Richard Chase (folklorist)

Richard Thomas Chase (February 15, 1904 Ã¢ÂÂ February 2 1988) was an American folklorist and an authority on English-American folklore.

Biography

Chase compiled and edited several books of folktales and folk games (especially Appalachian), including:

Old Songs and Singing Games (1938)
The Jack Tales: told by RM Ward and his kindred in the Beech Mountain section of Western North Carolina and by other descendants of Council Harmon (1803-1896) elsewhere in the southern mountains; with three tales from Wise County, Virginia (1943)
Grandfather Tales: American-English Folk Tales (1948),
Hullabaloo, and Other Singing Folk Games (1949)
The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus (1955)
American Folk Tales and Songs and other examples of English-American traditions as preserved in the Appalachian Mountains and elsewhere in the United States. (1956)
"American Folk Tales and Songs: with Paul Clayton and Jean Ritchie singing and Richard Chase Telling Tales" September 4, 1956
various spoken word recordings including Richard Chase Tells Three Grandfather Tales.

Chase was born near Huntsville, Alabama and graduated Antioch College in 1929. He lived in California from 1964 to 1975 and was a regular at the Southern Renaissance Pleasure Faire, created by Ron and Phyllis Patterson, in Ventura County, California, where he is remembered for holding court under a large oak tree. He introduced English Country Dancing to the faire, bringing a group of his students from Claremont College. Chase had one daughter, Ann Gay Chase Applegate.