"Old Gally Mander." In Isobel Gordon Carter. "Mountain White Folk-Lore: Tales from the Southern Blue Ridge." Journal of American Folklore 38 (1925): pp. 340-74 (this tale on pp. 368-70). Available online through library services such as JSTOR. A landmark article containing Jack tales told by Jane Hicks Gentry (1863-1925), recorded by Carter in 1923. Carter comments on the decline of storytelling among mountain families who used to know them better, although they had not been recorded as ballads had been. Old Gally Mander is a stingy old lady who lives on ash cakes and water. Her hired girls poke around to find her gold and silver so she sends her son across the ocean to find a girl who won't know about the money. That girl is told not to look up the chimney so she does, and runs off with the money. She won't help a cow, horse and peach tree that she passes, so they betray her when Old Gally Mander pursues her and then throws her in the ocean. Later her son gets another girl who does all the same things. His third girl stops to help the cow, horse, and peach tree, so they help her escape. Old Gally Mander then lives alone on ash cakes and water for being so stingy. "Gallymanders! Gallymanders!" In Chase, Richard. Grandfather Tales; American-English Folk Tales. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948. Reprinted in Smith, Jimmy Neil, ed. Why the Possum's Tail is Bare and Other Classic Southern Stories. New York: Avon, 1993, pp. 31-38. "Gallymanders, Gallymanders." In Grandfather's Greatest Hits. Whitesburg, KY: June Appal, 1900-1979? LP sound recording. Tales from Chase's Grandfather Tales including "Soap, Soap, Soap," "Chunk of Meat," "Mutsmag," "Two Old Women's Bet." With voices of Don Baker, Jeff Kiser, Marcia McIntosh, Jane Moody, Jack Wright, Angie DeBord, Frank Taylor. Roadside Theater (WorldCat information). "Gallymander." In Hicks, Orville, and Julia Taylor Ebel. Jack Tales and Mountain Yarns, As Told By Orville Hicks. Illus. Sherry Jenkins Jensen. Boone, NC: Parkway, 2009. pp. 129-37. Comments by Hicks and in Thomas McGowan's Afterword describe Orville learning old tales from his mother and from his cousins Ray and Rosa Hicks, but don't give other notes on particular tales. Hicks notes that "This was one of Mama's favorite tales. I remember her telling it many a time. She probably thought it suited the boys and the girls both" (p. 137). In this tale an old woman hires a lazy girl who tries to take her gold but the cow, horse and peach tree help the old woman catch her, so she is beaten and sent away. A good girl who is hired next tries to put the money back when she finds it and then she runs off and escapes because the things she stops to help don't betray her. No one knows whether the old woman found her money bag lying in the ashes. (See another tale from this book below.) "The Gold in the Chimley" collected by Leonard Roberts. In South From Hell-fer-Sartin': Kentucky Mountain Folk Tales. U of KY Press, 1955. Rpt. Berea, KY: The Council of the Southern Mountains, 1964, pp. 65-68. This tale reprinted in Dorson, Richard M., ed. Buying the Wind: Regional Folklore in the United States. Chicago, 1964, in the third section devoted to "Southern Mountaineers," where cante fables are discussed. Also in Clarkson, Atelia, and Cross, Gilbert, B., eds. World Folktales: A Scribner Resource Collection. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980. "The Old Witch's Gold" collected by Leonard Roberts. In Old Greasybeard. Illus. Leonard Epstein. Pikeville, KY: Pikeville College Press, 1980. pp. 90-94. Reprinted as "Gol' in the Chimley." In Cohn, Amy L., ed. From Sea to Shining Sea: A Treasury of American Folklore and Folk Songs. New York: Scholastic, 1993, in the section "Bridging the Gap," illustrated by Molly Bang. Two sisters who sought a place to stay in a witch's house are told not to look up the chimney while the witch is gone. When they are asked in turn to help a neglected cow, sheep, horse, and mill, the girl who doesn't stop to help is caught by the witch and turned into stone. The good girl who does stop to help is helped by the animals and mill, which grinds up the witch. The "little girl," who escapes with the witch's bag of gold, "turned the stone back into her sister and they lived happily ever after" (p. 94). "Bag O' Gold." In Roberts, Leonard. I Bought Me a Dog: A Dozen Authentic Folktales from the Southern Mountains. Berea, KY: The Council of the Southern Mountains, 1954. The old woman's daughters find her gold after being told not to look in the chimney when she is napping, A fence, peartree, horse, cow, and mill won't keep the first girl's secret because she won't stop to help them. The old woman beats the gal to death when she finds her with the gold. The second girl flees with the gold and stops to help each thing along the way, so they each do some violent harm to the old woman. The end simply says, "The mill, hit ground her all to pieces." The verses recited by the fleeing girls and the old woman in pursuit all say, after a line with each inquiry in it, "With a wig wig wag and a great big bag / And all the gold and silver in it / That's been made since I've been born" (see "With a Wig, With a Wag" from Massachusetts below). Roberts' headnote discusses the cante fable form and how the blending or separation of verse and prose may have evolved in folk narratives. "Jack and the Witch's Tale." Jack rescues his brothers and outsmarts a witch with the help of magical animals and objects in R. Rex Stephenson's story theatre script He obtains help by first doing favors for the witch's cow, pig, and mill so they help hide him from the witch, while his brothers would not take time to help the things that asked them for favors. (See The Jack Tales in Stephenson bibliography.) "Ol' Gally Mander." Van Laan, Nancy. With a Whoop and a Holler: A Bushel of Lore from Way Down South. Illus. Scott Cook. New York: Atheneum, 1998. Based on Isobel Gordon Carter's "Mountain White Folk-lore: Tales from the Southern Blue Ridge: (Journal of American Folklore, vol. 25, 1925). Notes also refer to the old English folktale "The Old Witch." Van Laan shortened the tale and added rhymed refrains. Other tales from the Mountains in this book are "Jack Runs Off" (similar to "Jack and the Robbers"), and "Three Foots." Also includes rhymes, riddles, and superstitions. A map shows where the tales originate in different Southern regions, including the mountains. The amusing illustrations depict quirky human and animal characters in earth tones. Van Laan's "Ol' Gally Mander" also reprinted in the high school textbook Classical and World Mythology. A Nextext anthology. Evanston, Ill: Nextext, 2000. "Ash Cakes and Water." Told by Big Nelt. In Campbell, Marie, ed. Tales from the Cloud Walking Country. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958. pp. 83-85. Gally Mandy is the old woman who is too stingy to eat anything besides ash cakes and water. Her son marries three women in a row from across the ocean and Gally Mandy tells each one not to look up the chimney, so she does. Each one attempts to take the old woman's money that is hidden up the chimney but the first and second women refuse to help a cow, a nag, and a peach tree that ask her for help. so they help Gally Mandy catch the thieves. The third one does help the critters so they discourage Gally Mandy from chasing the woman, who takes the money across the ocean and spends it. "Two Gals." Told by Anndrena Belcher. Telling Tales. Program 2 in KY Educational TV series of 16 folktale programs, 1990. In Part One. See http://www.ket.org/education.for information on programs and videos. Teacher's Guide online contains Table of Contents in Part One, then summaries of each tale and discussion questions and activities. Also has background on the storytellers and Introduction to Storytelling by Belcher. This tale is attributed to Leonard Roberts' Old Greasybeard. The guide says that the lazy girl and "greedy woman" are eaten by snakes in the traditional tale, while this filmed telling softens the ending. (In the Leonard Roberts versions listed above, the witch is ground up by the mill at the end.) "Old Gally Mander." In Rugoff, Milton, ed. A Harvest of World Folktales. New York: Viking, 1949. Other American tales include "Jack and the Varmints," "Jack's Hunting Trips,""The Tar Baby," "Dicey -- and Orpus," "The Man and his Boots," "Big John the Conqueror," "Why Women Always Take Advantage of Men," "Davy Crockett: Sunrise in his Pocket," "Paul Bunyan's Big Griddle," "Paul's Cornstalk," "John Henry and the Machine in West Virginia." "Gally Mander." In American Folk and Fairy Tales. Ed. Rachel Field. Illus. Margaret Freeman. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1929, pp. 197-222. Reprinted from Journal of American Folklore. This book includes "Big Music" by Margaret Prescott Montague, on Tony Beaver, and two other Southern Mountain Stories from Percy MacKaye's Tall Tales of the Kentucky Mountains: "The Mule Humans" and "The Hick'ry Pick-Tooth." Ken Oguss tells the North Carolina/Virginia tales "Gallymanders" and "Ash pet." In Parent, Michael, and Ken Oguss. Amelia. Gallymanders. Videocassette, 1979. WVPT-TV (Television station: Harrisonburg, Va.). Michael Parent tells his story "Amelia" and the Irish folk tale "Stone Soup" (from Worldcat).
"The Man on the Moon." In Hicks, Orville, and Julia Taylor Ebel. Jack Tales and Mountain Yarns, As Told By Orville Hicks. Illus. Sherry Jenkins Jensen. Boone, NC: Parkway, 2009. pp. 92-99. Comments by Hicks and in Thomas McGowan's Afterword describe Orville learning old tales from his mother and from his cousins Ray and Rosa Hicks, but don't give other notes on particular tales. In this tale mean and kind neighbor men are like the bad and good girls. The kind man helps an injured bird, who brings him a seed that grows into an immense field of cucumbers and when he cuts one open, it's full of gold. The impatient mean man wants such a bird so he injures one with his slingshot. It brings him a seed that grows into a vine leading to the moon. After he climbs it, the vine withers so he is angry being stuck on the moon but we can see him there still. (See "Gallymander" from this book above.)
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