Magic and the Supernatural in Utah Folklore

1 "Folklore at the Crossroads of the West," Kansas Quarterly, 13 (1981): 7-15.

2 Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision, 1846 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1943).

3 Anthon S. Cannon, et al., Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from Utah (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, forthcoming), no. 5794.

4 William R. Bascom’s famous article, "Four Functions of Folklore," Journal of American Folklore 67 (1954): 333-49,

A moderate and wise approach is Barre Toelken The Dynamics of Folklore (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977).

Cannon, no. 6640

Cannon, no. 6566

5 Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina, ed. Wayland D. Hand, as vols. 6-7 (1961-64)

The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, 7 vols. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1952-1964), no. 6329

6 Harry Middleton Hyatt’s magnificent fivevolume work, Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, Rootwork (Quincy, III.: Alma Egan Hyatt Foundation, 1970-78)

7 Austin E. Fife and Alta S. Fife, Saints of Sage and Saddle: Folklore of the Mormons (1956; reprint ed., SLC: University of Utah Press, 1980), hereinafter cited parenthetically in text as Fife by item number.

8 Brown Collection, 7: 256, no. 6329.

Abraham Warkentin, Die Gestalt des Teufels in der deutschen Volkssage (Ph.D. Diss., University of Chicago, 1937; privately printed, Bethel, Kansas, 1937).

Fife, p. 138 and Cannon et al., "Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from Utah."

9 John D. A. Widdowson, If You Don’t be Good: Verbal Social Control in Newfoundland, Social and Economic Studies, No. 21 (St. John’s, Newfoundland: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1977).

10 D&G 129:4-8.

M. Hamlin Cannon, "Angels and Spirits in Mormon Doctrine," California Folklore Quarterly, 4 (1954): 343-50.

11 Brown Collection, 7: 142-143, no. 5725.

12 Cannon, no. 10207, Fife, p. 219,

August Wünsche, Der Sagenkreis vom geprellten Teufel (Leipzig und Wien: Akademischer Verlag, 1905).

13 Wayland D. Hand, Magical Medicine: The Folkloric Component of Medicine in the Folk Belief, Custom, and Ritual of the Peoples of Europe and America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 48-49).

Cannon, nos. 10031-32, 10045-53

14 Melville J. Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1941),

Newbell Niles Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1926),

Tom Peete Cross, "Witchcraft in North Carolina," Studies in Philology 16 (1919): 217-87.

15 George M. Foster, "The Anatomy of Envy: A Study in Symbolic Behavior," Current Anthropology, 13 (1972): 165-202, esp. p. 174 passim.

16 S. Seligmann, Der böse Blick und Verwandtes: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Aberglaubens aller Zeiten und Völker, 2 vols. (Berlin: Hermann Barsdorf Verlag, 1910).

17 Wayland D. Hand, "Folklore from Utah’s Silver Mining Gamps," Journal of American Folklore 54 (1941): 132-61, esp. pp. 135-37;

Wayland D. Hand, "California Miners’ Folklore: Above Ground," California Folklore Quarterly 1 (1942): 24-46, esp. 34-36.

18 Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet, 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), pp. 16-33,

Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith & Money Digging (Salt Lake City: Modern Microfilm Company, 1970).

19 Ann Hark, "Erdspiegel Mystery," American-German Review 7 (June 1941): 9-11, and Wayland D. Hand, "The Quest for Buried Treasure: A Chapter in American Folk Legendry," in Folklore on Two Continents: Essays in Honor of Linda Degh, ed. Nikolai Burlakoff and Carl Lindahl (Bloomington, Ind.: Trickster Press, 1980), pp. 112-19.

20 Hand, "Utah Silver Mining," pp. 137-40, esp. 138-39,

Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, eds., Eduard von Hoffmann-Krayer and Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, 10 vols. (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1927-1942, 7:1004-5, s.v. Schatz. Hereinafter cited as HDA.

21 Brigham Young, address at Farmington, Utah, 17 June 1877, Journal of Discourses, 19:36-39, as cited in Hand, "Treasure," p. 116;

Tanner and Tanner, Joseph Smith & Money Digging, pp. 2-3; Hel. 13:34-36.

22 As cited in Hand, "Treasure," p. 115-116;

Tanner and Tanner, Joseph Smith & Money Digging, p. 2;

HDA 7: 1008-9.

23 Hand, "Treasure," p. 115;

HDA 7:1004-7, 1:1079, 1080, s.v. Berggeister.

Byrd Howell Granger, A Motif Index for Lost Mines and Treasures Applied to Redaction of Arizona Legends, and to Lost Mine and Treasure Legends Exterior to Arizona, Folklore Fellows Communications, No. 218

(Helsinki, Finland, and Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1977), pp. 220-25, motif g.

24 Wayland D. Hand, "The Three Nephites in Popular Tradition," Southern Folklore Quarterly 2 (1938): 123-29, A. E. Fife, "The Legend of the Three Nephites Among the Mormons," JAF 53 (1940): 1-49;

Austin E. Fife, "Popular Legends of the Mormons," California Folklore Quarterly 1 (1942): 122-25;

Fife and Fife, pp. 233-249;

Hector Lee, The Three Nephites: The Substance and Significance of the Legend in Folklore, University of New Mexico Publications in Language and Literature, no. 2 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1949);

William A. Wilson, "Mormon Legends of the Three Nephites Collected at Indiana University," Indiana Folklore 2 (1969): 3-35;

"The Vanishing Hitchhiker among the Mormons," Indiana Folklore 8 (1975): 79-97.

25 Richard K. Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey, "The Vanishing Hitchhiker," California Folklore Quarterly 1 (1942): 303-35.

Wayland D. Hand, "The Three Nephites," American Notes and Queries 2 (1942-43): 56-57

26 Stith Thompson, MotifIndex of Folk-Literature. A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books and Local Legends, 6 vols. (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1955-58, B 151.1.1 (horse determines road to be taken). See also Alexander Haggerty Krappe, "Guiding Animals," JAF, 55 (1942): 228-46.

27 Brown Collection, 6: xxiv-xxvi.

28 T. M. Pearce, "The Bad Son (El Mal Hijo) in Southwestern Spanish Folklore," Western Folklore 9 (1950): 295-301, cf. Gannon, no. 9845.

29 Franz Schmarsel, Die Sage von der untergegangenen Stadt, Literarhistorische Forschungen, No. 53 (Berlin 1913).

30 Brown Collection, no. 814, 7239.

31 Wayland D. Hand, "P ade pisser s and Wekschissers: A Folk Medical Inquiry into the Cause of Styes," in the author’s Magical Medicine, pp. 261-72.

32 Widdowson, If You Don’t Be Good, esp. ch. 4;

"Deformity, Disease, and Physical Ailment as Divine Retribution," in Magical Medicine, pp. 57-68.

33 "Aus Daniel Wunderlichs Buch," Deutsches Museum [Leipzig] 1 (1776): 448.

Bürgers sämmtlich Werke, hrsg. August Wilhem Bohtz (Göttingen: Verlag der Dietterichschen Buchhandlung, 1835), p. 321, my free translation.