Folklore

Lauren and David Abramson grew up in a "die-hard Baltimore hockey family," so it came as no surprise that the skating siblings came early to a private, pre-release screening of a certain new movie at Loews Theater at Owings Mills last week. It's not that they didn't already know the plot of Miracle. Like any good hockey kids, they were already so well-versed in the tale of the U.S. Olympic team and its long-shot quest for the gold medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Games that they could recite it by heart.

Please put your books on the floor, and write the answers to the following questions in your test booklet: 1. What was the first commercial product to be shipped using the transportation systems of the upper Monongahela River? 2. Compare and contrast the ecological outlook for fish species in the Monongahela before and after the 1972 Clean Water Act. 3. Explain the derivation of the name "Monongahela." Morgantown, W.Va., is a university town, so you would expect exam questions like these.

Families are always fertile ground for novelists. With a little digging, even an average family turns out to be as filled with intrigue as the Borgias. Topping this early fall list are three books about families that are spectacularly beyond average. Caramelo (Knopf, 448 pages, $24) is a sprawling, raucous affair that weaves together several generations of la familia Reyes. This is Sandra Cisneros' first novel since 1985's The House on Mango Street. That book, told from a young Mexican-American girl's viewpoint, was elegant and simple.

Long ago, in a land of gods and giants and monsters, brave Heracles rescued a young woman, Hesione, from the gaping jaws of the gruesome Monster of Troy. Hesione threw rocks at the sea creature while Heracles shot arrows at it. The heroics of mythic Heracles are chronicled on a Corinthian vase from the sixth century B.C., the earliest depiction of the Monster of Troy story and a prized artifact at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. For years, art historians have deemed the vase's rendering of the sea monster amateurish - not at all like the undulating bodies with piercing eyes rendered on other vases from the same period.

HAFNARFJORDUR, Iceland -- This can be a tough country for blasting out a foundation or constructing a roadbed.Never mind the boiling geysers, wind-blasted precipices or frozen barrens. It's not the razor-sharp lava rock that daunts builders; it's the hidden people lurking below."There are all sorts of beings beneath our stones," says Brynjolfur Snorrason, a folklorist often asked to advise contractors on how best to avoid the lairs of Iceland's elves and other seldom-seen creatures, whose presence nonetheless seems to permeate this far northern island nation.

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock."Now they are all on their knees,"An elder said as we sat in a flockBy the embers in hearthside ease."The Oxen," by Thomas HardyHorses get a few crunchy apples and carrots. The cattle get extra straw for their bedding. And the leafiest, greenest bales of hay are often set aside for Christmas Eve.Whether they've heard the old legend about animals praying or talking at midnight on Christmas Eve, those who make their living with these beasts find they can't resist doing some extra-special things for them on that night.

"The Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore: Arts and Crafts, Ballads and Beliefs, Real and Imaginary Heroes," by Alan Axelrod and Harry Oster (Penguin Reference, 527 pages, $45). Was Casey Jones real and did he die braking a train? (Yes.) Did 6-year-old George Washington cut down that cherry tree?(No, and even the infamously imaginative fifth edition of Mason Locke Weems' biography only suggests he damaged it.) Heavy on music, dance, Wild West and African-American entries, this book is a trivia-addict's delight, with much in the way of "suggested reading" to aid the seriously curious.

ST. CROIX RIVER, Maine -- Stephen Cobb has one eye on the sky as he leans forward in his canoe and dips his paddle into the warm currents that twist deep into this state's vast wilderness.As a bald eagle glides by and loons call in the distance, this 50-year-old river guide is worrying about the onset of a summer storm."That's called a sun dog," he says, pointing to the ring of haze around the late afternoon sun. "That means there's moisture in the upper atmosphere, and we can expect some rain tomorrow."

A "Way Back When" article in yesterday's Today section misspelled the name of Civil War Union Gen. Felix Agnus.The Sun regrets the errors.It's that time of the year when a barking dog late at night is listened to a little more closely than usual.Eerie shadows give a start and the mere rattling of shutters by the wind forces the mind to race ahead and contemplate things that go bump in the night.It's Halloween, that time of the year when regiments of costumed ghosts, goblins, witches and Frankensteins take to the streets to go trick or treating or crowd into church halls for parties.

THE ROLE of religion in motivating art is no secret. So the spiritual power of the large show "Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou" at the Baltimore Museum of Art is not surprising.The artistic tradition of Haiti is well-established. Many of its modern artists sell well.The religious tradition is also well-known. Vodou (which Americans have spelled voodoo) is a mix of Central and West African religious beliefs, which slaves brought with them, the Catholicism of their French masters, and a bit of Freemasonry and popular world culture.