Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

Plant Lore of the Mid-Twentieth Century
Take a long blade of grass. Cut a slit in the middle. Hold it in your hand and blow 
through it. You can call cows that way. We used to do that in New Orleans.
Make a slit near the bottom of the stem of the first clover. Take the next clover and 
insert the head through the slit until you have two chained together. Keep going until you 
have a necklace, bracelet, or headband. They hold together very well.
To sip honeysuckle, hold the flower between your fingers, like this (holds up two fin-
gers). Then suck on the honeysuckle like the hummingbirds do.
Hold a buttercup under someone’s chin to see if the person likes butter. It reflects on 
your chin if you do.
Blowing on dandelion fl uff—we used to do that, but I don’t remember why. It was 
just fun to do.
Boy learns to blow through a grass-blade whistle in Maine, 
2007. Photograph by Martha Harris.

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94 Children’s 
Folklore
My sister, Sarah Owens, gave me these explanations of her favorite plant lore 
in Raymond, Maine, in June 2007. Born in the early 1950s, she grew up in 
Washington, D.C., Japan, and Maryland and spent her young adulthood in New 
Orleans.
These reminiscences show great pleasure in learning about nature. In contrast 
to Alice Morse Earle’s description, there is no mention of gender distinctions. 
Blowing on dandelion fluff often has a connection to wishing. Jeanne R. Che-
sanow’s 
Honeysuckle Sipping
(1987) offers many other examples of plant lore of 
this time period.
Plant Lore of the Twenty-First Century
Jason: (to Berit) Find a good piece of grass that’s really thin. Cut it in half, like this. 
Hold it 
tight
between your fi ngers and blow 
hard!
Berit: (blows through her piece of grass) Like this?
Jason: Good!
Jason, 21 years old, taught his girlfriend, Berit, how to make a grass-blade 
whistle during Gravity Fest in Munnsville, New York, in July 2007. During the 
festival, which included street luge and gravity bike races, I watched many chil-
dren and teenagers making loud noises with grass-blade whistles. It is still fairly 
common for children to learn how to make grass-blade whistles from friends or 
relatives, especially in rural areas, but there is also a growing trend toward Web-
based instruction that preserves and codifies this form of material culture. Teach-
ers, camp counselors, and children old enough to use the Internet have become 
accustomed to using Web sites as sources of traditional knowledge.