Assembled here are seventy-eight stories from six of the "ballad-singingest, tale-tellingest" residents of the eastern Kentucky mountain country. Based on stories rooted in European traditions from German fairy tales to Irish hero stories to Greek myths, the tales had been handed down through generations of telling before Marie Campbell collected them in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Readers will recognize the story of Snow White in "A Stepchild That Was Treated Mighty Bad," while "Three Shirts and a Golden Finger Ring" recalls the fairy tale of the Seven Swans. "The Fellow That Married A Dozen Times" is a lively rendition of "Bluebeard." As the narrators cautioned Marie Campbell again and again, "Tale-telling is nigh about faded out in the mountain country," but Tales from the Cloud Walking Country offers a lasting record of history, cultural heritage, language, and good old-fashioned fun.
Tales of the Suwannee River Country, a collection of twenty-six stories and essays, traces the personal journey of Emily B. Curtis, who grew up in North Florida during the Great Depression. As a shy young writer and pianist, Emily led a life of poetry and music and later became a teacher. Her father, a local attorney, defended the victims of shootings in the region, which introduced Emily to the world's evils, and ultimately taught her powerful lessons about life. From stories about small town American life in the South, to regional history and fiction, Tales of the Suwannee River Country will take you back in time to when the world was simpler and more secure.