Here’s a little summer solstice craft for kids to kick off summer vacation. You could put one on your front door or make a few and hang them from the ceiling in a play room or bedroom, or make a garland out of them. You only need: scissors, glue, tape, different colored and textured orange and(…)
On a much lighter note than my last post, it’s summer solstice this weekend! Solstice is the time to have a party, a bonfire, a feast and dancing. The key themes we often find in solstice celebrations make easy sense – fire, dancing, fertility, feast, festival – and in many northern European traditions, fairies. And of(…)
I have a student in one of my classes who has been working with gender issues and ideologies for a few terms, through three different classes that she has taken with me. Her name is Rachel Fan, and she is in an Intro to Folklore class now and is rewriting a folktale for her final(…)
The rain came back again at the end of May, and all the Oregon girls in my daughter’s kindergarten class got colds. I found the song “Rainy Day Girls” sung by early Oregon pioneers in an article by the famous folklorist, Barre Toelken. It is sung to the tune of “Beulah Land” which orginally, was, as Toelken(…)