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PREFACE |
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To those who have been accustomed to think that American folksong survives only in mountain recesses of the South, the increasing number of fine collections recently issued from less isolated regions comes as evidence of a surprising vitality.
Mr. Brewster's volume of ballads from Southern Indiana opens up a new field, and shows us what riches of traditional song have awaited his skillful discovery and enthusiastic recording. The section of the state covered was settled about a century ago, largely from the South, though there is a sufficient mixture of other traditions to complicate the problem of comparative study.
The hundred folksongs, including twenty-seven versions of traditional English and Scottish ballads and the tunes for fourteen of these, will be of great interest not only to the folksong scholar, for whom a whole new territory is explored, but to residents of this section, who will find preserved here a part of their traditional life that might otherwise have perished. |
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Stith Thompson |
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