Читать книгу Up Eel River - Margaret Prescott Montague - Страница 3

Table of Contents

All over the United States there appears the legend of a super-lumberman who performs impossible feats. This legend is said to be the only genuine bit of folklore which America has as yet produced. In New England and the North West this mythical character appears under the name of “Paul Bunyan,” and as “Paul” has figured in several books, and even been honored in a poem, “Paul’s Wife,” by Robert Frost. The present writer stumbled upon the same myth among the lumbermen of West Virginia, only in this locality the hero is known as “Tony Beaver,” and has his lumber camp “Up Eel River.” There is no real Eel River in West Virginia, and in local fantasy it is the place where all the impossible things happen, so that here if one doubts some statement it is not necessary to apply to it the short and ugly word, but merely to say with a shrug, “Aw, that must er happened up Eel River.” I may remark also in passing that “Eel River” has sometimes been used as a boundary mark for locating fictitious coal lands in West Virginia, which were sold to trusting capitalists of the North. Therefore let me warn any would-be purchaser to beware of property in West Virginia in any way connected with “Eel River,” for however respectable a river of that name may be in other parts of the country, with us it is as slippery in its habits as the snake-like fish for which it is named.

Until I began taking liberties with him, “Tony Beaver,” as far as I know, had never figured in print, his exploits merely being passed from mouth to mouth—losing nothing, one may be sure, between mouths; for which reason it would seem that stories about him should not be dressed up in formal English, but should be appareled rather in the free and easy speech of Tony’s own mountains. Moreover, I agree with Mr. George Moore that country speech is more alive, and therefore more beautiful and effective than city speech, and that localities should treasure their own vernacular.

Thanks are due to The Atlantic Monthly for permission to reprint four of these stories, and to The Forum for the same courtesy in regard to “Big Music” and “Hog’s Eye and Human.” I am also indebted to Mr. James Stephens for information in regard to “Paul Bunyan,” and to Mr. Edward O’Reilly for having introduced me to “Pecos Bill.” Lastly, and most especially, I am grateful to Messrs. W. B. Hines, Henry Casto, and Jack Ridgeway, for having given me news of Eel River and Tony Beaver.