Brer Crow wanted to go, but he didn't have any clothes.
Inspired by: South Carolina Folk Tales. Bulletin of University of South Carolina (a WPA project)..
Notes: This story is "De Crow and de Rabbit." I should note that it is despicable that this WPA publication does not give the name of the storytellers who told these stories; instead, it only credits the collectors who interviewed the storytellers. The animal stories in the book were all collected by two white women, Genevieve Chandler and Clothilde Martin. I found this picture online of Chandler interviewing Ben Horry for this WPA project, and following that lead, I found this WPA document at the Library of Congress: Ben Horry, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, which is part of Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 14: PDF. I do not know which, if any, of these animal stories Ben Horry might have told her.
"Loan me your clothes, Brer Rabbit!" said Crow.
Rabbit loaned Crow his clothes.
But now Rabbit didn't have any clothes.
Uh-oh.
Crow went to the dance and started dancing. He looked might fine, and the gals all admired him.
Then Rabbit came. "Hey there, Brer Crow!" he said. "I need my clothes. I need them now!"
So Rabbit stripped his clothes off Crow and left him standing there stark naked in front of all the gals.
The gals just laughed and laughed.
Inspired by: South Carolina Folk Tales. Bulletin of University of South Carolina (a WPA project)..
Notes: This story is "De Crow and de Rabbit." I should note that it is despicable that this WPA publication does not give the name of the storytellers who told these stories; instead, it only credits the collectors who interviewed the storytellers. The animal stories in the book were all collected by two white women, Genevieve Chandler and Clothilde Martin. I found this picture online of Chandler interviewing Ben Horry for this WPA project, and following that lead, I found this WPA document at the Library of Congress: Ben Horry, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, which is part of Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 14: PDF. I do not know which, if any, of these animal stories Ben Horry might have told her.
Here is another picture of Ben Horry at the Library of Congress; he was born around 1850. Another picture here in the Brookgreen Garden Collection of the Georgetown County SC Library.
No comments:
Post a Comment