Lore of an Adirondack County - by Edith E Cutting (Paperback)

About the Book

Edith E. Cutting provides an invaluable compilation of Adirondack folklore, from lumberjack songs to tall tales about drinking, hunting, and French Canadians. Also included are legends about hidden treasure, weather lore, stories about ghosts and witches.

Book Synopsis

"My family lives in the Adirondacks, a section of New York State that has been favorable to the preservation of folklore. With a common background in England and America for life in a small community, we have kept alive many old tales, songs, sayings, and superstitions, which have always had a sort of fascination for us even though, when quoting some belief, we often qualified it with the remark, 'Of course, I don't believe that sort of thing.'"--from Lore of an Adirondack County

Collecting songs, stories, and sayings passed down in her family--and in those of their friends and neighbors in Essex County, New York--Edith E. Cutting provides an invaluable compilation of Adirondack folklore, from lumberjack songs to tall tales about drinking, hunting, and French Canadians. Also included are legends about hidden treasure, weather lore, stories about ghosts and witches, recollections of folk medicines and children's games, and popular songs and ballads.Originally published by Cornell University Press in 1944, Lore of an Adirondack County remains a fresh and charming account of the folkways of New York State, showing how a single Adirondack family, aided by willing neighbors, 'yarned' and sang in the hills above Lake Champlain.

Review Quotes

Essex County is generally thought of by New York State folklorists as the area where the tall tale and ballad flourish most vigorously. Lore of an Adirondack County bears out this assumption. The strongest chapters are those dealing with the tall tales, lumbering stories and songs, and the ballads. The tall tales concern the cold weather, b'ar hunting, farm incidents. Some of the latter tell of Joe Call, the powerful farmer-hero; others are retorts in our sharpest upstate tradition.... The value of this in this: it is one of the few published records of the lore of a single family and its immediate friends. It shows us what range and variety such a group can contribute to the body of our folk culture.... Because Cutting is of the people from whom she has collected her materials, one never senses the self-consciousness of the outsider relating his findings in a strange area. She has the same kind of familiarity with her material that characterizes Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men.

About the Author

Edith E. Cutting is a former English high school teacher and the author of several collections of New York State folklore. She coedited, with Harold W. Thompson, A Pioneer Songster: Texts from the Stevens-Douglass Manuscript of Western New York, 1841-1856, also from Cornell.