill , who had a girl living twelve miles from the ranch where he worked. To make arrangements with the girl, he rode twenty-four miles. To procure a buggy he rode sixteen miles to town and drove the same distance coming back, making thirty-two miles. Then he drove to the girl’s home, covering, the twelve miles, and thence to the dance, covering eight miles. After the dance Bill drove the eight miles back to the girl’s house, the twelve miles to the ranch, and made the thirty-two mile round trip to return the buggy. In all, till covered a distance of one hundred and twenty-eight miles, in order to take his “best girl” to the dance.

Some time during the day on which the dance was to “come off,” several of the neighbors “dropped in” to help prepare for it. The furniture was all moved into one room or into the yard. The home stock were fed early and turned into the “starve out,” to make room for the visitors’ horses in the corral. Pictures and ornaments were usually left in their places, these forming the only decorations for the rooms. The pictures for the most part were enlargements of the members of the family or of near relations; the other ornaments, decorated cards upon which were printed such maxims as “Welcome,” “God bless our home,” “What is a home without a mother,” and “God bless mother and father.”

The people began to arrive about sundown. Each group was hailed with loud and merry greetings. Gossip occupied the time until the arrival of the fiddler, but when he put in his appearance, all concern and attention were bestowed upon him. The fiddler was usually a unique character. He was in most cases a lazy, shiftless individual who never was known to refuse a drink. He had an “improvised” vocabulary, he “opined” and “calculated” and considered his own judgment as final and infallible on all subjects. For a long time he would tune his fiddle before the admiring crowd. With startling skill he would fasten his knife to the bridge of it to intensify the sound. He had a rattlesnake rattler always on the inside of his fiddle as a charm against dampness. When the fiddler started playing, all signs of his habitual laziness vanished, and he became strangely animated. He “kept time” with his head and his foot simultaneously, moving and tilting his head to the variation of his music while he patted his foot. The fiddlers all learned to play without instruction; therefore each of them had a different interpretation for the tunes they knew.

When a sufficient crowd had gathered, the dancing began. The girls were lined up on one side of the room and given chairs. If there were not enough chairs to “go round,” trunks and boxes were used. When a man wished to dance with a young lady, he went over to her and said, “Pardner for the next dance?”, and if she had none, he added, “May I have the next?” If she gave her consent, the bargain was closed. If a man was refused a dance by a girl he was “stung” or “stood up” by her, and should he be “stung” twice in one night he was considered “slighted” by the lady, and he customarily would not ask her for another dance.

Each man who danced made a donation to the fiddler. The dance usually started with a waltz, which was very beautiful. The cowboy held the lady’s right hand in his left and put his right arm about her. He was always considerate and held a large handkerchief in his right hand to keep from soiling the lady’s dress.

After the dance had been “going on” for some time, those who came from a distance began to arrive. When these late corners got close enough that they could hear the music of the fiddle, they would “pour the quirt” to their horses and ride yelling up to the very door. The men often came as far as forty miles to attend a dance, and it always seemed that the farther they came the more popular they were with the girls.

When the square dance started, a “caller” was selected, who automatically became the center of all attraction. The caller was always some person who was forward and “loud-mouthed.” He had a care-free way about him that was evident even in dress. His boots were apt to be of the fanciest pattern that could be had; he would likely wear his “lock-rowelled” spurs. He would have a rattlesnake skin slipped over his belt, which he buckled on the side instead of in the center. His shirt was of a fancy pattern and a flaming color; he wore a “stamped leather, collar” with a gaudy tie, having a small section of cow’s horn slipped over it to serve in place of a knot. A pair of new buckskin gloves hung from the pocket of his “peg-topped” trousers and a “Bull Durham” tag hung from a sack in his shirt pocket. He assumed an indifferent air and seemed utterly unaware of the importance attached to him. The caller sometimes led in the dance and called for it at the same time. Sometimes calling from memory, filling in forgotten parts with new words, and often inventing entirely new calls, he chanted the calls in a rhythmic monotone that fitted well with the music of the fiddle. The performance of the dancers varied with the calls of the caller.

The swinging formed the major part of the dance. One way of swinging was by grasping the hands as the couple passed, another was by the interlocking of the elbows as the dancers met, followed by a quick turn and a release. The dancers moved with a kind of shuffle that was timed to the music. The feet of the dancers as they pounded the floor in unison stirred up the dust from between the boards, and several times during the night the dance was halted until the dirt could be swept out into the yard. It was not an unusual thing for a girl to dance her shoe soles through in one night. The “punchers’” thick-soled boots of course lasted longer.

The “calls” of the cowboy dance were exceedingly picturesque. A few examples of these calls follow:

Choose your partner, form a ring,
Figure eight, and double L swing.

First swing six, then swing eight,
Swing ‘em like swinging on a gate.

Ducks in the river, going to the ford,
Coffee in a little rag, sugar in a gourd.

Swing ‘em once and let ‘em go,
All hands left and do-ce-do.

You swing me, and I’ll swing you,
And we’ll all go to heaven, in the same old shoe.

Chase the possum, chase the coon,
Chase that pretty girl ‘round the room.

How will you swap, and how’ll you trade
This pretty girl for that old maid?

Wave the ocean, wave the sea,
Wave that pretty girl back to me.

Swing your partners, once in a while,
Swing them all in Indian style.

Rope the cow, and kill the calf,
Swing your partner, a round and a half.

Swing your partners before you trade,
Grab ‘em back and promenade.

Grab your pardner and sail away,
Hurry up, it’s breaking day.

Swing ‘em round, and round an’ round,
Pockets full of rocks to weigh ‘em down.

There comes a girl I used to know,
Swing her once and let her go.

When you meet your pardner, pat her on the head,
If she don’t like coffee, give her corn bread.

Three little sisters, all in a row,
Swing ‘em once and let them go.

Old shoe sole is about wore out,
Grab a girl and walk about.

Swing ‘em east and swing ‘em west,
Swing the girl that you like best.

There was something about the cowboy dances that cast a spell over participants and onlookers alike. Those who were forbidden by the strict country church to dance came often to look upon the gaieties of their “sinner friends” with envy and hunger in their eyes. At first they might refuse stoutly the invitations to dance, but too often the tantalizing music of the fiddle, and the high nasal twang of the caller’s voice caused even the most religious to join in the dance. When a church member took part in a dance he was said to have “danced himself out of the church” and he had to be “saved” at the next revival. With some persons it was a habit to “dance out of the church” in the winter and to be “saved” at the “camp meeting” the following summer when dancing was not in vogue.

Black coffee was served to the guests in the kitchen, where the children were put to sleep on the floor. As for the men, there was always a little whiskey on hand somewhere; between dances some man would wink at another and motion with his head. Following this mysterious procedure, several of the men would leave the room, and the bottle would be passed around, each man taking a swallow. In some instances, the boys would forget and take too much and get on a “high lonesome.” As long as the men behaved they were not molested, but when a man got “tanked up” and showed it, he was frequently “cooled off” by a series of blows on the head, and then carried away to the harness shed and locked up or guarded until he was sober or until the dance “broke up.”

The dancers as they moved about the room presented a pleasing spectacle. Singling them out, one would be impressed by the great variety that the gathering afforded. Style was not followed so closely then as now, and the girls would be dressed in many ways. The dresses were long, reaching almost to the ankle. White dresses with light pink or blue ribbons were the most popular. Between dances the girls would “fix up” in the dressing room. In those days a girl would not powder her nose in public. The boys were dressed in various ways; some wore shoes and common suits, while others wore fancy hand-made boots and all of the other regalia that make up a cowboy’s “garb.” The farmer boys would wear “hand-.me-down” boots in their effort to copy the cowboy’s dress.

The dance was often varied by amusing or exciting incidents. When a “new beginner” wanted to learn to dance he was given a little extra attention. All care was taken to get him “balled up.” Some of the girls were unusually strong, and when they swung the “new beginner,” they would sometimes send him reeling against the wall; the dance was prolonged beyond its usual length for his special benefit, that he might get “blowed” or “winded.”

The dances usually lasted all night and into the next day. Some of the “punchers” who had ridden forty or fifty miles to attend a dance might sometimes have to leave early in order to begin work in the morning. When a man left he announced his “farewell” dance, danced it, and departed. Sometimes, though, after he had mounted his horse and started away, his ears caught the strains of a favorite selection. When he heard these, he could not resist the temptation to return for another “farewell” dance. Then he danced in his “chaps” and his riding clothes. His return often arose from his desire to “show off” his new “chaps,” quirt, or other trapping. As he reluctantly rode away, he would sometimes give the cowboy’s call. This call is weird and melancholy; it is the call that the cowboy uses as he rides around a herd at night to solace himself and to quiet the restless cattle. This call is strange in that it cannot be imitated. It comes from the depths of the cowboy’s soul, mellowed by loneliness and inspired by the spell of the prairies. It was a fitting and impressive farewell from the lonely rider as he started away on his long ride.

When the dance broke up, the people shouted to one another as they “hooked up.” After many farewells, they drove away, shouting as they went. Each man “prided” himself on his “rig,” and to show off he would try to “pass everything on the road.” The departing crowd would often leave the gates open expecting the last corner to close them, arid the land owners habitually rode their fences and shut their gates on the morning following a dance. Some of the boys would ride over fences and leave them down, or play such pranks as taking the gates off the hinges and dragging them with their ropes. After the rattle of the last buggy had died away, the “blowout” became a part of the community history.

Miscellany Of Texas Folk-Lore

BY W. P. WEBB

The folk-lore presented here is nothing more than a miscellaneous collection. A few of the selections bear unmistakable signs of authorship; others are parodies on well-known religious or popular songs. Each selection, however, has this feature in common with all folk-lore: it lives and is handed down by word of mouth by some class or group.

HOBO SONGS

The first songs I shall give were collected from two hobos who were placed in the police station at Cuero, Texas. They were picked up as suspicious characters after a local diamond robbery and placed in prison. Upon being liberated, they found it impossible to get out of town, and voluntarily returned to the police station and asked to be locked up for the night and fed. One of the school boys happened to get in conversation with them and got one song in the hobo’s own handwriting. The hobo wrote an excellent business hand, and the punctuation and capitalization showed him to be a man of more than average education. On the morning--following I went down to the police station and got some other songs. The hobos talked freely and interestingly. They said they learned the songs when in the I. W. W. (International Workmen of the World, or I Won’t Work). They spoke of the I. W. W.’s as “Wobblers.” I asked one where they were from. He shrugged his shoulders, sucked his cigarette, and said: “Oh, everywhere. We’ve been to the Pacific and to the Atlantic, so we can’t say where we’re from.” After a moment he added rather whimsically, “We been everywhere looking for work, and--never able to find it.”

The first song, an obvious parody, was sung to the good religious tune of “Hallelujah, Thine the Glory.”

HALLELUJAH, BUM AGAIN

When spring time does come,
O won’t we have fun.
We’ll throw up our jobs
And we’ll go on the bum.

Chorus:

Hallelujah, I’m a bum,
Hallelujah, bum again,
Hallelujah, give us a handout
To revive us again.

I went up to a house
And I knocked on the door,
A lady came out
And said, “You’ve been here before.”

Chorus:

I went up to a house
And I asked for a piece of bread,
A lady came out
And said, “The baker is dead.”

Chorus:

I went up to a house
And I asked for a pair of pants;
A lady came out
And said, “I don’t clothe no tramps.”

Chorus:

I went into a saloon,
And I bummed him for a drink;
He gave me a glass
And he showed me the sink.

Chorus:

“Why don’t you go to work
Like other men do?”
“How the hell are we going to work
When there’s no work to do.”

Chorus:

YOU’LL EAT PIE BYE AND BYE

Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out,
And they holler and jump and they shout,
But when eating time comes around they will say,
“You will eat on that glorious day.”

Chorus:

You will eat bye and bye,
In that glorious land way up high,
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll eat pie in the sky bye and bye, that’s no lie.

Another ballad, and the best one given by the hobo, is entitled “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, Keep on a-Tramping.” He said he learned it out in Denver where the “wobblers” ran the Salvation Army off the street. The tune is familiar to all.

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP, KEEP ON A-TRAMPING

He walked up and down the street
Till the shoes fell off his feet,
Across the street he spied a lady cooking stew.
And he said, “How do you do,
May I chop some wood for you?”
But what the lady told him made him feel so blue.

Chorus:
“Tramp, tramp, tramp, keep on a-trampin’,
There is nothing here for you;
If I catch you ‘round again,
You will wear the ball and chain,
Keep a-trampin’, that’s the best thing you can do.”

Across the street a sign he read,
“Work for Jesus,” so it said.
And he said, “Here is my chance, I’ll surely try.”
And he kneeled upon the floor
Until his knees got rather sore,
But at eating time he heard the preacher cry.

Chorus:

Down the street he met a cop,
And the copper made him stop,
And he said: “When did you blow into town?”
And he took him to the judge,
But the judge he said, “Ah fudge!
Bums that have no money need not come around.”

Chorus:

The last song is but a parody of “A Soldier of the Legion.”

THE DYING HOBO AT THE WESTERN WATER TANK

Out in Denver on a cold November day,
Inside an empty box-car, a dying hobo lay.
His partner stood beside him, with low and drooping head,
Listening to the last words the dying hobo said.

“Tell my sweetheart back in Denver not to weep for me,
Not a tear in her eye must lurk,
For I’m going to a land where I don’t have to work;
You can sleep out nights, and don’t have to wear no socks,
And little streams of whiskey come trickling out of the rocks.

“Hark! I hear a whistling, I must catch her on the fly;
Farewell, partner, I must leave you, I’m not afraid to die.”
The hobo stopped, his head fell back, as he sang his last refrain.
His partner swiped his hat and socks, and caught the east bound train.

RAILROAD SONGS

Ole J. Gould owns the Katy line, the C. B. & the Q.,
Owns the C. & A, Cannon Ball, gettin’ richer every day,
And if you niggers doan look out, he’ll own the Santa Fe.

A few more words I’ll write to you,
Before I bid you all adieu,
And if I live two months or three,
I vow I’ll leave old Santa Fe.

GOING TO LEAVE THE I. & G.

I went down to my mother’s house,
I overstayed my time,
Early Monday morning.
The boss struck me thirty-nine,

Called me in to breakfast,
And scarcely gave me time,
To eat a piece of buttered bread
And an old bacon rind.

Chorus:
Going to leave the I. & G.
Tra-la-la-la-la,
Going upon the T. & P.
Tra-la-la-la-la.

Ole Mistress, will you be so kind
And give me a bite to eat,
A little, piece of buttered bread,
And a little piece of meat,
A little piece of custard pie,
To soothe my appetite.

Chorus:

All along the I. & G.,
Waiting for a freight,
Roving the old Island down,
With not a bite to eat.
If the brakeman catches me,
My waiting’s all in vain,
It’s skip out, you jolly bum,
And catch the next freight train.

Chorus:

III

SLUM SONGS

THE PEANUT GIRL AND THE POLICEMAN

Listen to me, all you fair maids,
While a story I will tell;
It’s all about a peanut girl,
Who cut a mighty swell.

She lived with her mother up seven pair of stairs,
On’ the Bowery near Grand;
But her place of business was on Broadway,
Where she kept a peanut stand.

A rowdy or a spree one day,
As down the street was bent,
He ran against the peanut stand,
And away the peanuts went.

A young policeman standing by
With a big club in his hand,
He marched the rowdy off to jail
For upsetting the peanut stand.

She loved the young policeman then,
And he bought her peanuts too,
She loved his German silver star,
And his coat all trimmed in blue.

They loved each other like Shanghai fowls,
Roving round in spring;
They went to the lager beer saloon
To hear the Dutchmen sing.

Some part of the song seems to have been left out here, as the narrative is broken.

The Atlantic Cable brought no news,
And peanuts took a rise;
And the peanut girl is a bankrupt now,
And the young policeman lied.

The next song belongs in the same class as “Albert,” the famous negro song. It makes use of a refrain at the end of each stanza that seems absolutely meaningless.

DEPEND ON ME, CHOLLIE, GOD KNOWS

Twinkle, twinkle, said a little star,
Here comes Brady on a cable car,
Knockin’ out windows, breakin’ down doors,
Tryin’ to keep even with the Sandy slows (St. Louis--)