Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales
by Vance Randolph
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Description
Vance Randolph has long been an undeniable presence on the American folklore scholarship scene. His Ozark corpus is "the best known single body of regional folklore in the United States, " according to Richard Dorson, director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University. And Gershon Legman, the world's leading scholar of sexual and scatological humor, has called Randolph "the greatest and most successful field collector and regional folklorist that America ever had." In Legman's show more estimation, "We have no one else like him. He is a national treasure, like Mark Twain. Randolph's reputation rests on the massive accumulation of folksong, folktale, and ballad materials he collected during forty years of living and working in the Ozarks. Unfortunately, in the 1950s when Randolph published several collection of Ozark tales, the material in this volume was considered unprintable. Pissing in the Snow departs from the academic prudery that until recently has restricted the amount of bawdy folklore available for study. It presents a body of material that for twenty years has circulated only in manuscript or microfilm under its present title. When placed in their rightful context alongside Randolph's other collections of folk material, the bawdy tales help provide evidence of what Ozark hill people think about their own lives and language. As Rayna Green writes in her introduction, "The entire body of material... offers a picture of expressive behavior unparalleled by any other American region's or group's study." Hoffmann's annotations draw parallels between the erotic narrative tradition of the Ozarks and that in other parts of the country and the world, especially Europe. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is an odd little book, essentially a collection of bawdy stories collected by folklorist Vance Randolph but never included in the scholarly collections because of the subject matter.
It's all dressed up with serious introductions, footnotes, and references, but at its heart (and elsewhere), it's a collection of naughty tales about traveling salesmen, farmers' daughters, dim-witted farm boys, libertine preachers, sexually frustrated widows, brothels, barrooms, and bedrooms, and the misadventures that occur therein. Some of the stories may be familiar -- in fact, my dad's favorite blue joke is in there -- and the afterwords following most of the tales trace them back in time, some as far as the middle ages.
Indeed, the ultimate moral show more may be that there's no such thing as a new dirty joke, so if you're in the mood for a retelling of some blue classics, this is an amusing way to spend an evening. show less
It's all dressed up with serious introductions, footnotes, and references, but at its heart (and elsewhere), it's a collection of naughty tales about traveling salesmen, farmers' daughters, dim-witted farm boys, libertine preachers, sexually frustrated widows, brothels, barrooms, and bedrooms, and the misadventures that occur therein. Some of the stories may be familiar -- in fact, my dad's favorite blue joke is in there -- and the afterwords following most of the tales trace them back in time, some as far as the middle ages.
Indeed, the ultimate moral show more may be that there's no such thing as a new dirty joke, so if you're in the mood for a retelling of some blue classics, this is an amusing way to spend an evening. show less
This could have been a fun little book of bawdy Ozark folktales, assembled by Ozark folklorist Vance Randolph. But someone got hold of it and added comments ("annotations") at the end of each story, explaining the "true" origins of each story, and comparing it to other stories across the ages. It took something amusing and turned it into serious study. I tried to not read the annotations, but I couldn't, and they really detracted from some of the stories.
Happened upon this little gem in the library while looking through the folk tale section. I figured I'd better check it out since it's so close to home and I love to hear old tales. This is pretty raunchy downhome stories and talk. A quick, easy read and the title story Pissing in the Snow is by far one of the funniest. This book is not for anyone without a nasty sense of humor.
How can you not love a book called 'Pissing in the Snow?' The book presents a wide variety of Ozark folktales that give light to the rich culture from which they came.
A must read if (1) you have an intense academic interest in the sociology of the Ozarks, or (2) you just enjoy filthy jokes.
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Author Information
56+ Works 893 Members
Noted folklorist Vance Randolph was born in Pittsburg, Kansas. After attending college at Kansas State Teachers College, Clark University, and the University of Kansas, he worked as a staff writer for Appeal to Reason, as an assistant instructor in psychology at the University of Kansas, and as a scenario writer for MGM studios in California show more before devoting all of his time to freelance writing. Randolph is perhaps one of America's most prolific collectors of folk tales, and he is especially renowned for his study of the Ozarks and that region's ribald folk literature. Because of their bawdy nature, many collectors and compilers have passed over such tales from this region, but Randolph compiled many of them in a work entitled Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folk Tales (1976). His regional specialization has led to a number of other works, including The Ozarks: An American Survival of Primitive Society (1931), From an Ozark Mountain Holler: Stories of Ozark Mountain Folk (1933), Ozark Superstitions (1947), and Sticks in the Knapsack and Other Ozark Folk Tales (1958). Regarding his work on the Ozarks, critics have said that Randolph "gives a sensitive portrayal of a fast-vanishing breed of people . . . [and] insight to a way of life that is rapidly passing" (Choice). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1976
- People/Characters
- Billy Fraser, fornicator; Ethel Barnes, folklore informant; Bob Wyrick, folklore informant; Fred High, folklore informant; J. L. Russell, folklore informant; Virginia Tyler, folklore informant (show all 7); Ed Wall, folklore informant
- Important places
- Arkansas, USA; Ozark Mountains; Ozark Mountains, Arkansas, USA
- Dedication
- To Gershon Legman
- First words
- Introduction (by Rayna Green)
As a graduate student interested in American regional materials, I studied Vance Randolph's Ozark collections along with those of other great regional collectors.
Preface
These stories were collected in the Ozark Mountains, where I have lived since 1820.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 370
- Popularity
- 84,447
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.59)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 11
