Humorous narrative, usually short, based on exaggeration. Tall tales are also known as
“windies,” “whoppers,” “tales of lying” and, simply, “lies.” To dismiss tall tales as lies,
however, is to ignore the important creative and artistic dimension that characterizes their
performance in those milieus where they have flourished.
Tall tales are usually told as factual accounts of real happenings, with the audience
encouraging the narrator to spin out his yarns (there seem to be few or no female tall-tale tellers) while, in order to maintain a serious mien, listeners make that “willing suspension
of disbelief” necessary to a successful session.
The subject matter of tall tales is certainly related to historically male-dominated
occupations, with hunting and fishing narratives often dominating the tale teller’s
repertoire. Thus, a hunter will recount how, while using an old-time muzzle-loader, he
was unable to take aim on more than a couple of birds amongst the hundreds lining the
shore of a bay; he will tell how he judged the bay’s curvature, then bent his gun barrel
around a rock to suit the curve, with his resulting shot bagging dozens of birds.
Another will relate how, lacking shot, he loaded his gun with nails and was able to
shoot a fox, nailing its tail to a tree; the fox jumped out of its skin, however. But the
following year, the hunter shot the same fox, which he recognized, thereby gaining two
skins from the same animal.
Fishermen in Newfoundland tell of the reef they hauled their dory onto in order to
light a fire and boil their kettle, only to discover, as they are leaving, that the reef was, in
fact, a whale. Others tell of a pond or river in which they were wading while playing a
particularly large fish and how, on grabbing some tufts of grass to pull themselves out,
they discover they have, in fact, caught a brace of hares; in addition, their hipwaders have
filled with eels while they were struggling with their initial catch.
Many tales are told relating the remarkable qualities of certain individuals—about the
great eaters and drinkers, the remarkable marksman, the extraordinary strong man, the
remarkable spitter who could spit out a fire over which a steer was roasting.
Tall-tale tellers relate what they have seen or encountered in their travel—enormous
fruits or vegetables, exceptionally thin or fat animals, or creatures able to pass on to their
offspring various acquired traits; thus, the bitch whose hindlegs had been severed, and
who had been provided with a little cart on which she could drag herself around, gives
birth to a litter similarly endowed.
Extremes of weather are also the subject of tall tales. Rains so heavy it was impossible
to tell where a lake ended and the sky began have been confirmed by sightings of fish
flying in the air and birds swimming underwater; remarkable cold snaps in which
conversations were frozen solid, to be heard in the spring thaw, are told by certain
woodsmen.
Such themes, covering almost anything to be encountered in the natural world, have
formed the stock-in-trade of the tall-tale narrator. In the 1990s, however, most people are
likely to have encountered the tall-tale in its literary manifestations, such as in the
published accounts of the doings of Paul Bunyan, but while Bunyan is widely held to be
representative of American folklore, in actual fact there is little or no evidence such a
character ever existed in folklore, or indeed that the stories attributed to him ever
circulated in oral tradition.
The tall tale is generally transmitted in oral tradition in two ways: secondhand, as
when a person attributes an exploit or an experience to another party who originally told
the tale as a personal experience—this is how most tall tales have been recorded by
collectors—and firsthand, as when the collector is fortunate enough to participate in a
natural tall-tale-telling session.
There is ample evidence to suggest that a natural tall-tale-telling context—for
example, the “liars’ bench” in general stores, around a campfire, or any habitual
gathering place—might include a good deal of swapping of yarns: one man might tell of a fishing exploit, with another man trying to cap it with one of his experiences—and the
listeners doing their best to encourage such friendly competition, urging or provoking the
participants to further narrations of their unlikely feats and taking pleasure both in the
process and in the artistry of the narrators, who would begin with a detailed and plausible
account of their experience, at the very end of which the exaggeration would be uttered,
with the habitual pokerface expression.
The friendly rivalry typical of such yarn swapping seems, however, to have been
absent entirely when audiences were faced with the kind of characters whose names have
become synonymous with the tall tale in the regions where they flourished. These are the
men whose reputations as “liars” spread beyond their immediate confines, and who
brooked no competition in the matter of tall-tale telling. Indeed, their narrative style was
such that prospective listeners sometimes had to be extremely careful in the way they
broached the subject of the narrator’s exploits. It was no good asking for a “tall tale,” for
example; to encourage a storyteller to begin a tale, the subject would have to be raised
indirectly, with a passing reference to someone’s recent fishing trip, for example. And woe betide the listener careless
enough to make an uncharitable comment during the narration—the narrator might well
stop dead and refuse to say another word, or stomp off in high dudgeon. Such “tall tale
heroes” could be touchy individuals, but they were often so famous locally that their
names and tales lingered long after their death.
These masters of exaggeration have only occasionally been brought to the attention of
a wider public. The best known of these is undoubtedly Baron Münchhausen
(Hieronymous Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen [1720–1797] of Bodenwerder,
Brunswick, Germany), whose authentic yarns, documented by contemporaries, were
taken up and published by Rudolph Erich Raspe, in the high-flown style of the late 18th
century. Raspe’s literary redaction became so popular that the baron’s name became a
byword for tall-tale heroes when folklorists began documenting them in the 20th century.
Some notable North American tall-tale heroes include Abraham “Oregon” Smith
(1796–1893) from Indiana, whose exploits were first noted by Herbert Halpert in 1942
and then treated at length by William Hugh Jansen; Gib Morgan (1842–1909), who told
his yarns in the context of the oil fields and was given a literary treatment in 1945 by
Mody Boatright (1896–1970); and Jim Bridger (1804–1881), Western explorer and the
man who was instrumental in opening up Yellowstone National Park. He was one of the
earliest liars to come to more than local fame, since his tall tales, which he used to spin to
greenhorn tourists, were included in early publications concerning Yellowstone.
John Darling (1809–1893) of New York state was first brought to public attention by
Harold W.Thompson (1891–1963), but his yarns were, like those of Münchhausen and
Morgan, also given a literary reworking, by Moritz Jagendorf. Darling was known to his
contemporaries as “the damndest liar in seven states,” and he used to tell his yarns at
clambakes, elections, dances or “frolics,” barnraisings, and the like.
“Captain” John Hance (ca. 1850–1919) of Arizona was, like Bridger, a guide who
used to spin his tales to tourists, in his case while they visited the Grand Canyon. He once
told a friend how he could convince a tenderfoot that frogs ate boiled eggs and make
them believe the frogs would carry the eggs a mile to find a rock to crack them on.
A Canadian tall-tale hero was Dave McDougall (184?– 1928) of Alberta. It was said
that “the three biggest liars in Alberta were Dave McDougall; John McDougall [his
brother] was the other two.” Lorenzo “Len” Henry (1852–1946) of Idaho was described
by Jan Harold Brunvand as “a Münchhausen,” just as was Darling; other tall-tale tellers
who have been documented include Daniel Stamps (1866–1950) of Illinois, Jones Tracy
(1856–1939) of Maine, Ed Grant, also of Maine, Bill Greenfield of New York, Benjamin
Franklin Finn of Oregon, and Moses Stocking of Nebraska; in Newfoundland, Albert
“Ding-Ding” Simon (188?–1968) possessed a nickname suggestive of another dimension
to his character beyond that of a “liar.”
While these men, and the many others whose tall tales have not been documented,
owed their reputations to their narrative skills and often fertile imaginations, as often as
not they were seen as somewhat marginal characters in the very societies that nurtured
them. As explorers and guides, they were often solitary individuals; while admired for
their nar-rative talent, they had to be treated with kid gloves in order to get them yarning;
and they might be, as was Simon, mocked for eccentricities of behavior or any other
observable peculiarity. They may or may not be a vanishing breed, but they have
indubitably enriched the oral literature and verbal arts of America.
Gerald Thomas
References
Brown, Carolyn S. 1987. The Tall Tale in American Folklore and Literature. Knoxville: University
of Tennessee Press.
Dorson, Richard M. 1982. Man and Beast in American Comic Legend. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Jansen, William Hugh. 1977. Abraham “Oregon” Smith: Pioneer, Folk Hero, and Tale-Teller.
New York: Arno.
Lunt, C.Richard K. 1968. Jones Tracy: Tall Tale Teller from Mount Desert Island. Northeast
Folklore 10.
Randolph, Vance. 1951. We Always Lie to Strangers. New York: Columbia University Press.
Thomas, Gerald. 1977. The Tall Tale and Philippe d’Alcripe. St. John’s, Newfoundland: Memorial
University of Newfoundland, in association with the American Folklore Society.