MAINE I MARITIMES FOLKLORE COLLECTION I NA 23 1 MAINE I MARITIME FOLKLORE COLLECTION ACCESSION NA 23 DEPOSITOR: Alice K. Bryant TITLE OF PAPER OR PROJECT: SUMMARY: Folklore material collected in Woodland, Baileyville (Cooper), and Lubec, in the Fall of 1959. TYPED OR HANDWRITTEN: Typed CONTENTS LISTING: I. Introduction -A list of informants with brief information on each. II. Dreams -Informant: Mrs. Riguette (untitled) A dream about a young nephew moving to a foreign country comes true. -Informant: Mrs. Riguette (untitled) A dream about a sick women and the doctor is comes true a few weeks later. -Informant: Mrs. Riguette (untitled) Mrs. Riguette dreams about her husband being hurt. -Informant: Mrs. Riguette (untitled) A woman dreams that the cold war is going to be very long. III. Superstitions -If you save your hair from haircuts you will not get headaches. -The devil may have "tripped" you if you are having a bad day. -A dream of babies may bring on sickness in the family. -New shoes on a table bring bad luck. -Coming in one door and leaving by another brings a stranger. -It is bad luck to pick up your own dropped glove. -The saying "rabbit, rabbit" will be bring good luck if said at the right times. -How to use the saying "bread and butter" IV. Anecdotes and Tall Tales -Informant: Mrs. Perkins Two old ladies try to let a horse with a check rein on drink water. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins MAINE I MARITIMES FOLKLORE COLLECTION I NA 23 2 A game of echo is played in a cove. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A man gets angry at the games his friends are playing on him. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A boy uses his coat sleeve to wipe his nose. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A doctor has a high price for house calls. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A man has a hard time getting a deer. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman is asked to prove that she shot the deer in her car. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A man, a dog and a bobcat get mixed up in a fight. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman makes a mistake with her words and ends up being made fun of. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins Report of a sea serpent in the Chain Lakes. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A country hick proves his unworldliness. -Informant: Ross Sadler A tale of Freddy Taylor and how his joke on a man does not end up well. -Informant: Ross Sadler A trick involving a cross chain is played on logging men. -Informant: Ross Sadler Another trick played by the logging men with a tag chain. -Informant: Ross Sadler About a man who loves to give jokes but couldn't take them. -Informant: Ross Sadler A porcupine track is mistaken as a bobcat. -Informant: Ross Sadler MAINE I MARITIMES FOLKLORE COLLECTION I NA 23 3 A story of George Magoon and his son tricking the sheriff. -Informant: Ross Sadler George Magoon scares the sheriff with a rifle. -Informant: Ross Sadler George Magoon outruns the fastest runner the sheriff can find. -Informant: Ross Sadler A joke about how small Topsfield is. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman is known for getting things for nothing. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman speaks her mind to the local store owner. V. Forerunners -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman is forewarned of her father-in-law's departure. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A wife gets a forerunner of her husband's death at sea. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman hears three raps on her door and later learns of her husband's death. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman tries to scare her children into going to bed. VI. Local Expressions (definitions included) 1. sitting on the steps looking for work ... 2. the wind is up river ... 3. enough mouth for two sets of teeth ... 4. so cold that we have to bring the grindstone in at night ... 5. button up a window ... 6. green front. .. 7. red front. .. 8. down homers ... 9. over the river. .. 10. put a fire on ... 11. taste all in your mouth ... 12. don't send a boy on a man's errand ... 13. some ... 14. that changes the water on the beans ... MAINE I MARITIMES FOLKLORE COLLECTION I NA 23 4 15. work a sixteen ... 16. bath ... 17. up the point, squaw town ... 18. more of something than Carter has pills ... 19. willywags and puckerbrush ... 20. put your money where your mouth is ... 21. down to the last button on Gabe's coat... 22. shit of bake a cake ... 23. using a wife first name and her husband's first name lets one know who she is. 24. we are eating high on the hog ... 25. the ice is out.. 26. it's snowing down south ... 27. an unclaimed treasure ... 28. the devil is beating his wife ... 29. busier than the devil in a gale of wind .. 30. busier than a one armed paper hanger .. 31. either fish or cut bait. .. 32. he has a tongue that hangs in the middle and wags at both ends ... 33. he gets dizzy if he puts on elevator shoes .. 34. the more you stir shit, the more it stinks .. 35. the wheel that squeeks gets the grease .. 36. as good as a spare pump on a dry mountain ... 37. as useless as a poop hole in a snowbank ... 38. as much chance as a snowball in hell ... 39. long johns ... 40. give away your rear and shit out through your ear ... 41. it happened before you were a twinkle in your father's eye ... 42. flatter than last years cow turd .. 43. queerer than a three dollar bill .. 44. as welcome as a skunk at a May party ... VII. Mysticisms -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A woman has a strange experience at a seance. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A dream about an invitation from a teacher comes true. -Informant: Mrs. Perkins A man with supernatural powers does not know he has them. VIII. Miscellaneous -A rhyme about a breakfast call at a woods camp. -An old doctor had a special saying when he delivered a baby girl. .-.,-,.v( Ir r J IL.•~>·,, I · ltyv'IL: tlttl 1 /\le( J 1 Cf' ''?tl. t 1 11 .. Z r- r 11 ••d e.,, ( \ i;;i.(t/...,, ;'J,·s 1,,·.: f.cl- ·7 1 1 ii, 11\ I L,, )...\ . q-:, 1 I o fi ti cl 1 , ' t"··~ ''" ( 6 u1 ALICE K. ~TT >i • • I INTRODUCTION y {li I collected my stories from three sources. 23 001 (1). ---;: Frank Pe:~ · s, nee Florence Bacon. Flip ~ s she is called) was bor~ ~ n Grand Lake Stream. She is 45 years old and has lived most of her life in \'loodland. She is a great hunter and bas spent a good deal of her time with her nale relatives in the woods. She is well known as an entertaining story teller \oJhetber the story is one like thes e or just an ordinary joke . ;_, 0 Other people can tell the same things tb&t she does a n no t ~e t 9f ~~ ur4" -- - Y'~'1Jr1 the reaction that she does. She is the inventor of many of the ftrtrJ .. local expression that we use and is never at a loss with a snappy comeback. (2) { Mr. Ross Sadler s a local farmer about 55 years old. He was born in Cooper and lived there until about twenty years ago when he bought a farm in Baileyville. He spent nine years in woods camps and was never noted as a story teller. He ·was a good natured ma,n who loved practical jokes but vias a good friend of the newer, young fellows who came in to work. He seemed to en- joy telling me the few stories that he did and only regretted l '-y · " that he couldn't remember more but ~ias reluctant to tell any (_.' --:1. '" with any smut in them maybe because his daughter was present G:~J_){,V 1.1:;.ll'.u.-12. 1 rtu during the t _elling. He told me a few t~les abou - eorge ~goo li) , - . and remembered him and his family. He said that George was a strange man - never would stay put very long. One time he came to his grand.mother's house in the evening very hungry. She fed him and gave him a place to sleep for the night but he said that he couldn't stay and struck out again into the night. ( 3). Mrs. Violet Riguette s born in Lubec and is no·w in her late fifties. Since---- her marriage she bas lived in New York, fl.'-/. 2 Chicago and for shorter periods in other places throughout the south and west. She is a11peculiar woman who follows fads and 23 002 at different times won't eat certain foods, etc. She talks very loudly as though people were deaf. She has always claimed that she had dreams that came true and is very sincere when she says this as she definately believes this. She told me that people used to say that she only thought she had these dreams and so now whenever she has one she tells someone a bout it so that ·when it comes true she will have a witness to the fact that she fore- told it. She said that her dreams seem to reveal things and if they seem to have any meaning she will tell the people that are invomved. When I talked with her her husband attempted to cor­ rect her at different times and she quickly shut him up saying tba t she v.Jas the one that had had the dreams and tba t therefore ebe was the only one who could talk about them.