The Brides' Ship and Other Tales of the Unusual

Edith Fowke is a professor emeritus at York University and author of the
recently published Canadian Folklore: Perspectives on Canadian Culture.

This is a collection of 15 short stories mainly about unusual items in
Nova Scotia’s history. Most of these will be unknown to the readers.

The title of the title story refers to the British authorities’
program of sending single girls to be married in their Nova Scotia
colony. One girl died on the trip and the friend who delivered the bag
of oatmeal she was taking to her lover later married the lover. Other
tales recall quintuplets born in Nova Scotia more than fifty years
before the Dionnes; a Pictou County girl who became an international
singing star; unusual and humorous carvings on tombstones; and a man who
was hanged on the evidence of the murdered man’s head. There are items
about a local chewing tobacco, a stone statue of a woman, and a
motorless car towed across the continent.

Some of the stories are interesting, but they are slight and completely
undocumented. A list of references would have improved the book.