A Treasury of New England Folklore

by B.A. Botkin (Editor)

Folktales, songs, and local legends provide a portrait of the Yankee character and traditions

Genres: Folklore, Fiction

618 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

Reviews

[Eugene]

This book is a hoot. Written in the 1940s, it is as if Francis Child came to New England. An endless trove of tales, with ballads and songs. If you are at curious about old New England culture, you must read this book.

[Caitlin Fisher]

omggggg this took me almost three months to read, and I’m kinda sad it’s over! This was a MASSIVE collection of funky little folk stories and rhymes and weird food recipes and little sayings and songs and witchcrafts of New England, all of which I found very endearing. It was so joyful to find all the little fun facts about where I grew up and was such a homesickness tonic! It was an interesting perspective from the folklorist’s standpoint, too, because this was one of those government writing projects that happened in the 1930s after the Great Depression put a bunch of writers out of work and so the government hired them to go around the country and compile all the folklore from the previous century before it died out.

[Nate]

My mother had an older copy. Very interesting subjects, and it made more plain to me several of the sayings of my grandparents.