Folk Travelers: Ballads, Tales and Talk Page: 35
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FOLKLORE IN NATURAL HISTORY
to get even one eyewitness. There were those who had heard squawk-
ing and flapping in the old dead hackberry tree where the chickens
roosted and had rushed out there just after that damned old owl had
made off with the fattest hen on the place. And "surenuff" next
morning feathers were scattered all over the place - surely light
evidence to sustain so heavy an indictment.
In 1942 I struck a hot trail. Miss Edna McCormick, at that time
professor of mathematics in the Southwest Texas State Teachers
College at San Marcos, said her father had actually seen an owl do
this very thing. My heart fluttered a little as I asked her if her father
were still living, for I needed a firsthand observation from a living
witness. Yes, he was alive, living in Denton, Texas.
With reference to the owl and the chicken [his reply to my letter
began], your letter received and the facts are as follows:
At my father's home in Denton on a moonlight night, about 67 years
ago, I was in the yard near an unfinished crib. The ridgepole was exposed,
and chickens were roosting on it. I saw an owl light beside a hen, and
begin pushing it. The owl tried several times to push the hen off the
roost, and every time the owl pushed the hen would squawk. [These
lovely details! what a witness!] The owl seemed to know, the only chance
to carry off the hen was to force it off the roost, and catch it on the fly.
[Here I drew a deep breath. Now I have it nailed down, I muttered. But
alas! there was a final sentence.]
I frightened the owl away to save the hen.
Very truly yours,
W. L. McCormick.
James R. Simmons, Contributing Editor of The Land,"' quotes and
flatly contradicts the eminent naturalist, Roy Chapman Andrews'
debunkation of two folk stories: (1) that of how handily a fox can
make off with a fat goose; and (2) the old, old story of the snake's
swallowing its young.
Regarding the first, Simmons quotes Andrews as saying that the
fox never undertakes to make off with anything larger than he can
handle. His jaws and body size are not built for a quarry as big as
a goose, turkey or heavy fowl.
Just the other morning [replies Editor Simmons], I saw a red fox35
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Folk Travelers: Ballads, Tales and Talk (Book)
This volume of the Publications of the Texas Folklore Society contains popular folklore of Texas and Mexico, including traveling anecdotes, folk ballads, folklore in natural history, as well as information about black and white magic, Western animals, and cattle brands. The index begins on page 259.
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Texas Folklore Society. Folk Travelers: Ballads, Tales and Talk, book, 1953; Dallas, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38314/m1/41/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.