Folklorist Jim Hoy grew up on a stock ranch near Cassoday, lived all his life in the Flint Hills where he developed a fascination with the folklife of ranching.
He heard tales of grasshoppers so big cowboys could ride them to herd cattle, summers so hot corn popped in the field.
On Jan. 7, at 7 p.m., Hoy brings such tall tales and exaggerated narratives to Iola Public Library. He will explore some of Kansas’s most outlandish legends and folktales and help the audience distinguish between myth, legend, and tale.
He is the author of 17 books, most notably “Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie,” which is available with others in the library’s Kansas Collection. He co-authors “Plains Folk,” a syndicated newspaper column.
Hoy’s research has taken him into the backroads of the American West, the tracks of the Australian bush, and the lanes of the English countryside, seeking, among other things, to discover cattle guards, hay barracks, folk songs and old-timers willing to talk about the way things were.
Hoy holds a Ph.D. in medieval English literature from the University of Missouri-Columbia and is the former director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State University.
