signs and portents

This is Margaret Cannell's 1933 collection of signs, omens and portents of Nebraska, published by the English department of the University of Nebraska.  I really take a delight in reading collections of folklore and a number of twentieth century anthologies do a great job of cataloging popular mythology.  One of my favorite anthologies is Richard M. Dorson's Buying the Wind.  Dorson spent quite a lot of time interviewing older folks in the sixties and seventies who came of age before the onslaught of better living through empty materialism.  Their stories strike at something wild and protean; the Pennsylvania Dutch maintained a body of work revolving around Till Eulenspiegel, the Southwestern menace of La llorona, even the simple rhymes one dedicates to a new moon in Cannell's Nebraska.  

Old, Weird America is a pretty swanky blog to follow.  He tracks down info about the artists and songs on Harry Smith's Folkways America and there are also some other songs for download if you're into early American music.

I have a beer to drink.  No more typee-type.