American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore collects together a variety of myths, legends, and tall tales, but these are terms that require a little explanation. Myth is an English word derived from the Greek mythos, which refers to a “story.” In common American usage, myth most often refers to ancient stories about the origin of the universe and all the living things on earth, which are viewed in modern times as literature or fairy tales. For most readers in the modern world, these ancient stories have lost their sacred and religious quality. Myth is also often used as a shorthand term for patent falseness, as in the common term “urban myth,” or as in the title of the popular show Mythbusters. In both of these senses, as commonly understood by many Americans, myth implies something imaginary or untrue that someone in the distant past formerly believed, but which is no longer “believable.” It is no surprise, then, that many Americans take offense if their personal beliefs or the lore transmitted through their religious systems are referred to as myth or mythology.
This is extremely unfortunate. Much frustration and conflict comes from a misunderstanding of the technical meaning and proper usage of the term myth. To avoid these aggravations, readers can arrive at a better understanding of myth, starting with a recognition that myths are not falsehoods, but stories or narratives that people tell to explain the absurd or inexplicable, or to make meaning out of events and realities that are otherwise chaotic. Myths are therefore properly understood as ways in which cultures interpret the great mysteries of the cosmos and of life itself, and then impart these traditions to ensuing generations. Thus, rather than thinking of myth as a falsehood, it is better to consider the narrative as a way of wrestling with the mystery of Creation. Myths are sincere—even truthful—expressions of wonder and awe at the majesty of the universe, and although the details of these stories vary from place to place and people to people, the subtext of such stories is always a search for a way to discover and to describe fundamental truths.
Legend, on the other hand, is a story from the knowable past that is told as true, a narrative with some appearance of verisimilitude to life as we perceive it in the everyday world. These stories are generally based on events or figures that are historical or that are at least generally believed to have been so. In addition, legend, as commonly used by Americans, refers to the narrative embroidery that makes history more attractive and engaging. Thus the legends of Johnny Appleseed or Geronimo or Elvis or Billy the Kid are the trappings with which these historical characters have been invested by the generations of storytellers who followed them and who used their histories as grist for their narrative mills. Legends are often didactic in nature—meaning they are meant to teach—and they impart cultural concepts in addition to any grains of historical accuracy. Therefore, legends also strive for a form of truth, a kind of “cultural truth,” as it were, through which a people transmits aspects of its group memory and its core values. Legend is, therefore, more focused and specific to a given culture than myth, the latter of which deals with a particular tradition’s attempt to wrestle with universal concerns.
Folklore, like legend, is specific to the particular community that produces it, and therefore is also to be distinguished from myth. Unlike legend, folklore makes no pretense of historical accuracy or real-life veracity, and may in fact sometimes take the appearance of fairy tale with fantasy elements designed to entertain. Folklore includes what its students refer to as “items,” manifestations of folk belief, practice, and ritual that may include stories, dances, magic spells and charms, ceremonies, and the like. Unlike legend, which may well have roots in written accounts, folklore, at its most basic, is oral and performative, passed from one generation to the next through active participation in the storytelling, singing, dancing, rituals, and so on of a given community. Researchers take a comparative approach to the study of folklore, so it is possible to examine an item from the folklore of one community, for example, through the lens of similar items from traditions from around the world and across the centuries.
Although certainly not limited to America, the tall tale found fertile soil in what is now the United States, perhaps most notably in reference to the Western Frontier, which lent itself to hyperbole. As a result of the seemingly limitless horizon, the vast forests, the powerful rivers, and the other incredible natural features of the landscape of a largely unsettled America, a narrative genre that took exaggeration as its fundamental principle was utterly reborn in American storytelling. The tall tale is, first and foremost, an engaging and entertaining story about characters of utterly outsized proportions, a story of the “biggest,” the “baddest,” and the “best.” Classically told with a straight face and a “just-the-facts” manner, the wildly exaggerated content of the tall tale is often related with ostentatious language in sharp contrast to its dry delivery. Considering the American cultural emphasis on greatness, it perhaps should come as no surprise that the genre of the tall tale has long struck a resonant chord in the American psyche.
American folklore is probably a misleading term, since the United States is a nation composed of many cultures and many folklore traditions. This collection acknowledges and celebrates this diversity. Indeed, America is all the more interesting and vibrant precisely because it is populated by such a welter of peoples, stories, and beliefs from around the world. In fact, America is and has long been both a venue and a vehicle through which many different peoples and traditions come into contact, sometimes into conflict, and occasionally into confluence. Each American takes pride in his or her particular heritage, of course, and the folklore of our culture is a lens through which we may see ourselves. This vision is constantly changing, however, and each tradition is in a constant state of revitalization through contact and cross-pollination with other traditions. The corpus of American myth, legend, and folklore is no more static than the times, places, and peoples that gave each birth, and thus provide endlessly fruitful, fascinating, and enjoyable objects of study.
It will be easy to point out ways in which this collection is not inclusive enough. While this is undoubtedly a fair criticism in some respects, the reality is that all collections are constrained by limits of space and time, and we are confident that we have made a forthright and largely successful attempt to balance the pressures of inclusion and diversity with those of tradition and the generalist needs of nonspecialist and student readers. Some may object to the examination of a particular tradition or a given culture by scholars using an academic lens. While we have attempted to be sensitive to such concerns, we strongly feel the responsibility of erring on the side of sensitive inclusion rather than excluding materials that are important and substantial additions to the standard canon of American folklore.
Ancient cultures traditionally told stories under the stars and around the flickering flames of the campfire. Some cultures still do so to this day, even in the United States of the twenty-first century. Many continue such traditions in backyards, on family trips, and at camp. There is no denying, however, that in the past half century or so the flickering light around which we gather as clans trends more and more toward the electronic screen, and in recent years these have become increasingly individual and hand-held rather than communal. Nevertheless, the storytelling potential of constantly evolving social media has much to recommend it as a vehicle for the transmission of cultural information, and any outright rejection of technology and other new avenues of communication for the transmission of American “folklore” is premature and, in the end, unwise.
Many American myths, legends, and tall tales are incomprehensible apart from the geographical and spatial contexts within which they occur. In the case of Paul Bunyan, for example, loggers wove tales about a giant with superhuman strength within an environment that required physical toughness to survive. His legendary feats were located in settings that matched the dimensions of his size and strength, particularly the vast stretches of virgin forest in the upper Middle West. In effect, storytellers established a relationship between the scale of the human figure in the story and the scale of the geographical setting where his legendary exploits occurred. They populated the American West with its limitless horizons, towering mountains, and expansive canyons with the sort of legendary heroes one might expect to find on such a grand stage. Put plainly, geography matters in the composition of myth, legend, and folklore.
In a few cases, the place itself is mythic, and long, fruitless search for its location generates and expands its legend. References to places like Atlantis, the Fountain of Youth, or Cities of Gold in ancient texts inspired fortune-seekers to break away from the known world and venture into the trackless wild. The dream of acquiring fame or riches by finding the location became inflated by the degree of spatial separation between the geographical point of departure on one hand, and the mythic destination on the other, a place entirely within the realm of speculation and conjecture. In these cases, the mythic place itself possesses a kind of agency, or the ability to shape and perhaps even determine the arc of the story or the dispositions of people who populate the narratives.
The geographical and spatial element in myths and legends goes beyond what might be considered the setting for a novel or the location for a screenplay. The places where folktales and legends occur are haunted by the ghosts of dead people and contain rarely seen monsters whose existence defies scientific explanation. In these locales, spiritual or magical forces enable animals to speak or change their form, and allow beings to move between physical and spiritual worlds. Mythic spaces and places disrupt the established patterns of cause and effect and operate under a different set of physical laws in which the impossible becomes possible.
In American mythology and legend, particular landscapes might also be conceived of as sites of concealment and grand conspiracy. The remoteness of Area 51 in Nevada and Roswell, New Mexico, made it possible for some storytellers to allege that aliens had landed or made contact with local residents, but sinister government officials suppressed news of these events for a wide variety of reasons. In the long history of democracy in America, citizens have always demanded openness and transparency in the affairs of government. The inaccessibility of these places—which may as well be as distant as the planets from which these aliens derived—stoked fantasies about an undemocratic conspiracy deep inside some obscure government agency or bureaucracy, forming an alternate reality that stirred the popular imagination.
America itself has always been a land of mythic proportions in the collective imaginations of its myriad peoples. For indigenous nations, it was often the Mother Earth who birthed the People as well as their beautiful and bountiful home, while for many immigrants—past and present—the mythos of America has evoked images of a kind of El Dorado, an imaginative landscape flowing with milk and honey, the stuff of legend that draws people across time and space and innumerable hazards to leave all they know and to start anew. Thus, America is not simply the locus of a discernible set of myths, legends, and folktales. It is itself both the genesis of many tales and concepts, and an active motive narrative force on its own terms.
Guide to Related Topics
AFRICAN AMERICAN FOLKLORE
Badman
Boarhog for a Husband
Boo Hag
Brer Rabbit
Callin’ the Dog
Daddy Jack Stories
Flying Africans
Herskovits, Melville Jean
Hughes, Langston
Hurston, Zora Neale
Ibo Landing
John Henry
John the Conqueror
Jumping the Broom
Juneteenth
Minstrel Shows
Playing the Dozens
Spirituals
Stagolee
Tar-Baby
Toasts
Uncle Remus
ASIAN AND PACIFIC AMERICAN MYTHS AND FOLKLORE
Afghan American Folklore and Folktales
Banana, Coconut, and Twinkie
Bok Kai Temple, Folktale, and Parade
Calabash of Poi
Chamorro Sirena, a Guamanian American Tale
Chanoyu
Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu
Cheonyeo Gwisin, a Korean American Legend
Chinatown Ghost Stories
Chinese American Mythological and Legendary Deities
Fa Mu Lan, or Mulan
Filipino American Folklore and Folktales
Fortune Cookie, Origins of
Great Gourd from Heaven, a Laotian American Myth
Guandi
Gurbani Kirtan
Jataka Tales
Jinn
Kaundinya and Soma
Legend of the Pineapple
Malakas at Maganda, a Filipino American Creation Myth
Malin Kundang
Monkey King, or Sun Wukong
Nazar
No Tigers in Borneo, an Indonesian American Legend
Orphan Boy the Farmer, a Hmong American Folktale
Pele Legends
South Asian American Folklore and Folktales
Star Maiden
Tamil American Folklore and Proverbs
Taotaomona and Suruhanu
Tibetan American Folklore and Folktales
Tiger Tales of the Hmong Americans
Traditional Medicine and Healing in Laotian American Culture
Two Ladies Trung, a Vietnamese American Legend
Water Buffalo, a Guamanian American Legend
Woodcutter and the Fairy, a Korean American Folktale
Yokai
Zodiac, The
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Bilderbergers
Conspiracy Theories
Kennedy, John F., Assassination of
Lennon, John, Shooting of
Lincoln, Abraham, Assassination of
McCartney, Paul, Alleged Death of
Monroe, Marilyn, Death of
Montauk Project
New World Order
Philadelphia Experiment
September 11 (2001) Conspiracy Theories
EUROPEAN AMERICAN FOLKLORE AND FOLKTALES
American Cinderella Tales
Ashpet
Babes in the Woods
Barbara Allen
Beauty and the Beast Folklore
Betsey and the Mole Skin
Blue Hen’s Chicks
Blue Rocks Folklore
Bunch of Laurel Blooms for a Present
Connecticut Yankee
European Sources
Farmer’s Daughter
Frankie and Albert/Johnny
Frog King
Game Songs and Rhymes
Groundhog Day
Hairy Woman
Hardy Hardhead
Harris, George Washington
Hazard, Thomas Robinson
Hoe Handle, Snake, and Barn
Huck Finn
Jack Tales
Kate Shelley Saves the Train
Lover’s Leaps
Lullaby
Lumberjack Tales
Nostradamus, Predictions of
Nursery Rhymes
Paddy Murphy
Pine Barrens Tales
Rip Van Winkle
Sam Slick
Santa Claus
Saving Time
Sea Shanties
Sody Sallyraytus
Stone Soup
Stork, The
Three Little Pigs and the Fox
Tooth Fairy
Ward, Artemus
Wise Men of Chelm Stories
Woods, Joe (Wojtowicz)
Yankee Peddler
FOLKLORE AND MYTH STUDIES
American Folklore Society
Ballad
Bettelheim, Bruno
Blues as Folklore
Braucher Stories
Campbell, Joseph
Cante Fables
Country Music as Folklore
Fairylore
Fakelore
Fisher, Miles Mark
Folklore and Folktales
Gonzales, Ambrose E.
Harris, George Washington
Legend Tripping
Legends
Lomax, Alan
Momaday, Navarre (N.) Scott
Myths
Name Lore and Magic
Pourquoi Tales
Quilts
Racism in Urban Legends
Storytelling
Women in Folklore
Written or Printed Traditions
Yarns, Yarn-spinning
GHOST STORIES AND WITCHES
Aunty Greenleaf and the White Deer
Bell Witch
Black Aggie
Bloody Mary or I Believe in Mary Worth
Cursing of Colonel Buck
Dancing with the Devil
Death Coach
Death Waltz
DeGrow, Moll
Devil on Washington Rock
Dungarvon Whooper
Express Train to Hell
Halloween Legends
Headless Horseman
Lincoln Funeral Train
Ocean-Born Mary
Old Betty Booker
Old Granny Tucker
Scary Stories
Telltale Seaweed
White Lady of Durand Lake
HISPANIC AMERICAN LEGENDS AND FOLKLORE
Chupacabra
Blue Nun, The
Casos, Historias, and Tallas
Cortez, Gregorio
El Muerto
La Lechuza
La Llorona or Weeping Woman
La Mala Hora
La Malinche
Murrieta, Joaquín
Pata de Gallo
Pedro de Urdemalas
Tlahuelpuchi
Vaginal Serpent Theme
HISTORICAL FIGURES AND AMERICANA
Alamo
Allen, Ethan
Appleseed, Johnny
Attucks, Crispus
Barton, Clara
Black Elk
Boone, Daniel
Bridger, Jim
Brown, John
Brown, Margaret Molly Tobin
Calamity Jane
Carson, Kit
Chief Joseph
Christmas Gift
Christmas Tree
Cody, William F. “Buffalo Bill”
Columbus, Christopher
Crazy Horse
Crockett, Davy
Custer, George Armstrong
Donner Party
Earhart, Amelia
Edison, Thomas
Ellis Island
Elvis
Fink, Mike
Forrest, Nathan Bedford
Founding Myths
Geronimo
Gunfight at the OK Corral
Henry, Patrick
Hickok, James Butler “Wild Bill”
Hudson, Henry
Jackson, Thomas J. “Stonewall”
Jones, Casey
Jones, John Paul
Key, Francis Scott
Kilroy
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Lincoln, Abraham, as Folk Hero
Lozen
Mickey Mouse
Miss Liberty
Mountain Men
Oakley, Annie
Patch, Sam
Pocahontas and John Smith
Ride of Paul Revere
Roanoke
Ross, Betsy
Sacagawea
Teddy Bear
Thanksgiving
Truth, Sojourner
Tubman, Harriet
Turner, Nat
Twain, Mark
Uncle Sam
Wallace, William Alexander Anderson “Bigfoot”
Washington, George
Wedding Traditions and Taboos
Weems, Parson
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Yankee Doodle
HOAXES AND FRINGE THEORIES
Cardiff Giant
Chariots of the Gods
Crop Circles
Internet Hoaxes
Jackalope
Mound Builder Myth
Pedro Mountains Mummy
Prince Madoc’s Journey
LEGENDARY HEROES AND MODERN SUPERHEROES
Anansi/Anancy
Azeban
Batman
Corn Hero
Culture Heroes of the Native Americans
DC Comics
Gitchi Odjig, a Chippewa Hero
Glooskap, an Abenaki Hero
Iktomi
Killer-of-Enemies
Kirby, Jack
Lee, Stan
Marvel Comics
Napi
Oneida Maiden Hero
Pedro de Urdemalas
Quillan, Boney
Spider Man
Spider Woman
Star Boy, a Blackfoot Legend
Superman
Trickster Rabbit
Tricksters, Native American
Wenebojo
MYTHICAL AND HAUNTED PLACES
Amityville Hauntings
Atlantis
Bermuda Triangle
Cibola or Cities of Gold
Fountain of Youth
Gore Orphanage Haunting
Haunted Houses
LaLaurie House
McPike Mansion
Myrtles Plantation
Stanley Hotel
Whaley House
Winchester Mystery House
MYTHICAL CREATURES
Axehandle Hound
Ball-tailed Cat
Big Bear of Arkansas
Bigfoot or Sasquatch
Black Dog
Boogie Man
Cactus Cat
Champ
Chessie
Crichton Leprechaun
Demon Cat
Dwayyo
Fearsome Critters
Fur-bearing Trout
Goatman (Maryland Monster)
Gremlins
Hidebehind
Hoop Snake
Hudson River Monster
Igopogo
Jersey Devil
Joint Snake
Lithobolia, or Stone-Throwing Devil
Mogollon Monster
Momo the Missouri Monster
Mothman
Nain Rouge
Ogopogo
Phantom Clowns
Pope Lick Monster
Rougarou
Sharlie/Slimy Slim
Sidehill Gouger
Skunk Ape of the Everglades
Slender Man
Snallygaster
Squonk
Tailypo
Teakettler
Tommyknocker
Two-Headed Snake
Two-Toed Tom
Vampires
Wampus Cat
Werewolf
Whitey
Wild Man of the Navidad
Zombie Legends
NATIVE AMERICAN MYTHICAL CREATURES
Apotamkin
Baykok
Big Water Snake of the Blackfoot
Cetan
Gaasyendietha, or Seneca Dragon
Horned Serpent
Kind Hawk, The
Kushtaka
Monsters in Native American Legends
Nin-am-bea
Pamola
Piasa
Pukwudgie
Rain Bird
Rainbow Crow
Qiqirn
Shunka Warakin
Skeleton Man
Skinwalker
Thunderbird
Tizheruk
Underwater Panthers
Wendigo
Yehasuri
NATIVE AMERICAN MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND FOLKLORE
Algon and the Sky Girl
Animal Bride
Animal Tales
Arrow Boy
Badger and the Bear
Bear Man of the Cherokee
Birth of Good and Evil, an Iroquois Myth
Blessing Way
Bokwewa
Brothers Who Followed the Sun, an Iroquois Legend
Cherokee Rose
Chipmunk and Bear, an Iroquois Legend
Circle of Life and the Clambake, The
Corn Mother
Coyote Tales
Creation Myth of the Tewa
Creation Stories of the Native Americans
Dance in a Buffalo Skull
Deer Woman
Great Hare
Great Spirit
How the Bat and Flying Squirrel Got Their Wings
Kachinas
Leonard Crow Dog
Manstin the Rabbit
Milky Way, a Cherokee Legend
Niagara Falls’ Maid of the Mist, an Iroquois Legend
Pima Elder Brother
Shooting of the Red Eagle
Star Husband Tale
Toad and the Boy
Tree-Bound, The
Vision Quest Myth
Warlike Seven
Water Jar Boy, a Tewa Legend
White Buffalo Woman
White Deer
Woman Who Fell from the Sky, The
OUTLAWS IN HISTORY AND LEGEND
Barker, Ma
Bass, Sam
Bellamy, Samuel “Black Sam”
Boles, Charles E. “Black Bart”
Bonney, William “Billy the Kid”
Bonnie and Clyde
Borden, Lizzie
Capone, Alphonse “Scarface”
Dillinger, John
Floyd, Charles “Pretty Boy”
Gaspar, José
Hornigold, Benjamin
James, Jesse
Kelly, Joseph “Bunko”
Kidd, Captain William
Lafitte, Jean
Outlaw Heroes
Parker, Robert Leroy “Butch Cassidy”
Rackham, John “Calico Jack”
Silver, Frankie
Thatch, Edward “Blackbeard”
Vane, Charles
Villa, Pancho
RELIGION AND THE OCCULT
America as the New Israel
Demonic Possession
Devil’s Horn
Easter Bunny
Easter Eggs
Evil Eye
Exorcism
Good Luck Charms
Lost Tribes of Israel
Mary’s Flowers
Mormon Mythology
Ouija
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Out of Body Experiences
Saints’ Legends
Salem Witch Trials
Shamans
Supernaturalism in Legends and Folklore
Transcendentalist Deity
Voodoo
Witch Doctors
SCIENCE AND HEALTH-RELATED MYTHS
AIDS Harry and AIDS Mary
AIDS-Origins Traditions
Cancer Myths
Folk Medicine
Microwaved Pet
Nuclear Lore
Superstitions
Weather Prediction Myths
Welded Contact Lenses
Xeroxlore
TALL TALES
Annie Christmas
Babe the Blue Ox
Beal, Barnabas Coffin “Tall Barney”
Bowleg Bill
Captain Alfred Bulltop Stormalong
Drought Buster
Febold Feboldson
Fish(ing) Tales
Joe Magarac
Jumbo Riley
Morgan, Gib
Mose the Fireman
Paul Bunyan
Pecos Bill
Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind
Tall Tales
Tony Beaver
Windwagon Smith
UFOs AND ALIENS
Alien Abduction Stories and UFOs
Area 51
Cash-Landrum UFO Encounter
Hopkinsville Goblins
Roswell (New Mexico) UFO Landings
X-Files
URBAN LEGENDS AND MODERN TALES
Academe, Legends of
Alligators in the Sewers
Baby Train
Buried Alive
Hook, The
Kidney Heist, The
Killer in the Backseat
Licked Hand, The
Melon Heads
Paddy Murphy
Relative’s Cadaver, The
Runaway Grandmother, The
Second Death
Slasher under the Car
Small World Legend
Urban Legends/Urban Belief Tales
Vanishing Hitchhiker
Vanishing Lady