A collection of traditional Nova Scotian folktales, superstitions and home remedies compiled by the Canadian folklorist and author of Bluenose Ghosts. Beginning in 1928, Dr. Helen Creighton traveled across her native Nova Scotia seeking out and recording its rich heritage in the form of ghost stories, folktales, and folksongs. She first shared her findings in 1957 with the collection Bluenose Ghosts, and followed its success eleven years later with Bluenose Magic, both of which are considered classics of Maritime literature. This fascinating volume welcomes readers into a supernatural world of witchcraft, enchantment, and buried treasure. It shares stories of the region’s indigenous Mi’kmaq people as well as variations of tales brought over from Europe. Here too are folk remedies, dream interpretation, divination, superstitions, and more that has been passed on from generation to generation of Nova Scotia’s families

"Distilling baby's first tear into the eye of a blind man to make him see"; "Plucking herbs upward for emetics and downward for purgatives"; "Stroking one's goiter with a dead man's hand to make the growth shrivel away"--these are not beliefs and customs found among primitive peoples in remote parts of the world but are examples of hundreds of items of magical medicine found in Professor Hand's remarkable collection of essays dealing with this neglected field in twentieth-century Europe and America. Fantasy and imagination still have free reign in people's lives, more than any of us will admit. In a time when science is preeminent, irrational thinking ca lay hold on the mid of man as much as in olden times. Folk medicine has expanded in recent years to include holistic medicine and other forms of alternative medicine, but little attention has been paid to magical medicine. Despite the benefits of medical science in an advance culture, the magical medicine of Europe and America has clung to an unusually rich and original body of magical lore that lies at the base of its folk medical thought. Ethnomedicine in the inner cities of America can be better understood by practitioners who know something about folk medicine and, especially, if they kno some of the basics of magical medicine. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.

The popular conception of Nova Scotians as a pure, simple, idyllic people is false, argues Ian McKay. In The Quest of the Folk he shows how the province's tourism industry and cultural producers manipulated and refashioned the cultural identity of the region and its people to project traditional folk values. McKay offers an in-depth analysis of the infusion of a folk ideology into the art and literature of the region and the use of the idea of the "Simple Life" in tourism promotion. He examines how Nova Scotia's cultural history was rewritten to erase evidence of an urban, capitalist society, class and ethnic differences, and women's emancipation. In doing so he sheds new light on the roles of Helen Creighton, the Maritime region's most famous folklorist, and Mary Black, an influential handicrafts revivalist, in creating this false identity.

Uses the principles of sacred geometry, archaeological evidence, and Native American legend to discover the site of a secret Templar settlement in Nova Scotia • Offers evidence that Scottish prince Henry Sinclair not only sailed to the New World 100 years before Columbus, but that he also established a refuge there for the Templars fleeing persecution • Shows that the Grail, the holy bloodline connecting the House of David to the Merovingian dynasty through Jesus and Mary Magdalene, was hidden in the New World In 1398, almost 100 years before Columbus arrived in the New World, the Scottish prince Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, sailed to what is today Nova Scotia, where his presence was recorded by Micmac Indian legends about Glooskap. This was the same Prince Henry Sinclair who offered refuge to the Knights Templar fleeing the persecution unleashed against the order by French king Philip the Fair at the beginning of the 14th century. With evidence from archaeological sites, indigenous legend, and sacred geometry handed down by the Templar order to the Freemasons, author William F. Mann has now rediscovered the site of the settlement established by Sinclair and his Templar followers in the New World. Here they found a safe refuge for the Grail--the holy bloodline connecting the House of David to the Merovingian Dynasty through the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene--until the British exiled all the Acadians in 1755.

Ian McKay shows how the tourism industry & cultural producers have manipulated the cultural identity of Nova Scotia to project traditional folk values. He offers analysis of the infusion of folk ideology into the art & literature of the region, & the use of the idea of the 'simple life' in tourism promotion.

An ethnopoetic study of Maritime narratives collected by Helen Creighton. In addition to the presentation of the original texts, brief descriptions of the storytellers are offered and the context in which the stories were told leads to a consideration of the art of storytelling in this region.

“Crooker, who is a good historian and also quite witty, tells a tale of folly and obsession” surrounding the legendary treasure off of Canada’s east coast (Booklist). For over two centuries, the mysterious labyrinth of shafts and tunnels under Oak Island, a tiny island on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, has been the scene of a frantic search by scores of treasure hunters from two continents. They believe that the shafts and intricate man-made flooding system hold the secret to a treasure of untold wealth. Although millions have been spent, bitter feuds have erupted, and men have died, the treasure has remained as elusive as the answers to who built the labyrinth, why and how it was constructed, and the nature of the treasure itself. Until now. In his second book on the Oak Island mystery, William Crooker meticulously sifts through the evidence unearthed by treasure hunters on the island, past and present. Then, armed with some starling new discoveries, he neatly fits the pieces together to offer a plausible solution to the baffling puzzle of Oak Island. “Crooker, an engineer and surveyor, presents both a thorough historical review of the various digs and a look at all the theories about the treasure.” —Library Journal

This new, thoroughly updated edition of Bradt’s Nova Scotia remains the most comprehensive guide available to this increasingly popular region of eastern Canada. New direct flights from the UK make visiting easier than ever before, helping to fuel the growth of tourist numbers to the many new distilleries and wineries, all of which are covered in this new edition. Virtually surrounded by the sea, the region boasts 4,600 miles of coastline, superb seafood, a rich folklore, quiet roads and a wealth of outdoor pursuits. Travelling here feels like going back to a time when life's pleasures were simpler: shopping at a Farmers’ Market or a roadside fruit stall, buying lobster fresh off the boat at the wharf, or photographing the lighthouse by the old fishing village. What’s more, it's not hard to get off the beaten track here.

Contains over 500 articles Ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings, more than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and practices. The alphabetically arranged entries vary from concise definitions to detailed surveys, each accompanied by a brief, up-to-date bibliography. Special features *More than 2000 contributors *Over 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, crafts, and more *Alphabetically arranged *Entries accompanied by up-to-date bibliographies *Edited by America's best-known folklore authority

This volume provides a historical overview of the development and role of Anglo-Canadian folklore studies in Canada and their relationship to similar research conducted with respect to French Canadians, minority groups within Canada, within the wider Canadian context, and at the international level.