Folk Tales Collection spurs fond memories> Stories showcase Franco-American lore

“Of Kings and Fools: Stories of the French Tradition in North America” by Michael Parent and Julien Olivier, August House Publishers, Little Rock, Ark., 1996; 206 pages, paperback, $12.95

For those who grew up hearing stories about such characters as the loup-garou, Lutins and Ti-Jean, a new book from storytellers Michael Parent and Julien Olivier will bring back warm memories.

For those who did not, the book is a revealing glimpse into the folk-tale traditions of Franco-Americans in the Northeast, their version of spoken French, and into the shaping forces of church and family.

“Of Kings and Fools: Stories of the French Tradition in North America” is a collection of more than 30 folk tales that have been gathered, translated and retold by Parent and Olivier. Each story has been passed down to the present day through generations of Franco-Americans.

The authors drew some of the tales from the rich life experiences of their forebears, and found others in archives and published collections from around the United States and Canada.

Parent is a native of Lewiston now based in Charlottesville, Va., who had embarked on a career as a high school teacher before deciding to shift gears to reinvent himself as a storyteller, singer and juggler.

Olivier, an accredited translator who makes his home in Barrington, N.H., has researched, written and lectured extensively on Franco-American history, language and culture. His area of specialty is folklore and oral history.

Parent’s childhood revolved around his family’s tailor shop and his grandparents’ homestead in Lewiston, one of the many places where Franco-Americans settled after leaving French Canada.

It was at his grandparents’ home about three miles from the center of town where the family gathered on Sundays and special occasions to hear the latest news, jokes and stories — mostly in French, Parent notes in the introduction.

Observes Olivier: “Family stories were at the heart of everyday life. These belonged to no one and to everyone. Undoubtedly, a lesson could be learned from these stories.”

Although the stories appear in English, the authors have retained much of the regional French dialect still spoken in parts of Quebec and the northeastern United States.

“This dialect or flavor of French is as different from `standard French’ as American English is from that spoken in London. This flavor of French is the one we grew up hearing and speaking. It contains the kinds of quirks and eccentricities that make languages, as well as the people who speak them, so endlessly unique and fascinating,” Olivier writes.

To help the uninitiated better understand this regional form of French, the authors include a glossary in which they define the French terms used in the folk tales.

Even better than the glossary, however, are the notes for each story in the back of the book. There, the authors reveal the source of each story — who told it, and where it was told, or where it has appeared in print.

The result is a rarely seen global perspective on the interconnectedness between Francos and the rest of the world.

Ti-Jean, we discover, is an almost universal character. The English equivalent is Jack (as in Jack and the Beanstalk), while the Spanish have their Don Juan adventures.

Poucet’s English version is Tom Thumb, and the character known as Morvette (or Snot-nose) has counterparts in Armenian and Russian folk tales.

The Parent-Olivier collection of Franco-American folk tales is part of the American Storytelling series by August House Publishers Inc. of Little Rock, Ark.

Other titles in the series examine the folk tale traditions of Appalachia, the Midwest and the United States in general. Sure to strike a chord with the Franco crowd in these parts, however, are “Still Catholic After All These Fears,” and “Cajun Folktales.”