Appalachia in the Classroom: Teaching the Region

7. "Way Back Yonder" but Not So Far Away: Teaching Appalachian Folktales

109 Seven “Way Back Yonder” but Not So Far Away: Teaching Appalachian Folktales tina l. hanlon From Oral Tradition to the Classroom Jack and the Wonder Beans by James Still opens by placing Jack and his poor mother“way back yonder,”but they are also in“their homeseat . . . here on Wolfpen Creek” (where Still lived in Knott County, Kentucky).“Or around about” (Still [1977] 1996). As Still’s introduction demonstrates, the words of storytellers, written or oral, draw us in to worlds that fascinate because they are always remote and familiar at the same time, fantastical but also realistic , timeless and yet timely as they reflect our deepest fears and wishes. Most people know ancient stories about Jack’s encounters with giants and giant beanstalks, but many do not recognize, as James Still did, the value of regional and local variations of traditional tales. Still’s classic novel River of Earth ([1940] 1996) is much more likely to be assigned in college courses than Jack and the Wonder Beans, yet Still said that the latter book“has a chance of greater longevity than any of my other works. All my powers and my gifts, such as they are, came together in those few pages. The news that some children are sleeping with this book and that their elders are reading it with some delight tickles me” (1979, 124). Like Jack, Mutsmag (a poor girl who outwits a giant and a witch), and other folk heroes, teachers who introduce Appalachian folktales into college courses must be resourceful and self-reliant to overcome three potential 110 Tina L. Hanlon obstacles.First,written literature is likely to be taken more seriously than tales from oral traditions. Second, unless the course focuses on folklore, Appalachian Studies, or cultural diversity, stories from the Appalachian Mountains are likely to be overlooked or considered less worthy of study than betterknown , mainstream American and world literature, including literary fairy tales by famous writers such as Washington Irving or Hans Christian Andersen . And third, modern Americans tend to associate these forms of storytelling with childhood, thus considering them too trivial for adult study. Adults may enjoy listening to storytelling as light entertainment at folk festivals or on the radio, but not view it as serious subject matter for college study. Fortunately, many late twentieth-century cultural and academic developments have worked against these biases, including the coming-of-age and growing prestige of research in folklore, popular culture,Appalachian Studies, and children’s literature. Scholars now recognize that the Appalachian oral tradition is one of the richest in America. Over the past millennium oral tales have been brought to the Appalachian Mountains by Native Americans and then Europeans and Africans, and the stories of Asian and Hispanic immigrants will probably get more attention in the future. Thus folktales portray diversity within the region and link it with larger traditions of world folklore and literature. Types of folktales encompass, or overlap with, many kinds of stories from oral traditions: legends associated with real places or people, realistic anecdotes and family stories, jokes and riddles, tall tales, animal fables, creation myths, pourquoi tales about the origins of particular phenomena, and other tales with magic or supernatural elements. Talking animals are prominent in some Native American and African American traditions, while magic helpers as well as monstrous and evil adversaries represent the conflicts that ordinary humans experience in many folktales, including those brought to Appalachia by Scots-Irish immigrants and other Europeans from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. These magic tales, also called fairy tales, wonder tales, or märchen, often blend Old World folktale motifs with elements of regional American culture and dialect. By the strictest definition, the term “folktale” applies only to a story being told and heard through a natural oral tradition. Yet in our literate, multimedia society, most of us encounter folktales in fixed modern forms such as writing or films.The storytelling revival that has grown since the 1960s has inspired not only the work and pastimes of many professional and amateur storytellers carrying on the oral tradition,but an explosion in the production of folktale retellings and adaptations in books, films, and 111 “Way Back Yonder” but Not So Far Away: Teaching Appalachian Folktales drama. Traditional ballads and other types of folk narratives also influence new types of performances and books. The National Storytelling Festival occurs annually in Jonesborough, Tennessee, a historic Appalachian...