Folklore is a spontaneous product of vitality and imagination. It needs a careful interpreter whose reports have these same two qualities. Seldom has there been a happier combination than that of the vivid, fantastic folklore of the West Indies and interpreter Zora Neale Hurston…. [She is] one of the most delightfully alive personalities of our day. She knows what she is talking about and she talks with a zest and a humor and a genuineness that make her work the best that I know in the field of contemporary folklore.

The first part of "Tell My Horse" is a sort of practice walk-around in Jamaica…. Stopping off at that British island to hunt the wild hog, collect proverbs, observe marriage customs, hear the "Night Song After Death" served to let her get her hand in for the big job ahead.

It is when Zora Hurston begins writing about...