1 JOHN HENRY BECOMES FAMOUS FOR RACING MACHINE away at the mountain for three years The work was so difficult hundreds of them died Henry was known as the strongest and most powerful man on the job According to legend Henry could cut through 10 to 20 feet 3 to 6 m of rock in a 12-hour workday One day a salesman brought a new John Henry was known as the strongest man on the railroad According to storytellers he could knock down a mountain with a hammer Some historians think the African-American folk hero was based on a real man who was born in the 1840s or 1850s as a slave After the Civil War he went to work for the C O Railroad As a steel driver his job was to pound on a steel spike or drill with a hammer Then workers put explosives in the drill hole to blast away the rock The real John Henry was said to be among approximately 1,000 workers who dug a passageway through Big Bend Mountain The men chipped 4 Railroad workers in the late 1800s told John Henry’s story for inspiration
steam-powered drill to the tunnel Henry raced the machine to see who could cut through the rock the fastest He won He died shortly afterward from exhaustion But his story lived on Railroad workers sang about John Henry as they worked His strength was an inspiration In the years since stories about John Henry’s life have been told in books plays films and songs Singer Paul Robeson played the title role in the 1940 musical John Henry 400 Approximate number of recordings of a song about John Henry that have been made Possibly based on a real African-American railroad worker Helped dig the Big Bend tunnel in West Virginia in the 1870s Known for winning a race against a steam powered drill LEGENDS A legend is a kind of story that is passed down Some legends are believed to be based on a real person or event Parts of the story may contain true facts Other parts have been made up or exaggerated Sometimes it is difficult to tell which parts of a legend are true and which are made up 5
2 STORMALONG HAS ADVENTURES ON THE HIGH SEAS According to New England folklore Alfred Bulltop Stormalong was the best sailor in the world Stormy as he was called was a giant man He tied sea monsters into knots In the late 1800s sailors sang songs about Stormy while they worked These songs were called chanteys The character in the songs was always brave and bold 6 Stormy’s ship the Courser was based was based on clipper ships like this one
One myth about Alfred Bulltop Stormalong explains how the cliffs of Dover England became white In the 1930s writer Frank Shay put Stormy into a book It was called Here’s Audacity Shay’s Stormy could blow a ship home with one breath In later versions the sails of his giant ship the Courser could knock the sun out of the sky 24 Height in feet 7 m of Captain Stormalong according to legend Fictional sea captain from New England folklore Sailed on the Courser the largest ship ever built First appeared in a sea song called Stormalong According to one story Stormy once tried to sail the Courser through the English Channel The Courser was so wide that the crew had to rub its sides with soap That way it wouldn’t get stuck The soap scraped off the sides of the ship onto the cliffs of Dover That’s how the cliffs became white the story goes MYTHS A myth is an old story that has been told and retold for many years Some myths express important values in the culture that gives rise to them Sometimes a myth is used to explain a practice belief or natural occurrence Traditionally myths were not written down 7
