Tall tales are stories that have been embellished with exaggerated or implausible components, presented as though they had actually occurred. In some cases, the story is based on a historical figure or set of events. Often, the narrator of the tall tale will claim to have been an observer of the events to add authenticity to the account. These stories are typically humorous and good-natured. In the United States, the tradition of the tall tale is thought to have originated with the frontier stories of explorers and adventurers who shared their harrowing adventures upon returning. However, these stories were often embellished to make the teller seem more courageous, brave, or superhuman, especially when the story was told during a bragging contest between American frontiersmen. Unlike a fairy tale, a tall tale contains larger-than-life characters who accomplish unbelievable feats while fairy tales deal specifically with magical and supernatural beings, such as witches, talking wolves, and fairy godmothers. Several American tall tales have been set into print as well as being made into short films.
Some of the more popular American tall tale figures include Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, Johnny Appleseed, and Davy Crockett. While some of these characters were the embodiments of cultural ideals—such as work ethic, man over machine, and the American Dream—others were based on historical figures such as Johnny Appleseed and Davy Crockett. Regardless of whether the characters of these stories were actual people or invented, they all are credited with accomplishing superhuman feats of strength.
Paul Bunyan’s tale provides a classic example of the kind of larger-than-life feats attributed to such characters. According to some versions of the story, Bunyan wasn’t born but delivered to his parents by several storks because he was too large for one stork alone to carry. Once he grew up, his hometown gave Paul an axe as a present. He soon became a lumberjack. He could fell an entire forest in a day and with just one swing of his axe, he could chop down more than a dozen trees.
He never stayed anywhere for long and soon headed west. On his way he was caught up in a terrible snowstorm. It was so cold that the snow was blue, the geese flew backward, and all the fish moved south. While struggling through the storm, Bunyan heard a cow lowing. Paul followed the noise until he found a baby ox. Some versions of the story claim that the ox was angry because he was too small to see over the snowdrifts, while other versions claim that the ox was blue with cold when Paul found him. Paul Bunyan laughed when he saw the baby ox hopping around so angrily. The blue snow had stained the ox, so Paul Bunyan named him Babe the Blue Ox. Babe grew up to be massive.
Paul and Babe worked together to assist in the western expansion of the United States. Some versions of this tale attribute the creation of such iconic landscapes as Pike’s Peak, the Missouri River, the Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone Falls to Babe and Paul’s ventures. Another tale tells of how Babe saw a yellow heifer named Bessie. Babe and Bessie fell in love at first sight. The three of them lived happily ever after with as much butter and milk as Paul would ever want. One version omits Bessie but ascribes the Northern Lights to the rough-housing of Babe and Paul Bunyan up north after Paul had lost a logging competition to a man with an electric axe.
Johnny Appleseed provides a classic example of an actual figure whose feats have been embellished by storytellers for generations. Born John Chapman on September 26, 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts, Johnny Appleseed is known for his work as a pioneer nurseryman who traveled throughout the Eastern and Midwestern states teaching people how to plant and care for apple orchards. However, in some tales, Johnny Appleseed did not travel alone but with his guardian angel. Johnny was able to speak with his guardian angel, who also guided him and told him what to teach the people, whether it was pie-making, cider-distilling, or orchard-tending. In some versions, Johnny wore a pot on his head, and his only possessions were the ones he carried with him. He lived off the land where he wandered, relying only on his own wits and the generosity of strangers. He died in 1845 in Indiana, and as legend tells, was guided to heaven by his guardian angel.
In the case of Appleseed, his Swedenborgian faith was very much outside the mainstream of American Protestantism in the nineteenth century and provided an opening for storytellers to introduce unconventional religious themes into his life story. Crockett, on the other hand, developed a legend partly of his own making, playing up his frontier exploits in promotional literature in his 1826 campaign for Congress in Tennessee. Reports of Crockett’s heroic death at the Alamo in the War of Texas Independence further burnished his legend and steered Crockett’s story into the realm of tall tales. As the United States continued to develop and mature through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, stories of heroes—both real and imagined—offered Americans a pantheon of heroes to embrace as part of the narrative of national growth and achievement. Compilations of tall tales such as Frank Shay’s Here’s Audacity! American Legendary Heroes (1930) entertained readers thirsty for accounts of American courage and resolve, while blurring the line between history and fiction.
Tall tales have enjoyed a prominent place in American media and culture into the present day. Disney’s live-action film Tall Tale (1995), which depicts a father-son relationship formed around storytelling, and featuring appearances of Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, and John Henry, is but one example among many that illustrate the enduring appeal of the genre to American audiences.
Zachary Q. Metcalfe
See also Babe the Blue Ox; Captain Alfred Bulltop Stormalong; Paul Bunyan; Pecos Bill; Storytelling
Further Reading
Battle, Kemp P., ed. 1986. Great American Folklore: Legends, Tales, Ballads, and Superstitions from All Across America. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Brown, Carolyn S. 1987. The Tall Tale in American Folklore and Literature. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Brown, Charles E. 1930. Paul Bunyan and Tony Beaver Tales: Tall Yarns of the Prince of American Lumberjacks and His Southern Cousin, Tony Beaver, as Told in the Logging Camps of the North and South. Madison, WI: C. E. Brown, 1930.
Schlosser, S. E. 1997. “Tall Tales.” American Folklore. http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/tall-tales/. Accessed October 12, 2015.
Shay, Frank. 1930. Here’s Audacity! American Legendary Heroes. New York: Macaulay.