World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power

In many places around the world, flutes and the sounds of flutes are powerful magical forces for seduction and love, protection, vegetal and human fertility, birth and death, and other aspects of human and non-human behavior. This book explores the cultural significance of flutes, flute playing, and flute players from around the world as interpreted from folktales, myths, and other stories--in a word, "flutelore." A scholarly yet readable study, World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power draws upon a range of sources in folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and literary analysis. Describing and interpreting many examples of flutes as they are found in mythology, poetry, lyrics, and other narrative and literary sources from around the world, veteran ethnomusicologist Dale Olsen seeks to determine what is singularly distinct or unique about flutes, flute playing, and flute players in a global context. He shows how and why world flutes are important for personal, communal, religious, spiritual, and secular expression and even, perhaps, existence. This is a book for students, scholars, and any reader interested in the cultural power of flutes.

A lifelong flutist performing classical, jazz, and many types of world flute music, Dale Olsen is a professor emeritus of ethnomusicology at Florida State University. His many books include Music of the Warao of Venezuela: Song People of the Rain Forest and Popular Music of Vietnam: The Politics of Remembering, The Economics of Forgetting.