Roots and Legends

New York–based Wellfleet Press publishes illustrated reference books for the price-conscious consumer. Wellfleet focuses primarily on well-crafted and researched home reference; entertainment; faith; and mind, body, and spirit titles. We offer our customers a unique combination of both completely original content as well as illustrated editions of classics texts.Kristin G. Congdon is Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Humanities at the University of Central Florida. She has published extensively on art, folklore, and multicultural education. Her authored or co-authored books include The Making of an Artist: Desire, Courage, and Commitment; Happy Clouds, Happy Trees: The Bob Ross Phenomenon; American Folk Art: A Regional Reference; Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Art; and Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales. She has been senior editor of The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education and Studies in Art Education. Dr. Congdon has been president of the Florida Folklore Society, chair of the Florida Folklife Council, and has served in numerous other leadership roles including the Director of the University of Central Florida’s Cultural Heritage Alliance. She has curated several exhibitions at the Orlando Museum of Art, Crealde School of Art in Winter Park, Florida, and more recently, Rooted Visions, a traveling exhibition with the Mid-America Arts Alliance. In 2015, Dr. Congdon founded the Alliance for Truth and Justice, an all-volunteer group whose goal is to facilitate a new era of race relations from the ground up—through research, educational forums, exhibitions, historical markers, and commemorative soil collections--in Orange County, Florida, which was noted to be the worst county in the South, per capita, for lynchings between 1877 and 1950 (Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, 2015).

• IntroductionWhy Things Are the Way They AreAnansi and NothingWhy Spiders Are Always Found in the Corners of CeilingsHow Wisdom Became the Property of the Human RaceWhy the Lizard Continually Moves His Head Up and DownWhy We See Ants Carrying Bundles as Big as ThemselvesThunder and AnansiOhia and the Thieving DeerWhy Men and Women Don’t Have Tails Like CowsHow the Gopher Turtle Was MadeHow the Tortoise Got Its ShellHow Mushrooms First GrewWhy the Sun and the Moon Live in the SkyWhy the Moon Waxes and WanesWhy the Moon and the Stars Receive Their Light from the SunMorals Taught Through Animal TalesThe Squirrel and the SpiderThe Leopard and the RamTo Lose an Elephant for the Sake of a Wren is a Very Foolish Thing to DoWhy the Leopard Can Only Catch Prey on Its Left SideThe Lion and the WolfRabbit Rides WolfKing Chameleon and the AnimalsThe Creeturs Go to the BarbecueBrer Rabbit’s FrolicBrer Rabbit Finds the Moon in the Mill PondBrother Bear's Big HouseHow Mr. Lion Lost His WoolBrer Rabbit’s Flying TripBrer Rabbit and the Gold MineHow Brer Rabbit Got a HouseBrer Rabbit and the Partridge NestBrer Rabbit Gets Brer Fox a HossBrer Rabbit Treats the Creeturs to a RaceThe Tar BabyBearing WitnessBig John Gives Old Master a SignMorning SunriseThe Swimming ContestThe FightBig Feet ContestThe YearlingDividing SoulsThe Talking Eggs: A Story from LouisianaBig SixteenDiddy-Wah-DiddyPeople with Unusual PowersUncle MondayRailroad BillA Ghost Story About an AuntThe Tail of the Princess ElephantHow a Hoodoo Doctor WorksÓgún and Aerosol ArtThe Ballad of John HenryFarmer Mybrow and the FairiesThe MermaidBraziel Robinson and the Root-DoctorsThe Flying ManPermissionsResourcesIndex