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The Folklore of Maine
A wonderful compendium of Maine Folklore from the author of Folklore and the Sea. A true saltsmith.
284 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
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About the author
Horace P. Beck
12 books3 followersHorace Beck, a former professor of American Literature at Middlebury College, has been gathering the sea's folklore for 70 years in Europe, North America, and the West Indies. This collection of legends, songs, superstitions, and stories, both true and apocryphal includes spectral ships, mermaids and mermen, pirates, sea language, sea monsters, navigation and weather lore, names on sea and shore, and much more. Library Journal called Folklore and the Sea "a browser's delight as well as a researcher's gold mine."
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 8, 2018
Maine folklore influenced the language used by Mainers. Much of it was based on facts that became blurred over time.That resulted in questable and funny stories. Have a headache? Tie buzzard's around your neck!
April 7, 2020
Excellent
My family is an old Maine family and I love learning the state's history and folklore. This is a wonderful and highly entertaining collection of tales and songs that I plan to return to again and again.
My family is an old Maine family and I love learning the state's history and folklore. This is a wonderful and highly entertaining collection of tales and songs that I plan to return to again and again.
July 17, 2025
This was a fun read, and a good introduction to the circumstances in which folklore springs in general, and the specific culture of Maine in particular.
More than a mere collection of tall tales, poems, and songs, this book details Maine island life, the coastal villages and towns, and the interior. In each area where people lived and worked, they developed their own songs and stories. Whether farmers, fishermen, or loggers, they would create new spins on older tales, or invent completely new ones.
One of the key ingredients in the development of the folklore discussed in this book is a certain amount of isolation. A group must be, to some degree, cut off from the outside world, even if only periodically. Folklore developed to fill the hours on winter nights on a lonely island, or in the fo’c’sle of a ship, between watches. Then these stories would be told to neighbors and friends, when sailors returned home, or when the weather warmed and islanders could go ashore more regularly.
Two of the groups discussed bore unlikely similarities: sailors and loggers. Though the specifics of their duties differed, they both performed dangerous work in harsh conditions, ate similar food, and had little to do in free time for fun than tell stories and sing songs.
I got the sense that the author most closely identified with the loggers. Writing in 1957, the height of logging camps and the “long log” drives had only recently passed into memory. I could tell he wanted to sit on the deacon’s seat (a split-log bench) in a logging shanty and join in the singing by the warmth of the fire on a January night.
What the author really hoped for was community. He saw the changes in culture on the horizon, but could not have imagined the long-term impact. And that’s the real takeaway of this book: togetherness and shared experiences, stories, and songs is conducive to building a community, a culture. And it’s these aspects of Maine that he loved the most.
Yes, indeed, this was a good read.
More than a mere collection of tall tales, poems, and songs, this book details Maine island life, the coastal villages and towns, and the interior. In each area where people lived and worked, they developed their own songs and stories. Whether farmers, fishermen, or loggers, they would create new spins on older tales, or invent completely new ones.
One of the key ingredients in the development of the folklore discussed in this book is a certain amount of isolation. A group must be, to some degree, cut off from the outside world, even if only periodically. Folklore developed to fill the hours on winter nights on a lonely island, or in the fo’c’sle of a ship, between watches. Then these stories would be told to neighbors and friends, when sailors returned home, or when the weather warmed and islanders could go ashore more regularly.
Two of the groups discussed bore unlikely similarities: sailors and loggers. Though the specifics of their duties differed, they both performed dangerous work in harsh conditions, ate similar food, and had little to do in free time for fun than tell stories and sing songs.
I got the sense that the author most closely identified with the loggers. Writing in 1957, the height of logging camps and the “long log” drives had only recently passed into memory. I could tell he wanted to sit on the deacon’s seat (a split-log bench) in a logging shanty and join in the singing by the warmth of the fire on a January night.
What the author really hoped for was community. He saw the changes in culture on the horizon, but could not have imagined the long-term impact. And that’s the real takeaway of this book: togetherness and shared experiences, stories, and songs is conducive to building a community, a culture. And it’s these aspects of Maine that he loved the most.
Yes, indeed, this was a good read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews