Birth of Paul Bunyan

Maine Tall Tales

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

Now I hear tell that Paul Bunyan was born in Bangor, Maine. It took five giant storks to deliver Paul to his parents. His first bed was a lumber wagon pulled by a team of horses. His father had to drive the wagon up to the top of Maine and back whenever he wanted to rock the baby to sleep.

As a newborn, Paul Bunyan could hollar so loud he scared all the fish out of the rivers and streams. All the local frogs started wearing earmuffs so they wouldn't go deaf when Paul screamed for his breakfast. His parents had to milk two dozen cows morning and night to keep his milk bottle full and his mother had to feed him ten barrels of porridge every two hours to keep his stomach from rumbling and knocking the house down.

Within a week of his birth, Paul Bunyan could fit into his father's clothes. After three weeks, Paul rolled around so much during his nap that he destroyed four square miles of prime timberland. His parents were at their wits' end! They decided to build him a raft and floated it off the coast of Maine. When Paul turned over, it caused a 75 foot tidal wave in the Bay of Fundy. They had to send the British Navy over to Maine to wake him up. The sailors fired every canon they had in the fleet for seven hours straight before Paul Bunyan woke from his nap! When he stepped off the raft, Paul accidentally sank four war ships and he had to scramble around scooping sailors out of the water before they drowned.

After this incident, Paul's parents decided the East was just too plumb small for him, and so the family moved to Minnesota.

Babe the Blue Ox

Minnesota Tall Tales

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before.

Paul Bunyan went out walking in the woods one day during that Winter of the Blue Snow. He was knee-deep in blue snow when he heard a funny sound between a bleat and a snort. Looking down, he saw a teeny-tiny baby blue ox just a hopping about in the snow and snorting with rage on account of he was too short to see over the drifts.

Paul Bunyan laughed when he saw the spunky little critter and took the little blue mite home with him. He warmed the little ox up by the fire and the little fellow fluffed up and dried out, but he remained as blue as the snow that had stained him in the first place. So Paul named him Babe the Blue Ox.

Well, any creature raised in Paul Bunyan's camp tended to grow to massive proportions, and Babe was no exception. Folks that stared at him for five minutes could see him growing right before their eyes. He grew so big that 42 axe handles plus a plug of tobacco could fit between his eyes and it took a murder of crows a whole day to fly from one horn to the other. The laundryman used his horns to hang up all the camp laundry, which would dry lickety-split because of all the wind blowing around at that height.

Whenever he got an itch, Babe the Blue Ox had to find a cliff to rub against, 'cause whenever he tried to rub against a tree it fell over and begged for mercy. To whet his appetite, Babe would chew up thirty bales of hay, wire and all. It took six men with picaroons to get all the wire out of Babe's teeth after his morning snack. Right after that he'd eat a ton of grain for lunch and then come pestering around the cook - Sourdough Sam - begging for another snack.

Babe the Blue Ox was a great help around Paul Bunyan's logging camp. He could pull anything that had two ends, so Paul often used him to straighten out the pesky, twisted logging roads. By the time Babe had pulled the twists and kinks out of all the roads leading to the lumber camp, there were twenty miles of extra road left flopping about with nowhere to go. So Paul rolled them up and used them to lay a new road into new timberland.

Paul also used Babe the Blue Ox to pull the heavy tank wagon, which was used to coat the newly-straightened lumber roads with ice in the winter, until one day the tank sprang a leak that trickled south and became the Mississippi River. After that, Babe stuck to hauling logs. Only he

hated working in the summertime, so Paul had to paint the logging roads white after the spring thaw so that Babe would keep working through the summer.

One summer, as Babe the Blue Ox was hauling a load of logs down the white-washed road and dreaming of the days when the winter would feel cold again and the logs would slide easier on the "ice", he glanced over the top of the mountain and caught a glimpse of a pretty yeller calf grazing in a field. Well, he twisted out of his harness lickety-split and stepped over the mountain to introduce himself. It was love at first sight, and Paul had to abandon his load and buy Bessie the Yeller Cow from the farmer before Babe would do any more hauling.

Bessie the Yeller Cow grew to the massive, yet dainty proportions that were suitable for the mate of Babe the Blue Ox. She had long yellow eyelashes that tickled the lumberjacks standing on the other end of camp each time she blinked. She produced all the dairy products for the lumber camp. Each day, Sourdough Sam made enough butter from her cream to grease the giant pancake griddle and sometimes there was enough left over to butter the toast!

The only bone of contention between Bessie and Babe was the weather. Babe loved the ice and snow and Bessie loved warm summer days. One winter, Bessie grew so thin and pale that Paul Bunyan asked his clerk Johnny Inkslinger to make her a pair of green goggles so she would think it was summer. After that, Bessie grew happy and fat again, and produced so much butter that Paul Bunyan used the leftovers to grease the whitewashed lumber roads in summer. With the roads so slick all year round, hauling logs became much easier for Babe the Blue Ox, and so Babe eventually came to like summer almost as much as Bessie.

Paul Bunyan Tames the Whistling River

Minnesota, Tall Tales

retold byS. E. Schlosser

The Whistling River - so named because twice a day, it reared up to a height of two hundred feet and let loose a whistle that could be heard for over six hundred miles - was the most ornery river in the U.S. of A. It took a fiendish delight in plaguing the life out of the loggers who worked it. It would tie their logs into knots, flip men into the water then toss them back out onto the banks, and break apart whole rafts of logs as soon as the loggers put them together.

This fact by itself might not have been enough by itself to get Paul Bunyan involved. But one day Paul was sitting on a hill by the river combing his beard with a large pine tree when without warning the river reared up and spat four hundred and nineteen gallons of muddy water onto his beard. This startled Paul somewhat, but he figured if he ignored the river, it would go away and leave him alone. But that ornery river jest reared up again and spat five thousand and nineteen gallons of muddy water onto his beard, adding a batch of mud turtles, several large fish and a muskrat into the mix. Paul Bunyan was so mad he jumped up and let out a yell that caused a landslide all the way out in Pike's Peak.

"By jingo, I am gonna tame that river or bust a gut trying!" he cried.

So Paul sat for four days eating popcorn and trying to figure out how to tame that river. He ate so much popcorn that the air was soon filled with white bits and the ground for three miles around was covered with eighteen inches of popcorn scraps. This caused several hundred small animals and a few dozen birds to conclude that they were in a blizzard and so they froze to death. This furnished the loggers at the camp with pot pies for several days.

Just as he ran out of popcorn, Paul decided that the way to tame the river was to pull out the kinks. He would hitch the river to Babe the Blue Ox and let him yank it straight. Of course, Paul knew that an ordinary log chain and the skid hook wouldn't work with water. So he and Babe took a short walk up to the North Pole. There, Paul made a box trap baited with icicles that he set near a blizzard trail. Then he and Babe wandered away. Paul started to throw icebergs out into the ocean so Babe could play fetch. But he had to stop the game since each time Babe jumped into the water a tidal wave threatened to swamp the coast of Florida. After lunch, Paul went back to check the trap. He had caught six young blizzards and an old nor'wester. He put two of the young blizzards in his sack and released the rest. Then he and Babe went back to their camp.

As he walked into camp, Paul yelled to Ole, the Big Swede to build him the largest log chain that's ever been built. Then he staked out the two blizzards, one on each side of the river. Right away, the river began to freeze. By morning, the river had a tough time rearing up to whistle because it was frozen solid for more than seventeen miles. When Paul Bunyan finished his breakfast, he harnessed Babe and wrapped the chain seventy-two times around the foot of the frozen Whistle River. Yelling to the men to stand clear, he shouted at Babe to pull. Babe pulled that chain into a solid bar and sank knee deep into solid rock, but that ornery river refused to

budge. So Paul grabbed the chain and he and Babe gave such a yank that the river jerked loose from its banks and they dragged it across the prairie so fast it smoked. After a while, Paul looked back and saw the river was as straight as a gun barrel. But the river was much shorter with the kinks out, and all the extra lengths that used to be in the kinks were running wild out on the prairie. So Paul got his big cross-cut saw and a lot of baling wire and sawed the extra lengths of river into nine-mile pieces, rolled them up and tied them off with the baling wire. He later used them to float his logs when he logged out the desert.

But now that it was straight, the Whistling River lost its gimp and refused to whistle. Which made everyone mad at Paul Bunyan, because now they didn't know when to wake up in the morning. Paul might have been in real trouble if Squeaky Swanson hadn't showed up right about then. Squeaky's speaking voice was no louder than a whisper. But when he yelled, you could hear him clean out in Kansas. So each morning Squeaky got up at the crack of dawn and yelled the blankets off of every bed in camp. Naturally, the men found it hard to sleep in the cold without their blankets, so they got up. Squeaky was a great success, and for the rest of his life he did nothing but get up at dawn and let out one really loud yell.

Paul Bunyan and the Frozen Flames

Michigan, Tall Tales

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

One winter, shortly after Paul Bunyan dug Lake Michigan as a drinking hole for his blue ox, Babe, he decided to camp out in the Upper Peninsula. It was so cold in their logging camp that one evening the temperature dropped to 68 degrees below zero. Each degree in the camp thermometer measured sixteen inches long and the flames in the lanterns froze solid. No one, not even Paul Bunyan, could blow them out.

The lumberjacks didn't want the bunkhouse lit at night, because they wouldn't get any sleep. So they put the lanterns way outside of camp where they wouldn't disturb anyone. But they forgot about the lanterns, so that when thaw came in the early spring, the lanterns flared up again and set all of northern Michigan on fire! They had to wake Paul Bunyan up so he could stamp out the fire with his boots.

Paul Bunyan and the Log Jam

Wisconsin, Tall Tales

retold by S. E. Schlosser

One spring day, the loggers on the Wisconsin River discovered a huge log jam, the biggest they'd ever seen. The logs were piled about two hundred feet high and the jam went upriver for a mile or more. Those loggers chopped and hauled at the jam, but it wouldn't budge an inch. So they called for Paul Bunyan to give them a hand.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox sized up the log jam. Then Paul told the loggers to stand back. He put Babe in the river in front of the log jam and began shooting his rifle, peppering the Blue Ox with shot. Babe thought he was being bothered by a particularly nasty breed of fly, so he began swishing his tail back and forth.

Well, that stirred things up a bit in the river. It got so agitated that the water began to flow upstream, taking the logs with it. Bit by bit, the log jam broke apart. Finally, Paul pulled Babe out of the water, and the river and logs began to float downstream again the way they should.

John Henry: The Steel Driving Man

A West Virginia Legend

retold by

S.E. Schlosser 

Now John Henry was a mighty man, yes sir. He was born a slave in the 1840's but was freed after the war. He went to work as a steel-driver for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, don't ya know. And John Henry was the strongest, the most powerful man working the rails.

John Henry, he would spend his day's drilling holes by hitting thick steel spikes into rocks with his faithful shaker crouching close to the hole, turning the drill after each mighty blow. There was no one who could match him, though many tried.

Well, the new railroad was moving along right quick, thanks in no little part to the mighty John Henry. But looming right smack in its path was a mighty enemy - the Big Bend Mountain. Now the big bosses at the C&O Railroad decided that they couldn't go around the mile and a quarter thick mountain. No sir, the men of the C&O were going to go through it - drilling right into the heart of the mountain.

A thousand men would lose their lives before the great enemy was conquered. It took three long years, and before it was done the ground outside the mountain was filled with makeshift, sandy graves. The new tunnels were filled with smoke and dust. Ya couldn't see no-how and could hardly breathe. But John Henry, he worked tirelessly, drilling with a 14-pound hammer, and going 10 to 12 feet in one workday. No one else could match him.

Then one day a salesman came along to the camp. He had a steam-powered drill and claimed it could out-drill any man. Well, they set up a contest then and there between John Henry and that there drill. The foreman ran that newfangled steam-drill. John Henry, he just pulled out two 20-pound hammers, one in each hand. They drilled and drilled, dust rising everywhere. The men were howling and cheering. At the end of 35 minutes, John Henry had drilled two seven foot holes - a total of fourteen feet, while the steam drill had only drilled one nine-foot hole.

John Henry held up his hammers in triumph! The men shouted and cheered. The noise was so loud, it took a moment for the men to realize that John Henry was tottering. Exhausted, the mighty man crashed to the ground, the hammer's rolling from his grasp. The crowd went silent as the foreman rushed to his side. But it was too late. A blood vessel had burst in his brain. The greatest driller in the C&O Railroad was dead.

Some folks say that John Henry's likeness is carved right into the rock inside the Big Bend Tunnel. And if you walk to the edge of the blackness of the tunnel, sometimes you can hear the sound of two 20-pound hammers drilling their way to victory over the machine.

Pecos Bill Rides a Tornado

A Kansas Tall Tale

retold by

S.E. Schlosser

Now everyone in the West knows that Pecos Bill could ride anything. No bronco could throw him, no sir! Fact is, I only heard of Bill getting' throwed once in his whole career as a cowboy. Yep, it was that time he was up Kansas way and decided to ride him a tornado.

Now Bill wasn't gonna ride jest any tornado, no ma'am. He waited for the biggest gol-durned tornado you ever saw. It was turning the sky black and green, and roaring so loud it woke up the farmers away over in China. Well, Bill jest grabbed that there tornado, pushed it to the ground and jumped on its back. The tornado whipped and whirled and sidewinded and generally cussed its bad luck all the way down to Texas. Tied the rivers into knots, flattened all the forests so bad they had to rename one place the Staked Plains. But Bill jest rode along all calm-like, give it an occasional jab with his spurs.

Finally, that tornado decided it wasn't getting this cowboy off its back no-how. So it headed west to California and jest rained itself out. Made so much water it washed out the Grand Canyon. That tornado was down to practically nothing when Bill finally fell off. He hit the ground so hard it sank below sea level. Folks call the spot Death Valley.

Anyway, that's how rodeo got started. Though most cowboys stick to broncos these days.

Pecos Bill and Slue-foot Sue

A Texas Tall Tale

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

Now, Pecos Bill had a way with wimmen. No doubt. He had dozens of wives during his time. But his one true love was Slue-foot Sue. She was his first wife - and she could ride almost as good as Bill himself.

Bill first saw Slue-foot Sue ridin' a catfish down the Rio Grande. She was riding standing up and holdin' on with only one hand sose she could take pot-shots at the clouds with her six-shooter. Was making a right pretty pattern too. Bill jest went head over heels for her. Proposed on the spot. They was married the next day too.

Sue was dressed in one of them white jobs with the large hoops. Looked plumb beautiful. Right after they was married, Sue insisted Bill prove how much he loved her by letting her ride his horse, Widow-maker. Bill couldn't talk her out of it, so Sue climbed on that great devil of a horse.

Well, Widow-Maker bucked like a maniac, jest as you'd expect. Sue was thrown off - clear up to the clouds. Luckily, Sue was still wearing her springy hoop. When she hit the ground, she bounced up again. But we all soon realized Sue couldn't stop bouncing. She bounced so high she kept hitting her head on the moon. She was crying and crying buckets of tears, and throwin' kisses to her new husband. But even he couldn't stop her bouncing.

We waited three days and four nights. Finally, even Bill realized that she was gonna starve to death before she stopped bouncing, so he had to shoot her. It was a cryin' shame. Well, time heals wounds, and Bill finally got married again. And again. And again. But I'm tellin' you, he never felt the same about another woman as he felt for his first wife, Slue-foot Sue.

Pecos Bill finds a Hard Outfit

A New Mexico Tall Tale

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

Well now, Texas jest became too tame for Pecos Bill once he killed off all the bad men, so he struck out for New Mexico, looking for a hard outfit. He asked an old trapper he met on the way where he could find a hard outfit, and the trapper directed Bill to a place where the fellers bit nails in half for fun. It sounded like a promisin' place to Bill, so he set off. But his durned fool hoss got its neck broke on the way, and Bill found himself afoot.

Bill went a walkin' with his saddle on his back. Suddenly, he come face to face with a rattlesnake 'round about fifteen feet long and lookin' fer trouble. Now Bill wanted to be fair to the rattler, so he let it get in a few jabs before he beat the stuffin' out of it. Being a kind man, when the snake was beat, he picked it up, wrapped it around his neck and carried it along with him.

They was a headin' through a narrow canyon when a cougar thought he'd have a bit of fun and jumped them. Bill never turned a hair. He jest put down his saddle and then whipped the tarnation out of the cougar. Hair flew everywhere, blocking the light sose the jackrabbits thought it was night and went to bed. Finally that cat were so beat he cried like a lost kitten and jest licked Bill's hand.

So Bill saddles him up and they tear off across them hills like forked lightening. Whenever Bill wanted to calm that cougar down, he'd just give him a tap with the rattlesnake. They set such a pace that they soon rolled into the hard outfit the trapper'd told Bill about. Quick as a wink, Bill jumps off the cougar, helps himself to some beans and coffee, wipes his mouth with a prickly pear and turns to look at the toughs sittin' around the fire.

"Who's the boss around here, anyhow?" he asks.

"I was," said a big mountain of a feller about seven foot tall and wide, "but you are now, stranger!"

Jack and the Corn Stalk

A Kansas Tall Tale 

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

Once, a Kansas farmer sent his son Jack to check on the growth of the corn in the field. Now Jack was not a tall lad, so he decided to take a ladder with him. When he found a nice big stalk of corn, he leaned the ladder against it and climbed up until he could reach the first joint. From there, he proceeded to the top of the cornstalk, and looked out over the field. There was enough corn there for a rich harvest.

Excited by his discovery, Jack started back down the corn stalk. He realized suddenly that it had kept growing while he was at the top. He stepped from joint to joint, but it grew so fast he never reached the ground.

Meanwhile, Jack's father wondered what was taking the boy so long. He knew there was no use in hunting for him in the forest of corn, so he climbed to the top of the windmill. He saw Jack's predicament soon enough, and gathered the neighborhood men. They tried to chop down the cornstalk, but the cornstalk was growing so fast there were eighteen inches separating every chop. Finally, they gave up, and Jack was forced to stay on the corn stalk until a drought came and it finally stopped growing.

Davy Crockett and the Frozen Dawn

A Tennessee Tall Tale

retold by

S.E. Schlosser

One winter, it was so cold that the dawn froze solid. The sun got caught between two ice blocks, and the earth iced up so much that it couldn't turn. The first rays of sunlight froze halfway over the mountain tops. They looked like yellow icicles dripping towards the ground.

Now Davy Crockett was headed home after a successful night hunting when the dawn froze up so solid. Being a smart man, he knew he had to do something quick or the earth was a goner. He had a freshly killed bear on his back, so he whipped it off, climbed right up on those rays of sunlight and began beating the hot bear carcass against the ice blocks which were squashing the sun. Soon a gush of hot oil burst out of the bear and it melted the ice. Davy gave the sun a good hard kick to get it started, and the sun's heat unfroze the earth and started it spinning again. So Davy lit his pipe on the sun, shouldered the bear, slid himself down the sun rays before they melted and took a bit of sunrise home in his pocket.

Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett Bests Mike Fink

A Tennessee Tall Tale

retold by

S.E. Schlosser 

Davy Crockett done married the prettiest, the sassiest, the toughest gal in the West, don't ya know! Her name was Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind and she was all that and then some! She was tougher than a grumpy she-bear and faster than a wildcat with his tail on fire and sweeter than honey, so that even hornets would let her use their nest for a Sunday-go-to-Meeting hat.

Naturally, Davy Crockett was proud of his wife and liked to boast about her skills. "Yes sir, she can wrestle an alligator until it gets down on its knees and begs for mercy," he told everyone. Well, Mike Fink, that tough old Mississippi roarer, snag-lifter, and flatboat skuller, took a dislike to Davy Crockett's boasting about his wife (maybe on account of his wife weren't half so tough), and he tried seven ways to Sunday to scare her good and proper. 'Course, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett didn't pay any attention to his antics, and Davy Crockett about laughed 'til he busted to see Mike Fink trying to pull a fast one on her.

Finally, Mike Fink bet Davy Crockett a dozen wild-cats that he could scare Miz Crockett until her teeth came loose and her toe nails went out-of-joint. Davy Crockett figure this was an easy win, so he took the bet.

Well, Mike Fink took the skin of a mighty big alligator and wrapped it around himself. Then he crept into the bushes and waited until Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett came strolling by for her evening walk. Mike Fink leapt out of the brush and started a growling and a howling and roaring so loud he about scared himself out of his wits. But not Miz Crockett; no sir! She put her hands on her hips and smirked at that raging critter like it was a misbehavin' child.

That made Mike Fink pretty mad. He was determined to scare the wits outta Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett if it was the last thing he did. He stretched out the claws on that 'gater skin and started walking toward Miz Crockett, reaching to pull her into its deadly embrace. Now it was Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett's turn to get mad.

"Don't you be fresh!" she told that crazy critter. She gave his a glare so full of lightning that it light up the sky from here to California, but Mike Fink kept a-coming 'cause he was determined to win the bet.

Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett took out a small toothpick that she carried with her to keep her smile all clean and pretty after she ate. She jest lit out with that toothpick and knocked the head right off that alligator skin. It whirled up and away about fifty-feet into the air, and it took all the hair on top of Mike Fink's head right along with it. So now Mike Fink was left

standing in front of Miz Crockett with a half-bald head and the remains of an alligator skin clutched around him.

Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett was not amused when she realized the famous Mississippi roarer was trying to scare the dickens out of her. She put away the toothpick, since she figured it gave her an unfair advantage, and proceeded to knock the stuffing out of Mike Fink until he fainted away in his alligator skin. Dusting off her hands, she glared down at his still form and said: "Good riddance!" and marched off to tell her husband the story. Davy Crockett laughed so hard he nearly split a gusset!

When folks asked Mike Fink how he got so busted up the next day, he told them he'd been chewed up and swallowed whole by an alligator. But he didn't fool Davy Crockett none with this story, so he had to give him a dozen wild cats to pay off his bet.

Mike Fink never messed with Miz Crockett again!

Michigan Winds

A Michigan Tall Tale

retold by

S.E. Schlosser 

Michigan winds are fiercest in the spring. Why, just last year, the wind knocked one of our mountains over into a valley. Folks woke up the next day to find themselves living on a plain.

But we Michigan folk just take these happenings as a matter of course. Take my friend Joe, for example. One March, Joe went out onto his porch to eat dessert. He had barely taken a bite out of his fresh apple pie when a wind blew his house over. Keeping his presence of mind, Joe grabbed hold of the branch of a tree to keep from being blown away. Once he had secured himself on the branch, he nabbed one of the boards floating away from his house, and used it to shield him from the wind so he could finish eating his apple pie.

'Course, I've heard they also get a pretty mean wind when you cross the border into Canada. There's a story I know about a British Columbia chap named Jake whose dog was blown up against his garage wall one day. That wind blew so hard and so strong that the hound dog starved to death before it quit. Jake had to scrape the poor old dog off the wall with a shovel. And what did he find but that the wind had pushed the hound's shadow right into the surface of the wall. So Jake buried the poor dog under the shadow and wrote his epitaph on it: Doggone.

Mississippi Mosquitoes

A Mississippi Tall Tale 

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

A visitor to Mississippi decided to take a walk along the river in the cool of the evening. His host warned him that the mosquitoes in the area had been acting up lately, tormenting the alligators until they moved down the river. But the visitor just laughed and told his host he wasn't to be put off from his evening constitutional by a few mosquitoes.

As he promenaded beside the flowing Mississippi, he heard the whirling sound of a tornado. Looking up, he saw two mosquitoes descend upon him. They lifted him straight up in the air and carried him out over the river.

"Shall we eat him on the bank or in the swamp?" he heard one ask the other.

"We'd better eat him on the bank," said the other. "Or else the big mosquitoes in the swamp will take him away from us."

Frightened near to death, the man lashed out at the mosquitoes until they lost their grip and dropped him into the river. He was carried two miles downstream before he was fished out by a riverboat pilot. The man left Mississippi the next day, and has never gone for another walk from that day to this.

Oklahoma Weather

An Oklahoma Tall Tale

retold by

S.E. Schlosser 

To say that the weather in Oklahoma is subject to extremes is an understatement. Instead of rain storms, we get dust storms. On the same day, one man can die of sunstroke at noon while his neighbor freezes to death that night.

Now, as you may well suspect, this finicky weather has an adverse effect upon our frogs. I've known the temperature to drop so fast that our frogs are stuck with their heads above the ice. One bull frog I seen musta been caught in the middle of a leap, because he was sprawled across the ice with the tip of one foot caught inside!

But the temperature is not our only weather phenomenon. No sir. The winds in Oklahoma are noteworthy too. We natives have a crowbar hole drilled through an outside wall. We use it to test the wind. You stick a crowbar through the hole, and if it bends, then the wind is normal. But if the crowbar breaks, well, then best to stay in until the wind dies down some.

White House Ghosts

A Washington D.C. Ghost Story 

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

It is said that Lincoln's ghost haunts the White House. He appears in the room where the Lincoln bed is kept. Harry Truman once responded to a 3 o'clock knock on his door and found no one there. He attributed the knock to Lincoln.

Lincoln is said to return to the White House when the security of the country is at risk. He strides up and down the second floor hallway, raps at doors, and stands by certain windows with his hands clasped behind his back. One staff member claimed to have seen Lincoln sitting on his bed pulling on his boots.

A bodyguard to President Harrison was kept awake many nights trying to protect the president from mysterious footsteps he heard in the hall. He grew so tired and worried; he finally attended a séance to beg President Lincoln to stop so he could get enough sleep to properly protect the president!

Abigail Adam's ghost was seen drifting through the closed doors of the East Room to hang the laundry during the Taft administration.

A gardener claims to have spoken to the ghost of Dolly Madison, who reproved him for trying to remove the rose bushes she had planted over a hundred years ago.

In the 1930's Andrew Jackson's ghost could be heard laughing in the Rose room.

In 1952, extensive repairs were done to the second floor of the White House. Since then, the ghosts have not walked so actively.

Attack of the Mammoth

A British Columbia Myth

from Kaska First Nation

retold by

S.E. Schlosser

A man and his family were constantly on the move, hunting for beaver. They traveled from lake to lake, stream to stream, never staying any place long enough for it to become a home. The woman sometimes silently wished that they would find a village and settle down somewhere with their little baby, but her husband was restless, and so they kept moving.

 

One evening, after setting up camp on a large lake, the young mother went out to net some beaver, carrying her baby upon her back. When she had a toboggan full of beaver meat, she started back to camp. As she walked through the darkening evening, she heard the thump-thump-thump of mighty footsteps coming from somewhere behind her. She stopped; her heart pounding. She was being followed by something very large. Her hands trembled as she thought of the meat she was dragging behind her. The creature must have smelled the meat and was stalking the smell.

 

Afraid to turn around and alert the beast, she bent over as if to pick something off the snowy path and glanced quickly past her legs. Striding boldly through the snowy landscape was a tall, barrel-shaped, long-haired creature with huge tusks and a very long trunk. It was a tix - a mammoth - and it looked hungry. She straightened quickly and hurriedly threw the meat into the snow. Then she ran as fast as she could back to camp, dragging the toboggan behind her. Her little baby cried out fearfully, frightened by all the jostling, but she did not stop to comfort him until she was safe inside their shelter.

 

She told her husband at once about the terrible mammoth that had stalked her and taken the beaver meat. Her husband shook his head and told her she was dreaming. Everyone knew that the mammoth had all died away. Then he light-heartedly accused her of giving the meat away to a handsome sweetheart. She denied it resentfully, knowing that he really believed that she had carelessly overturned the toboggan and had let the meat sink beneath the icy waters of the lake.

 

After her husband went to set more beaver nets, she prepared the evening meal. While it was cooking over the fire, she walked all around the camp, making sure that there was an escape route through the willow-brush just in case the hungry mammoth attacked them in the night.

 

The husband and wife lay down to sleep next to the fire after they finished the evening meal. The husband chuckled when he saw that his wife kept her moccasins on and the baby clutched in her arms. "Expecting the mammoth to attack us?" he asked jovially. She nodded, and he laughed aloud at her. Soon he was asleep, but the woman lay awake for a long time, listening.

 

The wife was awakened from a light doze around midnight by the harsh sounds of the mammoth approaching. "Husband," she shouted, shaking him. He opened his eyes grumpily and demanded an explanation. She tried to tell him that the hungry mammoth was coming to eat them, but he told her she was having a nightmare and would not listen. The wife begged and pleaded and tried to drag him away with her, but he resisted and finally shouted at her to begone if she was afraid. In despair, she clutched her little child to her chest and ran away from the camp.

 

As she fled, she heard the harsh roar of the giant creature and the sudden shout of her husband as he came face to face with the creature. Then there was silence, and the woman knew her husband was dead. Weeping, she fled with her child, seeking a village that she had heard was nearby. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, she heard the thump-thump-thump of the creature's massive feet stomping through the snow-fields, following her trail. Occasionally, it made a wailing sound like that of a baby crying.

 

The woman kept jogging along, comforting her little baby as best she could. As light dawned, she saw a camp full of people who were living on the shores of an island on the lake. She crossed the icy expanse as quickly as possible and warned the people of the fierce mammoth that had killed her husband. The warriors quickly went out onto the ice and made many holes around the edges of their village, weakening the ice so that the mammoth would fall through and drown.

 

As evening approached, the people saw the mammoth coming toward them across the ice. When it neared their camp on the island, the creature plunged through the weakened ice. Everyone cheered, thinking that the animal had drowned. Then its large hairy head emerged out of the water and it shook its long tusks and bellowed in rage. The mammoth started walking along the bottom of the lake, brushing aside the ice with his large tusks.

 

The people panicked. They screamed and ran in circles, and some of them stood frozen in place, staring as the mammoth emerged from the ice and walked up onto the banks of the island. The wife of the eaten man fled with her baby, urging as many of her new-found friends as she could reach, to flee with her. But many remained behind, paralyzed with fear.

 

Then a boy emerged from one of the shelters, curious to know what was causing everyone to scream in fear. He wore the bladder of a moose over his head, covering his hair so that he looked bald. He was a strange lad, and was shunned by the locals. Only his grandmother knew that he was a mighty shaman with magic trousers and magic arrows that could kill any living beast.

 

When the boy saw the hungry, angry mammoth, he called out to his grandmother to fetch the magic trousers and the magic arrows. Donning his clothing, he shook his head until the bladder burst and his long hair fell down to his waist. Then he took his magic bow and arrows and leapt in front of the frightened people and began peppering the beast with arrows, first from one side and then the other. The mammoth roared and weaved and tried to attack the boy, but the shaman's magic was powerful, and soon the beast lay dead upon the ground.

 

Then those who fled from the mammoth returned to the camp, led by the poor widow and her baby. The people whose lives had been saved by the bladder-headed boy gave a cheer and gathered in excitement around the boy. In gratitude, the people made the shaman their chief and offered him two beautiful girls to be his wives, though he accepted only one of them. The widow and her baby were welcomed into the tribe, and a few months later she married a brave warrior who became close friends with the shaman-become-chief.

 

And from that day to this, the people have always had chiefs to lead them, and no mammoths have troubled them again.

Crow Brings the Daylight

An Inuit Myth

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

Story featured in Land of the Midnight Sun, a concert band piece composed by Vince Gassi!

Long, long ago, when the world was still new, the Inuit lived in darkness in their home in the fastness of the north. They had never heard of daylight, and when it was first explained to them by Crow, who traveled back and forth between the northlands and the south, they did not believe him.

Yet many of the younger folk were fascinated by the story of the light that gilded the lands to the south. They made Crow repeat his tales until they knew them by heart.

"Imagine how far and how long we could hunt," they told one another.

"Yes, and see the polar bear before it attacks," others agreed.

Soon the yearning for daylight was so strong that the Inuit people begged Crow to bring it to them. Crow shook his head. "I am too old," he told them. "The daylight is very far away. I can no longer go so far." But the pleadings of the people made him reconsider, and finally he agreed to make the long journey to the south.

Crow flew for many miles through the endless dark of the north. He grew weary many times, and almost turned back. But at last he saw a rim of light at the very edge of horizon and knew that the daylight was close.

Crow strained his wings and flew with all his might. Suddenly, the daylight world burst upon him with all its glory and brilliance. The endless shades of color and the many shapes and forms surrounding him made Crow stare and stare. He flapped down to a tree and rested himself, exhausted by his long journey. Above him, the sky was an endless blue, the clouds fluffy and white. Crow could not get enough of the wonderful scene.

Eventually Crow lowered his gaze and realized that he was near a village that lay beside a wide river. As he watched, a beautiful girl came to the river near the tree in which he perched. She dipped a large bucket into the icy waters of the river and then turned to make her way back to the village. Crow turned himself into a tiny speck of dust and drifted down towards the girl as she passed beneath his tree. He settled into her fur cloak and watched carefully as she returned to the snow lodge of her father, who was the chief of the village people.

It was warm and cozy inside the lodge. Crow looked around him and spotted a box that glowed around the edges. Daylight, he thought. On the floor, a little boy was playing contentedly. The

speck of dust that was Crow drifted away from the girl and floated into the ear of the little boy. Immediately the child sat up and rubbed at his ear, which was irritated by the strange speck. He started to cry, and the chief, who was a doting grandfather, came running into the snow lodge to see what was wrong.

"Why are you crying?" the chief asked, kneeling beside the child.

Inside the little boy's ear, Crow whispered: "You want to play with a ball of daylight." The little boy rubbed at his ear and then repeated Crow's words.

The chief sent his daughter to the glowing box in the corner. She brought it to her father, who removed a glowing ball, tied it with a string, and gave it to the little boy. He rubbed his ear thoughtfully before taking the ball. It was full of light and shadow, color and form. The child laughed happily, tugging at the string and watching the ball bounce.

Then Crow scratched the inside of his ear again and the little boy gasped and cried.

"Don't cry, little one," said the doting grandfather anxiously. "Tell me what is wrong."

Inside the boy's ear, Crow whispered: "You want to go outside to play." The boy rubbed at his ear and then repeated Crow's words to his grandfather. Immediately, the chief lifted up the small child and carried him outside, followed by his worried mother.

As soon as they were free of the snow lodge, Crow swooped out of the child's ear and resumed his natural form. He dove toward the little boy's hand and grabbed the string from him. Then he rose up and up into the endless blue sky, the ball of daylight sailing along behind him.

In the far north, the Inuit saw a spark of light coming toward them through the darkness. It grew brighter and brighter, until they could see Crow flapping his wings as he flew toward them. The people gasped and pointed and called in delight.

The Crow dropped the ball, and it shattered upon the ground, releasing the daylight so that it exploded up and out, illuminating every dark place and chasing away every shadow. The sky grew bright and turned blue. The dark mountains took on color and light and form. The snow and ice sparkled so brightly that the Inuit had to shade their eyes.

The people laughed and cried and exclaimed over their good fortune. But Crow told them that the daylight would not last forever. He had only obtained one ball of daylight from the people of the south, and it would need to rest for six months every year to regain its strength. During that six month period, the darkness would return.

The people said: "Half a year of daylight is enough. Before you brought the daylight, we lived our whole life in darkness!" Then they thanked Crow over and over again.

To this day, the Inuit live for half a year in darkness and half a year in daylight. And they are always kind to Crow, for it was he who brought them the light.

Guardian of Yosemite

A Native American Myth (Miowak Tribe)retold by S. E. Schlosser

For many nights and many days, the guardian spirit of Tisayac watched over the beautiful valley of Yosemite. Often, the gentle spirit would drift invisibly among the good folk of the valley, and it was during one of these visits that she noticed a tall, proud man named Tutokanula. He was a strong leader who greatly enhanced the lot of his people, and Tisayac came more often to the valley so that she could watch him.

One day, Tutokanula was hunting near the place where Tisayac had laid down to rest. When she realized the proud leader was close by, the shy spirit peered out at him from among the trees. Seeing the beautiful woman with her golden hair and ethereal appearance, Tutokanula fell in love. Realizing it was the guardian of the valley, he reached out his hands to her, calling her by name. Confused by the rush of feelings inside her, Tisayac flew away, leaving a brokenhearted warrior behind. Tutokanula spent many days searching for Tisayac. Finally he left the valley and his people in despair. Without his wise guidance, the valley fell into ruin and most of the good folk left to find a new home.

When Tisayac returned again to her valley, she was horrified to find it barren and her people gone. When she learned that Tutokanula had forgotten his people, had left them to fend for themselves without the benefit of his great wisdom, and had spent many days and nights searching and longing for her, she cried out in despair. Kneeling upon a mighty dome of rock, Tisayac prayed with all her heart that the Great Spirit would undo this wrong and would restore to this land the virtue which had been lost.

Hearing her prayer, the Great Spirit took pity on the plight of her people. Stooping down from on high, he spread his hands over the valley. The green of new life poured forth over the land; trees blossomed, flowers bloomed, birds sang. Then he struck a mighty blow against the mountains and they broke apart, leaving a pathway for the melting snow to flow through. The water swirled and washed down upon the land, spilling over rocks, pooling into a lake and then wandering afar to spread life to other places. In the valley, the corn grew tall again, and the people came back to their home.

Then Tutokanula himself came to the valley when he heard that Tisayac had come home. Upon his return, he spent many hours carving his likeness into the stone so his people would remember him when he departed from this earth. When the carving was finished, Tutokanula sat down wearily at the foot of the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls the Great Spirit had created. Tisayac drifted into the spray of the falls, watching him. He was ready to depart from his people, from his valley. Would he go with her? She moved forward through the falling water and made herself visible. When Tutokanula saw Tisayac, he sprang to his feet with a cry of joy and she held out her arms to him. The brave warrior leapt into the falls and took his love into his arms at last. For a moment, there were two rainbows arching over the water. Then Tisayac drew him up and up into the clouds and away as the sun sank over Yosemite.

Pele's Revenge

A Hawaii Legend retold by S.E. Schlosser 

Ohi'a and Lehua loved each other from the moment they first saw each other at a village dance. Ohi'a was a tall strong man with a handsome face and lithe form. He was something of a trickster and was first in all the sports played by all the young men. Lehua was gentle and sweet and as fragile as a flower. Her beauty was the talk of the island, and her father was quite protective of his only child.

When Lehua saw the handsome, bold Ohi'a speaking with her father beside the bonfire, she blushed crimson, unable to take her eyes from the young man. At the same moment, Ohi'a glanced up from his conversation and his mouth dropped open at the sight of the beautiful maiden. He was not even aware that he had stopped speaking right in the middle of his sentence, so overwhelmed was he by the sight of the fair maiden across the fire from him.

Lehua's father nudged the young man, recalling him to his duties as a guest. Ohi'a stuttered and stammered apologies, trying to continue his conversation while keeping one eye on the fair Lehua. Lehua's father was amused by the young man's obvious infatuation with his daughter. He quite liked this bold trickster, and so he offered to introduce Ohi'a to his daughter. The young man almost fell over in his haste as they walked across the clearing to where Lehua stood with her friends.

From that moment, there was no other woman for Ohi'a but Lehua. He had eyes only for her, and courted her with a passion and zeal that swiftly won her heart. Her father gave his only daughter gladly into the keeping of the strong young man, and the young couple lived quite happily for several months in a new home Ohi'a built for his bride.

Then one day the goddess Pele was walking in the forest near the home of the handsome Ohi'a and spied the young man at work. Pele was smitten by him, and went at once to engage him in conversation. Ohi'a spoke politely to the beautiful woman, but did not respond to her advances, which infuriated Pele. She was determined to have this young man for herself, but before she could renew her efforts, Lehua came to the place her young husband was working to bring him his midday meal.

When he saw his lovely wife, Ohi'a's face lit up with love. He dropped everything at once and went to her side, leaving a fuming Pele to stare in jealous rage at the young couple. Dropping her human disguise, the goddess transformed into a raging column of fire and struck Ohi'a down, transforming him into a twisted ugly tree in revenge for spurning her advances.

Lehua fell to her knees beside the twisted tree that had once been her husband. Tears streaming down her lovely face, she begged Pele to turn him back into a man or else turn her into a tree, as she could not bear to be separated from her beloved. But Pele ignored the girl, taking herself up to the cool heights, her anger satisfied. But the gods saw what Pele had done to the innocent lovers and were angry. As Lehua lay weeping in despair, the gods reached down and transformed

the girl into a beautiful red flower, which they placed upon the twisted Ohi'a tree, so that she and her beloved husband would never more be apart.

From that day to this, the Ohi'a tree has blossomed with the beautiful red Lehua flowers. While the flowers remain on the tree, the weather remains sunny and fair. But when a flower is plucked from the tree, then heavy rain falls upon the land like tears, for Lehua still cannot bear to be separated from her beloved husband Ohi'a.

Ohi’a tree with lehua flowers (painting)

Philemon and Baucis

A story of poverty, kindness, and hospitality

By N.S. Gill, About.com GuideAccording to ancient Roman mythology and Ovid's Metamorphoses, Philemon and Baucis had

lived out their long lives nobly, but in poverty. Jupiter, the Roman king of the gods, had heard of

the virtuous couple, but based on all his previous experiences with humans, he had serious

doubts as to their goodness.

Jupiter was about to destroy mankind, but was willing to give it one final chance before starting over again. So, in the company of his grandson Mercury, the wing-footed messenger god, Jupiter went about, disguised as a worn and weary traveler, from house to house among the neighbors of Philemon and Baucis. As Jupiter feared and expected, the neighbors turned him and Mercury away rudely. Then the two gods went to the last house, the cottage of Philemon and Baucis, where the couple had lived all their long married lives.

Philemon and Baucis were pleased to have visitors, and insisted that their guests rest before their little hearth fire. They even lugged in more of their precious firewood to make a greater blaze. Unasked, Philemon and Baucis then served their presumably starving guests, fresh fruits, olives, eggs, and wine.

Soon the old couple noticed that no matter how often they poured from it, the wine pitcher was never empty. They began to suspect that their guests might be more than mere mortals. Just in case, Philemon and Baucis decided to provide the closest they could come to a meal that was fit for a god. They would slaughter their only goose in their guests' honor. Unfortunately, the legs of the goose were faster then those of Philemon or Baucis. Even though the humans were not as fast, they were smarter, and so they cornered the goose inside the cottage, where they were just about to catch it.... At the last moment, the goose sought the shelter of the divine guests. To save the life of the goose, Jupiter and Mercury revealed themselves and immediately expressed their pleasure in meeting an honorable human pair.

Asked what divine favor they wanted, the couple said that they wished to become temple priests and die together. Their wish was granted and when they died they were turned into intertwining trees.