Bailey - The Dandelion - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Does any reader know of a story or poem about an old man with a bag of gold that spills and the gold becomes dandelions?

Every year my mom would joyfully shout "The old man spilled his bag of gold!" when she saw dandelions.  I wish I had asked her about it, as it haunts me every year when dandelions start to pop up.  I've hunted everywhere for its source without success.

Today I have a very short story by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.  Her re-tellings have often appeared here.  This comes from "The Presbyterian" and appeared in Bailey's For The Children's Hour.  It's easily shared whenever you see dandelions.  Because I've told this much, you know where the story's heading, but that doesn't keep it from being worth telling.  Your listeners may or may not realize it's about the plant until the end.

 

Now like those "arrows", I urge you to spread the story (and spread the answer to my opening question, if you can.)

 I know you are probably working on any lawn you may have right now, mowing and getting it ready for warm weather.  It always reminds me of "the time when a little hard work pays off in a lot of hard work later!"  At the same time perhaps this enjoyment of dandelions will keep you from using pesticides like neonicotinoids.  As the Wikipedia article points out:

Neonicotinoid use has been linked to adverse ecological effects, including honey-bee colony collapse disorder (CCD), bumblebee decline,^[7] and declining populations of insect-eating birds. Neonicotinoids widely contaminate wetlands, streams, and rivers, and due to their widespread use, pollinating insects are chronically exposed to them. Sublethal effects from chronic low-level exposure to neonicotinoids in the environment are thought to be more common in bees than directly lethal effects. These effects upon bees include difficulty navigating, learning, and foraging, suppressed immune response, lower sperm viability, shortened lifespans of queens, and reduced numbers of new queens produced.^[6] Furthermore, organisms unaffected by, resistant to, or exposed to sublethal doses of neonicotinoid pesticides retain the pesticides in their bodies when they feed upon neonicotinoid-treated plants, which can then kill predatory insects that consume the contaminated prey.^[9]

In 2013, the European Union and some neighbouring countries restricted the use of certain neonicotinoids.^{[10][11][12][13][14][15]} In 2018 the EU banned the three main neonicotinoids (clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam) for all outdoor uses,^[16][17] but in 2020, France re-allowed the use of neonicotinoids on sugar beet crops.^[18] Several US states have restricted neonicotinoids out of concern for pollinators and bees.^[19]

The article goes on to talk about its further being studied for its adverse effect on birds, other wildlife, and mammals (i.e. US!), with additional references to articles involving amphibians and insects.  I find it interesting that Wikipedia avoided Roundup pesticide and the lawsuit settlement involving Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. 

On a far healthier effort, Dandelion Tea is one of many useful things possible from dandelions.  I also found this project to make Dandelion Soap! at Red Ted Art (there are lots of "white spaces", so keep going to get it all.)  

I would suggest you just be sure those dandelions haven't been sprayed in the past four years.  Beyond that our pollinators, bees and butterflies are crucial to our agriculture, so I strongly support efforts to ban neonics and urge you to do so, too. 

****************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:        

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for December 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories

 

Bailey - The Three Apples - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Apple Orchards are turning into cider mills complete with all manner of activities, crowds, and yellow jackets!  Just because they are yellow with black stripes doesn't make them bees!  They are members of the WASP family . . . read Bees and the Anishinaabe for a story from 2014 about this irritable and irritating cousin of the useful bee.

But whether you have any of the above, the apple trees should be drawing our attention as autumn starts bringing the apple into the spotlight. Carolyn Sherwin Bailey from her Tell Me Another Story has a story worth remembering and a bit of talking about afterwards.

THE THREE APPLES

The old apple tree stood in the orchard with the other trees, and all summer long it had stretched out its branches wide to catch the rain and the sun to make its apples grow round and ripe. Now it was fall, and on the old apple tree were three great apples as yellow as gold and larger than any other apples in the whole orchard. The apple tree stretched and reached as far as it could, until the branch on which the three gold apples grew hung over the orchard wall. There were the three great apples, waiting for some one to pick them, and as the wind blew through the leaves of the apple tree it seemed to sing:

"Here in the orchard are apples three, Who uses one well shall a treasure see."

And one morning Gerald came down the lane that passed by the orchard wall. He looked longingly at the three gold apples, wishing, wishing that he might have one. Just then the wind sang its song again in the leaves of the apple tree and, plump, down to the ground, right at Gerald's feet, fell one of the three gold apples.

He picked it up and turned it round and round in his hands. How sweet it smelled, and how mellow and juicy it was! Gerald could think of nothing so good to do with such a beautiful ripe apple as to eat it. He put it to his mouth and took a great bite of it, then another bite, and another. Soon there was nothing left of the apple but the core, which Gerald threw away. He smacked his lips and went on his way, but the wind in the apple trees sang, sorrowfully, after him:

"Here in the orchard are apples two, But gone is the treasure that fell for you."

And after a while Hilda came down the lane that passed by the orchard wall. She looked up at the two beautiful gold apples that hung on the branch of the old apple tree, and she listened to the wind as it sang in the branches to her:

"Here in the orchard are apples two, A treasure they hold for a child like you."

Then the wind blew harder and, plump, an apple fell in the lane right in front of Hilda.

She picked it up joyfully. She had never seen so large and so golden an apple. She held it carefully in her clasped hands and thought what a pity it would be to eat it, because then it would be gone.

"I will keep this gold apple always," Hilda said, and she wrapped it up in the clean handkerchief that was in her pocket. Then Hilda went home, and there she laid away in a drawer the gold apple that the old apple tree had given her, closing the drawer tightly. The apple lay inside, in the dark, and all wrapped up, for many days, until it spoiled. And when Hilda next went down the lane and past the orchard, the wind in the apple tree sang to her:

"Only one apple where once there were two, Gone is the treasure I gave to you."

Last of all, Rudolph went down the lane one fine fall morning when the sun was shining warm and the wind was out. There, hanging over the orchard wall, he saw just one great gold apple that seemed to him the most beautiful apple that he had ever seen. As he stood looking up at it, the wind in the apple tree sang to him, and it said:

"Round and gold on the apple tree, A wonderful treasure, hanging, see!"

Then the wind blew harder, and down fell the last gold apple of the three into Rudolph's waiting hands.

He held it a long time and looked at it as Gerald and Hilda had, thinking how good it would be to eat, and how pretty it would be to look at if he were to save it. Then he decided not to do either of these things. He took his jack-knife out of his pocket and cut the gold apple in half, straight across, and exactly in the middle between the blossom and the stem.

Oh, the surprise that waited for Rudolph inside the apple! There was a star, and in each point of the star lay a small black seed. Rudolph carefully took out all the seeds and climbed over the orchard wall, holding them in his hand. The earth in the orchard was still soft, for the frost had not yet come. Rudolph made holes in the earth and in each hole he dropped an apple seed. Then he covered up the seeds and climbed back over the wall to eat his apple, and then go on his way.

But as Rudolph walked down the lane, the orchard wind followed him, singing to him from every tree and bush,

"A planted seed is a treasure won.

The work of the apple is now well done."
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or as another site in thinking about philosophy reminds us "There's a Brilliant Star Inside of Every Apple."

 

Have you taken the apple cores and at least tossed them into a field, especially in an area unlikely to be mowed?  I love to do that.  Maybe a deer will find that apple core and plant it somewhere else along with its own fertilizer.  

Similarly I love the story of how the Granny Smith apple came to be.  A site called Culinary Lore says there are various versions of the story, but 

The most common origin story of Granny Smith apples (Some folks just call them granny apples) is that, around 1868 in New South Wales, Mrs. Smith had dumped a crate of old rotten apples French Crab Apples from Tasmania in her garden and then later found an apple sapling growing there. The tree grew to produce green tart apples “that had never grown before.” They subsequently became famous not only in Australia but were shipped all over the world, including the U.S.

It helps to have other apple trees near enough to fertilize your "planted" tree, but even old untended apple trees can produce crops.  Our apple trees furnish treats for neighbors' donkeys and horses and we're happy to have them appreciated.

The apple in this story is probably the popular Golden Delicious.

My favorite apple is the Ida Red, but I enjoy Granny Smith apples, too.  That's the great thing about apples, there's so many varieties.  Enjoy! --  (and maybe toss it in a field after you eat it.)

******************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:        

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. 

Have fun discovering even more stories

Jordan - The Goat Who Couldn't Sneeze - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

 This coming week is normally a time for celebrating, both Star Wars (May the Fourth...be with you) and Cinco de Mayo.  There's not a lot I do involving storytelling around Star Wars with the possibility of group story creation.  Cinco de Mayo, on the other hand, has many opportunities for storytelling. If you look into the 7 things you may not know about Cinco de Mayo, however, it officially celebrates a somewhat obscure time in Mexico's long history.  It is not Mexican Independence Day, that is September 16 and started in 1810 when Mexico declared its independence from Spain.  (Beyond the earlier hotlink of 7 quick facts about Cinco de Mayo, you may be interested in the entire presentation on it from history.com.) It's interesting that Cinco de Mayo is hardly celebrated in Mexico, but is a big fiesta in the United States.

Why?

It's a great way to celebrate Mexican culture -- which on this blog has a focus on Mexican folklore -- and who doesn't enjoy a reason for some celebration?!?

Found on Facebook's Goat Life group

(by Captain Dan Bison) celebrating Cinco de Mayo

If you have the opportunity to tell a story, I found today's tale a lot of fun.  I've kept goats in my past and can just picture the title character in Philip D. Jordan's delightful look at a goat trying to be like other animals.  (I have another connection I'll give after the story.)  Dr. Jordan's tale comes from his book, The Burro Benedicto and other Folk Tales and Legends of Mexico which was published in 1960.  Those familiar with Public Domain may wonder why it is no longer under copyright.  Prior to the most recent U.S. Copyright law it was covered for 28 years and then was only covered further if renewed.  Jordan died in 1980 and his heirs, a wife and daughter, didn't renew his work.  That helps us with today's story for Keeping the Public in Public Domain.  Sadly only two libraries in Michigan still have this book.

The book is illustrated by Richard M. Powers.  The reason for his strange twisting path at the bottom of some of the pages will be revealed within the story.  

You might introduce it by asking, "Have you ever tried unsuccessfully to do something it seems everybody else can do?"  Then give an example from your own life.  For example I've never figured out how to whistle using fingers in my mouth.  Instead I can make a fairly quiet whistle my mother used to call a "penny whistle."  

Down in Mexico there once was a goat with an unusual problem.

Of course you can ask your audience to do a big pretend sneeze with you to end the tale.  The story has many opportunities for audience participation.  For example you can assign some of the animals to specific people or parts of the audience, possibly making a particular motion or sound for their animal.  Other ways you can personalize it is by sprinkling the story with as many Spanish words you feel comfortable adding without weighing the story down.

I mentioned earlier I have a further connection beyond my years with goats.  My late husband kept bees.  While I don't keep them, I always try to point out their importance to pollinating our agriculture.  (The continued use in the U.S. of neonicotinoid pesticides is endangering this useful insect.)  Fear of bees is a common phobia and all too often the reaction is actually to yellow jacket wasps, who also are yellow with black stripes.  I've covered this mix-up here many times and also on my website page about nature storytelling programs.  Bees die after stinging, so they only sting if threatened, while the more irritable yellow jacket can and will sting repeatedly.  I particularly love the Anishinaabe tale about how this came to be.  It's one of many stories here about  bees.

Found on Ancestry.com

Earlier I gave only the briefest of coverage about today's author, Philip Dillon Jordan, but want to say a bit more about him beyond that dry obituary link.  Internet searching produces many scholarly articles by him as he was a University of Minnesota professor and continued writing in retirement up through the year he died.  Many of his works relate to how he viewed history and its relationship to folklore.  He was especially fond of folk music.  I need to hunt up his work on a topic related to the important Civil War era Hutchinson Family Singers, which I've discussed here in relation to my Civil War programs.  Information about Dr. Jordan himself, however, so far has only produced genealogical facts and photos.  In The Burro Benedicto and other Folk Tales and Legends of Mexico he mentions the stories came from when he lived in Mexico and wasn't working.  He loved to talk with people there and hear their stories.  Academic that he was, he gave his sources from the people who told him their stories.  Today's story came from a couple who were even more impossible to find on the internet:

You don't have to be a missionary to enjoy today's story or the fun of celebrating Cinco de Mayo.  After all, it's a great way to have fun while celebrating a culture.  

Fiesta!  

********* 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

 

 

Shelter in Place - week 5 Arbor Day/Earth Day/Blursday & Pollinators

This week had both the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, the long-time celebration of Arbor Day and what a friend called Blursday.

What's Blursday?

With days blurring together while during Shelter in Place it's "The fortyteenth of Maprilay"!

I don't use my Twitter account much, but took up the Arbor Day Foundation's offer to plant a tree in one of our nation's forests if I posted a picture of a favorite tree on Twitter with the hashtag #arbordayathome and tag them.  I posted this picture of a trail at nearby Independence Oaks.

I'm a longtime supporter of Arbor Day Foundation as trees do so much to help us and our planet, too.  By the time you see this the offer may have ended.  They still have so much to offer so I recommend going to https://www.arborday.org/ and becoming a member, too.   You'll get TEN FREE TREES! and the lowest possible discount on other trees and shrubs, and much more.  Can't say enough good things about them, but usually I'm doing it at programs related to Earth Day.  This is only one of many ways you can celebrate Earth Day even while our public gatherings give way to Blursday.

Something else that can help and that I find myself often doing is signing petitions and writing about the need to save our pollinators.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a page with lots of resources about Pollinators.  Why am I so passionate about this?  Without them our agriculture will become impossible.  From tiny insects like bees and butterflies to wildlife, domestic animals, and, yes, people, the chain of life requires those pollinators to keep all of our food coming.  Here in our area the Monarch Butterfly migrates through here.  Grow Milkweed where they lay their eggs, if you're not up to raising butterflies yourself, as habitat loss is one of the reasons for their decline. 

While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can only mention generalities on their "Threats to Pollinators"page, the herbicide Glyphosate (commonly sold as Roundup) has been linked to killing Monarch Butterflies and bees whether from loss of habitat or toxicity.  Its among the Neonictinoids or Neonics banned in European countries and a few other countries.  I note this when sending emails to my various elected officials.  Yes, it's made by a U.S. company based in St. Louis, Missouri where I grew up, but they sell many other products, so dropping this one won't put them out of business.  Neonic toxicity and its spread to other wildlife has led the American Bird Conservancy to call for its ban after studies point to its serious risk to the environment.

From Pixabay via Pexels.com

I've often posted about bees, many times with stories.  Too often they are accused when it's their "cousins", the hornet or Yellow Jacket, buzzing around.  August 5, 2017 I gave a Cuffy Bear story by Arthur Scott Bailey, but also briefly retold the Anishinaabe tale about how defending bees with a stinger was generously shared with wasps. 

A neighbor of mine probably is not happy with that generosity of bees sharing with the wasp.  While mowing his lawn on a riding mower requiring holding the handles to steer, he saw what looked like a paper bag in the trees.  On his next swing past, he grabbed the "bag" only to discover it was a paper wasp nest.  During the time it took to discover it, he was stung repeatedly.  The bee only stings in self-defense or to protect its hive because they are unable to sting more than once.

Today I want to add to stories about pollinators by talking about butterflies.  They don't even sting and they manage to look beautiful while fluttering about. 

Be warned, this paragraph may get a bit more involved in the world of publishing than you wish.  If so, skip to the story I retell after this.  In that 2017 article I mentioned the works of Louise Jean Walker, accidentally missing another book of hers I now have, Beneath the Singing Pines.  From all I can tell, she never had the copyright renewed on her books.  Neither Eerdmans, who published Legends of Green Sky Hill nor Hillsdale Educational Publishers, who published the other two, have her work still in their listings.  I've included a bit of a rant here before about how the copyright law was changed, but it also meant publishers were no longer taxed at the rate of a book when it first entered their stock.  Instead what the cost of a book would be when it was sold became the cost for their inventory.  This made it more expensive to keep books in their inventory, resulting in  publishers preference of Pop material guaranteed to sell right away.  Scholarly books and children's books had been staples on that "backlist", but this made them less profitable.  It also has led to a lot of self-publishing of e-books, especially at Amazon.  Reprint publishers show no guarantees of quality -- I've learned caution in buying.  I would love to see Project Gutenberg reproduce Walker's books if it truly is available.  Perhaps the publishers will catch their names mentioned here and decide to reproduce her books.  Until then, your only way is to either buy a used copy (I strongly recommend Better World Books, not only for their own inventory, but additionally because of all they do to support literacy) or borrow it from your library when they finally reopen.  You will not find the books among their digital collections unfortunately.

Benzie Conservation District (MI) also provides seeds reasonably

Since I would rather the books become available again, I will re-tell the story Walker and various Anishinaabe storytellers give about how butterflies were created.  It makes no pretense at being as good or thorough as they might tell it, but I hope you will remember it when you see a butterfly and do what you can to support their habitat.  Next autumn remember the value of Milkweed when you see its seeds with their fluffy "parachutes."  The National Wildlife Federation will give you more information on how you can do this and ways to Garden for Wildlife with ideas that can work even in urban and suburban yards.  Get FREE milkweed seeds at LiveMonarch.com along with growing instructions and other activities and resources.

Long ago, it is said by the Anishinaabe, the First People from here in Michigan and around the Great Lakes, that after the Great Spirit had created the world, he looked around with pleasure.  Birds, Fish and other creatures were colorful and useful.  Then he looked at the mountains of the world.  He loved them, too, but knew the People might not appreciate them.  To get the People to enter them, he decided to make rocks of many colors, some of those rocks even sparkled.  It was as if the mountains held rainbows!  He knew the People would discover the stones and then would dig for them.  That was good, but he decided not to keep all the rocks hidden in the mountains.  Scattering rocks around would let children discover them, even without going inside a mountain.  This was no sooner done than Zhaawani Noodin, the South Wind, blew in, singing of trees, birds, and flowers in the spring and summer.  Hearing that song, the Great Spirit tossed the colorful stones into the air, asking the South Wind to carry them to the People.  Those colorful rocks developed wings and fluttered away.  Today we enjoy their beautiful wings knowing that even in their beauty they help pollinate the flowers and other plants wherever they visit. 

Photo by Cindy Gustafson on Pexels.com

Today may be "Blursday", but I like a quote I saw about the current time which said it's end will be like a rainbow that follows a storm.  May this help encourage you to make every day Earth Day and also carry out the purpose of Arbor Day by planting trees which hold the soil (Arbor Day was started to prevent soil erosion, among other things) and do an incredible job to help bring oxygen and reduce pollution.  Already the pollution level is being noticed as reduced by all of us who Shelter in Place.

Flanders Fields, Poppies, and Pollinators for Memorial Day

For the U.S. this weekend we have Memorial Day to recognize all our armed forces who died serving our country.

For Canadian neighbors and the rest of the British Commonwealth it's Remembrance Day, but they wait until November 11, the day of the Armistice ending World War I on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour.  (That timing also creates the saying, when something is done at the last minute, that it was done "at the eleventh hour.")

There is some confusion here in the U.S. as November 11 is our Veterans Day, honoring all who have served in our military.  Memorial Day was strictly intended to remember those who gave their lives in the military, not our current military, nor its veterans.

For both the U.S., the British Commonwealth, and even many non-Commonwealth nations, poppies are a visual symbol pointing back to a poem, "In Flanders Fields", by Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, in the spring of 1915, shortly after attending the funeral of a friend in Ypres and seeing poppies growing in battle-scarred fields where the soldiers had been buried.

When I do my World War I program I use a black and white photo (although it started with the hint of

the red that so impressed Dr. McCrae) because that's the photo a veteran, like Oleda Joure Christides, would have.  She also knew about the poem:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.

Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

After the First World War, the poppy was adopted as a symbol of Remembrance and their bright red color reminds people of all the blood shed.  I was told at the time of the poem it was one of the only things able to bloom in the cemetery there.  The flower is a perfect example of why wildflowers should never be called weeds.  Wikipedia, in an article about it under its scientific name of Papaver rhoeas says, "Due to the extent of ground disturbance in warfare during World War I, corn poppies bloomed in between the trench lines and no man's lands on the Western front."  I was even told lime was used for those graves, so that further eliminated most things from growing there.  In that same article about the flower, Wikipedia states, "Before the advent of herbicides, P. rhoeas sometimes was abundant in agricultural fields."

The picture at the opening of today's article shows the cemetery has changed from the days of preliminary crosses and wildflowers finding their way onto the grounds where so much blood was shed.  The flowers and tombstones look too cultivated to be what was seen in the early Twentieth Century.  I am encouraged that the European Union has banned the use of neonicotinoid pesticides because they have proven it has killed bees, butterflies and, more recently, declining bird populations also are being linked to the pesticides.  Pollinators like these are crucial to our own survival because they are needed for our agriculture and food production.  Here's a link to a petition to our own Environmental Protection Agency asking that they, too, ban this war on our own pollinators. The  underlining of the word "Protection" is my own, since that is supposed to be what the agency does.

Both Memorial Day and flowers remind me of that song about "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and how it ends with the repeated phrase "When will they ever learn?"  Personally I wish Memorial Day, wonderful as it always is to have a three day holiday, had stayed on May 30 because moving it to the last Monday in May has changed it to what people now call "the unofficial start of summer."  It was meant to be more than that.

Speaking of summer starting unoffically, here in Michigan's version of the Great Lakes' version of Lake Woebegone we barely gave a nod to springtime before summer arrived with 90 degrees!

As for World War I itself, I keep remembering the commonly used statement "Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it."  My program with me portraying Oleda tries to honor her, our veterans, and Women's History.  I sincerely hope it continues after November 11, 2018 as its message is not just about that "eleventh hour" or even Flanders Field.

"Crockett" - Colonel Crockett and the Honey Bees + "his" Almanacs about Eclipses - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

from The Crockett Almanac 1841

I've posted about bees and hornets recently (and even honey if you count the World War I recipes).  Old time "Crockett Almanacs" give us yet another story of these insects and also a 19th century look at eclipses.  August 21 we'll have the first total solar eclipse across the entire contiguous United States since June 8, 1918, so eclipses are something everybody seems to be talking about now.

Talking about folk heroes seems to make them last forever.  As for politicians, maybe they just seem to never die.  Davy Crockett was both a folk hero and a politician.  He officially died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, but "his" almanacs (1835 to 1856) were filled with Crockett tall tales supposedly written down by the publisher, Ben Hardin, who also is given in some tall tales as a friend and companion in some adventures.

Reproductions occasionally do not perfectly show a letter.  Might the type face have been just as bad in the original?  I don't know, but the language is certainly the original.  The almanacs attempt to sound and be mis-spelled as the public expected the frontier hero, soldier, and politician might have told the stories.  It is an interesting visual way to attempt hearing the backwoods language of that day.  When it puzzles you (and it will), try saying it out loud to see if you understand what is said.

Eclipses - 1840

Eclipses -1841

and then the story, but first a quick note.  Because the story is supposedly about a trick Crockett played on Teddy O'Rourke it opens with a description of the differences between Yankees and the Irish.  Don't let it "get your Irish up", I know mine was under control and I always, or way too often, "speak before I think."

This was the picture at the end of the 1841 almanac.

Even though the story's title is "Colonel Crockett and the Honey Bees, he's in the background watching the trick he played with Jimmy Flatfoot on Teddy O'Rourke to stop his bragging (not that Davy would ever brag)

Before leaving the idea of almanacs and eclipses, let's have some facts and a bit of fun.  You may want to check the almanac that is probably the most accepted since its founding in 1792, the Old Farmer's Almanac.  Here is their look at Total Solar Eclipses in the U.S.  Notice that they say "Accurate observations of solar eclipses in the 19th century were sparse until the solar eclipse of July 18, 1860."

Anybody who knows me knows I can never resist a pun, so I'll close with this lunar or loony riddle.  How does the Man in the Moon gets his hair cut? . . . E-clipse it. 

O.k. stop that groaning and enjoy the astronomical mania currently happening.  Can't find truly safe solar glasses?  Here's a video on how to make your own solar eclipse viewer.

************ 
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

 

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ and put in http://www.story-lovers.com/ in the search box.  I recommend using the latest "snapshot" on November 2016

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 

   

You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  For an example of using the "Wayback Machine", list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is gone, but using the Wayback Machine you can still see it.  At the Wayback Machine I put in his site's address, then chose 2006 since it was a later year and clicked until I reached the Library at http://www.pjtss.net/library/.  
Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!