The paisano, or roadrunner, is the emblem of the Texas Folklore Society. However, Paisanos is not a bird book—it is a folklore miscellany, a collection of essays on folklore generally, but mainly on Texas folklore. Paisanos covers a wide field of folklore, from the academic to the popular, from the scientific to the mystical, and from studies of uses of the past to practices in folklore that are still very much a part of our lives.

Francis Edward Abernethy is Regents Professor Emeritus of English at Stephen F. Austin State University, the former executive secretary and editor of the Texas Folklore Society, the curator of exhibits for the East Texas Historical Association, and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. In addition to having edited numerous Texas Folklore Society publications, he has written Singin’ Texas, Legends of Texas’ Heroic Age, and all three volumes of the Texas Folklore Society history, published by the University of North Texas Press.