Thesis: Folk stories provide superstitions and beliefs unique to each individual culture in which they are told and through further analysis, the stories that I have chosen from Musick’s The Telltale Lilac Bush are responsible for the prominent beliefs about life and death within the Appalachian Region.
The first story I’ve chosen to analyze is The White Stallion from the “Omens of Death” section in The Telltale Lilac Bush. This story exemplifies the cultural belief that white animals signify death. The story is set in Barbour County, West Virginia around the 1900’s. In the story an old man is bedridden and very near death when a white stallion appears out of no where and tentatively paces near the house and then leaves. Not shortly after the old man dies and the story ends. By the way the story is…show more content… Folk legends tend to have very specific details and distinct settings. A key indicator that points to this story being a Folk Legend is how it is told. It portrays a story that is passed down from generation to generation because of how interesting and unusual it is. When looking in the Appendix of Musick’s book, this story was told by Raymond Stamps in 1958, who had heard it from the son of the old man who had been there when the horse appeared. In Julie Carthy’s Folklore in the Oral Tradition, she points out a comparison that can really help a reader decipher between folk talk and folk legend. She states that “several authorities have compared the folktale to the novel or short story and the folk-legend to a newspaper story” and when reading The White Stallion, I can picture it as a small newspaper article in the obituary section. This story also does not fail to reveal the reasons for superstitions behind white animals. This story may not have been the one to start these superstitions in general but it could have played into the beliefs around the area in which the story occurred. With that area being in West Virginia it is
