Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Volume 01: the Hudson and its hills

Charles Montgomery SkinnerProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
135K words
Chapters
14

Tags

English Originals Folk Literature Historical MemoryNatural LandscapeSupernaturalMysterious VibeOld-Fashioned NarrationFolktalesOral TraditionHudson ValleyRegional LoreAmerican Folklore

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Volume 01: the Hudson and its hills by SkinnerAuthor: Skinner, Charles M. (Charles Montgomery), 1852-1907,Language: English, Class: GR: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Folklore, Release Date: Dec 14, 2004

Editor's review

This is the first volume of Charles M. Skinner's collection of regional folk tales, focused on the Hudson River and the hills along its banks. Skinner spent years gathering legends from across North America, and this volume strings together ghost stories, old Indigenous tales, and early settler lore from the river valleys, reading like listening to stories told while wandering along the river. Its value lies not in literary polish but in preserving the local color of oral tradition: place-name origins, strange tales, and imaginings of humans living with nature, all carried in the plain style of a late-nineteenth-century recorder. For readers studying American folklore, local history, or Gothic short fiction, this is usable primary material. It suits short bedtime reading, background preparation before travel, or supplementary reading for folklore courses. Note that the stories are scattered and brief, and the narration occasionally reflects the limitations of its time; read with a discerning eye.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read by river section or place name, using a map to locate each story.
  2. Read two or three pieces at a time and jot down motifs for cross-comparison.
  3. Where Indigenous tales sit beside settler lore, note the recorder's stance and revisions.
  4. Read alongside other volumes in the series to observe the editor's selection preferences.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14

FAQ

Is this a novel or a folklore record? It is closer to a folklore record and legend compilation than a work of fiction. Skinner arranged oral stories circulating in the Hudson River valley into short pieces, keeping a storytelling tone with limited literary elaboration.
Can I read it if my English isn't strong? The original is in English; the stories are short and the syntax somewhat old-fashioned but not very difficult. University-level English reading ability should suffice; use maps and name references for unfamiliar place names.
Is it suitable as bedtime reading for children? Some pieces contain ghosts, death, and early colonial conflict that may not suit young children. Older children can read with adult selection and explanation.
Why do the stories feel scattered? This volume was gathered and arranged by region, with each piece standing alone; it was never meant as a continuous narrative. That scattering is the form of an oral-tradition compilation, suited to reading in short sessions.

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About the author

Charles Montgomery Skinner Author · American · 1852–1907

Charles Montgomery Skinner (1852–1907) was an American writer born in Victor, New York, and a former editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. He devoted himself to collecting and retelling American folklore. His representative work, Myths and Legends of Our Own Land (1896), gathers local tales from across the United States in several volumes, ranging from the Hudson Valley and Manhattan Island to the Central States, the Great Lakes, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Slope, including tales of Puritan land and stories of buried treasure. His writing chiefly preserves and retells regional oral traditions, and also touches on nature writing and drama. Eleven of his works are held in the collection, most of them volumes of that series.