"The
other replied: 'I am an alligator, half man, half horse, and I can whip any man
on the Mississippi, by G-d!'"-- The Pocket Treasury of American Folklore, B A Botkin, editor, New York, 1950
Nations have at least two histories...
One history is cobbled together by scholars
who examine documents and contemporary chronicles so they can tell us what
great kings and generals did. The other
is told by we the people. It becomes
songs and legends, tall tales of heroes in magical lands...
Although the United States is a relatively
young nation, its people are creative and more prone than not to enjoy a good
tall tale. This week we visit a few of
the rough and ready men who populate the secret history of America: Paul
Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry, Staggerlee, Mike Fink, and Davy Crockett...
 |
| The legend of Paul Bunyan, a gigantic logger, appears to have originated in Canada during the 19th century. The character came to the attention of the Red River Lumber Company of Minnesota circa 1914. One of the firm's employees wrote a booklet which embellished the older stories and created the character of Babe the Blue Ox. As the American economy took new directions, the logger also became an oil driller. |
"Paul was mad!
He swore around for two or three days and smashed the derrick into
kindling wood and was about to quit drilling (for oil) when he saw an advertisement
in the paper by some bird out on the plains that wanted to buy some post
holes. Ten thousand post holes it was he
wanted. Ten thousand holes three feet
long.
Well, Paul he hitched a chain around this
duster hole and hooked up Babe, that big Blue Ox of his, and pulled fifteen
thousand feet of that hole right up out of the ground. He got mad again 'cause the hole broke off
and left half of itself in the ground."*
 |
| Pecos Bill is entirely an invented "fakelore" character who didn't exist before he appeared in short stories in the early 1900s. Here, Bill lassoes a tornado for a ride into town. He also dug the Rio Grande and invented Western movies. |
"According to the most veracious historians,
Pecos Bill was born about the time Sam Houston discovered Texas. His mother was a sturdy pioneer woman who
once killed forty-five Indians with a broom handle and weaned him on moonshine
liquor when he was three days old. He cut his teeth on a bowie knife and his
earliest playfellows were the bears and catamounts of east Texas...
It wasn't long until he was famous as a bad
man. He invented the six shooter and
train robbin' and most of the crimes that was popular in the old days of the
West."*
 |
| John Henry symbolizes the struggle of the working man to stay employed as technology makes his skills irrelevant. His legend originated about 1873 when the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad constructed the Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia. He may or may not have actually existed. Most versions of the story, save some from Kentucky, portray him as a black man. |
"Boss man told John Henry/John Henry damn your
soul/You'll beat this steam drill of mine/When the rocks in this mountain turn
to gold/Lord, Lord, when the rocks in this mountain turn to gold."
"John Henry was the best driver on the C &
O. He could drive steel with two
hammers, one in each hand. People came from
miles around to see him drive with those two 20 lb. hammers."*
 |
| "God help your children and I'll take care of your wife" are the words said to Billy Lyons by Staggerlee in one version of a song based on an 1898 murder (see link below). Staggerlee shoots Billy in a dispute over a John B Stetson hat in most versions of the tale. Students of modern folklore have noted Staggerlee's evolution into a trickster figure. |
"Now like I told you, Staggerlee was popular
with the women folks cause he could whup the blues out on a guitar and beat out
boogie woogie music piano bass and the like of that, but what they liked about
him most was he was so stout he could squeeze the breath out of them
almost. And his favorite one was a
voodoo queen down in New Orleans French Market.
Anyway, after the devil had saved him from
Jesse James, Staggerlee, knowin' the law was hot after him, lit out again,
headin' west...He run into two deputies on the lookout for him in order to
collect the $5000 reward for his arrest.
Staggerlee drawed his gun first 'fore they caught on as to he was and
asked them their names. When they told him,
he took his 45 and shot their initials in their hats, changed hisself into a
horse, galloped away with little baby red devils ridin' on his back. Them deputies run the other way. They was so skeered they run through a
graveyard, knockin' over tombstones like pins in a bowlin' alley."*
 |
| Mike Fink, a real life cargo hauler on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers had a reputation for brawling and sadistic pranks. He was eventually murdered by a man named Talbot who was not prosecuted for the crime in part due to popular belief that Fink had been killed to punish him for killing a friend of Talbot's. |
"In ascending the Mississippi above the Ohio,
Mike Fink saw a sow and a couple of pigs about a hundred feet distant on the
river bank. He declared in boatman
fashion that he wanted a pig and took up his rifle to shoot one but was
requested not to do so. He, however,
laid the rifle close to his face, and as the boat glided along under easy sail,
shot off the tails of the pigs close to the rump without doing them any other
harm."*
 |
| Davy Crockett had already become an American legend by the time of his death at the siege of the Alamo in 1836. A year before this, many backwoodsmen fully expected Crockett to climb the highest peak in the Allegheny Mountains and pull the tail off Haley's Comet to save the world from fiery destruction. |
"I was out in the forrest wun afternoon
and had got to a place called the Grate Gap when I seed a rakkoon sittin' all
alone up a tree. Well, I klapped the
breech of Brown Betty to my sholder an' was just gonna put a piece of led
'tween his sholders, when he lifted up one paw and said 'Is your name
Crockett?' Sez I, 'You are right, sir. My name is Davy Crockett.' 'Then, sir,' sez the rakkoon, 'you need take
no further trubble, for I might as well cum down without another word.' And then the cretur wauked rite down from
the tree for he considered hisself already shot."*
 |
| Pecos Bill met his girlfriend, Sluefoot Sue, when he saw her riding a giant catfish down the Rio Grande after Bill had dug the river. Sue is seen here in a scene from a Disney feature about Pecos Bill. |
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CREDITS
Note: All
text in this essay, except for introductory comments and links, is taken
directly or adapted from The Pocket Treasury of American Folklore, edited by B
A Botkin, New York, 1950. All photographs for this essay were located through
Google Images or Wikipedia, without authoritative source or ownership
information except as noted: Stagger Lee from jasonhouchen.com, Pecos Bill
lassoing a tornado from tumblr.com; Paul Bunyan children's record from
ioffer.com; Mike Fink from contentreserve.com; Davy Crockett March from
tennessee.gov; Slue Foot Sue rides a Catfish down the Rio Grande from
vegalleries.com
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