fakelore
Invented traditions are cultural practices that are presented or perceived as traditional, arising from people starting in the distant past, but which are relatively recent and often consciously invented by historical actors. The concept was high ...
folk hero
A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythology, mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in Folk music, folk songs, folk tales ...
, a Wyoming cowboy hand who went seafaring.
Books
* Jeremiah Digges, ''Bowleg Bill, The Sea-Going Cowboy'', Viking Press. NY. 1938. First edition ,
**Also printed as ''Bowleg Bill, the sea-going cowboy;: Or, Ship ahoy & let 'er buck!''
:The book is a compilation of
tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it ...
s about a cowboy born in Wyoming to become a sailor, never an able-bodied one, but with many adventures, including the luring of whales with his music, capturing a
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are ...
, mutineering.
*"The Strange Adventure of the Cowboy-Sailor" in a 1948 collection ''New England bean-pot; American folk stories to read and to tell.'' tells a story of Bowleg Bill meeting giant sea serpent and embark on a quest to find woman named Keziah.
*
Harold W. Felton
Harold William Felton (April 1, 1902 – July 12, 1991) was an American writer and folklorist, an author of many children's books and books of American tall tales, among others.A review at
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...
Pecos Bill
Pecos Bill ( ) is a fictional cowboy and folk hero in stories set during American westward expansion into the Southwest of Texas, New Mexico, Southern California, and Arizona. These narratives were invented as short stories in a book by Tex O ...