Ghost Dogs of the South
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- 13,99 €
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- 13,99 €
Publisher Description
Award-winning husband-and-wife folklorists Randy Russell and Janet Barnett have gone to the dogs. Digging deeply through the rich field of Southern folklore, the authors have discovered that a dog's devotion to its human does not always end at the grave. Dogs can be as peculiar as people. Their relationship with humans is complex. In story after story from Southern homes, there is strong evidence that this relationship can extend beyond death. Do dogs return from the other side to comfort and aid their human companions? You bet your buried bones they do. In Ghost Dogs of the South, you'll meet the following: A stray dog that warns Kentucky coal miners of impending disaster; a literary critic of a dog with the gift of speech; a dog-snatching mermaid on the Mississippi River; a Tennessee dog that returns year after year to go trick-or-treating; a pair of Georgia hounds that stumble upon an enchanted woods; a girl whose pain is eased by the ghost of a butterfly dog. Dog ghosts (dogs that have become ghosts), ghost dogs (humans who return as ghosts in the shape of dogs), dogs that see ghosts, dogs that are afraid of ghosts—all make an appearance in these twenty stories that illuminate the shadow side of man's best friend.
For several years, folklorists Randy Russell and Janet Barnett have taught a course about Southern folklore at the North Carolina Center for Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Russell is also the author of several mysteries, including Edgar Award nominee Hot Wire.They live in Asheville, North Carolina.
"Alternately eerie, funny, tragic and sentimental . . . These tales will undoubtedly delight dog lovers and will not fail to charm even the most dour skeptics of supernatural phenomena." —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This vivid, bewitching volume of "true" Southern ghost tales reveals not only dogs' enduring devotion to their folk, but the deep attachment of Southerners to these legends. Russell and Barnett both folklorists have culled 20 homespun canine poltergeist narratives, prefacing the volume with a personal anecdote of their Great Dane, Desdemona, whose devotion to the authors knew no earthly bounds and inspired this compilation. Spanning the years between the American Revolutionary War and the present, these stories of ghost dogs and dog ghosts (e.g., humans who manifest as dogs) often recount benign hauntings. Mike, an Airedale, still patrols a Harlan County, Ky., coal mine, alerting miners to potential accidents. The ghosts of a sea captain and his dog ride the waves of the Gulf of Mexico near Mobile Bay, warning sailors of hurricanes. A Boxer ghost named Preston who saved the life of a trick-or-treater from a speeding automobile in the 1950s still roams his old neighborhood every Halloween. A mutt named Moses refuses to be separated in the afterlife from his beloved master, a fallen soldier of the Civil War. Alternately eerie, funny, tragic and sentimental, these tales are told in clear, declamatory prose befitting their origin in the oral tradition. An informative foreword by Genelle Moraine, a University of Georgia comparative folklore professor emerita, clarifies aspects of Southern culture, while a delightful selection of vintage photographs from the authors' personal collection of people and their canine companions accompanies the text. These tales will undoubtedly delight dog lovers and will not fail to charm even the most dour skeptics of supernatural phenomena.