Tall Tale

A Tall Tale is a story full of exaggerations that is humorous in essence. It usually tells the story of some character able to perform deeds no other human being can.

Mostly there are American Tall Tales but Canada and Australia have also tall tales to offer. There are not examples of tall tales in  other English speaking countries and the reason is that tall tale characters are usually rural people who have to deal with the problems that Nature poses. As a consequence these characters show their superhuman skills by  changing the course of mighty rivers, eating awful quantities of food or building railroad lines faster than anyone else. All of them, the U.S., Canada and Australia are countries with extensive territory that have not been urbanized yet.

Some of those Tall Tale characters are Pecos Bill, a cowboy who was able to lasso tornadoes and used snakes instead of lassos. Pecos is said to have created the Río Grande when he was lost in the desert and felt thirsty so he used the water of the river to quench his thirst. He either rode a mountain lion or a horse that was so dangerous that its name was Widowmaker. There are songs about Pecos Bill and he is even the central character in a movie (Tall Tale) starred by Patrick Swayze as you can see in the picture.  There is also Pual Bunyan, an enormous lumberjack who had a pet animal, a blue ox called Babe and he is said to have created the Great Lakes so Babe could drink from them.John Henry, an African American steel driver is the third most important of this group of folklore heroes. He was a steel driver that once was about to be fired because the owner of the company he worked for had purchased a steam powered hammer. John made a bet with his boss and he would race the hammer. If he won his job and his fellow co-workers would keep their jobs. John won but he was so exhausted that he could not go on and died. 

There are of course more characters and if you explore them and read their  exploits you willl understand better the folklore of the U.S. and for sure you won't get bored with Tall Tales.