Tristram Potter Coffin

Fairies and Elves

Insights into the culture of pre-Christian Europe are provided as the author seeks out the origins and meanings of songs, food, legends, and other items associated with yuletide.

The Book of Christmas Folklore

MacEdward Leach

A book of readings has long been needed to supplement the many col­lections of ballads on the market. The essays included in this volume have been carefully selected to make available in one volume many of the basic studies that previously lay widely scattered in the journal literature. They offer the reader a clear view into major areas of ballad scholarship, introduce him to the latest ideas in the field of folksong, and give him an insight into ballads that goes far beyond amateur enthusiasm and entertainment. All the essays are written by internationally recognized authorities, and in each case have become standard statements of the particular thesis they argue. All the essays deal with theory—i.e., with ballad origins, variation, transmission, artistic atmosphere, and music and meter. Each essay is, in the opinion of the editors, important and at the same time difficult for students and seriously interested amateurs to locate. No effort has been made to in­clude materials that are presently in wide distribution or deal with the more technical aspects of ballad scholarship.

Readings

The Critics & the Ballad

Vols. 1-67, 68, 69, 70

An Analytical Index to the Journal of American Folklore

The British Traditional Ballad in North America

Hennig Cohen

Covers more than 125 holidays including well-known religious and secular holidays as well as more obscure celebrations. Chronologically arranged, from New Year's Day through Christmas, entries include a description of origins, historical background and general characteristics.

The Folklore of American Holidays

The Proper Book of Sexual Folklore

Legendary Figures in American Lore

The Parade of Heroes

Roger deV. Renwick

Tristram Potter Coffin's The British Traditional Ballad in North America, published in 1950, became recognized as the standard reference to the published material on the Child ballad in North America. Centering on the theme of story variation, the book examines ballad variation in general, treats the development of the traditional ballad into an art form, and provides a bibliographical guide to story variation as well as a general bibliography of titles referred to in the guide. Roger deV. Renwick's supplement to The British Traditional Ballad in North America provides a thorough review of all sources of North American ballad materials published from 1963, the date of the last revision of the original volume, to 1977. The references, which include published text fragments and published title lists of items in archival collections, are arranged according to each ballad's story variations. Textual and thematic comparisons among ballads in the British and American tradition are made throughout. In his introductory essay Renwick synthesizes the various theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of variation that have appeared in scholarly publications since 1963 and provides examples from texts referred to in the bibliographical guide itself. The supplement, like its parent work, is an invaluable reference tool for the study of variation in ballad form, content, and style. Together with the reprinted text of the 1963 edition, the supplement provides an exhaustive bibliography to the literature on the British traditional ballad in North America.

A compilation of more than 500 beliefs, legends, superstitions, proverbs, riddles, poems, songs, dances, games, plays, pageants, fairs, foods, and processions associated with over 120 American calendar customs and festivals.

Tristram Potter Coffin

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