These are the folk tales from Dr. Helen Creighton’s life journey through the Maritime Provinces, collecting songs and ghost stories and old cures–and folk tales. Helen serves as our guide, introducing us to storytellers, setting the scene of the telling–and then she lets the person tell the story just as it was told to her.

The feel of the kitchen and the fish shed still cling to these stories. Some are long, really miraculous folk tales–miraculous in detail and in that they have managed to survive. Others are the brief riddle or the tantalizing quick-telling that a folklorist can expect along the way. Helen kept it all. And taken as a whole, the reality and intensity of those rare smaller pieces reveal their value in among the more finished, well-told tales.

Both Helen Creighton and A Folk Tale Journey Through the Maritimes are Atlantic treasures. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Taft and Ronald Caplan, and a Motif Index by Michael Taft.