Clever Maids, Fearless Jacks, and a Cat: Fairy Tales from a Living Oral Tradition

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Description of Clever Maids, Fearless Jacks, and a Cat: Fairy Tales from a Living Oral Tradition

Clever Maids, Fearless Jacks, and a Cat showcases the stories of two Newfoundland storytellers, Philip Pius Power and Alice Lannon. Ethnopoetic transcriptions of these sensitive and artful tales, which have been passed on orally for generations as part of a community tradition, give accounts of living oral performances from the last quarter of the twentieth century and demonstrate the artistry that is possible without the written word.
 
Here, eight tales from Power and five tales from Lannon take up issues of vital concernsuch as spousal abuse, bullying, and social and generational conflictallusively, through a screen of fiction. In commentary following the stories Anita Best, Martin Lovelace, and Pauline Greenhill discuss the transmission of fairy tales in oral tradition, address the relation of these magic tales to Lannons and Powers other stories, and share specifics about Newfoundland storytelling and the two tellers themselves. The text is further enriched by expressive illustrations from artist Graham Blair.