Journal #20 Favorite Tall Tale

My favorite tall tale is the legend of Johnny Appleseed. I'm honestly not really sure why this is my favorite, but i really like it. The story is about a boy named Johnny who travels westward and plants apple seeds along his way. These seeds eventually develop into apple trees and the moral of the story is that Johnny is the reason there are apple trees across America.

I guess I like the story because of the adventure it brings out. Johnny leaves everything he has in the Eastern part of America, and walks all the way to the western part. There are very few people who would be willing to do this and many would consider this crazy, not to mention suicidal. Johnny not only has no essential plan he is following, but he also plants apple seeds along the way. Im not sure that I know or can think of many people who would abandon everything they have in order to walk thousands of miles planting apple seeds.

My second favorite is the story of John Henry, the man who was very strong. They say John was born with a hammer in his hand because he is so good using hammers. John is the fastest and strongest spike nailer in the railroad building business. He can quickly and effectively drive nails into the ground stabilizing the train tracks.

John ultimately dies when he challenges a machine to a spike driving contest. The machine does not get tired which is what kills John. Since John is human, he suffered from fatigue and his heart stopped due to his hard work beating the machine. Fortunately, John Henry was able to beat the machine in the challenge, unfortunately, it cost him his life.

Everybody has different favorite stories but the two that were mentioned above are my favorites.Tall Tales are stories passed down in order to entertain people and teach us morals, very similar to the native american stories that are often popular moral giving stories.