A Treasury of North American Folktales

A Treasury of North American Folk Tales is a delightful book. It consists of a bunch of short stories that have their origin in the folk traditions of many of the various peoples living in North America. The stories are mostly very short, and many of them are really funny, although some are sad as well.

There are serious tales, such as a Native American creation myth and several ghost stories. There are stories of the type that would have been popular among the sort of people who would frequent liar’s clubs. There are stories adapted from the folk tales of the various immigrant groups who now people the various parts of North America.

And some stories have their origins right here, some of them in fairly recent times. There are stories of popular heroes, like Davey Crockett (a real man, although some of the exploits of his life, many of them published during his lifetime with his knowledge, make him seem like the precursor to today’s comic book heroes), or John Henry. I have an upcoming review on a book involving John Henry in which I will expound at length on some of the stories about him.

Anyway, there are also inspirational stories, and stories of famous tricksters, such as Brer Rabbit and Coyote. And there are my favorite group of stories, the tall tales, such as the ones about Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill.

A few of the stories come from written sources and have definite authors, but many first appeared as secondhand retellings of tales supposedly heard from another storyteller.