Wisconsin Folklore: Home

A comprehensive collection of writings about the varied folklore in the American state of Wisconsin, this anthology is divided into five sections: terms and talk; storytelling; music, song and dance; beliefs and customs; and material traditions and folklife.

""Wisconsin Folklore" was based on his UW-Extension radio course that was published weekly in 10 Wisconsin daily and 50 weekly newspapers. He was named that year by Gov. Lee Dreyfus as Wisconsin’s first “Honorary Folklorist.”"
-From www.wisconsinlitmap.com/walker-d-wyman.html

The spirit of Wisconsin resides in the valleys. Away back in, where life still moves at a more leisurely tempo, people like to exchange remembrances of the past, and to make salty comment on the puzzling present. Back along the valleys the remnants of pioneer days are visible in tree shrouded old houses, or among the grayed logs of a cabin, or in a bubbling spring in the hollow behind an old dwelling. Such remnants remind and reinforce memories of the past and faith in a future....Robert E. Gard and Dale O'Brien have fabricated their impressions of Wisconsin valleys into a haunting book of words and pictures: words that recall the past with nostalgia, and pictures that lend to the past a fleeting reality of the present. In order to collect material they traveled throughout Southwestern Wisconsin, and while one yarned and visited, the other was busy with camera recording faces and landscapes.

Albert Coryer, the grandson of a fur trade voyageur-turned-farmer, had a gift for storytelling. Born in 1877, he grew up in Prairie du Chien hearing tales of days gone by from his parents, grandparents, and neighbors who lived in the Frenchtown area. Because his mother's first language was English and his father's French, Albert was bilingual as well as bicultural. Throughout his life, Albert soaked up the local oral traditions, including narratives about early residents, local landmarks, interesting and funny events, ethnic customs, myths, and folklore.