We were going down the road, and we came to this house. There was a little boy standing by the road just crying and crying.

We stopped, and we heard the biggest racket you ever heard up in the house.

"What's the matter, son?"

"Why, Maw and Paw are up there fightin'."

"Who is your Paw, son?"

"Well, that's what they are fightin' over."

Brimming with ballads, stories, riddles, tall tales, and great good humor, My Curious and Jocular Heroes pays homage to four people who guided and inspired Loyal Jones's own study of Appalachian culture. His sharp-eyed portraits introduce a new generation to Bascom Lunsford, the pioneer behind the "memory collections" of song and story at Columbia University and the Library of Congress; the Sorbonne-educated collector and performer Josiah H. Combs; Cratis D. Williams, the legendary father of Appalachian studies; and the folklorist and master storyteller Leonard W. Roberts. Throughout, Jones highlights the tales, songs, jokes, and other collected nuggets that define the breadth of each man's research and repertoire.

| Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction BASCOM LAMAR LUNSFORD Jokes, Stories, Songs, and Recitations That Lunsford Liked to Perform JOSIAH H. COMBS Combs's Stories, Scholarship, Wit, and Songs CRATIS D. WILLIAMS A Sampling of the Scholarship, Wit, and Humor of Cratis Williams LEONARD WARD ROBERTS Tales, Riddles, Jokes, and Songs from the Leonard Roberts Collection Notes Sources Index | "The reader will come away entranced, enchanted and captivated in addition to becoming well-versed in the lives and contributions of the pioneers in Appalachian folklore."—Appalachian Mountain Books
"My Curious and Jocular Heroes . . . effectively describes the ways that oral traditions contribute to a sense of place, and it is a fitting tribute to its subjects, who made the compilation of those traditions their life's work." —Journal of Appalachian Studies

"The strength of the volume rests in Jones's personal knowledge and analyses of the four men. Beyond that the book is replete with scores of tales, jokes, songs, and close readings of obscure words and their derivation. It is a gold mine for those who appreciate the region's culture." —North Carolina Historical Review "
|Loyal Jones is the author of numerous books on Appalachian culture, including Country Music Humorists and Comedians. He served as director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College for twenty-three years.