Moosilauke is a mountain of many stories. Like the people who told them, most have been long forgotten. These tell of life in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, a part of rural New England enlivened by seasonal forays of summer visitors…

The purpose of this site is to provide a glimpse of the wealth of unique literary, geographical and historical information we have collected about Mt. Moosilauke over the past 25+ years. While a web site can only provide short historical pieces, these will hopefully whet your interest to read further.

(via Plep – NY)

Orkneyjar — a website dedicated to the preserving, exploring and documenting the ancient history, folklore and traditions of Orkney – a group of islands lying off the northern tip of Scotland, where the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet.

Including the Nuggle, a much less adorable version of the water horse.

Oral Tradition Journal is now providing the complete contents of all back issues online with open access. Which is very cool, and very appropriate for a journal concerned with orally — ie, openly — transmitted culture. Except now I’ll probably lose the few productive work hours fatherhood leaves me with each day to poring through their archives.

Most of authors seek fame, but I seek for justice, — a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess.

A publication has been made to the world, which has done me much injustice; and the catchpenny errors which it contains, have been already too long sanctioned by my silence. I don’t know the author of the book — and indeed I don’t want to know him; for after he has taken such a liberty with my name, and made such an effort to hold me-up to public ridicule, he cannot calculate on any thing but my displeasure. If he had been content to have written his opinions about me, however contemptuous they might have been, I should have had less reason to complain. But when he professes to give my narrative (as he often does) in my own language, and then puts into my mouth such language as would disgrace even an outlandish African, he must himself be sensible of the injustice he has done me, and the trick he has played off on the publick.

~ A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)

Combining folklore and creative writing is hardly new. Our Mid Atlantic Folklife retreats feature creative writing workshops. Folklorists, such as Frank deCaro, have creative writing degrees. Some, such as Jo Radner who taught storytelling at American University, belong to creative writing faculties. Plenty of folklorists have published poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction. And organizations such as City Lore and the Western Folklife Center organize the People’s Poetry Gathering and the Cowboy Poetry Gathering. There’s a natural affinity at work, here. What is the power that folklore offers writers? How can we draw on it to strengthen our discipline and forge closer connections to the allied field of creative writing?

~ Margaret Yocom (via Endicott)

Although some recordings in the collection have been shared between collectors informally, never before have they appeared with the higher quality found in the FRC releases. This is because of the technology available using pro-audio digital workstations. Further, these recordings have never before been generally made available to the old time and traditional music community. In so doing, the Field Recorders’ Collective hopes to “democratize” these collections and see them form a public archive. This is opposed to seeing them disappear in the “black hole” of university and government archives which are, at best, difficult to gain entrance to or at worse, only for those with credentials for accessing them. We hope you will find the FRC releases an important addition to your traditional music library.

(via amplesanity.com)

A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures streamed with essays about the traditions and filmmaking. The site includes transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites.

@ Folkstreams (via Weekend Edition)

We all experience the occasional moment in life that has a clarity unlike the rest of our days. Time Indefinite exists as both a repository of significant moments and a collective timeline so that we may chart where we all stand in time next to each other during our individual significant moments. Users can upload stories and images about a specific moment in time and tag them accordingly, as well as browse the stories and moments other individuals have submitted.

@ Turbulence

I think in the time of orally transmitted epics such as Beowulf, I can’t imagine a scop in an eighth-century or a seventh-century environment, in a place where he might have traveled in his whole life maybe fifteen miles to the left or to the right, I can’t imagine that he was participating in a culture that had unified values of vocal usage. I think it’s much more likely that his voice was at the service of telling a certain story and that, of course, in his clan or in his group and amongst his masters and those who followed after him, there were some agreements locally linked to language and linked to the way these people spoke and the way they heard rhythm and the way they listened to the sounds of vowels and consonants in their language. I think that that was silently but, of course, very rigorously adhered to. No one had to write it down — well, they didn’t write anyway — but no one had to give it any kind of expression; it simply was taken for granted.

~ Benjamin Bagby

NSN is pleased to invite applications for the fourth annual Brimstone Award for Applied Storytelling grant of $5000 for a project that will be completed in calendar year 2008.

Taking its name from brimstone, the elusive element medieval alchemists believed would transform base metals into gold, this award focuses on the transformational properties of storytelling, and aims to increase understanding of the ways storytelling can promote change in individuals and communities.