WELCOME TRAVELERS OF THE HALLOW WOODS (January 23, 2025)— So, you might say, "Hey bub? I thought this was supposed to be about folklore?!" Well, as my own dear mother might say, “Don’t get your britches in a bunch.” Plus is the use of a question or exclamation mark in that phrase really necessary?
Okay, sure, maybe much of what is written herein is a bit more “folksnorey” than “folklorey” but perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. See, folklore as it appears in print is a wee bit different than the folklore that originated it. Folklore, that is oral folklore, is spoken, fluid and spontaneous whereas folklore elsewise tends to be written, fixed and meticulously plotted out. And this is to say nothing of performance issues.
Meaning, of course, that folklore is a performative art. For embedded in the storyteller’s yarns and balladeer’s songs were the hidden gestures, inflections, improvisations, emotional intensity, &c. that help set them apart from the next schmuck down the road. Indeed, it is an art all but lost in a digital age of fixed type.
Sure, I could have recorded myself telling a story, but then this wouldn’t be much of a book, now would it?
