North American folktales have been popular with adults and children for many decades. Along with folksongs, fables, and nursery rhymes, many are taught in schools and have captured the attention of youngsters for many generations. Some are popular as songs and some are simply stories that may have had variations throughout the years but the core characters retain the major details that were included in the original tales.
Paul Bunyan is a folktale that is believed to have originated near the forests of the Dakotas in upper part of the Central United States. He likely was part of a story that grew among the loggers and lumberjacks that worked along the US and Canadian border in the early 20th century. Bunyan may have initially been based on an actual lumberjack, but over time the character became larger than life. Particularly popular with children, he eventually transformed into an unrealistic giant of a man, who ate mountains of pancakes, carried an enormous ax, and travelled with an equally enormous blue ox named Babe. Personifying the adventurous spirit of an American society that was “conquering” the wild frontier at the time, Bunyan to this day is a popular figure in folklore.
Johnny Appleseed was a real person who travelled across America during the early 1800s planting apple trees along the way. He was a pacifist as well as a vegetarian, who always went out of his way to help others. He was described as disheveled in appearance, always barefoot with a tin pot on his head. Although it is true he spread many seeds that he carried with him, he was also a trained orchardist, and would sell the trees he planted after one or two years to settlers he met along the way. One famous story tells of how Appleseed ran 26 miles to warn settlers along the way to Mount Vernon, which was under attack at the time. He blew an old horn as a warning and call for aid. It is said that because of his actions the Mount Vernon settlers were saved. John Chapman died in 1845, reportedly of pneumonia, but his legend lives on in the story of Johnny Appleseed.