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"It Was So Cold," #20 Swapping Stories
Lonnie Gray

 

Lonnie Gray: You were saying something about the geese carrying the pond. Well, a farmer had a nice pond. And in the wintertime, it began to turn cold one evening, real cold. Just about dark, a big drove of geese come over and lit in that pond. It was about dark. Everything froze over that night. It had turned freezing cold.

Fellow decided he'd go down there and shoot a few of them out of there before they got off. Geese'd come through and stop. Well he got down there with his gun and began to shoot them. They couldn't get their feet out of there. They began to flop their wings. They all got to flopping their wings together and they carried that pond off! Carried it off.

Renée Harvison: Now, did you see that happen?

Lonnie Gray: [Laughs hard.]

Renée Harvison: I believe it!

Mary Gray: I don't!

Renée Harvison: You got anymore tall tales like that?

Mary Gray: Shoot! He's made of them!

 

Notes to the Teacher: Here is another tale more common in the Ozarks and points north than in Louisiana. X1606.2.4.1*. Geese or ducks are frozen into lake: something scares them the next morning and they fly off with the whole lake. See Randolph (1951, 202) and Dorson (1946, 258).


About the Transcriptions

 

National Endowment for
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