SOURCE: Penrod, James H. “Folk Motifs in Old Southwestern Humor.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 19, no. 1 (March 1955): 117-24.

In the following essay, Penrod explores the “relationship of motifs in the Old Southwestern yarns and in the folklore of the world.”

Although he rendered an invaluable service in reacquainting the literary world with the Old Southwestern yarnspinners, Franklin J. Meine tended in his laudable zeal to exaggerate the originality and indigenous quality of Southwestern humor. In his words: “This early humor of the South had no counterpart in the humor of any other section of the United States. It was distinctly and peculiarly Southern; and it was provincial, wholly local.”¹ Students of the folktale can hardly fail to see the Southwestern yarns as part of a larger whole, the folklore of the world. This is not to say that Old Southwestern humor is lacking in local color, specific details, or individualized...