by Julia Hammond | Jun 18, 2014 | Blog
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,...
by Julia Hammond | Jun 18, 2014 | Blog
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...
by Julia Hammond | Jun 3, 2014 | Blog
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...
by Julia Hammond | May 29, 2014 | Blog
When I was a kid, I remember hearing a Native American story about Oregon’s Three Sisters, and The Husband– in central Oregon. It stuck with me, and I told it to my kids on a trip to Bend from Portland. We had been talking a lot about myths and how they are both...
by Julia Hammond | Apr 30, 2014 | Blog
Spring is in full bloom on May Day, all the flowers out, a big warm spell covering everything, the seeds coming up. Some of the key metaphors for May Day – fertility, emancipation, the full-flowering tree of life that connects earth and sky – show up in many cultures...
