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...
by Julia Hammond | Apr 18, 2014 | Blog
I put beans into new black dirt this morning, and thought of Jack (pun intended). Spring is the time for telling Jack and the Bean Stalk, the story of an ne’er do well son, who risks ogres and uses his head to get right by his mother and create a good life for...
