FOLKLORE in Minnesota Literature

MAIDEN Rock on thc ca.st shore of Lake Pepin

JOHN T. FLANAGAN

MINNESOTA folklore enthusiasts will find ton stone which has provoked as much no Davy Crockett or Johnny Appleseed discussion. The raid on the Northfield bank about whom a vast legendry has accreted. by the brothers James and Younger links Minnesota has no Mrs. O'Leary's cow, no the commonwealth with the traditions of Salt Lake sea gulls, no indigenous spiritu the western bad men. The art of taxi als or blues, no half-horse, half-alligator dermy has preserved in the lobby of the bravoes, and only rare Yankee peddlers Duluth Hotel an ursine interloper which is distributing notions and gossip. Variants locally as famous as thc wolf which suckled of such old ballads as "Barbara Allen" are Romulus. Instead of the lore of the Negro seldom recorded by field workers, and no and the backwoodsman, there is the Indian Gopher bard has so far arisen to give im tradition with a mass of Chippewa and perishable form to the tall tales of rivers Sioux legends lingering around places and or woods. Nevertheless, the North Star peoples. Minnesotans did not invent Paul State is not deficient in folk traditions and Bunyan, but the state at least provided folk culture. many a scene and deed for his saga, and If Minnesota has no Blarney stone hal Gopher lumberjack lore is now inextricably lowed by romantic lovers, it has a Kensing- linked with the most synthetic of American folk heroes. Exotic place names dot the MR. FLANAGAN, who hos published numerous map of the state, some genuine, some con books and articles relating to Minnesota and trived, and one of the most famous, Itasca, Northwest literature, is professor of American is actually a Latin hybrid. Local tradition literature in the University of Illinois at Ur still preserves the famous agreement where bana. He recently collaborated in editing the collection of American folklore which is re by the penitentiary, the capitol, and the viewed elsewhere in this issue. university were distributed among the

September 1958 73 state's principal cities, and the historian quently that in a short paper one can only is familiar with many rivalries between hope to point out examples and trends. But viflages aspiring to become county seats.^ the brevity of the treatment should not be Minnesota is less homogeneous popula- allowed to detract from the significance of tionwise than, for example. North Caro the theme. lina or Indiana, and the North Star State's widely divergent racial groups account for WITH A CENTURY of statehood behind a fascinating variety of beliefs and cus him, the contemporary writer will probably toms. The Finnish sauna and knifeman bal seek more sophisticated subjects than those lads, Norwegian immigrant songs, Swedish which Indian primitivism can supply, but lutefisk and the smbrgdsbord, German the early storytellers did not neglect this Weihnachtslieder, Mexican folk dancing, rich lode of folk material. The myths and and Irish wakes suggest the diversity of legends of the Chippewa or Ojibway and folk traditions still current. As Glanville the Sioux or Dakota found their way into Smith wrote some twenty years ago: "In many a volume. Probably the richest of all remoter German parishes the male dancers in this respect is Mrs. Eastman's Dahcotah show their strength, in robust Old Country (1849), based on the author's seven-year style, by whirling with a girl seated on residence at Fort Snelling and her success each bent forearm; the tune will probably in getting detafls from various Indian in be 'Immer noch ein Tropfchen' squeezed formants. Mrs. Eastman disliked the Sioux out of a panting accordion. The Scandi and branded them as liars, thieves, and navians meanwhile drink Christmas glbgg boasters; she also had the zeal of the evan and sing 'Gubben Noah' (Father Noah)."' gelist in trying to supplant their paganism With such a rich and attractive heritage with a literal Christianity. She was, how avaflable, it would be strange indeed if the ever, eager to learn about their behefs and literature about Minnesota failed to in superstitions, for which she often provided clude some of the area's folk material. an interesting narrative framework. Actually, of course, authors have not neg There is the story, for example, of the lected these riches. Folklore has informed water god Unktahe and the Thunder Bird, fiction, biography, poetry, and history. and the effect of these deities on the life of Legends have been recorded by travelers the Indian maiden Harpstenah. Her father like Giacomo C. Beltrami, Henry R. School had told an old medicine man that he could craft, Jonathan Carver, Frederick Marryat, have the girl for,his wife, despite a great and Fredrika Bremer. J. G. Kohl observed discrepancy in age and the unsavory nature the customs of the Lake Superior Indians of the suitor. Harpstenah, overcome with and attempted to interpret their symbols grief and frustration, was visited by a spirit and picture writing. Pioneer figures like of the waters who told her to kfll the medi Judge Charles E. Flandrau collected and cine man, since he had leagued in the past preserved anecdotes and tales.^ Temporary with the Thunder Bird against Unktahe. residents like William Joseph Snelling and Mrs. Seth Eastman provided narrative em *An example is the rivalry between Lake City and bellishment for local themes. And native- Wabasha in Wabasha County. Edward Eggleston used a. similar feud, the rivalry between Perritaut and Me born writers like Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott tropolisville, in his novel ot Minnesota in 1857, The Fitzgerald have not been unaware of folk Mystery of Metropolisville (New York, 1873). traditions, although they have used such ^Glanville Smith, "Minnesota, Mother o! Lakes and Rivers," in National Geographic Magazine, materials more sparingly than might have 67:299 (March, 1935). been expected. ' See Kohl, Kitchl-GamA: Wanderings Round Lake Superior (London, 1860), and Flandrau, The History Indeed, Minnesota folklore appears in of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier (St. Paul, novels and poems and chronicles so fre 1900).

74 MINNESOTA History Emboldened by the apparition, Harpste nah murdered her aged suitor and vanished with a young lover. But eventually the evfl forces of the Thunder Bird demanded ex piation, and Harpstenah was left old, hus- bandless, and chfldless. Here, certainly, is an example of folk superstition motivating domestic tragedy. In another story, "Oeche-Monesah; The Wanderer," Mrs. Eastman skiflfufly nar rated the adventures of the hunter Chaske, who journeyed into another world and took to wife successively a beaver woman and a bear woman. But as he found the society of beasts uncomfortable and dangerous, he eventually returned to his Dakota vfllage crestfallen and aged, an Indian Rip Van Winkle. Chaske's experiences conform clear ly to ancient Indian traditions about men who found animal mates and hunters who departed from the familiar earth world for long periods, but returned to tell of their adventures. In such myths, the realistic and the supernatural are adeptly fused. INDIANS quarrying pipestone Similar events are given memorable lit drowned and dragged to the deepest abyss erary form in Longfellow's Song of Hia by that sinister water spirit Unktahe. Nor watha (1855), substantially derived from can one forget that the poem opens with a the Ojibway legends collected and tran scene at the red pipestone quarry, in what scribed by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. Not is now southwestern Minnesota, where the afl the contents of the poem relate even greatest of the manitos, the "Master of vaguely to Minnesota, but no reader of the Life," smoked the calumet with the assem Nokomis-Minnehaha section can deny the bled tribes. importance of Minnesota geography to Minor Indian folk themes have been the framework of the plot. When Hiawatha touched upon by various writers.* Mark returned from his epic struggle in the moun Twain introduced a legendary account of tains with Mudjekeewis, he stopped to the naming of White Bear Lake into the visit the arrow maker's daughter, who bore final chapter of Life on the Mississippi the same name as the falls. Subsequently (1883), mostly to ridicule the story of an he killed the king of the sturgeons in Lake Indian brave rescuing his beloved from the Superior, and as an Indian Prometheus he grasp of a polar bear. But the author also wrestled with Mondamin in order to take devoted a twelve-page appendix to one the life-sustaining corn plant to his people, of the exploits of Mudjekeewis. Walter the Ojibway. It was in Lake Superior, too, O'Meara makes some use of the secret that Hiawatha's friend Chibiabos was medicine charms of the Ojibway in Minne * Dietrich Lange wrote a number of books for sota Gothic (1956), his novel of a northern younger readers into which he introduced Indian lore. lumbering town cafled Mokoman (probably A typical example is The Silver Island of the Chip Cloquet). His introduction of the midewi pewa (Boston, 1913), which deals with the Indian win theme is, however, late and relatively tradition of an island in Lake Superior containing a rich lode of silver. minor.

September 1958 75 There are passing references to Indian as Weenokhencha Wandeeteekah or the mythology in Sinclair Lewis' The God- Brave Woman." Seeker (1949). Allusions are made to the The second story of a romantic death can god of thunder, to the deity of the waters hardly be considered peculiar to the Min (there spelled "Unkteri"), to the giant He- nesota area. Probably every one of the yoka, who symbolizes contrariety, and to forty-eight states preserves a version of the spirit who loves the pleasures of the the Winona story, and visitors to all parts of table, lya. Lewis also described the antics the country are escorted to hills or cliffs of the medicine man, the "wakan," and from which, according to legend, a maiden cited the savage belief that one can heal leaped. William Cullen Bryant, for ex the sick by shaking gourds, prancing ample, in his familiar poem "Monument around maniacally, and sucking the poison Mountain," located the episode in the out of the patient's chest. But afl this ma proximity of Great Barrington, Massachu terial is atmospheric and has no integral setts. According to one study, Zebulon M. part in the story. Lewis was interested pri Pike was the first writer to narrate the marily in satirizing the dogmatism and stu story of the Sioux maiden who flung her pidity of evangelism on the frontier. In self from a precipice into Lake Pepin, but Early Candlelight (1929), Maud Hart Love numerous romancers have embellished the lace dealt with the Fort Snelling life of famous love tragedy.' the 1830s and was meticulous in her details Jones called his story "The Maiden's of dress and housekeeping, but she limited Rock" and provided a dirge which the girl her use of Indian folklore to an occasional chanted before she fell to her death. Snefl reference to the Sioux thunderbird. More ing entitled his version "The Lover's Leap" attention to the Indian society of the time and introduced an evil French trader as a and a slight change of focus might have suitor for the Dakota girl. But Winona produced a novel as richly authentic as preferred death to separation from her be lola Fufler's The Loon Feather (1940). loved. Mrs. Eastman, in a narrative called The best known of the local Indian leg "The Maiden's Rock; or, Wenona's Leap," ends, however, and those most frequently emphasized the girl's preference for one utilized by writers concern the suicides of suitor although her parents had chosen an two women. As early as 1829 James A- other. In a poetic variant of the incident thearn Jones told the story of Ampato published much later in the century, H. L. Sapa, the Dark Day, in his Tales of an In Gordon changed the situation radically and dian Camp.^ This Sioux woman was happily had Winona refuse to follow the parental married and the mother of a family. But edict because she was in love with a French polygamy was not uncommon in aboriginal adventurer, none other than the Sieur Du society, and her husband decided to take Luth. As his canoe receded down the lake, a second wife. Ampato Sapa could not Winona threw herself over the cliff. divide her love and accept a rival. Instead she placed her children in a canoe, em '' The first edition appeared in three volumes (Lon barked on the Mississippi River above the don, 1829). For the story of Ampato Sapa, see 2:189- 200. A second edition is entitled Traditions of the Falls of St. Anthony, and died in a plunge North American Indians (London, 1830), down the cataract. Schoolcraft related the " See Henry R. Schoolcraft, The Indian in His Wig same tale and remarked that on a moon wam, 99 (Buffalo, 1848); Mentor L. Williams, ed., Schoolcraft's Indian Legends, 266 (East Lansing, light night the spectral canoe was occasion 1956); William Joseph Snelling, Tales of the North ally visible to those who knew the story. west, 197-212 (Boston, 1830). The latter has been And William Joseph Snelling, in his Tales reissued with an introduction by John T. Flanagan (Minneapohs, 1936). of the Northwest (1830), also recounted the 'G. Hubert Smith, "The Winona Legend," in squaw's suicide, although he gave her name Minnesota History, 13:367-376 (December, 1932).

76 MINNESOTA History Like a brant arrow-pierced in mid-heaven, When the fur trader disappeared from the Down whirling and fluttering, she fell, and head virgin forests of the upper Mississippi 'V^al- long plunged into the waters. ley, the lumberjack took over, and his ac Since Du Luth died in 1710, Gordon's ver tivities soon provided the subject matter for sion would place the action considerably such widely known novels as Stewart Ed eariier in time than is usually conceded, ward White's Michigan story. The Rlazed although the romantic leap belongs more Trail (1902), and Edna Ferber's tale of surely to folklore than to history.'' Wisconsin lumbering. Come and Get It (1935). The Minnesota north woods have CLOSELY LINKED with Indian folklore, not yet inspired similar fiction, although of course, is the romance of the fur trade, Kenneth Davis' In the Forests of the Night though novels of the Minnesota trade are (1942) uses the bogland and forest around neither numerous nor impressive. One of Baudette as the locale for a psychological the most amusing tales of the early quest novel. Only one of the fifty-one shanty- for peltries is Snefling's "Pinchon."" His boy baflads coflected by Franz Rickaby hero comes perhaps closer than any other seems to have a Minnesota provenience, Minnesota fictional figure to the quarrel and that one, "The Crow Wing Drive," is some boatman of the Southern rivers. He obviously inferior. The men who worked in is a boaster, a trickster, a man utterly the northern white pine empire from 1870 without honor or responsibility, one who to 1900, however, sang many other lumber glories in his speed and strength and who jack baflads about cutting logs, camp life, is contemptuous of his Indian associates. and spring drives in white water." He plays Sioux off against Chippewa, never Less indigenous are the stories of the loses even for a moment his sense of supe feats of Paul Bunyan, who has become a riority, and is cruel or kind as opportunity popular figure through skillful publicity serves. Snefling may or may not have been rather than through the normal avenues drawing from life, but in his hands Pinchon of folk accretion. Several chapters in James becomes a true folk figure. Stevens' collection of Bunyan tales link Daniel Harmon, the hero of Walter the mighty woodsman with Minnesota, the O'Meara's novel entitled Grand Portage best perhaps being "The Black Duck Din (1951), influenced his Indian fur hunters by ner." In this story, supposedly derived combining some strong medicine with in- from a northern Minnesota logger, Paul cantatory language. When the braves came Bunyan provides food for his hungry crew into camp empty-handed and complained after spreading an enormous canvas to sim that a spell had nullified all their efforts, ulate a lake and luring a flock of ducks Harmon persuaded them that since his to it; the shock of the landing breaks the magic was stronger than any spell, their necks of the birds and furnishes fresh meat future hunts would be successful. for the cooks to prepare. Esther Shephard narrates several Paul Bunyan incidents in 'Jones, Tales of an Indian Camp, 2:131-140; Snelling, Tales of the Northwest. 263-278; Eastman, "The Buckskin Harness," giving a Minne Dahcotah, 165-173 (New York, 1849); H. L. Gordon. sota locale to an account of a harness which The Feast of the Virgin and Other Poems, 182-211 stretched when wet and contracted when (Chicago, 1891). Smith, in Minnesota History, 13: 367-376, does not mention the versions presented by dry. She tells also that when Paul's men Jones or Gordon. "drove the wrong logs down the river and "See Tales of the Northwest. 223-262. over the St. Anthony Falls," his blue ox. " See Rickaby, Ballads and Songs of the Shanty- Babe, "just drank the river dry above the Boy, 99 (Cambridge, 1926). Among other collections is E. C. Beck, Lore of the Lumber Camps (Ann Ar falls and sucked 'em all back again." " bor, 1948). "Stevens, Paul Bunyan, 90-113 (New York, 1925); Mabel Seeley has used a Paul Bunyan Shephard, Paul Bunyan. 89-98 (Seattle, 1924). episode to explain the title of one of her

September 1958 77 excellent mystery stories, The Chuckling timberland known as the "agropelter." ^^ In Fingers (1941). According to this tale, Paul a very different kind of book, Meridel Le had looked at a certain girl with romantic Sueur adds the stone-eating "gyascutus," fervor but had found her unfaithful during the "goofus bird," and the "pinnacle his absence. On his return, he discovered grouse" to the menagerie of fantastic forest the girl dancing with one of his own hench dweflers, and also recapitulates several of men to music supplied by his favorite fid the more familiar Bunyan achievements. dler. Paul seized the girl in a rage and flung The fabulous fauna of Bunyan's "Real her out of the dance, whfle the fiddler, America" are well enumerated in a brief dying in a final effort to produce music, article by Marjorie Edgar.^* sank into the ground, leaving only his fin gers protruding and apparently reaching PERHAPS the most interesting and vital for his bow. It should be noted here that folklore found in recent Minnesota liter most of the Bunyan stories disregard the ature relates to the immigrants who, con hero's romantic life. Robert Frost, in a sciously or unconsciously, brought their memorable poem entitled "Paul's Wife," myths, legends, superstitions, proverbs, did supply the giant lumberjack with a mate, but generally Paul has been depicted ^''Collected Poems, 235-239 (New York, 1930). as celibate.^^ '"Included in Jordan's book, p. 173-179 and 194 are two Indian tales derived from Schoolcraft — a Bunyan also appears in one of the tales story of a young boy who after excessive fasting is spun by Phflip D. Jordan in his well- transformed into -a, robin, and a symbolic account of written juvenile about a fantastic racon the meeting of an old man (winter) and a young man (spring), which results in the triumph of the teur, Fiddlefoot Jones of the North Woods vernal season and the appearance of a small white (1957). The hero. Plum Nefly, not only flower where the frost and snow have thawed. meets Paul Bunyan and engages in conver "See Le Sueur, North Star Country, 7, 69, 71, 226 (New York, 1945); Edgar, "Imaginary Animals of sation with him, but also professes ac Northern Minnesota," in Minnesota History, 21:353- quaintance with a curious creature of the 356 (December, 1940).

LUMBERJACKS in the bunkhouse of a camp near Carlton, 1899

78 MINNESOTA History and customs to their new homes. The the native-born second generation succeed Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, and Germans the pioneers. Both Per Hansa and Beret of have contributed richly to the state's cul Giants in the Earth (1927) remember the tural heritage, whfle the heterogeneous homeland, but whereas the wife is persist communities of the iron ranges have pro ently dominated by a feeling of guilt for vided a fascinating melange of traditions. having emigrated to a land without culture In Falconberg (1879), an early novel or religion, the husband rises to the chal about a Norwegian settlement in Minne lenge of a new land and a different kind sota, H. H. Boyesen contrasted several of existence. Per Hansa is not unaware of kinds of cultures and introduced an intel the malice of trolls, nor is he sceptical of lectual who, like the author himse^, was their vitality, but the urgency of home- interested in the Icelandic sagas. But Fal steading gives him little time to worry conberg is stiffly written and is concerned about invisible obstacles. Beret's doubts chiefly with political developments. The are eventually partly resolved by the ar novels of O. E. Rolvaag, who was closer to rival of a minister, yet one can be sure that the actual Norse immigrants, more clearly the darker traditions of the Norwegian define the life of the folk. mountains linger in her mind. The very theme of The Boat of Longing A more amusing use of a folklore being (1933) preserves a tradition long famihar appears in Mrs. Seeley's mystery story to Norwegian fishermen.^^ Off the western The Whispering Cup, where members of coast of Norway a mysterious vessel the Halvorsen family, plagued by farm would frequently appear and would seem to troubles, attribute their bad luck to the float in watery brightness, but it would presence of a nisse which for some reason vanish if one tried to approach it. The they could not placate. The Halvorsens de vessel became both a lure and a symbol of cide to move. As they drive their wagon, futility or death. Also woven into Rol loaded high with their possessions, down vaag's novel is the story of the Askelad- the road, a neighbor, passing on horseback, den, a kind of favorite of fortune who sees them and comments on their depar travels far in quest of a castle and a prin ture. " 'Yes,' the Halvorsens said, 'we're cess. Rolvaag's hero. Nils Vaag, succumbs moving today.' So the neighbor started up to temptation and travels westward across his horse to go on, and when he got back the Atlantic, ever seeking money, happi by the wagon, there was a chest lid pop ness, and a finer, freer life. A musician and ping up and the nisse sticking his head out. an idealist, he finds little success either 'Yes,' said the nisse. 'We're moving to on the streets of Minneapolis or in the day.' " " deep pine woods of the North, but he seems Nicholina Dahl, the Bergen-born Nor to be ever conscious of mirages. Certainly wegian heroine of Frances R. Sterrett's The Boat of Longing is an excellent ex Years of Achievement, was determined to ample of the adaptation of Norwegian folk go to America and forget the smell of fish traditions to the American scene. and the everlasting rain. At first she lived Folklore figures too in Rolvaag's famous on a farm in Goodhue County, but after trilogy of prairie settlement in South Da she married John Dahl she moved to Min kota, although the legends and supersti neapolis and there became the matriarchal tions naturally tend to pale as members of head of a large family. Proud of her Nor wegian heritage, Nicholina continued to bake fattigman's bakelser, lefse, and flad- '^ Rolvaag's novels were published first in Nor wegian. Tlie Boat of Longing appeared originally un brbd, and she remembered such family der the title Laengselens baat (Oslo, 1921). proverbs as " 'If is a bad word unless it "Seeley, The Whispering Cup, 26 (New York, teaches something,'' and "If we had no 1940).

September 1958 79 pennies we would have no dollars."" But ana," a satirical ballad about the Utopian neither Nicholina nor her famfly make community which Ole Bull established in their heritage ostentatious, and their western Pennsylvania. Many a Minnesota quiet assimflation of American ways of life farmer must have sung "Oleana," some finally assures them social acceptance. times perhaps in the wry realization that In a similar fashion Lyng Skoglund, the the paradise of the West had certain short protagonist of Borghild Dahl's Homecom comings. The best of the Norwegian emi ing, learns to be proud of her Norwegian grant songs were collected by Theodore C. culture without parading it unnecessarily. Blegen and translated by Martin Ruud.^^ Although born in Minneapolis, Lyng has a In several novels depicting the German strict Norwegian mother whose insistence farmers of the "Pockerbrush country" in on retaining the language, the religion, and the vicinity of Fergus Falls, Herbert the mores of the old land makes the Krause has introduced a wealth of folk ma daughter complain that she is a foreigner terial varying from proverbs and folk in her own country. Lyng attends the Uni dances to foods and farming superstitions. versity of Minnesota and, encouraged by a While both Wind without Rain (1939) and wise and tolerant grandmother, gets a The Thresher (1947) tend to be prolix and teaching job in a town called New Sta- somewhat overwritten, they are vivid nar vanger where she instructs the first high ratives about farm people on a rather school graduating class. Although she is primitive level. The members of the Vfld- accepted by the community because of her vogel family of the first novel are well background, she leads the people to a new portrayed as they engage in all the vari recognition of their civic privileges and eties of agricultural life. Their activities duties. Her career gives point to the prov include pigsticking and cow dehorning, erb quoted in the book: "Many a man participation in drinking bouts, attendance sion has been built with makeshift tools." ^® at barn dances called "shindandies," lis In a novel of northwestern Minnesota, tening to Sunday sermons fufl of hell fire, Red Rust (1928), Cornelia Cannon pictures and making such traditional family dishes a Swedish family, particularly a young man as blood soup. The Thresher follows the named Matts Swenson, whose goal is the career of Johnny Schwartz, or Black, as he production of a durable, rust-resistant matures and as he operates various kinds wheat. Matts finafly produces his ideal of threshing machinery, powered by horses, grain, although he dies a victim of family steam, and gasoline. Schwartz's com jealousy before he can appreciate his suc panions are superstitious and credulous. He cess. The Swedish backwoods community himself, when his warts itch, tries a folk in which Matts lives is well presented and cure which consists of tying knots in a one is assured that old-country traditions string and burying it in oozy water while linger there, yet Mrs. Cannon makes little he mutters the following incantation: attempt to introduce folklore beyond some allusions to inherited customs or the di "Sterrett, Years of Achievement, 153 (Philadel vinities of Scandinavian mythology. phia, 1932). Like the woodsmen, the emigrants from "Dahl, Homecoming, 131 (New York, 1953). At the class picnic in New Stavanger, described on p. the northern countries had their songs, 238, the students play such traditional folk games as oftentimes sentimental or nostalgic remi "Skip-Come-a-Lou," "Four-in-a-Boat," the "Needle's niscences, but occasionally rollicking bal Eye," "Last-Couple-Out," and "Farmer-in-the-Dell." "For the text of "Oleana," translated from the lads, of the New World. Most of them were Norwegian of Ditmar Meidell, 1853, see Blegen and composed in Europe and carried by the Ruud, Norwegian Emigrant Songs and Ballads, 187- settlers to Wisconsin and Illinois and Min 198 (Minneapolis, 1936). ^Krause, The Thresher, 54, 447 (Indianapolis, nesota. Perhaps the most famous is "Ole 1946).

80 MINNESOTA History A boardinghouse for miners at Hibbing, 1900

COURTESY IN-nSS EDITH BEARDSLET, mSBING

Wartman, wartman, hither hie workers run bj^ a Finnish couple. There And see the knots I tightly tie. Scandinavian, Irish, Yankee, Yugoslav, A knot for a wart, a wart for a knot; and Russian mingle indiscriminately, en Cut it or burn or tear or rot. Spit three times on the knotted string gaging in horseplay which often leads to And bury it deep in a lizard spring. something more dangerous. Fragments of old ballads and courting The plot of The Iron Mountain, involv rhymes sprinkled through the pages sug ing the sudden appearance of a Slavic beau gest in their inconsecutiveness the usual ty in the town of Birora and sketching the contamination of popular song. To cele sex rivalry she induces, is trivial, yet Stong brate a country wedding, a shivaree is or manages to convey a good deal of infor ganized at which the roisterers bang on mation about the workings of the popular washtubs and clang colters together.-" mind. Except for the mine captain and his superintendent of explosives, the men are THE GREATEST wealth of folk tradition poorly educated and little above peasant in Minnesota is perhaps preserved in the status. In difficulties or emergencies, they communities of the Mesabi and Cuyuna are governed by inherited traditions. Prov ranges, although not many novelists have erbs dot their speech: "for the trade, the chosen to exploit it. Iron Land (1946), by trinket"; and "if the bridle is silver, look Dorothy Ogley and M. Goodwin Cleland, more sharply at the horse"; and "one saves concerns the early struggle to win com dead flowers from the air." Yet, oddly mand of the ore deposits and fails to give enough, those who are most apt to use any real picture of the people who dig the proverbs themselves shy away from An metal. The Red Mesabi (1930) of George glo-Saxon platitudes, like "make hay while R. Bailey, which provides authentic mining the sun shines," as equivocal jokes. background, focuses on melodrama and Mining in subterranean passageways is sensationalism. The most successful novel likely to be a lonely business, and visitors to picture the miscellaneous peoples of to a shaft are careful to announce their the iron ranges, with all their superstitions coming in advance. As Stong writes, "It and feuds, is Phil Stong's The Iron Moun was the etiquette of Underground to give tain (1942). The title refers not to a hifl warning of approach, especially with of ore, but to a boardinghouse for mine people who were still not sure about

September 1958 81 UNDERGROUND Workers in a Mesabi Range mine at Hibbing, 1906

COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS gnomes, earth-spirits, kobolds, and mon the jafl are full. A squeeze-box dance, at sters." Injuries were often treated with which an accordion provides the music, folk remedies, some of them surprisingly ends in a full-scale riot, and skiing races efficacious, others obviously mere primi along the ceraeterj' slopes result in homi tive survivals. Many of the victims were cide. There is also, of course, the verbal quick, however, to realize that the Amer melange, the mixture of idiom and dialect, ican pharmacopoeia was more reliable which in Stong's transcription often be than the cures of tradition. They found, for comes richly humorous. The Iron Moun example, that turpentine, which the Amer tain is indeed an effective folk novel. icans used for deep cuts, was "much better than fat or tallow mixtures." Stong records, HENRY A. CASTLE, writing a history of too, that "For an inflammation they used Minnesota in 1915, remarked that the state a linseed poultice instead of a split rat; for offered many literary possibilities. But, he headache they used pflls instead of putting added, "the Northwest, and particularly a flat rock with a hole in it on the head; Minnesota, has been terra incognita to for sore throat they gargled hot salt water eager story tellers from the outside." -- He with a little whisky in it, instead of tying went on to mention men who had not yet a piece of salt pork around the neck." -' found biographers and pointed out certain Stong also attempts to indicate the deep- phases of the state's history which would seated national jealousies and tensions, the attract the storyteller. Although Castle was sense of superiority or contempt, which often produced pitched battles. Norske and ^'Stong, The Iron Mountain, 145, 188 (New^ York, 1942). Svenska and Suome insult and challenge ^Castle, Minnesota: Its Story and Biography, one another until both the hospital and 423 (Chicago, 1915).

82 MINNESOTA History not thinking primarily of folklore, his stric fixed, but rather a living, flexible, colorful tures apply just as well there. tradition preserved wherever people con Minnesota has had strong and colorful gregate. The boisterous towns of the iron figures whose folk celebrity already ex ranges like Hibbing and Eveleth, railroad ceeds their historical achievements. Miss junctions like Brainerd and Crookston, Le Sueur, writing her North Star Country lumber centers like Stfllwater and Walker, from a passionately proletarian point of river ports hke Red Wing and Winona, view, portrays the IWW bard Joe Hill as a farming communities like Askov and kind of mystical leader, and "Yim" Hill Chaska, not to speak of great metropolitan as a capitalistic villain who exploited both centers like Minneapolis and St. Paul, no the land and the people.-* Both concep table for mflling, railroading, manufactur tions symbolize folk belief. But other Min ing, and finance — these, too, have their nesota leaders have also drawn folk folklore. But to a large extent the noveflst accretions about them: Alexander Ram has neglected them. sey, Knute Nelson, Ignatius Donnelly, Folklore derives from activities like ag Floyd B. Olson, John A. Johnson, Charles riculture, building, transportation, industry, A. Lindbergh. Their appeal to the folk salesmanship, journalism, entertainment, storyteller seems obvious.-* sports, and travel. It may concern the Then there are the early hamlets which planting of a future crop, the prediction of didn't mature as their sponsors hoped, and seasonal changes, the doffing of straw hats, which, as ghost towns, seldom even retain or the sudden appearance of kites and a place on the map. Some, like Donnelly's marbles, the retention of regional dances Nininger, enjoy a kind of ebb-tide exist or the use of certain proverbs. It may be ence and still attract visitors who are at humorous, ironic, or serious. least half conscious of their history. Others On the morning of July 7, 1958, a seven — Buchanan, High Forest, Wasioja, Can teen-year-old boy, working on the steel non City — have escaped complete oblivion skeleton of the new First National Bank only because historical researchers have building in Minneapolis, was killed when made it their business to preserve the rec- he stepped backward and fefl several ord.^^ Yet people once lived in these places stories. As news of the fatality seeped and envisaged a prosperous future for through the structure, the men slowly be them; the writer able to unlock the folk gan to pick up their tools, ceased working, mind could make them viable and fresh. and quietly went home. This was neither Finally there are the cities of the state. a strike nor a protest. "Stopping work Essentially, folklore is neither rural nor when a worker is killed is a code of the men," said the superintendent of construc ^ The definition ot Hill soup in North Star Coun tion. "It's not a rule and it's not compul try, 203, expresses the "wobbly" point of view: "take a little stock, six times as much water, and then put sory." -" In other words, a tradition of the in the lamb!" building industry supplied both a code and "" Several mediocre novels dealing with Jim Hill a tribute. and Ignatius Donnelly as folk figures ha^'e not been conspicuously successful. See, for example, Ramsey If folklore is beyond logic and fact, it is Benson, Hill Country (New York, 1928); and Oscar nonetheless vital. In the past, it has given M. Sullivan, Empire-Builder (New York, 1928), and richness and color and meaning to the North Star Sage (New York, 1953). ^ These and other ghost towns are mentioned in literature about Minnesota. In the future, Minnesota, A State Guide, 287, 290, 329, 353, 355, with the great diversification of the state's 357, 398, 413, 452 (New York, 1954). On Nininger, peoples and activities, it promises even see also Dudley S. Brainard, "Nininger, A Boom Town of the Fifties," in Minnesota History, 13:127- more. Poets and biographers and novelists 151 (June, 1932). will do well to remember its value as a key "" Minneapolis Star, July 7, 8, 1958; Minneapolis to the popular soul. Tribune, July 8, 1958.

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