Myths and Legends of Our Own Land

Myths and Legends of Our Own
Land

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Title: Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete
Author: Charles M. Skinner
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6615] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 31,
2003]

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MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF OUR OWN LAND
By Charles M. Skinner
PREFACE
It is unthinkingly said and often, that America is not old enough to have
developed a legendary era, for such an era grows backward as a nation
grows forward. No little of the charm of European travel is ascribed to
the glamour that history and fable have flung around old churches,
castles, and the favored haunts of tourists, and the Rhine and Hudson
are frequently compared, to the prejudice of the latter, not because its
scenery lacks in loveliness or grandeur, but that its beauty has not been
humanized by love of chivalry or faerie, as that of the older stream has
been. Yet the record of our country's progress is of deep import, and as
time goes on the figures seen against the morning twilight of our
history will rise to more commanding stature, and the mists of legend
will invest them with a softness or glory that shall make reverence for
them spontaneous and deep. Washington hurling the stone across the
Potomac may live as the Siegfried of some Western saga, and Franklin
invoking the lightnings may be the Loki of our mythology. The
bibliography of American legends is slight, and these tales have been
gathered from sources the most diverse: records, histories, newspapers,
magazines, oral narrative--in every case reconstructed. The pursuit of
them has been so long that a claim may be set forth for some measure
of completeness.
But, whatever the episodes of our four historic centuries may furnish to
the poet, painter, dramatist, or legend-building idealist of the future, it

is certain that we are not devoid of myth and folk-lore. Some characters,
prosaic enough, perhaps, in daily life, have impinged so lightly on
society before and after perpetrating their one or two great deeds, that
they have already become shadowy and their achievements have
acquired a color of the supernatural. It is where myth and history
combine that legend is most interesting and appeals to our fancy or our
sympathy most strongly; and it is not too early for us to begin the
collation of those quaint happenings and those spoken reports that gain
in picturesqueness with each transmission. An attempt has been made
in this instance to assemble only legends, for, doubtful as some
historians profess to find them, certain occurrences, like the story of
Captain Smith and Pocahontas, and the ride of General Putnam down
Breakneck Stairs, are taught as history; while as to folk-lore, that of the
Indian tribes and of the Southern negro is too copious to be recounted
in this work. It will be noted that traditions do not thrive in brick and
brownstone, and that the stories once rife in the colonial cities have
almost as effectually disappeared as the architectural landmarks of last
century. The field entered by the writer is not untrodden. Hawthorne
and Irving have made paths across it, and it is hoped that others may
deem its farther exploration worthy of their efforts.

CONTENTS
THE HUDSON AND ITS HILLS
Rip Van Winkle Catskill Gnomes The Catskill Witch The Revenge of
Shandaken Condemned to the Noose Big Indian The Baker's Dozen
The Devil's Dance-Chamber The Culprit Fay Pokepsie Dunderberg
Anthony's Nose Moodua Creek A Trapper's Ghastly Vengeance The
Vanderdecken of Tappan Zee The Galloping Hessian Storm Ship on
the Hudson Why Spuyten Duyvil is