Richard Bauman is Distinguished Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Communication and Culture, and Anthropology, and Director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington. His books include Verbal Art as Performance (1977), Let Your Words Be Few (1983), Story, Performance, and Event (1986), and Voices of Modernity (with Charles L. Briggs, 2003).

• Acknowledgments viiNote on Transcription x1 Introduction: Genre, Performance, and the Production of Intertextuality 12 “And the Verse is Thus”: Icelandic Stories About Magical Poems 153 “I’ll Give You Three Guesses”: The Dynamics of Genre in the Riddle Tale 344 “What Shall We Give You?”: Calibrations of Genre in a Mexican Market 585 “Bell, You Get the Spotted Pup”: First Person Narratives of a Texas Storyteller 826 “That I Can’t Tell You”: Negotiating Performance with a Nova Scotia Fisherman 1097 “Go, My Reciter, Recite My Words”: Mediation, Tradition, Authority 1288 Epilogue 159Notes 163References 167Index 178

“Richard Bauman, one of the world’s foremost scholars of folkloric texts and performances, is here at the peak of his career. From street cries in a Mexican market to Icelandic folktales, from practical jokes in rural Texas to the yarns of Nova Scotia fishermen, this book takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of the words through which people make meaning out of life.” Greg Urban, University of Pennsylvania “In a set of empirically rich, evocative essays, Bauman continues his masterly explorations at the border of linguistic anthropology, literary theory, and the study of oral poetics. Together, these chapters provide an exemplary theoretical perspective on genre and the cultural implications of performance.” Susan Gal, University of Chicago “Richard Bauman has given us a wonderful book, which draws on his wide-ranging experience in many places and cultures, on his expertise in both oral discourse and written texts, and on his erudite knowledge in many academic disciplines---linguistic anthropology, folklore, and literary criticism.” Joel Sherzer, University of Texas, Austin "A fresh take on folklore studies and a valuable addition to the corpus of writing on linguistic anthropology. The writer balances attention to detail with the ability to present arguments elegantly and clearly." Social Anthropology