INTRODUCTION

During the past forty years, I have collected stories illustrating the humor of the Southern highlander. Appalachia, especially that part of it in western North Carolina, was heavily populated with immigrants from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Some were folk of German origin. They brought with them not only their rugged individualism and their determination to work and to wrest homes out of the wilderness; they brought also a sense of humor and a dignity which have always been characteristic of a sturdy yeoman people. Their humor has certain consistencies which are identifiable. First of all, mountain humor, like all