Where folklore meets fantasy
Where haints drift through the hollows, and the old tales find a new voice
At long last, Ma Cloud tells the truth about the bushwhacker Alf Bolin.
Alf Bolin, Bushwhacker: Part One
For more stories of magic, mayhem, and mirth — the Possum knows the way.
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"Come here," she said to William, almost as if she were calling a dog. "Closer." He stepped so close to her he could feel her breath on his lips. "Touch the back of my neck," she said. William slipped his fingers under her hair. "Now touch my cheek." He stroked her cheek as gently as he killed her husband.
Read More About the Book"A rollicking novel that fuses the Ozarks folk tradition with meditations on beauty, suffering, and the meaning of it all."
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Published by Publerati, an independent publisher that donates books to developing countries.
With accompanying links, photos, and articles
Illustrated portrait of T. Allen McQuary
St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Sun., June 13, 1897, p. 40.
In 1897, a young Ozark newspaperman claimed a Little Rock plantation owner promised him $5,000 and his daughter's hand if he circumnavigated the globe dressed as the Purple Knight of the Ozarks. The quest was a lie. The girl never existed. But T. Allen McQuary's journey—traceable through newspaper archives from Missouri to Charleston to Oregon—was bizarrely real.
Follow the trail through actual newspaper clippings, court records, and a surviving promotional pamphlet. Watch as McQuary transforms from con artist to postmaster to embezzler, spinning increasingly grandiose tales in churches, schools, and Masonic halls across America until his tragic end in 1948.
Artist's rendering of the Purple Knight of the Ozarks
A serialized novel blending fact and fiction, with historical documentation
February 10, 2026
When John Thomas and the Reivers protest the Vietnam war, the firebrand preacher Gerald L.K. Smith protests their protest. Could there be a lesson here concerning Iran?
Otis Bulfinch's Ozarks Tales is a proud sponsor of
A podcast exploring authentic Ozark stories and mountain wisdom
Listen on AcastExplore Authentic Ozark & American Folktales
Discover genuine folktales and folklore research from the Library of Congress, early academic journals, and other public domain sources. These archives preserve the authentic voices and stories that have shaped American folk tradition for generations.
Over 4,000 songs and stories collected by folklorist Mary Celestia Parler throughout the Arkansas Ozarks, including ballads, tales, and oral histories.
Browse CollectionEarly scholarly collection of American folk narratives, customs, and beliefs. These foundational volumes document oral traditions from across the United States before modernization changed rural communities.
Read OnlineThe Max Hunter Collection featuring over 1,600 Ozark folk songs and stories from Missouri and Arkansas. Hear authentic voices telling the tales that inspired generations of storytellers.
Listen NowMultiple volumes of authentic Ozark folktales collected by the master folklorist, including 'Who Blowed Up the Church House?' and other classics.
Including: 'Who Blowed Up the Church House?', 'We Always Lie to Strangers', 'Ozark Magic and Folklore', and more
Read Full TextFirst-person accounts from formerly enslaved people in the Ozarks region, including folk stories, traditions, and cultural memories collected by the Federal Writers' Project.
Explore ArchiveMary Celestia Parler's extensive collection of Ozark folk songs, ballads, and oral histories. One of the most comprehensive collections of Southern mountain folklore ever assembled.
Access ArchiveA theological meditation on honest doubt
I've long believed that Doubt is the truest expression of Faith. If you're certain, then faith has nothing to do with it. You're operating on knowledge (or the illusion of such), which means faith simply doesn't apply...
As Tillich said, Doubt is not the opposite of Faith, it's an element of it. When Jesus cried from the cross, he was channeling King David's despair...
A meditation on Jung's mass inversion and divine comedy
The great psychologist Carl Jung wrote of a profound dream in which he witnessed a "mass inversion" - a cosmic reversal where the highest became lowest and the rejected became the chosen. In this vision, the outcasts and forgotten ones sailed not downward to damnation, but upward to salvation in vessels that defied all earthly logic...
On symbols, consciousness, and the radical meaning of the crucifix
So, people may read stories from my past or musings from my present and conclude I am not a believer in Christ. That, of course, depends on who you think Christ is. I am a believer in the Christ who functions within the human psyche as the Potential–facultas– to save us from ourselves...
If you forget where you came from, you can't get where you're going.
I adhere to one essential truth about folktales: No book captures the spirit of the folktale more fully than the Bible. The first thing you should know is that folktales come from "folks," and "folks" do not drive fancy cars and lounge by infinity pools. "Folks" sit on the cabin porch and drink homemade whiskey and strum the guitar...
On salvation, faith, and the meaning of John 3:16
So, the principal question that concerns most of us before converting to Christianity is, "How can I be saved from Hell?" Maybe we should be asking about the character of God or the mystery of the Holy Trinity. But most of us are concerned about our eternal destiny, and given the outrageous enormity of the idea of Hell, it is perfectly reasonable to want to avoid it...
What does faith in Christ entail?
Perhaps the famous question posed to Peter in the second chapter of Acts can help us sort that question out. After Peter told the crowd they were responsible for crucifying Jesus, they asked Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized..."
More theological musings coming:
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