tall tale

tall tale, narrative that depicts the wild adventures of extravagantly exaggerated folk heroes. The tall tale is essentially an oral form of entertainment; the audience appreciates the imaginative invention rather than the literal meaning of the tales. Associated with the lore of the American frontier, tall tales often explain the origins of lakes, mountains, and canyons; they are spun around such legendary heroes as Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack of the Pacific Northwest; Mike Fink, the rowdy Mississippi River keelboatman; and Davy Crockett, the backwoods Tennessee marksman. Other tall tales recount the superhuman exploits of western cowboy heroes such as William F. Cody and Annie Oakley. Native to the New England region are the tales of Captain Stormalong, whose ship was driven by a hurricane across the Isthmus of Panama, digging the Panama Canal, and Johnny Appleseed, who planted apple orchards from the east coast to the western frontier. Washington Irving, in the History of New York (1809), and later Mark Twain, in Life on the Mississippi (1883), made literary use of the tall tale.

One of the few examples of the tall tale not native to the United States is found in the German collection Baron Munchausen’s Narratives of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia (1785); it includes such humorous tales as one about the soldier who loaded his rifle with a cherry pit, fired it into the head of a stag, and later found a cherry tree rooted in its head.