Washoe County Library System

Retells the Cherokee legend in which Dancing Drum tries to make Grandmother Sun smile on the People again. Also describes the history, culture, and fate of the Cherokee Indians.

A Cheyenne legend explaining the origins of the stars. Also describes the history, culture, and fate of the Cheyenne Indians.

Brave Bear outwits four ghosts who are trying to scare him.

Describes the features of a tall tale and creates one based on a character familiar to students, a schoolteacher.

From sea to shining sea, the United States is a country full of tall tales! Take the story of Mike Fink and Annie Christmas, legendary keel boat captains who battle with strength and skill on the waters of the mighty Mississippi River. Meet Febold Feboldson, an ingenious farmer credited with bringing rain to the hot, dusty Great Plains, and Joe Magarac, the quintessential steel man from Pittsburgh, Pa., who can make railroad tracks with his bare hands....

Boone McCallister was interviewed in 1937 for the American Legends Collection, a part of the Federal Writer's Project. Speaking into an Edison Dictaphone, he narrated the events concerning a dangerous cattle drive in Florida back when the state was still largely unsettled. Here is the story of a young man's first cattle drive in 1864 and the legend of David Klee and an encounter with an alligator.